NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/washington/18cnd-gonzales.html?ex=1310875200&en=bf8aa8bc62eb31ec&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rssBush Said to Have Blocked Eavesdropping Inquiry
By DAVID STOUT
Published: July 18, 2006
WASHINGTON, July 18 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said today that Congress should consider simply approving the military-commission procedures for handling suspected terrorists that the Supreme Court has already struck down.
Mr. Gonzales, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, strongly defended the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism strategy, and he sounded grudging in his acceptance of the recent ruling by the justices, who concluded that the administration lacked the authority to set up the tribunals without lawmakers’ approval.
Mr. Gonzales also told the senators that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal inquiry into the administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program. “The president of the United States makes the decision,” Mr. Gonzales said, by way of explaining why members of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility were not allowed to go forward.
The attorney general’s comment that perhaps Congress should simply ratify the procedures already put in place came during a heated exchange with Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the panel’s ranking Democrat. The senator referred to last week’s Congressional testimony by Steven G. Bradbury, an acting assistant attorney general, who urged the lawmakers to bring “clarity and certainty” to the situation.
Mr. Leahy asked whether, in fact, it was the administration’s stance that Congress should just approve the procedures already set up.