Cheney and White House subpoenaed

June 27, 2007

Washington, DC - Vice-president Dick Cheney's office and White House have been subpoenaed regarding the administration's controversial warrantless surveillance program, committee leaders said Wednesday.

Vice-president Dick Cheney and White House have been subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's warrant-free eavesdropping program.

The Justice Department and the National Security Council were also included in the round of subpoenas, which were issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee announced.

President Bush authorized the surveillance program in the aftermath of the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of U.S. residents suspected of having ties to terrorists. Administration officials have refused to discuss details of the program publicly, arguing that would endanger national security.

"Over the past 18 months, this committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program," the panel's chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

"All requests have been rebuffed. Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection."