CAIRO — US President George Bush has used his presidential powers to block a probe into the controversial domestic spying programs, drawing immediate rebuke from critics and lawmakers, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, July 19.
"The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal affairs office at Justice, was forced to abandon its investigation into the role Justice officials played in authorizing and monitoring National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program after being denied the necessary security clearance.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush secretly authorized the super-secret NSA to intercept communications without the court approval requited under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
He has defended the program, claiming it was limited only to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to Al-Qaeda.
But The New York Times later disclosed that the NSA has "directly" tapped the country’s main communications systems without court-approved warrants.
It further revealed that James Comey, a deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, had concerns about the legality of the program.
Security Risk
Rep. Hinchey said this is an example of "an administration that thinks it doesn't have to follow the law."
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, July 18, Gonzales sought to justify Bush's decision to deny security clearances to attorneys who were attempting to investigate the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program.
"Every additional security clearance that is granted for the [program] increases the risk that national security might be compromised," he argued.
In a memo released Tuesday, the OPR chief lawyer, H. Marshall Jarrett, refuted the argument.
"Since its creation some 31 years ago, OPR has conducted many highly sensitive investigations involving Executive Branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels," he wrote.
"In all those years, OPR has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation."
Jarrett noted that clearances were given to lawyers tracking the leak of the NSA program's existence to the media as well as many investigators and officials.
"In contrast, our repeated requests for access to classified information about the NSA program have not been granted," he regretted.
The OPR, which reports directly to the Attorney General, is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct involving Department attorneys that relate to the exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate or provide legal advice.
Intervention
Bush's decision represents an unusually direct and unprecedented politically motivated intervention into an OPR investigation, administration officials and legal experts said.
Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y) said the move is an example of "an administration that thinks it doesn't have to follow the law."
Critics criticized Gonzales, saying he should have resigned his post and accept Bush's decision.
"If he was like Elliot Richardson, he'd say, 'Mr. President, I quit,' " said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and Reagan-era Justice Department official.
Richardson, who was serving as attorney general during the Watergate-era, resigned in 1973, refusing to bow to President Richard M. Nixon's order to sack special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Nixon was the first, and still only, US president to resign from office over the scandal.
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