DeWine Stonewalls Releasing Intel Committee Records

Brown campaign puts "Empty Chair" on the air
 
AMHERST, OH - The Sherrod Brown for Senate campaign today announced that "Empty Chair," a video highlighting incumbent Republican Senator's Mike DeWine record of absence and failed oversight on the Intelligence Committee, would be put on the air in a statewide buy.  During and following Friday's Dayton debate, DeWine refused to release his attendance records on the Select Intelligence Committee.  Senator DeWine missed nearly 50 percent of public meetings of the Select Intelligence Committee throughout his career, before and after the war in Iraq began.  Committee sources say that DeWine has a similarly poor attendance record for classified meetings of the Committee, but DeWine refused to request that the Committee release those records.
 
The spot is available here: http://sherrodbrown.com/pages/empty_chair
 
"After he voted to go to war with Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction, Ohioans deserve to how many Intelligence Committee meetings Senator DeWine missed and why," said Ben LaBolt, spokesman for Representative Brown.  "When Senator DeWine did show up to committee, he voted against investigating the false intelligence that sent our troops into battle.   Senator DeWine's record on the Intelligence Committee is marked by absences and failed oversight."
 
When asked after the debate if he would ask the Committee to ask his attendance records, DeWine said "We'll see."  "Empty Chair" challenges DeWine to release those records as Ohioans statewide continue to learn about his absences before and after the nation went to war.

From the Plain Dealer:
 
Post-debate: About those intelligence meetings

Will he or won't he?

Sen. Mike DeWine was noncommittal when asked Friday night whether he'd ask the Senate Intelligence Committee to release his attendance record for its hearings. Attendance records for classified hearings and briefings are not public, though a member may seek to have them released by asking the committee chairman and vice chairman.

That could clarify whether DeWine has or hasn't shown up at many of the meetings, as DeWine reelection opponent Sherrod Brown and his supporters charge.

Asked about seeking the records' release during his Dayton debate with Brown Friday night, DeWine said, "We'll see."

That was not the end of the matter. After the debate, when DeWine met with reporters and took additional questions (as had Brown a few minutes earlier), DeWine was asked again.

His response: "If Congressman Brown releases every record of every committee he's been on."

This appeared to be DeWine's way of continuing his charge, made during the debate, that Brown missed 92 percent of the House Foreign Relations Committee's hearings on North Korea. In raw numbers, DeWine said during post-debate mop-up, Brown missed about 13 hearings on North Korea "in the last few years."

Brown says that's because he was either running simultaneous hearings of a health care subcommittee on which he is the ranking Democrat, or because he was out with injuries after a car crash and when his daughter was sick.

Whatever the reason, there's a difference between Brown's records and DeWine's. Brown's are public, which is why DeWine can obtain the Democrat's absentee rate. Intelligence Committee records are not public, so it's impossible to know how many classified hearings DeWine has missed.

The way to get around that is for the member himself - DeWine in this case - to seek the records' release. That's what the committee staff says.

This is not a new protocol, and committee chairman Pat Roberts and Republicans have mentioned it before. It came up in 2004 when Republicans charged that John Kerry and John Edwards were AWOL from intelligence hearings.

At the time, Roberts said, as reported then by CNN: "All John Kerry has to do and all that John Edwards has to do is write us or pick up the phone and call me, say, ‘Hey Pat, hey Jay (Rockefeller), hey Senator Rockefeller, hey Senator Roberts, please release my records, and not only the public records, but the closed records.'"

So will DeWine do that?

"You can belabor this point, and I'll think about it, but I don't even know if you're right," he told this reporter/panelist after the debate ."You seem to know more about this than I do. But whether I can go authorize someone to go count all this and get this done, I don't even know if those records are available."

His final commitment: "We'll see."

- Stephen Koff
 
DeWine Missed Crucial Hearing Seven Months Before 9/11/2001. On February 7, 2001, the heads of U.S. intelligence agencies issued their annual reports to the committee at a public hearing. During his testimony, CIA Director George Tenet warned, "Usama bin Ladin and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat." DeWine missed the hearing. [cia.gov, Government Printing Office]

Since 9/11/2001, DeWine Missed 12 Public Meetings. Even after the U.S. was attacked, DeWine continued his pattern of absences. DeWine missed meetings on 5/16/2006, 2/2/2006, 7/21/2005, 7/19/2005, 6/16/2005, 5/24/2005, 4/19/2005, 2/16/2005, 6/18/2003, 10/9/2002, 4/25/2002, and 4/17/2002. [Government Printing Office, c-span.org]

Chairman Roberts: Attendance at Intelligence Committee Hearings is Important. "... let me say this attendance is very, very important. Attendance is where you gain the experience and the expertise to do the job. That's why we are repealing the term limits on the service on the Intelligence Committee, which is one of the strongest recommendations by the 9/11 commission." [CNN, 8/19/04]

