Is Obama Keeping Congress Out of the Loop?
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee claim the Obama Administration has failed to provide intelligence information as required by law:
“The Obama administration has failed to keep congressional intelligence officials in the loop on the investigation into the botched Times Square bombing, as required by law, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate intelligence committee charged in a letter this week.
“Having to fight over access to counterterrorism information is not productive and ultimately makes us less secure,” wrote Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Vice Chairman Christopher S. “Kit” Bond in a letter to President Obama on Thursday.
The senators said the lack of information has “caused serious friction in the relationship of the committee, on both sides of the aisle, and the executive branch.”
In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, the senators say U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly refused to provide relevant information on the probe into suspect Faisal Shahzad that would allow the committee to conduct oversight activities without hampering the ongoing investigation. Senate intelligence staffers were told that the Department of Justice had instructed the agencies not to convey information on the Times Square plot without its approval, they said.”
A Department of Justice spokesman disagreed, saying the Justice Department has not told intelligence officials not to cooperate with lawmakers.
— DRJ
How’s that Change working out for ya?
SPQR (26be8b) — 5/22/2010 @ 7:57 pmMay I just go on record as saying that I would like to have an entirely new admisistration as soon as is legally possible.
elissa (7a2c3c) — 5/22/2010 @ 8:22 pmIt would appear that when a Dem and a Repub agree that they’re being stone-walled by the administration there’s probably something to it.
It could be something as “innocent” as “just” wanting to hide their ineptness.
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 5/22/2010 @ 8:30 pmThey are too busy with contacting the “moderate elements” of Hezbollah.
SPQR (26be8b) — 5/22/2010 @ 8:41 pmAs MD suggests, the “best” scenario is that the Administration is covering up to hide its incompetence. But by keeping the problems secret, there is no motivation to fix things that don’t work. In fact, there may be an incentive to keep what doesn’t work so long as it’s kept hidden.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/22/2010 @ 8:47 pmMDinPhilly and DRJ,
Trying to hide or “cover up” the mass incompetence behind the scenes seems pretty futile for them when Janet Nap. and Eric H. keep shooting their mouths off and demonstrating incompetence right out in public and on camera.
elissa (7a2c3c) — 5/22/2010 @ 8:59 pm…and perhaps also the reason the President has not held an official press conference since last July. Keep the incompetence under wraps as much as possible. Don’t be in a position to be asked the unanticipated or what we are not prepared to answer…or don’t know the answer to…
Dana (1e5ad4) — 5/22/2010 @ 9:10 pm“Don’t ask, Don’t tell” taken to its logical extreme….
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/22/2010 @ 9:21 pmelissa-
You make a very good point, but you also set up the obvious (shudder) point that if they’re hiding incompetence worse than what is already visible… they would make Maxwell Smart look like 007.
Actually, at the request of the Obama girls, they’re trying to recruit “Perry the Platypus” from Disney’s Phineas and Ferb. Talk about affirmative action…
The worst case scenario is who knows what. After Sandy Bergler got away with who knows what even under a Bush administration, I just hope there is someone somewhere that knows enough to blow a whistle if necessary.
Speaking of intelligence conspiracies, what do people think will be the outcome at the end of the last day of “24”? Will Jack live to see his grandaughter again? Will President Taylor have her complicity in a cover up exposed, or will she come out of it OK in spite of herself and Logan get the rightly deserved blame? Who was Jack aiming the sniper rifle at in the preview to the next show, and will he actually shoot the person. Will we see Chloe’s husband come to pick her up from work with their little girl? Will Tony Almeada or other characters from past seasons make an appearance? Will we find out that Jack has been working for Luxembourg all along. Did Jack actually die of the prion infection and this is someone else made to look like Jack? Will Jack turn to someone and ask, “Where’s Perry?” Will I ever stop this and go to bed…?
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 5/22/2010 @ 9:22 pmMD, all we know for sure is Jack will end up in a major motion picture.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 5/22/2010 @ 9:29 pmWell, Dana, I never thought of that.
Back on the serious side, I had a thought of what they may want to hide.
I was a bit surprised not only how fast they were able to identify the would be bomber, but also how quickly they apprehended a number of other people scattered about. Could it be that all were lucky in not seeing what happens when you treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue? Perhaps all of these people were on the radar screen, but because, “They hadn’t done anything yet”, nothing more was done. Or perhaps the “wall” between agencies of domestic law enforcement and international intelligence is causing problems again. It is commonly believed that Obama and company aren’t up to the task of defending the country. If it came out that by backing off of some things done under Bush that the Obama team just lucked out on something they should have stopped, that would speed the sinking of the Nov 2010 Dem ship, I would think.
All speculation, but look into it if you don’t hear from me again.
