DU eyes on / assistance with media

[paineinthearse]

An adjunct to the "nuclear option", another * administration abuse of power, is the withholding of executive branch documents requested months ago by members of the Senate Intelligence & Foreign Relations committees. Key members of these committees reside in your states. Please watch for developments in your local media, or, better, contact people you know and ask they investigate and publish the status of this mini constitutional crisis.

Discussion is at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1810307

KEY MEMBERS.
Dodd - CT - Front man in the debate. Not willing to fillibuster, but damned close.
Lugar - R-IN - Chairman, Foreign Relations (Lugar is basically worthless, having said that his committee will not push for the documents).
Biden - D-MD - Vice Chair, Foreign Relations
Rockefelller - D-WVa - Vice Chair, Intelligence
Roberts - R-Kansas - Chairman, Intelligence

http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_2761539

Article Last Updated: 5/26/2005 04:22 AM

Senate inches closer to Bolton nomination showdown

PETER URBAN [e-mail]
Connecticut Post

WASHINGTON — After dodging a filibuster showdown on judicial nominees, the Senate Thursday careened closer to another parliamentary crisis over President Bush's nominee for ambassador of the United Nations. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., reluctantly threatened to filibuster the confirmation vote on John R. Bolton unless the Bush administration turns over further documents senators have requested about the nominee. Dodd and other Senate Democrats have raised concerns that Bolton, while serving as undersecretary of state, mistreated co-workers or took liberties with intelligence in order to bolster his point of view.

Part of the disputed information involves Bolton's requests for the names of government officials whose communications were secretly recorded. Democrats want more information about why Bolton sought the information and whose communications he reviewed. They also want documents pertaining to testimony that Bolton prepared for a House committee looking at whether Syria had weapons of mass destruction.
"I've said to the majority leader and minority leader that it is not my intention, at all, to filibuster. I ask the administration once again: Would they be forthcoming?" Dodd said.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who is ranking member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the administration has stonewalled the committee for no cause other than a belief that the documents are not relevant to Bolton's confirmation. Dodd, who opposes Bolton's nomination, urged colleagues to vote against closing debate on the nominee until the administration turns over the requested information. "The question is, does the U.S. Senate, as a body, when there is a nomination before it, have the right to obtain critical information? I believe it ought to have that right as a matter of principle," Dodd said.

The Senate opened debate on Bolton's nomination immediately after confirming one of Bush's most controversial nominees for a federal judgeship. Republicans said they were confident they would prevail in a chamber they control 55-44, with a Democratic-leaning independent. Bush has praised Bolton as a tough-talking advocate for change who can help shake up a hidebound United Nations bureaucracy. Republicans want to vote on Bolton today, before the Senate leaves for a Memorial Day recess. But Sen. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, asked colleagues to vote against a "controversial and ineffective ambassador." The maverick Republican senator had forced a Foreign Relations Committee delay on Bolton's nomination last month. He then brokered an unusual compromise that sent the nomination to the full Senate without the customary committee recommendation.