The Daily Background

Highlights from Fox News Sunday, which had Leahy and Specter on it today:

“This is going to have a devastating effect on law enforcement throughout the country if it’s not cleared up,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

“If he doesn’t correct it, then I think that there are so many errors in there that the pressure will lead very, very heavily to whether it’s a special prosecutor, a special counsel, efforts within the Congress.”
[…]
On Sunday, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on Leahy’s committee, made clear that he believed the Justice Department would be better off without Gonzales. But he said it would be premature to begin a perjury investigation until the committee could find out the facts.

Specter noted that he and Leahy had not yet been fully briefed on the administration’s classified spy programs and thus could not determine whether it was true, as the White House has asserted, that the hospital dispute did not center on the surveillance program but a separate facet that remains classified.
[…]
“He has a week,” said Leahy, referring to Gonzales. “But you have to follow the law. I have to follow the law. They should have to follow the law. That’s the bottom line.”

Also, check out Glenn Greenwald’s post on that big NYT story today regarding the DoJ’s internal disagreements over the NSA program.

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