AP: Senators Seek Answers in Probe of Reporter

[Eugene]

Senators Seek Answers in Probe of Reporter


Tuesday June 6, 2006 9:01 AM

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a new jab at the Bush administration over its use of executive power,
the Senate Judiciary Committee is demanding that the Justice Department explain the agency's
investigations of journalists who publish classified information.

Specifically, Republicans and Democrats want to know more about the FBI's effort to obtain
a half-century's worth of papers kept by columnist Jack Anderson - a member of President
Nixon's "enemies list" - who died in December at 83.

Matthew Friedrich, the Justice Department's criminal division chief of staff, is facing
a skeptical panel at a hearing Tuesday.

Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has chafed for months over President Bush's secretive
domestic wiretapping and phonetapping programs, and maintained that national security
may not justify such uses of executive power. He personally told President Bush earlier
this year that the president doesn't have a blank check."

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Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-5867476,00.html