Roberts off Intell?

    Well-informed scuttlebutt on Capitol Hill has it that Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts may be looking for an exit from the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he has chaired since 2002 and which Democrat West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller will chair in the 110th Congress.

    Those in the know say this editorial from the Lawrence Journal-World is worth a close read on Roberts' intentions, especially the "he has told some" sentence.

   With the soon-to-be-minority Senate GOP determining committee assignments for the next Congress right now, things could shake out as early as next week.

   Roberts has drawn partisan barbs for years for his stewardship of the committee. Critics say he did all he could to protect the Bush Administration from oversight; Rockefeller once memorably accused him of taking "all his talking points from the White House."

   But Roberts points to his committee's investigations - some completed, some ongoing - of the uses of pre-war intelligence as evidence of his commitment to effective oversight.

   The Roberts move also means Missouri Sen. Kit Bond could become the committee's top Republican, depending on where and how various chips fall.

Stay tuned...

Posted by Matt Stearns

Comments

[LarrytheScrabbleGuy]

Wow, Bill Frist and Pat Roberts gone in one day? Here's hoping Kit Bond and Roy Blunt are next.

[hploughjogger]

The sooner Roberts is gone the better. He has stalled investigations, and been little more than Bush's enabler. Perhaps now we'll have an answer into the ginned up intelligence that got us into Iraq. I'm going to miss him as much as I miss Conrad Burns.

[UncleJoe]

Sentor Roberts has been so sanctimonious about his work on this committee that one might expect him to continue. But if there's no political value for him in his lapdog role, suddenly he may decide to take a powder. He has hurt the Congress with his pathetic stewardship and now he abandons ship. Ah, such a statesman.

[elnath]

Pat Roberts, protector of simian imbecility. That is what you will be remembered for. And then you will be quickly forgotten after that.

[klevenstein]

I'm guessing you were referring to DemocratIC West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller...

[ConcernedAmerican]

I sent Mr. Robert's my concerns about his stewardship of the senate intelligence committe and was promply sent RNC talking points and some bullets points about what a swell guy he was. I still stand by my original hypothesis, career politicians like Robert's are destroying this country in front of our faces and they really don't give a damn. It's not just the public sector, the nepotism, cronyism, and corruption that gets these guys into positions of power is having the same destructive effects in the private sector. The sad thing is, if they were really willing to play by the rules and have a true free market economy, they (elites) would still make a killing.

[Douglas Caddy]

Pat Roberts appeared always to put partisan politics ahead of what was best for the country. There is no way of accounting for the damage that he did to our national security during his term as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

[just john]

Could this be because Roberts treated the minority members of the committee so shabbily that he can't look them in the face, once they have power?

[im1dc]

This is GREAT news for America!

[Lyleblog]

Intelligence and Pat Roberts were Never Compatible

Pat Roberts looked out for Boeing (Witchita) and not the citizens. This is a psuedo-politician looking to do a CYA for himself. When the issues he buried are re-opened and investigated, it will show he was the best friend the Saudi's owned on the Intelligence committe.

[D Zero]

The only problem with this is that Rockefeller took so much of it without saying a word. Who can forget their numerous joint appearances on the Sunday morning circuit where Rockefeller did little more than nod while Roberts fed everyone a steady diet of talking points? I hope Rockefeller is serious about robust oversight and further more, I hope he capable of delivering it. At this point, the jury is out.

[stephen collins]

SENATOR ROBERTS & THE ENTIRE REPUBLICAN CAUCAS WILLFULLY CHOSE TO DENY A INVESTIGATION ON THIS ADMINISTRATIONS' DECISION TO DENY PAYING ME REWARDS FROM THE REWARDS FOR JUSTICE PROGRAM AFTER I WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING SOME MOST WANTED TERRORISTS CAPTURED IN 2004...

IF YOU RECALL THE 5/26/04 PRESS CONFERENCE OF THEN ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT & FBI DIRECTOR MUELLER RELEASING 7 PHOTOS TO THE PUBLIC & BEGGING ALL AMERICANS TO BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THEM...

