WASHINGTON - In an unusually pointed letter, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused Vice President Dick Cheney of interfering with his panel's attempts to examine the National Security Agency's use of private phone records.
Specter, in a three-page letter Wednesday to the vice president, said Cheney not only lobbied members of his committee behind Specter's back, but also blocked telephone companies from testifying before the Judiciary Committee about any relationship they may have with the NSA.
"I was surprised, to say the least, that you sought to influence, really determine, the action of the committee without calling me first," Specter said in the letter.
The letter came one day after Specter announced that he wouldn't call phone company executives to testify about their NSA dealings. Specter said then that Cheney had informed the committee that the phone companies would not testify about classified information - a development that Specter said "was unsatisfactory to me."
No comments:
Post a Comment