Dems give Whitehouse Bolton Ultimatum

[mburbank]

Reid: No Documents, No Bolton
CNN

Thursday 09 June 2005

Washington - Senate Democrats will not allow a vote on President Bush's choice for U.N. ambassador unless the White House hands over records of communications intercepts Bolton sought from the secretive National Security Agency, Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday.

"You can't ignore the Senate. We've told them what we've wanted. The ball is in his court," Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN. "If they want John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, give us this information. If they don't, there will be no Bolton."

The Senate fell four votes shy of the 60 needed to cut off debate on Bolton's nomination in May after two Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee urged their colleagues to hold the issue open.

Sens. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and Christopher Dodd have demanded the Bush administration produce documents 10 National Security Agency communications intercepts that Bolton, the State Department's undersecretary for arms control, had requested since 2001.

White House Communications Director Nicole Devenish called Reid's stance "another effort to distract from the work that the people want to see done here in Washington."

"This request for additional information is clearly a stalling tactic, and one that I think the American people are growing weary of," she said.

But Reid said Bush is responsible for breaking the impasse - not Democrats.

"The president is obstructing a vote on John Bolton," he said. "We've asked for simple information that Congresses over many decades that we have been in existence have been given by the White House."