Sen. Roberts, chairman of the intelligence committee, is attempting to work out a deal on these intelligence intercepts between Biden and Dodd on the one hand and the administration on the other. Remember: Bolton asked for the names of US persons that had been blacked out in a handful of NSA intercepts. The Dems’ wild theory is that Bolton’s requests had something to do with his disputes with a couple of intelligence analysts. Now, Biden and Dodd are asking that 36 “names of concern” be given to John Negroponte so he can certify whether or not there is any overlap with the 19 names provided to Bolton. 36. That’s a lot of concern. Bolton had disputes with 2 analysts, Christian Westerman and Fulton Armstrong. 2. The Biden/Dodd request is clearly yet another fishing expedition. Roberts will try to bid them down. Bolton only needs two more votes to get to cloture. If the administration can never satisfy Biden and Dodd, it can probably make some offer in this dispute that is enough to pry away those two votes from the Democrats. Stay tuned…