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 irst,
Russell Feingold didn't want to invite anyone from the Bush Justice
Department to the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing, "Department
of Justice Oversight: Preserving Our Freedoms While Defending Against
Terrorism." Then, when the Justice Department formally asked
the Wisconsin Democrat to allow a top official to defend administration
antiterrorism efforts, Feingold relented and scheduled Office of
Legal Policy chief Viet Dinh to testify. But when Dinh showed up
in the Dirksen Building hearing room Tuesday afternoon, Feingold
refused to ask him any questions.
Feingold —
running the hearing because committee chairman Patrick Leahy has
scheduled so many sessions on Justice Department policy that he
is unable to preside over them all — opened the hearing with
a blast at the administration. "I fear that America's beacon
of freedom and justice is threatened," he said, " as we
face almost daily revelations of extraordinary steps by the Justice
Department that snub the rule of law and threaten to erode fundamental
constitutional rights."
But Feingold
was not interested in discussing the issue with Viet Dinh. Apparently
concerned that Dihn's appearance would delay the testimony of a
panel of witnesses critical of the administration, Feingold allowed
Dinh a brief opening statement and then said: "I am going to
withhold questions for Mr. Dinh. I plan to question the attorney
general on Thursday about these issues."
Feingold's
tactics strengthened Republican suspicions that committee Democrats
are not as interested in exploring administration policy as they
are in attacking Attorney General John Ashcroft when he appears
before the committee on Thursday. Until now, those suspicions have
mostly been voiced in private. But ranking minority member Orrin
Hatch brought them into the open when he said at the hearing, "There
is a growing concern among the public that these rapid-fire oversight
hearings are aimed less at providing information and more at demonizing
the administration and our attorney general for partisan purposes."
After Feingold's
snub, Dinh left the witness chair and was followed by the panel
of witnesses whom Feingold had originally intended to be the entire
program. "We will hear today from Ali Al-Maqtari, who was detained
by federal officials in Tennessee for almost two months for a minor
immigration violation that would not usually merit detention,"
Feingold announced. "We will also hear from his lawyer, Michael
Boyle, who will discuss his experience in representing Mr. Al-Maqtari,
and the experience of his colleagues who are representing detainees."
That was just
the beginning. "Following Mr. Boyle," Feingold continued,
"we will hear from Mr. Gerald Goldstein, who will talk about
the challenges he faced in his representation of Dr. Al-Badr Al
Hazmi, a radiology resident in San Antonio, Texas, who was detained
following the September 11th attacks for nearly two weeks. Finally,
Nadine Strossen of the American Civil Liberties Union will talk
about why disclosing basic information about the status of detainees
is imperative, and comment on the implications of questioning over
five thousand young men from Arab and Muslim countries."
It was not
exactly a panel designed to elicit balanced views of the administration's
antiterrorist policies. Perhaps Viet Dinh could have provided some
of that balance, had he been asked to address the Democrats' specific
concerns. But Russell Feingold wasn't interested.
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