NYTimes: 9/11 Commission Could Subpoena Oval Office Files

[jbfam4]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/national/26KEAN.html?hp

October 26, 2003
9/11 Commission Could Subpoena Oval Office Files
By PHILIP SHENON

ADISON, N.J., Oct. 25 — The chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks says that the White House is continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that he is prepared to subpoena the documents if they are not turned over within weeks.

The chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, also said in an interview on Friday that he believed the bipartisan 10-member commission would soon be forced to issue subpoenas to other executive branch agencies because of continuing delays by the Bush administration in providing documents and other evidence needed by the panel.

"Any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach," Mr. Kean said on Friday in his first explicit public warning to the White House that it risked a subpoena and a politically damaging courtroom showdown with the commission over access to the documents, including Oval Office intelligence reports that reached President Bush's desk in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.


"Anything that has to do with 9/11, we have to see it — anything. There are a lot of theories about 9/11, and as long as there is any document out there that bears on any of those theories, we're going to leave questions unanswered. And we cannot leave questions unanswered."

[LittleApple81]

1. Could does not mean will. n/t

[kalian]

2. Ditto that.

[Nay]

3. Documents? What documents?

Oh, you mean the ones we shredded two years ago?

[Sinistrous]

4. See the 9/11 Commission subpoena documents.

See the White House tell them to stuff it.

No way in hell will the WH release anything even questionalble.

[fizzana]

5. Here's hoping this happens

The main documents at issue are the security briefings given the White House prior to 9/11. Even if the commission is successful in getting the files there is no way they will let the info see the light of day.

At the same time the CIA has copies of there briefings because they supplied the briefings to the White House. The CIA is getting more and moer pissed off with the White House. Remember the Pentagon Papers. I wouldn't totally discount this info coming out one way or another before Nov, 2004.

[donhakman]

6. too late

It is rather late in the day to find any original smoke.
All that is left are mirrors.

[fizzana]

8. I wouldn't be too sure

The administration has built a very flimsy house of cards and any number of things can bring it down. If even one starts to unravel, they could all unravel.

[jbfam4]

7. I don't think the CIA is going to

take much more blame for this misadministration. Is there a Daniel among them?

[gristy]

9. I am not as pessimistic of this development as other posters here

The commission is bipartisan - no repuke majority, and the chairman, though a republican, is the one coming forward with some strong words. If the existence of documents is known and the commission wants them, the WH is going to have a bit of trouble.

[sarastro]

10. I have had some (limited) experience with Kean....

He's the president of my college (Drew U., Madison, NJ). I have a feeling he will subpoena. Believe it or not, he's a Republican with a sense of integrity. Figures that he got out of office before Bushco. staged it's junta. Not much room for principled people in the big tent, I suppose.