Rockefeller brings intel case to the Senate floor -The Hill

[Rose Siding]

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is taking the unusual step of bringing to the Senate floor a partisan dispute between the members of the normally secretive panel.

Rockefeller’s action comes shortly after the panel’s chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), clamped down on information about the committee’s proceedings during a closed-door business meeting that took place last Thursday. The Democrat had intended to press Roberts again on initiating an investigation of the intelligence community’s treatment of detainees captured in the war on terrorism.

Presumably Rockefeller failed to move Roberts, but that is unknown because both men have declined to comment on the meeting, which only committee members and the majority and minority staff directors attended, according to a Senate aide.

After the meeting, Rockefeller filed an amendment to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill expressing a sense of the Senate that the committee “should conduct an investigation into, and study of all matters relating to the authorities, policies, and practices of the departments, agencies, interrogation, or rendition of prisoners for intelligence purposes.”

It is the first time in Senate aides’ memory that a Senate Intelligence vice chairman has gone to the floor to attempt to pressure his chairman publicly on the management of what has traditionally been a nonpartisan committee....

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/041905/rockefeller.html

Frustratingly overdue, this is very good.

[Mr_Spock]

1. 'Bout time someone took these stonewalling arse holes to task

You can only stick a wrench in the gears for so long - the Republicans never seem to get that little nuance.

[bpilgrim]

2. we will be LIABLE to the ICC if this gets swept under the rug

they should really pay attention to what Rockefeller is warning them of for this is the baseline mecinisim that allows the ICC jurisdiction, when i country FAILS to properly INVESTIGATE and hold ACCOUNTABLE their WAR CRIMMINALS.

but you know the neoCONs got a plan for ICC too...

http://images.globalfreepress.com

peace

[KoKo]

3. An interesting development...for sure..but let's see how it goes.

Maybe just grandstanding...but Rockefeller doesn't usually buck the crowed. Maybe something's coming out that he knows about that would make it good political sense for the Dems for him to do this.

I know I got a call from "Amnesty International" saying that something is going to come out with more Prison Abuses in the next few weeks that will make Abu Grahib pale by comparison. :shrug:

[Pirate Smile]

4. .

The committee’s membership includes Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Mike DeWine (Ohio), two Republican centrists, and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a maverick who has often bucked the GOP leadership, especially on foreign-affairs issues.

Democrats interpreted Roberts’s refusal to allow a vote as either concern that one of those lawmakers might defect or an effort to shield them from a politically difficult vote. Republicans have only a one-seat advantage on the panel, so one defection would give Democrats a win.

[Rose Siding]

5. Rockefeller is powerful and circumspect

I am hopeful of his success. If this works, Roberts will look like such a dolt. -And we may even get an investigation out of it.

[eriffle]

6. Must be something...

Rockefeller normally just goes with the flow, especially with the Intelligence committee. For him, or any member of the committee really, to against the chair says one of two things: The chair is a bushbot on a commitee that is very moderate or something major is coming out and the chair is trying to hide it

[pfitz59]

7. Doesn't Roberts live in a Xian cult house in DC?

With a bunch of other Death Cult types?

[barb162]

8. I like Rocky, I have seen him do interviews with Roberts

and Rocky was biting his tongue, shifting his feet, etc., and finally got a few words in that made the real point Roberts was trying to obfuscate to protect the damned Bush administration. I have seen this more than once. Can you imagine how the panel would operate if Rocky were in charge instead of Roberts?

[Rose Siding]

9. some backstory on this

It's about getting an investigation of the Rendition program (among other things). Even though the media recognized the importance of that story and gave it some attention, they haven't picked up on the dem/repub battle on it yet.

On April 5th, The Hill reported...

snip>
Roberts would allow Democrats only one vote on changing the rules, forcing them either to combine their two proposals or drop one. Rockefeller elected to drop his proposal on joint tasking authority, apparently in the belief that the changes would have a better prospect of attracting Republican support if voted on individually. The proposal failed on a party-line vote.

