Patrick Leahy: “I will say that I agree with the second-degree amendment the Senator from Massachusetts has temporarily withdrawn.…”

“I will say that I agree with the second-degree amendment the Senator from Massachusetts has temporarily withdrawn. Obviously it will be reoffered. The reason I agree, Congress not only has done a very poor job of oversight; with some exceptions, the administration has taken advantage of that and made it a practice to deny oversight cooperation to Congress. The stonewalling in the prison abuse scandal has been building to a crisis point. Today, finally, after huge pressure, the White House has released a small subset of the documents that offer glimpses into the genesis of this scandal. All should have been provided earlier to Congress. We know a lot has been held back, and remains hidden from public view. While this is a self-serving selection on the part of the administration, it is at least a beginning, a tiny beginning, a tiny baby step. But if we want the Judiciary Committee and the Senate to find the whole truth, we will need much more cooperation and extensive hearings. The documents released today raise more questions than they answer. I will give some examples, speaking now of the documents released today. The White House released only 3 of the 23 documents that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee requested and tried to subpoena last week. In having released only 3 of the 23 we asked for, I point out that 2 of the 3 were already available on the Internet. Where are the other 20 documents we asked for?”