Over His Career, DeWine Missed Nearly Half of Public Meetings. 101 public committee meetings were held since 1995, when DeWine started his assignment on the committee. Of the 101 meetings, DeWine missed at least 48 of them. [Government Printing Office, c-span.org]

DeWine Missed At Least 48 Public Meetings. DeWine missed public meetings of the Senate Intelligence Committee on 5/16/2006, 2/2/2006, 7/21/2005, 7/19/2005, 6/16/2005, 5/24/2005, 4/19/2005, 2/16/2005, 6/18/2003, 10/9/2002, 4/25/2002, 4/17/2002, 2/7/2001, 9/26/2000, 6/14/2000, 6/8/2000, 2/2/2000, 6/9/1999, 2/26/1999, 2/4/1999, 7/8/1998, 5/22/1998, 5/21/1998, 2/11/1998, 2/4/1998, 10/1/1997, 9/18/1997, 3/13/1997, 12/11/1996, 12/4/1996, 11/26/1996, 10/23/1996, 9/25/1996, 9/5/1996, 8/1/1996, 7/17/1996, 6/19/1996, 5/23/1996, 5/21/1996, 3/27/1996, 3/19/1996, 2/28/1996, 2/22/1996, 9/20/1995, 8/9/1995, 6/21/1995, 6/14/1995, and 5/3/1995. [Government Printing Office, c-span.org]

DeWine's Missed Meetings Include:

TWO Hearings on the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001
5/24/2005, 4/19/2005 [Government Printing Office]
FIVE Annual Assessments by the Heads of the Intelligence Community
2/2/2006, 2/16/2005, 2/7/2001, 2/2/2000, 2/22/1996 [Government Printing Office; c-span.org]
SEVENTEEN Confirmation Hearings for High-Ranking Intelligence Positions (These Meetings included confirmation hearings for some of the highest ranking intelligence officers who led the intelligence community leading up to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks.)
5/16/2006, 7/21/2005, 7/19/2005, 6/16/2005, 6/18/2003, 10/9/2002, 4/25/2002, 4/17/2002, 2/26/1999, 2/4/1999, 7/8/1998, 5/22/1998, 5/21/1998, 10/1/1997, 3/13/1997, 6/14/1995, and 5/3/1995 [Government Printing Office; c-span.org]
Over Last Two Years, DeWine Missed Two-Thirds of Public Committee Meetings. 12 open meetings were held and DeWine missed eight of them. [Government Printing Office documents, c-span.org]

DeWine Ranks Among Worst for Attendance. During the 109th Congress, the combined attendance for DeWine's committee colleagues was 60%, while DeWine's attendance was a mere 33%. Only one member of the fifteen-member committee missed more meetings than DeWine. [Government Printing Office, c-span.org]

Former Member of National Security Council: DeWine Record in Closed Intel Meetings "About the Same" as Dismal Record for Open Meetings. Rand Beers, president of the National Security Network and former member of the National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and Bush revealed, "Senator Roberts has made a statement on behalf of Senator DeWine that the country and Ohioans are well served by his service on the committee. I talked to several staff members about this, and the comment was that his attendance in the closed meetings is about the same as his attendance in the open meetings, and that he is not a particularly active member," said Beers. [Reporter Conference Call, 10/05/06]
DeWine: "I Don't Read Everything That Comes In." DeWine recently told the Plain Dealer on the subject of intelligence documents, "But I don't read everything that comes in. [...] "I look at some of [the documents], some of them I do not look at,". [Plain Dealer, 9/28/06]

DeWine Shelved - Then Dismissed - Critical National Intelligence Estimate.  "A consensus of 16 intelligence agencies," the report "says the Iraq war is breeding potential new terrorists". Despite being a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, DeWine did not read the report the end of September even though he had access to it in April.  DeWine dismisses the central finding of the document as a "claim" that "has been made in the past," saying, "This was not considered any kind of seminal or groundbreaking National Intelligence Estimate. He only read it "when it became a flash point" at the end of September.  [Plain Dealer, 9/28/06]
 
DeWine Acknowledged Failures of Oversight on Intelligence Committee.  "I think there's a general consensus among at least the Senate Intelligence Committee that we have not historically done as good a job in oversight as we should have." [Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on Confirmation of Porter Goss to Be CIA Director, 9/14/04]

Senator DeWine Failed to Ask Tough Questions at Intelligence Committee Hearings. Attendance records of meetings of the Senate Intelligence Committee show that Senator DeWine missed at least 48 of 101 public meetings since he began on the committee in 1995. At a number of the meetings DeWine actually attended, he failed to make any statement or ask any questions of witnesses. These instances include meetings on 4/27/2005, 4/14/2005, 2/24/2004, 7/20/2004, 10/16/2004, and 9/19/1996. This point was illustrated at the nomination hearing of Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden to be the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence on April 14, 2005. ROBERTS: Senator DeWine. DEWINE: No questions, Mr. Chairman. ROBERTS: I like your style. DEWINE: Yes, sir. [Government Printing Office, FDCH Political Transcripts]

10/17/2006 / Permalink / National Security, (all tags)