But Roberts refused to allow a vote on an inquiry into detainee interrogation, leading some Democrats to speculate that he was attempting to prevent centrist Republican members of the committee such as Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Mike DeWine (Ohio) from casting what could become a tough vote.

Democrats believe Roberts is attempting to stymie an investigation of detainees to shield the administration from embarrassment. Revelations of the treatment of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison was a major embarrassment in Bush’s first term, and recent reports of the deaths of detainees under CIA control, the rendition of prisoners to countries that use torture as an interrogation tool, and the existence of ghost detainees threaten to become a growing scandal in the second term.

“Senator Roberts ran the meeting like a despot,” a congressional aide said. “He would not allow any motion to be made seeking a committee investigation into interrogation issues, even though the requests from Senator Rockefeller for such an investigation went back to February 3rd. Similarly, he did not allow for separate votes on rules changes insisting that it be a consolidated motion. It was shocking, and it left members astounded at the lack of respect in how he conducted the meeting.”

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/040505/roberts.html

[librechik]

10. Roberts is such a tool. Has he no shame? n/t

[loudsue]

11. That's just how the neocons work. They even want to DICTATE to their

own party...they're all DICTATORS! Plain & simple.

Roberts has been shielding the bushbots ever since he got to be head of the Intelligence committee. One of these days, that dam is going to burst from all he has held back.

:kick:

[Rose Siding]

14. New stuff on Roberts

This must tie in somehow to Rockefeller's decision to go ahead.

A couple of witnesses in an ethics investigation involving Sen Shelby are too intimidated to testify before the Senate ethics committee because Roberts won't recuse himself- his aides were Shelby's at the time of the offense and the witnesses fear retaliations. (the article gives more detail)

Intrigue within the castle walls....

The witnesses questioned whether Roberts would fairly weigh their statements to investigators because he was also questioned by the FBI and is a witness himself in the inquiry. They also questioned whether Roberts would be inclined to downplay Shelby’s culpability to shield his two aides.

Roberts and his spokeswoman Sarah Little declined several requests for comment. Duhnke and Hensler did not respond to requests for comment.

Roberts told Roll Call newspaper last month that he would participate in the Ethics Committee probe and that he decided against recusal because he believes his expertise on intelligence matters will help guide other members of the panel, none of whom is a member of Intelligence. Roberts also said the ethics inquiry would begin soon.

One of the two witnesses said that when the Justice Department referred the issue to the ethics panel it kept confidential the identities of people who gave information to their investigators. The Ethics Committee later asked the Justice Department to ask witnesses to allow their identities to be revealed to the panel, according to the witness. But the witness has declined to cooperate, citing to The Hill Roberts’s involvement in the investigation.

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/042005/witnesses.html

AND Roberts has his OWN...er, lapse in ethics but so far, NO consequences.

Roberts’s role on the Ethics Committee may also be compromised by a slip he made during a speech to a group of newspaper editors March 20, 2003, the day after the U.S. strike on Saddam Hussein’s bunker that kicked off the war in Iraq. Roberts told the group that the military used “what we call human intelligence indicat the location of Saddam Hussein.” Several intelligence experts considered this a serious breach because it revealed “sources and methods” of intelligence collection.

According to Senate Resolution 400, the Intelligence Committee’s authorizing resolution, “It shall be the duty of the to investigate any unauthorized disclosure of intelligence information of a member, officer or employee of the Senate.”There is no indication that Roberts’s revelation to the journalists was ever referred to the Ethics Committee or the panel looked into it on its own.

[autorank]

12. Aristocrats to the rescue! Maybe this will start a trend.

Rocky :yourock:

[katty]

13. FINALLY! let everyone see the ugly truth

[atommom]

15. It's about time somebody brought Roberts down. He has been

covering for this administration for far too long.

:kick: