Cheney Defends
Passing Senator
in Defense of
Eavesdropping
By SHERYL GAY
STOLBERG, NYTimes on the Web, June 9, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 8 — Vice
President Dick Cheney issued a pointed reply on Thursday to the Republican
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who in an extraordinary display of
internal party tensions has accused Mr. Cheney of going behind his back to
thwart committee oversight of the administration's domestic eavesdropping
program.
"These communications are not unusual — they are the government at work," Mr.
Cheney told the chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, in a letter
explaining why the vice president discussed the eavesdropping issue with all the
committee members except Mr. Specter.
Mr. Specter was not mollified.
"He does not face head on; he does not deal with his not having taken it up with
the chairman," the senator said in an interview. "This isn't me
personally; this is institutional. This is not the way government works,
to deal with a committee without going through the chairman."
The unusually public Republican flap exposed a conflict bubbling under the
surface for months over legislation, proposed by Mr. Specter, to require a
special surveillance court to determine if the eavesdropping programs are
constitutional.
Mr. Specter had been considering issuing subpoenas to compel telephone company
executives to testify. When Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of
staff, failed to dissuade the senator, Mr. Cheney stepped in by engaging the
other Republicans in talks without Mr. Specter's knowledge. That prompted
Mr. Specter to send a curt letter to the vice president on Wednesday.
In his reply, Mr. Cheney said the administration "will listen to the ideas of
legislators," and promised that Justice Department officials would call Mr.
Specter. The vice president later phoned the senator himself, aides said.
Mr. Specter called the letter "a short first step toward getting some oversight
and some judicial review."
But he did not rule out issuing the subpoenas.
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