John Sarbanes: “I want to point out with respect to both the Gearan and Ickes notes, because the point was raised that we have these…”

“I want to point out with respect to both the Gearan and Ickes notes, because the point was raised that we have these notes and we got them late in the day. The fact is the committee held a full day of hearing with Mr. Gearan and a full day of hearing with Mr. Ickes with respect to their notes. There was an opportunity to examine their notes, see the contents of their notes, bring them in before the committee, and have a hearing with respect to them. The White House has, in effect, now responded to every request of the committee. We have some e-mails to be obtained, but that is almost completed. I outlined earlier the difficult problems that were associated with the e-mails. First of all, the extraordinary and onerous breadth of the committee's request and the fact that the Bush administration had put in a procedure, a process at the White House that made the recovery of those e-mails extremely difficult. The White House finally had to bring in a consultant, and they are expending hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to provide those e-mails. The ones that have been provided thus far, the weeks covered, have not produced anything. That is in a very real sense a fishing expedition. It has not produced anything thus far.”