Senate Friends

/in /by

I only caught the tail end of Pat Leahy’s uneventful press conference. But apparently, I didn’t miss much. The deadline for the White House still stands–but they’re going to miss it. And Leahy–he says he can’t do anything until everyone returns in September.

But there is something he can do now. Why don’t those on the Senate Judiciary Committee–and anyone else in the Senate who’d like to join in–submit a friend of the court brief in support of the ACLU’s motion to unseal the FISC rulings. It seems that the Administration’s defiance of a Senate subpoena–for which they’re not making a blanket claim of privilege–is reason enough to intervene. It makes the issues the ACLU raised more pressing, since the Administration is defying normal oversight. And it supports the ACLU argument that the Administration is playing games.

Is there a downside to this? Any reason it’d not be beneficial?

Update: Oh, one thing I forgot. Twenty-seven members of Congress signed on to an a.c. brief to the Pentagon Papers case. A very close parallel to a lot of the issues here.

  1. casual observer says:

    I’m listening to the press conference now (it’s up on cspan main page). It’s disappointing. I like Leahy and respect him. But it’s as if these guys just don’t get it. To my mind, the WH is watching this and laughing. They clearly ARE in contempt of congress, and the rest of the country is going to be too, unless Leahy and his caucus ACTS.

    When asked â€what will you do now?â€, he kind of shrugs and says â€we’ll see what the committee says when we get back in sessionâ€. It’s as if there’s no plan, no direction, no looking ahead. Yet another frustration in a long string of frustrations, in which the congress acts like a sucker, and the administration a shifty card-shark.

  2. P J Evans says:

    Not only do they not get it, but they seem to ignore anything we send them that would help them understand what they can do. (I send an envelope full of KagroX on inherent contempt to Waxman’s office, with the suggestion that copies be given to Conyers and Leahy. If the staff actually does that, I’ll be pleased. I suspect their staff members are not happy with the current approach either.)

  3. Anonymous says:

    I generally like Leahy, but geez! You don’t call a press conference to announce that the administration has blown off the deadline and when the committee meets again we’re going to discuss maybe doing something.

  4. Anonymous says:

    EW – playing devil’s-smear-artist, I would imagine the potential downsides (from a timid senator point of view) would be mean Republicans claiming you’re getting all buddy-buddy with the dreaded ACLU to give away our country’s secrets.

    Senators who are smart and not timid would realize that they’re going to get those attacks anyway and should be prepared to hit back hard, but there aren’t a lot of members of that species in evidence these days.

  5. victoria2dc says:

    Yeah Marcy, it was uneventful… slow moving, damn Dems.

    However, I will (everyone join me please) call his DC and VT offices with your suggestion and thank him for spending at least part of his vacation to protect the constitution.

    Everyone, please call and offer Marcy’s suggestion!!! Maybe he’ll do it.

  6. victoria2dc says:

    We need to remove Nancy and Harry out of leadership positions and replace them with people who will not cave to them. It’s sickening, isn’t it? I’m so frustrated that the only thing I can do is read and call somebody in DC and locally. My locals are Lieberman-style Democrats. They won’t vote for impeachment, nor will the representatives sign on to impeach Dick. I’m so tired of it that I gave up, but you inspired me Mary. Thanks!

  7. victoria2dc says:

    What do you think about this: remember when they had to vote on the Patriot Act the first time?

    Daschel and Leahy (and I don’t remember who else, but ONLY Dems) got the anthrax? It was a very obvious message from the Dick office that they could expect more if they didn’t vote the way he wanted them to.

    If I were the good senator, I might be a little timid in my actions knowing that people in the office could have been killed. And apparently they had to just leave their offices, their papers and all of the work they had done on the legislation. Don’t you think that was a clear message? I do and I don’t think Dick would hesitate to do it again.

  9. P J Evans says:

    BarbinMD at dKos:
    But in case I missed the part of the press conference where Leahy said that something would actually be done about this latest round of contempt from the administration, I called the Senator’s press office. And from the Senator’s press spokesman, for the record, I got, â€The Senator will be consulting other Committee members,†and a suggestion that I read the transcript of the press conference. When I pointed out that the Senator had said nothing, his press aide went off-the-record and told me…well, he told me absolutely nothing. Nothing on what concrete action the Senate Judiciary Committee would take, nothing on today’s claim by the White House that the August 20th deadline wasn’t requested by Leahy’s office even though it clearly was. And nothing on the definition of the word â€deadline.†But I suppose I’ll have to give them a pass on that one since they obviously don’t know what it means.

    I guess we can’t count on anyone in Congress, ’good’ Dem or not, being more than ’all talk, no action’.

  10. zhiv says:

    Schlozman gone from DoJ, according to TPM. Kind of a bizarre non-announcement, like he sorta, just doesn’t work there anymore since last week, and nobody was going to mention it…

    Charming fella.