Political Quotes

“There have been books written on this--books written on this--how the President has circumvented the laws we pass to have his wiretapping, OK? Now, there is not a single Democratic Senator who doesn't want to get the bad guys. We want to be able to do wiretapping so we can listen in on some of their evil conversations. But the President, you see, based on his past and how we have been treated here, doesn't want this FISA bill to change in any manner except to give them retroactive immunity; that is, to say to the phone companies: All the things you have done, good, bad, or indifferent, the courts can't look at it civilly. They can't look at it civilly. So the President wants to have that out of the way so that he can wait until the last minute to not have all these amendments that Senator Feingold, Senator Dodd, Senator Leahy, Senator Feinstein, and others have offered to improve this legislation, to make it more in keeping with the Constitution. So, as I have indicated earlier, I say to my friend from New York, they want to wait until the last minute. So that whatever we do here, the House will have to accept.”