Over at RedState.org there is a post up that criticizes John McCain for saying that he thinks a good compromise on the Bolton nomination would be for the Bush administration to turn the requested information over to the Senate. In exchange, the Dems would lift the filibuster. Redstate correctly points out that this isn’t really a compromise. This is the Democratic position. No argument here. That is exactly the case.
However, they regurgitate a talking point I’ve heard before. “Biden has already decided not to vote for Bolton, therefore his request for information should be ignored. It’s not going to change his mind anyway.” This is nonsense. The Senate is a deliberative body. Biden may be able to persuade other Senators to his point of view if the White House comes clean about its nominee.
The White House has said:
“The Democrats who are clamoring for this have already voted against John Bolton,” said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. “This is about partisan politics, not documents. They have the information they need.”
Oh, so now the White House gets to tell the Senate what information it needs and what information it doesn’t need when the Senate is advising and deciding whether to consent on an executive branch nominee?
A New York Times article provides some details about the requested information:
The information sought by the Democrats has also been requested by Mr. Lugar, and Mr. Biden and Mr. Dodd said that the Senate’s Republican leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, would renew the plea to the White House. The requests are for information related to Mr. Bolton’s handling of information requested from the National Security Agency and to his role in a 2003 dispute over intelligence assessments on Syria, in which American intelligence officials rejected as overstated testimony that Mr. Bolton sought to deliver to Congress about that country’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.
. . .
In their letters today, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Rockefeller provided the first concrete information about Mr. Bolton’s handling of highly classified information provided to him by the National Security Agency in response to his requests. Both said there was evidence that Mr. Bolton had shared information with a subordinate at the State Department information about a highly classified February 2003 N.S.A. report in which the subordinate was named.
As I recall hearing on C-Span, Biden isn’t even asking to have access to the information directly. He specified that the people reviewing the information would be a Senator from each party (can’t remember the names at the moment) who had the proper security clearances. So, it looks like the White House is withholding from the Senate information that was made available not only to Mr. Bolton, but to his subordinate as well.
In any event, beware this talking point about “they’ve already made up their minds.” They are entitled to the information so they can’t build their case against Mr. Bolton in an effort to persuade their colleagues to share their point of view.
The State Department has refused to share the information on Syria, saying that to disclose documents showing the internal debate could have a chilling effect on future discussions. The only information that has been provided to Congress about Mr. Bolton’s handling of the N.S.A. intelligence came in a briefing for Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the top Democrat on the panel, that was presented two weeks ago by General Michael V. Hayden of the Air Force, the principal deputy director of national intelligence.
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