[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6589-S6590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NOMINATION OF JOHN BOLTON

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to take a couple of minutes to review 
for my colleagues what has transpired over the last several days on the 
pending matter of the nomination of John Bolton to be our ambassador to 
the United Nations.
  I know there has been a lot of talk about whether goalposts have been 
moved in our efforts to resolve the outstanding matters concerning 
information which the Foreign Relations Committee seeks from the 
administration regarding the Bolton nomination, information that will 
not be shared with all Members of this body, but shared with the 
appropriate members of the Intelligence Committee and the chairman and 
ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
  We have not been expanding the goalposts but, rather, shrinking them. 
I want to review what has happened since April 11, since the issue was 
first raised regarding the nomination of John Bolton.
  There are two issues on which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
seeks additional information. One has to do with 10 intercepts 
involving the names of 19 Americans that Mr. Bolton sought as the Under 
Secretary of State. We have tried since April 11, since the issue was 
raised on April 11, to have the appropriate members of the Foreign 
Relations Committee and the Intelligence Committee review those 
intercepts, much as Mr. Bolton did. The administration has refused to 
allow that to occur.
  I then offered as a counterproposal, rather than the appropriate 
members looking at the intercepts, that at least the names of people we 
believe may be on those requests from Mr. Bolton be sent down to the 
administration for them to review. If they are on the list, we would 
want to pursue that a bit further to find out why Mr. Bolton sought 
information about them. If they are not, then that would end the 
matter.
  A second matter of equal importance is a request Senator Biden has 
made, and that has to do with draft testimony before the Congress 
regarding Syria and the possibility of weapons of mass destruction 
being located in Syria.
  Both requests are rather simple to comply with and should not take 
much time. But my colleagues on both sides ought to be aware that this 
is now a matter beyond the consideration of Mr. Bolton. Either the 
Senate has a right to receive pertinent and important information 
regarding this nomination or it does not.
  Certainly my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know historically 
that other Members have sought information from other administrations 
they thought was critical to completing their task either on a matter 
of public policy or a nomination.
  As I said earlier, we began on April 11. On April 14 of this year, 
questions were submitted. Again on April 22. On April 29, Senator Biden 
wrote to the administration requesting information regarding Syria.
  On May 4, Senator Lugar sent letters to Secretary Rice which implied 
that she need not comply with all of the requests but certainly some of 
them.
  On May 18, Senator Biden sent a letter directly to Ambassador 
Negroponte requesting information regarding the intercepts; again on 
May 26, on June 1, on June 2, on June 3, on June 8, on June 9, and as 
late as today on June 14.
  There has been a long effort to try and work out some compromise, 
including the request I made to Mr. Negroponte, to allow us to submit 
the names. If John Negroponte reported back that there was no 
correlation between those names and the intercepts sought by Mr. 
Bolton, then I was going to be satisfied with that answer.
  It is ironic, in a way, that the administration is filibustering 
their own nominee.
  I want to get to a vote on John Bolton. We can do it in 24 or 48 
hours, in my view, by simply responding to the request we have made, in 
the modified form we have made it, and responding to Senator Biden's 
request regarding the testimony on Syria. Both of those matters have 
been sought now for almost 2 months, and yet the administration 
continues to stonewall on those two requests.
  I think it is important that the Senate be heard on these matters. I 
think it is dangerous for us not to be. There is pertinent information 
that could relate to the decisions by Senators to vote for or against 
this nominee.
  In short, we have reached out a hand of compromise to the 
administration. And in response, the administration has given us the 
back of theirs. They have given us nothing--no counteroffer, just more 
stonewalling.
  It is rather ironic that it is the administration that is 
filibustering its own nominee.
  As my colleagues are well aware, on May 26, just before the Memorial 
Day recess, the Senate, by a vote of 56 to 42, did not invoke cloture 
on the motion to proceed to a vote on the nomination of John Bolton to 
the position of United States Representative to the United Nations.
  The reason that the Senate did not invoke cloture was that sufficient 
numbers of our colleagues have supported the Foreign Relations 
Committee's efforts to make sure that all relevant information has been 
made available to the Senate related to this nomination before the 
Senate casts an up or down vote.
  The administration has offered no rationale for refusing to provide 
the NSA intercepts or the information about the consultant. With regard 
to the Syria documents, it has argued that they are not relevant to our 
inquiry. In other words, the administration is telling the Senate what 
it may investigate. It has also said that providing the information 
will have a ``chilling effect'' on the deliberative process; yet the 
committee has already received numerous deliberative process materials.
  The administration claims that they have already given the necessary 
information related to the intercepts request to the committee of 
jurisdiction, namely the Select Committee on Intelligence.
  First, the Bolton nomination is within the jurisdiction of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, not the Intelligence Committee.
  Second, we know from Senators Roberts and Rockefeller that General 
Hayden refused to provide them with the very names that Mr. Bolton and 
Mr. Bolton's staff were allowed to see.
  Moreover, in a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Rockefeller stated that Mr. Bolton 
may have shared the NSA intercepts with others at State without prior 
authorization from NSA.
  So to be clear, Mr. Bolton was apparently free to share this unedited 
information with members of his staff, but the chairman and ranking 
members of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees have been 
denied access to this same information.
  I also want my colleagues to understand that the areas of inquiry 
that the committee is pursuing were not dreamt up by us last night or 
last week. The administration has been aware for some time what we were 
seeking and how strongly we felt about these materials being provided.
  Let me lay out the chronology of our requests.
  On April 11, during the first hearing on Mr. Bolton, that I first 
raised questions about the NSA intercepts.
  On April 14, I submitted a question for the record inquiring about 
this Issue.
  On April 22, I sent a letter directly to the NSA requesting this 
information.
  On April 29, Senator Biden sent a letter, which also requested the 
information related to Syria.
  On May 4, Senator Lugar sent a letter to Secretary Rice which implied 
that she should not feel obligated to respond to all of the Committee's 
requests.

