Has Frist Lost Control?

Could it be true? Has the power shifted in Congress to the center? Jay Rockefeller one of the minority Democrats on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSCI) has been sitting on another scandal. Republicans on the SSCI have stalled the investigation of the misuse of intelligence to justify the Iraqi invasion. Yesterday was the day to do something. What took so long? Laura Rosen of War and Piece has the story.
American Prospect Online

Through all the delays, Rockefeller hasn’t exactly been Mr. Aggressive in pushing Roberts to abide by his promise for swift action. There are several reasons why. The most obvious is simple math: The Republicans have more votes on the committee than the Democrats. “In fairness, if you follow the committee rules and procedures, which [Rockefeller] is trying to do, he has been slam-dunked by the Republicans,” one source says. “And they have the votes.”


A second problem for Rockefeller: An internal staff memo urging him to call for an independent investigation of the administration’s use of Iraq intelligence was leaked to FOX News’ Sean Hannity in November 2003. The resulting mini-furor that erupted in the right-wing media has contributed to Rockefeller’s reluctance to act.


But the main reason he has been inhibited is that previous public comments he made apparently caused the Pentagon to abruptly stop cooperating with the investigation. At the July 2004 press conference occasioned by the release of the Phase I report, Rockefeller asserted that certain activities of members of the office of then–Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, including a secret Rome meeting with the Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, might have been “unlawful.” At that point, Feith’s office simply stopped cooperating with the investigation, and Roberts hasn’t compelled Feith or his staff to comply. “[The Defense Department] got very skittish about volunteering as they had been up to that point,” an SSCI staffer told the Prospect. “They got all lawyered up. Roberts’ position, and [the Defense Department’s], has been either ‘show us what you’re talking about’ or ‘withdraw the statement and we’ll continue our cooperation with you.’ Rockefeller wouldn’t do either.”


But committee staff sources say that before the cooperation ceased, the committee had received from Feith’s office internal memos suggesting that the office may indeed have been conducting unlawful activities. In particular, Democratic staffers are interested in a secret December 2001 meeting of two Feith deputies, Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, with Ghorbanifar in Rome. The meeting also included members of a foreign intelligence service (Italy’s SISMI). The catch is that it wasn’t reported in advance to the intelligence committee or the CIA, in possible violation of Section 502 of the National Security Act, which says that anyone conducting intelligence activities must inform the committee and the agency.


Among the documents in the committee’s possession, the Prospect has learned, is a cable the CIA station chief in Rome sent to Langley expressing concern that members of Feith’s office were involved in an unauthorized covert action. The committee also has Franklin’s Rome report, which, according to sources, revealed that the meeting included the discussion of possibilities for engaging a network of Ghorbanifar associates to pursue action against Tehran. (Franklin pled guilty in October to charges stemming from a separate FBI investigation. Feith left the Pentagon for the private sector over the summer.)


“[Rockefeller] made an offhand comment at a press conference, which was totally accurate,” a source close to the investigation told the Prospect. “Some of these guys may have crossed the lines into illegalities. Can you imagine if during Iran-Contra the executive branch had said, ‘We’re not going to provide you any more information because one of your members suggested that one of our members may have acted illegally’? In those days, neither Republicans nor Democrats would have stood for that for one minute.”


But that was then. Today, committee Republicans view their mission as being not oversight but cover-up. Indeed, one source told the Prospect that Roberts has worked closely behind the scenes with Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in crafting the language defining and limiting the investigation’s terms -- even though the committee is supposed to be investigating and providing oversight of the administration’s use of Iraq intelligence. Yet the committee’s leading Democrat, Rockefeller, hobbled by criticism from within the committee -- and according to one account, “a wimp … not confident of his own judgments” -- has felt constrained from pushing the majority more aggressively to comply with its promise. MORE

The political consequences of Harry Reid's move yesterday is not crystal clear. However, some pundits seem to have a persuasive argument that Frist no longer has a strangle hold on the Senate.
TPMCafe

Bill Frist's ability to run the institution now lies completely in ruins. This has implications for the politics of Plamegate and Iraq, of course, but it will affect other questions as well.


One of them is the Nuclear Option. The conventional wisdom seems to be that if Democrats try to filibuster Alito, the Republicans in the "Gang of 14" will consider the deal broken and vote for the Nuclear Option. Some of them may. But to pull off the Nuclear Option banning filibusters on judicial nominations will still require an extraordinary exercise of leadership and party discipline to force Senators to do something many of them don't want to do. Frist couldn't quite pull it off five months ago, he sure can't do it now. There are plenty of Republicans who weren't part of the Gang of 14 but who did not want to have to vote for the Nuclear Option back in May and were very glad to see it go away. (Specter and Ted Stevens come to mind.) They definitely don't want to now, and Frist no longer has any leverage to make them do it. And some others might wonder why they would want to end filibusters 13 months before they risk losing control of the institution.

Jay Rockefeller sets the record straight on the work to be done in the SSCI.
SENATOR ROCKEFELLER

STATEMENT ON THE CLOSED SESSION OF THE SENATE TO DISCUSS MATTERS RELATED TO THE MISUSE OF INTELLIGENCE


“At its core, this is about accountability -- Congressional accountability and White House accountability.


“Congress has a fundamental, constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight – that’s what checks and balances are all about – and we have utterly failed.


“My colleagues and I have tried for two years to do our oversight work, and for two years we have been undermined, avoided, put off, and vilified by the other side. Any line of questioning that has brought us too close to the White House has been thwarted.


“At some point the majority needs to understand that we are willing to bring the Senate to a halt until they will join us in conducting the kind of investigation this situation demands.


“The American people still want to know – now more than ever – why the United States went to war, whether they were misled, and whether our intelligence was misused.


“Whether these actions amount to crimes is not the litmus test for congressional oversight. Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating possible criminal activity by senior White House officials, and we won’t and shouldn’t get in the way of his work.


“But the American people deserve to know not just whether this Administration committed crimes, but whether this Administration told the truth – the full truth, the straight story.


“And if they didn’t – if they misled about the war and if they misused intelligence, then the American people need to know that the Congress will do everything in its power the make sure that it never happens again.”