Justice Department Shutout?
Democrats want DoJ hearings without DoJ.

December 4, 2001 1:15 p.m.

ince last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been holding a series of hearings under the general title, "Department of Justice Oversight: Preserving Our Freedoms While Defending Against Terrorism." In those sessions, Democrats have raised a number of questions about the Bush Justice Department's antiterrorism policies — but they have not seemed terribly interested in hearing from the Bush Justice Department.

Last week, when committee chairman Patrick Leahy held his first hearing on the topic, he did not invite anyone from the Department to testify. Leahy added criminal-division chief Michael Chertoff to the witness list only after receiving a request from a top department official. As it turned out, Chertoff's appearance was the main event of the hearing, as he faced a wide range of questions about administration policy.

Now, the committee is holding a Tuesday afternoon hearing, chaired by Wisconsin's Russell Feingold, (Leahy did not have time to chair them all), which is scheduled to focus on the department's detention of terrorist suspects and witnesses, its requests for voluntary interviews, and its new policy of eavesdropping on the lawyer-client conversations of a small number of terrorist suspects. No one from the Justice Department was invited to testify.

On November 30, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant wrote Feingold saying, "Discussions with your staff indicated that you were not planning to call a Justice Department witness. Given that the stated subject of the hearing is Justice Department oversight, it seems appropriate that a representative of the Justice Department be present as a witness."

Bryant suggested Viet Dinh, head of the Department's Office of Legal Policy, who has been deeply involved in policies that are the subject of the hearing. "A Justice Department witness would help to ensure a balanced and fair examination of the Department's actions, and will aid committee members in preparing for the Attorney General's testimony on December 6," Bryant wrote. Dinh was added to the witness list.

All this has left Republicans wondering what is going on. "The Justice Department had to write again," says one aide. "This is the second time. This really isn't oversight. It's trying to get four or five liberals to beat up on the administration." Republicans also believe that the Democrats' actions suggest that when it comes to Justice Department policy, critics are only interested in hearing from Attorney General John Ashcroft, a longtime Leahy target who will face hostile questioning in a media-heavy hearing on Thursday.