Even after Gonzalez spent all day Monday defending Bush’s illegal wiretap program, more and more conservatives continue to break rank and call for a special investigator. The latest republican to jump ship is no regular congressperson. House Representative Heath Wilson (R-NM) is chairwoman of the committee that oversees all the NSA programs. Yesterday, she called for a full congressional inquiry into Bush’s eavesdropping program. From the NYTimes:
The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had “serious concerns” about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.
Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush’s father, is the first Republican on either the House’s Intelligence Committee or the Senate’s to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.
And the same day Cheney said in an interview with Lehrer that members of congress can question or suggest whatever they want, but “we have all the legal authority we need.†No, Dick. No, you don’t. And even your own people won’t stay quiet about it.