White House Threatens Veto Over Expanded Intelligence-Sharing With Congress

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


veto_capitol250x200.jpg

On Wednesday, the House passed the Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2009 (H.R.5959), which, once reconciled with its Senate counterpart, will travel up Pennsylvania Avenue for the president’s signature. It’s unlikely to get it, though, for the bill has become the latest flash point in the White House’s ongoing battle to expand executive power.

The bill contains provisions calling for prohibiting detainees from being interrogated by contractors (like at Abu Ghraib); the establishment of an inspector general of intelligence; regular reports to Congress on the nuclear weapons programs of Iran, Syria, and North Korea; and a regular National Intelligence Estimate on Syria’s WMD programs. More controversial, though, and more troubling to the White House, it mandates that the president provide members of the House intelligence oversight committee with expanded access to secret information about intelligence activities (such as classified legal opinions, risk assessments, and cost estimates), and requires that the intelligence community brief the committee on all covert actions that were in effect as of April 24, 2008. The bill details a punishment for White House non-compliance: 75 percent of the budget for covert actions will be withheld.

The White House is not pleased by this, and released a document (.pdf) on Wednesday morning making clear its objections. The threat to limit funding for covert operations until congressmen are briefed, the document says, “is inconsistent with the statute that expressly authorizes limited notice to Congress in exceptional cases and would undermine the fundamental compact between the Congress and the President on reporting highly sensitive intelligence matters—an arrangement that for decades has balanced congressional oversight responsibility with the need to protect intelligence information.” As for the demand to up the flow of classified information to congressional oversight committees, the White House says it “goes beyond any legitimate oversight function” and simply encourages “micromanagement of [Intelligence Community] activities.” If the bill makes it to the president’s desk with any of these provisions attached, “senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

This is not the first time that an intelligence authorization bill has run smack into White House instransigence. It’s now been three years since Congress and the White House have been able to reach an accommodation. Why? “This administration wants maximum authority and maximum discretion,” says Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, who blogs at Secrecy News. “It lashes out at any semblance of checks and balances.” Even if Congress presents few obstacles to the White House having its way. “Up until now, oversight has been pretty crappy!” says Aftergood. “I think that’s the problem… Information sharing is indispensable to the oversight process. If we want congressional oversight, the committees need access to this basic information.”

Meantime, if Congress, as is expected, yields to pressure from the the White House, as it has done the last three years, the intelligence community need not worry about its budget for undercover operations. As has become routine, the funding provisions (minus the new proposals) will be attached to an unrelated bill and signed into law. And, once again, the Bush-Cheney White House will have thwarted congressional oversight.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate