Eye on Freedom

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) issued the first congressional subpoenas of the Obama administration Monday for witnesses and documents about the Fort Hood shootings.

The senators, the chairman and ranking minority member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, have accused the White House of stonewalling their demand for five months. The Nov. 5 shootings at the largest Army base in the United States left 13 dead.

The senators want documents including the personnel file of the alleged shooter, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, and his communications with Yemeni cleric and suspected terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi.

In a letter accompanying the subpoena letter, delivered Monday, the senators gave the Justice and Defense departments one week, until April 26, to respond, or face a committee vote to take the administration to court, sources said.

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Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) accused the Obama administration of stalling a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood shootings and threatened to start issuing subpoenas.

His vow opens a new rift with the White House for the Independent Lieberman, as well as the possibility of President Barack Obama’s first legal showdown with Congress.

At a press conference Thursday, Lieberman said he would give the administration until Monday to release information about the shootings and, if it didn’t, would start subpoenaing.

Lieberman and ranking Homeland Security panel member Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said they would issue the subpoenas to the Defense Department and Justice Department under their own authority and would seek full committee approval to take the administration to court if the information isn’t released.

A stern Lieberman said he and Collins have been stalled for five months in their attempts to seek answers in the Nov. 5, 2009, tragedy at the Texas military base, in which 13 people were shot dead. An Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, is accused of the murders, which Lieberman and others have described as an act of terrorism because Hasan had been in contact with Islamic clerics and may have acted out of opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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A senior Obama administration official, speaking on background Friday to a group of reporters, characterized the Fort Hood shooting as “an act of terrorism,” the first time an administration official has used that term in describing the massacre.

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