http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64628-2004Jan30.html?nav=hptoc_p White House Holding Notes Taken by 9/11 Commission Panel May Subpoena Its Summaries of Bush Briefings
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 31, 2004; Page A02
The White House, already embroiled in a public fight over the deadline for an independent commission's investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is refusing to give the panel notes on presidential briefing papers taken by some of its own members, officials said this week.
The standoff has prompted the 10-member commission to consider issuing subpoenas for the notes and has further soured relations between the Bush administration and the bipartisan panel, according to sources familiar with the issue. Lack of access to the materials would mean that the information they contain could not be included in a final report about the attacks, several officials said.
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The latest dispute stems from an agreement reached in November that allowed a four-member team from the commission to examine highly classified documents known as the President's Daily Brief (PDB), including a controversial August 2001 memo that discusses the possibility of airline hijackings by al Qaeda terrorists. The deal allowed the team -- made up of three commission members and Executive Director Philip D. Zelikow -- to take notes on the materials that would be passed along to the rest of the commission, but only after the White House gave its approval.
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But Kristen Breitweiser, widow of World Trade Center victim Ronald Breitweiser and a member of a group of victims' families who monitor the commission's work, called the White House position "unacceptable." She said the panel should subpoena the documents it needs.
"The White House needs to stop being all talk and no action," Breitweiser said. "They say they're cooperating. It's time to show that."
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