Hoekstra: Bush Hiding More Unchecked Spy Programs

John Amato

The New York Times published a letter from Republican Representative Pete Hoekstra to President Bush. Hoekstra, who is chairman of of the House Intelligence Committee, criticized Bush for hiding surveillance programs from Congressional oversight.

On this morning’s Fox News Sunday, Hoekstra said that a whistleblower came to him with several more spying operations that were in danger of being abused without oversight.

Video -WMP Video -QT (rough transcript)

Hoekstra: …this is actually a case where the whistleblower process was working approriately. Some people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on–They were right–We have now been briefed on those programs, but I wanted to reinforce to the President and to the executive branch in the intelligence community how important and by law–the requirement thatthey keep the legislative branch informed of what they are doing.

Wallace: Chairman, the President always says in these cases that congressional leaders including you as the chairman of the House inttleigence are briefed. How do you explain this failure and how serious do you take it?

Hoekstra: Well, I take it very very seriously otherwise I would not have written the letter to the President.

There’s a little FOX & Friends intro to the video that tells us Hoekstra wrote the letter when Hayden was nominated to be head of the CIA. Hoekstra complained about his choice which would suggests that Hayden is part of the problem.