[[Page S6590]]

  On May 18, Senator Biden sent a letter directly to Ambassador 
Negroponte, our new Director of National Intelligence, requesting these 
NSA intercepts.
  On May 26, he sent a second letter to Negroponte, again making the 
same request.
  On June 1, I called Ambassador Negroponte to offer a proposal for 
resolving the intercept issue.
  On June 2, I sent a letter to Ambassador Negroponte which laid out in 
writing the June 1 verbal proposal.
  On June 3, Ambassador Negroponte called me to say, ``no deal.''
  On June 8, Senator Roberts approached me and suggested that pursuing 
my idea of a giving a list of names to the administration might bear 
fruit. He also proposed a role for the Select Committee on Intelligence 
in the process. That seemed reasonable to me. After consultation with 
Senator Biden he did, too.
  On June 9, Senator Biden and I sent a letter laying out our 
understanding on how names might be provided to the administration, and 
what the role for the chair and cochair might be in the process.
  On June 14, Senator Roberts replied in writing to our letter saying 
he could not support our proposal. I would add that our colleague 
Senator Rockefeller has said he believes our proposal is eminently 
reasonable.
  Through all of this, no one from the White House has contacted me or 
my colleague Senator Biden to offer any proposal for moving this 
process along.
  In short, the administration has made no effort to meet Senator Biden 
and me halfway or even one-quarter of the way. The answer is either no 
or even worse, silence.
  I ask my colleagues: If there is nothing in all of these documents, 
why have they not been provided? If there is nothing in them, then 
surely, providing them would clear up some of our concerns rather 
quickly. And make it possible to move forward with an up or down vote 
on the nomination.
  And so if there is culpability for the delay in the Senate's 
consideration of the Bolton nomination, that culpability rests with the 
Bush administration. They have the ability to unlock this nomination by 
cooperating with this Senate as they did during the consideration of 
nominations during President Bush's first term in office.
  I stand ready to listen to any proposal from the administration to 
resolve this matter. I know my colleague Senator Biden does as well. 
But the institutional prerogatives of the Senate are at stake here, and 
I believe we have the responsibility of protecting those prerogatives 
for this Congress and future Congresses. I am pleased and grateful that 
sufficient numbers of our colleagues appear to feel the same way.
  I hope all Senators, regardless of whether they believe John Bolton 
will be a great man at the United Nations or not, realize this is a 
matter of constitutional equity. Either the Senate, as a coequal branch 
of Government, has the right to request and receive through appropriate 
Members and appropriate committees pertinent information relating to a 
critical nomination or not, and if we do not, then I think this body 
suffers in its ability to perform its constitutional duties.
  That is what we are requesting. It can be satisfied in a matter of 
hours, and then the Senate, as a body, can vote up or down on John 
Bolton to send him to the U.N. or not send him to the U.N. But to 
stonewall this institution on information we have a right to receive I 
think is wrong and I think it jeopardizes the relationship between the 
Senate and the White House.
  My hope is the White House will respond to the modified requests we 
have made so we can get about the business of voting on this nomination 
and moving to other matters before the Senate.
  I thank my colleagues from Iowa and Illinois for being generous with 
their time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized for 15 
minutes.

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