WASHINGTON – Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., co-author of legislation creating the National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, issued the following statement Thursday reacting to news of an agreement between the Commission and the White House regarding Commission access to the President’s daily intelligence briefings:
“It is wrong that the White House has unduly restricted access to the most important set of documents the Commission has sought. As the Congressional Intelligence Committees’ Joint Inquiry stressed in January, these presidential daily briefings are some of the most crucial documents to the investigation and now, 11 months, two deadlines, and two subpoenas later we still don’t have full, unfettered, unconditional access to these documents for all the commissioners and their investigators. As a consequence, the American public will always wonder what the President had to hide that justified keeping the full truth from coming out. The iron curtain of secrecy surrounding the White House must be raised. “