Wisconsin Democrat Asks Senate to Rebuke the President for NSA Wiretaps
By ED O'KEEFE
March 12, 2006— - In an exclusive interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on the Senate to publicly admonish President Bush for approving domestic wiretaps on American citizens without first seeking a legally required court order.
"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Feingold, D-Wis., a three-term senator and potential presidential contender.
He said President Bush had, "openly and almost thumbing his nose at the American people," continued the NSA domestic wiretap program.
President Bush has long asserted that the so-called 'warrantless wiretaps' are an essential tool in the war on terror.
But in a copy of the censure resolution obtained by ABC News, Feingold asserts the president, "repeatedly misled the public prior to the public disclosure of the National Security Agency surveillance program by indicating his administration was relying on court orders to wiretap suspected terrorists inside the United States."
Feingold cites three instances over a year-long period in which Bush outlined the necessity of a court order or a judge's permission prior to a domestic wiretap of a U.S. citizen.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., also appearing exclusively on "This Week," defended Bush.
"Russ is just wrong, he is flat wrong, he is dead wrong," Frist said.
The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll put the president's approval rating at 41 percent, nearly a career low. But that not necessarily mean Feingold's censure resolution will succeed.
Censure, essentially a public disapproval by the Senate as a whole, has only been applied to one president, Andrew Jackson, in a politically-charged move the Senate historian's office describes as "unprecedented and never-repeated tactic."
Frist called the censure attempt "political" and a "terrible, terrible signal" to enemies of the U.S. abroad. He assured Stephanopoulos that the resolution would never gain traction in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Feingold, best known for his bipartisan fight for campaign finance reform with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., intends to introduce the resolution this week -- insisting the move is not a political stunt.
"We, as a Congress, have to stand up to a president who acts like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were repealed on Sept 11, [2001]," Feingold said.
Video of Feingold's and Frist's full interviews will be posted at www.thisweek.abcnews.com.
Contributors
Links
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2006
(1766)
-
▼
March
(153)
- The Road to Dubai - New York TimesThe New York Tim...
- Ned Lamont: the unlikely insurgent
- Immigration Follies
- What Bush knew, when he knew it
- "Saddam chose to deny inspectors"
- Five minutes to midnight
- Poll: Opposition to Gay Marriage Declining
- Moment of Truth
- "Latino Giant" Awakens
- Democrats To Unveil "Real Security" Plan
- Lieberman faces tough fight
- Progressive vision for all of the Americas
- Rich Yet Broke
- McCain's embrace, Halliburton's profits and Tom De...
- Rove, "Out of touch."
- Fw: "I think we will be here forever", says a U.S....
- The White House shake-up that wasn't
- Impeachment? Hell, no. Impalement.
- Rove "Cooperating"
- Rumsfeld and the Big Picture
- Detainees' Rights-Scalia Speaks His Mind
- Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists
- North of the Border - New York TimesThe New York T...
- Anti-War Groups Monitored
- That's Sicilian!
- The Voice of Fear and the Voice of Hope
- On Torture and Being Good Americans
- Does This Mean Saddam Wasn't Responsible for 9/11?
- "Crashing The Gate"
- Bush Makes Iraq the Vital Reason for his Impeachme...
- Bush backlash
- Shiite Death Squads Out of Control
- Solving Cuba's Katrina Donation Problem
- Bush Wants to Make IMF and World Bank Even Worse
- The Procrastinator-in-Chief
- Look Who's Talking!
- Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush
- Anti-Bush Cries Get Louder
- NSA Could've Monitored Lawyers' Calls
- "Nonprofit" Profits
- Feingold Stands Alone Again When Standing on Princ...
- Retraining Laid-Off Workers, but for What?
- Letter to the Secretary - New York Times
- But They Voted For This Government....
- Good Versus Evil Isn't A Strategy
- Bush Shuns Patriot Act Requirement
- Fw: Outsourcing
- How long can you tread water?
- Downtime with Dick
- Apocalyptic President
- Rumsfeld shows no sign he's ready to leave
- Changing the Script
- The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll
- No Light in the Tunnel
- Israel Lobby Dictates U.S. Policy, Study Charges
- Criminalizing Illegal Immigration
- What Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Have Wrought
- Liberators?
- Unstoppable?
- Fighting the Wrong War
- The President Still in Denial
- Why Cheney won't go
- The president and the straw man
- America's Blinders
- The Gall of Bush
- Bernie Sanders Interview
- Lawmakers get out of the Hous
- The president's greatest hits
- Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches
- Shame
- Reminds me of "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Amer...
- Fw: Entering the Fourth Year of War and Occupation...
- "Don't talk about it; be about it."
- Meanwhile . . .
- How to spot a baby Conservative
- Carlos Santana Speaks Out Against Bush
- The Democrats . . . Still Ducking
- Rumsfeld Is "Absolutely Crazy"
- Still Optimistic About Iraq? You Just Might Be a F...
- Rewriting the Science
- Worst Presidency in History
- Huh? Feingold's the Careless, Reckless One?
- The Iraq War: Three Years Later
- The battle to ban birth control
- Adios IMF
- Bush vs. Clean Air Act
- An A for Vendetta
- Bush vs. Clean Air Act
- "Hanoi Jane"
- Three Years and Counting
- Task Force 6-26
- Digby Speak
- The Last Days of the Ocean
- What Might Have Been
- Losing Ground
- Clear and Present Dangers
- Three Years Later
- More Rough 'n' Ready Russ
- The "Long War"? Oh, Goodie
- The New York Times Shills Again
-
▼
March
(153)
No comments:
Post a Comment