White House Wants More Time on Subpoenas

17 August 2007

By DEB RIECHMANN

CRAWFORD, Texas -The White House on Friday asked a Senate panel for more time to produce subpoenaed information about the legal justification for President Bush's secretive eavesdropping program.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy had set Monday as the deadline for administration officials already subpoenaed to provide documents and testimony about the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program.

In a letter to Leahy, White House counsel Fred Fielding argued that the subpoenas called for the production of "extraordinarily sensitive national security information," and he said much of the information — if not all — could be subject to a claim of executive privilege.

Fielding asked Leahy to suspend the deadline until after Labor Day.

On June 27, the committee subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency's legal justification for the wiretapping program. Since then, the issue has been the subject of several letters exchanged between Capitol Hill and the White House.

In one to Fielding on Aug. 8, Leahy noted that he had granted the White House's request to postpone the subpoenas' original July 18 deadline but was setting a new deadline of Aug. 20 because he could not wait any longer.

"You have rejected every proposal, produced none of the responsive documents, provided no basis for any claim of privilege and no accompanying log of withheld documents," wrote Leahy, D-Vt.

In Fielding's letter to Leahy, which was released by the White House in Crawford, Texas, where Bush is staying at his ranch, the president's lawyer said that while the White House had identified a core group of documents in response to the subpoenas, the work is "by no means complete" and could not be completed by Monday.

He suggested further conversations with the panel, saying the White House did not want the issue to interfere with the administration's desire to make more permanent the new powers Congress just gave NSA to monitor communications entering the United States involving foreigners who are the subjects of a national security investigation.

While Congress approved the measure, lawmakers specified that the new provisions would expire after six months, unless renewed.