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 5/22/2010 @ 9:53 pmI knew this would happen if I voted for McCain (hat tip to insty). Dang it.
Seriously, though, I’m starting to think we may have an Andrew Jackson on our hands. Whether that is good or bad depends on your POV.
Ag80 (b97c3e) — 5/22/2010 @ 10:19 pmwell, Ear Leader’s brain activity appears to mirror that of Andrew Jackson, according to current readings from them both.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/22/2010 @ 10:51 pmStonewalling Congress???
AD - RtR/OS! (3c862f) — 5/22/2010 @ 11:48 pmThe most open and transparent administration ever?
Major turf war between the CIA Dir, and the DNI, with the NSC pulling the strings, and they’re all lying to Congress by omission.
Well, as they used to say, when elephants fight only the grass gets hurt.
Are you Augustine or Bermuda?
Humboldt, dude….. let’s party!
Jeff Spicoli (fb8750) — 5/23/2010 @ 12:21 am“A Department of Justice spokesman disagreed, saying the Justice Department has not told intelligence officials not to cooperate with lawmakers.”
— There’s your read-between-the-lines moment. All they are saying is that it was not the Justice Dept that told them not to cooperate . . . and that’s truthful, because Rahm does not work for the JD (or “doesn’t work for ‘Justice’, or some other such pun).
Icy Texan (b3054a) — 5/23/2010 @ 2:43 amThey seem to counting on that all the bombers will either fail like Mutallab or Shahzad, or blow themselves up like Mr. Naif al Quahtani, not a good
ian cormac (2f975b) — 5/23/2010 @ 5:03 amlong term strategy
I guess for me Hasan at Ft. Hood is really the most inexplicable and troubling of all the recent intel failures (although obviously the panty and Times Square bombers would have taken many lives had they been successful.) After the fact news accounts showed just how many people in different governmental agencies and departments had concerns or access to snippets of alarming information–and yet no dots were connected to stop Hasan before he killed. And, Hasan was arguably operating somewhat out in the open and on the government payroll to boot. One has to wonder how many other sleeper terrorists and terrorist sympathizers are operating on the taxpayers’ dime.
I also agree with MDinPhilly that there’s likely a mess of embarrassing documentation on poor decisions and non-acted-upon background data within the DOJ and intel community related to all these latest terror attempts. If we catch Sandy Berglar coming out of retirement to “inspect files” we will know for sure.
elissa (e78776) — 5/23/2010 @ 7:30 amHe’s resorting to fascism. He wants total control of everything.
JoeBean (6aeb80) — 5/23/2010 @ 8:00 amJoe Sestak is none other than Sandy Burgler’s protege, and a recent stealth recruit into the Clinton’s cabal.
Jack Cashill has an article in The American Thinker, 5/23/2010.
Berger arranged a fundraiser in March 2006 to kick off Joe Sestak’s candidacy. Sestak, “…a former vice admiral forced into retirement for what the U.S. Navy charitably called “poor command climate.” Before being recruited to run for Congress by the Clinton shadow government, Sestak had expressed no political ambitions and had not lived in his Pennsylvania district for 30 years.
Although hosted by Berger, the fundraiser was held at the law offices of Harold Ickes, a veteran Clinton fixer, and Janice Enright, the treasurer of Hillary Clinton’s 2006 Senate campaign. Kicking in to support Sestak was a who’s who of Clinton national security exiles. These included former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Richard “Against All Enemies” Clarke, former national security adviser Anthony Lake, former White House chief of staff, John Podesta, and Hillary Clinton herself…”
ropelight (9d307a) — 5/23/2010 @ 8:54 amropelight-
Thank you for that info. His district is near Philly, and when I heard that an Iraq-era veteran officer was running as a Dem and was anti-war, I wondered “what was up with that”. I don’t think the Berger-Clinton connection ever reached the public eye.
elissa- Yes, Hassan seems to be a prime example of “see no evil, hear no evil, cover up the evil after it is done” law enforcement strategy.
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 5/23/2010 @ 12:04 pm…and no one mentions the shooting in Little Rock at that Army Recruitment Center that cost this country a fine Non-Com by a Jihadist who IIRC matriculated in our prison system.
AD - RtR/OS! (bb1c62) — 5/23/2010 @ 12:43 pm#21, MD in Philly, Sestak’s true allegiance to the Clintons is revealed by his open admission that Obama tried to bribe him into dropping out of the Democrat Primary race so Arlen Specter could waltz into the nomination.
It’s also one of the reasons Obama is ducking a press conference, and the key reason Wonder Woman, Press Secretary Gibbs, turns red in the face, looks down at his feet and starts babbling incoherently every time he’s asked about the bribe issue in public.
ropelight (9d307a) — 5/23/2010 @ 1:10 pm