ON 5/29/04 IN PSL,FLA. AFTER 300+ MILES DRIVEN & 9 HOURS LATER ON MY WAY HOME I FEEL A CAR TAILGATING ME UPON LOOKING IN MY REAR-VIEW MIRROR TO SEE WHO IT WAS I WAS AMAZED TO SEE I WAS LOOKING AT 2 OF THE 7 WHO PHOTOS WERE JUST RELEASED - I HAD THEIR PHOTOS IN THE CAR WITH ME...

AFTER MAKING THEM PASS ME I ACQUIRE ALL OF THE VEHICLES' INFORMATION & CALL 911 AT 5:42 PM ON 5/29/04...THE CALL LASTED CLOSE TO 20 MINUTES AS I FOLLOW THEM UNTIL LAW ENFORCEMENT CAN PULL THEM OVER...

A U.S.C.G. FRIEND CALLS ME BACK CONFIRMS TO ME I DID INDEED GET THEM & THAT THE FEDS WERE GOING TO COVER IT UP SO AS NOT TO PAY THE REWARD OF 25 MILLION FAZUL ABDULLAH MOHAMMED
HAD ON HIM AT THE TIME FROM THE 1998 EMBASSEY BOMBINGS...

THE NEXT 12 DAY I SPOT 4 OF THE REMAINING 5 CALL MIAMI-FBI WITH THIS INFORMATION & NEXT THING I LEARN IS ANOTHER 25 MILLION DOLLAR MAN IS CAPTURED YET SAID TO BE IN PAKISTAN..
I BELIEVE HE WAS FLOWN THERE & PAKISTAN WAS TOLD TO SAY YOU FOUND HIM HERE...TO GET OUT OF PAYING HIS REWARD...

GEORGE TENET WAS THE FALL GUY FOR ALL OF THIS...

I CONTACTED SPECIFIC MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ABOUT ALL OF THIS IN 6/2004 - THEN A SENATE INTEL. HEARING WAS HELD GRILLING GOSS-MUELLER & GONZALES - MY IDENTITY WAS INDIRECTLY MADE KNOWN TO THEM UPON THIS GRILLING & MY LIFE WAS DESTROYED EVER SINCE THROUGH VARIOUS WAYS...

NOW ALL 100 SENATORS & HALF OF THE HOUSE MEMBERS ARE AWARE OF THIS FROM A E.F.F. EMAIL SENT TO THEM ALL ABOUT ALONG WITH RE-AUTHORIZATION OF THE PATRIOT ACT...

THESE MATTERS ARE SO IN-DEPTH & COMPLEX I COULD WRITE FOREVER ABOUT ALOT OF DIFFERENT TOPICS THAT HAS ARISEN FROM ALL OF THIS...

NEEDLESS TO SAY THE GOVT. BEGS ALL AMERICANS TO BE VIGILANT
I SPRING INTO ACTION WITH POSITIVE RESULTS PROTECTING MY NATION IN TIMES OF TROUBLE - STOP A IMMINENT ATTACK I THINK
NOONE KNEW WAS COMING UNLESS THERE WAS COMPLICITY GET SOME
MOST WANTED TERROISTS CAPTURED & TREASON IS PERPRATRATED UPON ME FOR STOPPING A ATTACK & GETTING SERIAL KILLERS CAPTURED...

F.A.M. HAD A LAPTOP WHICH LED TO EVEN MORE MOST WANTED TERRORISTS CAPTURED GLOBALLY IN THE FALL OF 2004...THEN UP TO 25-28 PEOPLE HAD REWARDS OF 25 MILLION DOLLARS ON THEIR CAPTURES - THEN SUDDENLY THE LIST WAS DOWN TO 3 & NOW STANDS AT 2...I MUST MENTION AFTER 5/29/04 WITH F.A.M.+ AAFIA SIDDIQUI CAPTURED THE AMOUNT OF THE REWARDS STARTED TO CHANGE AT WILL NUMEROUSLY...

THE CIA SECRET PRISONER TRANPORTS STARTED AROUND THIS TIME..

ALSO MANY OF THESE PEOPLE WERE INDICTED IN FEDERAL COURTS FOR VARIOUS TERRORISTIC ACTS BOTH HERE & ABROAD FOR OPEN PUBLIC TRIALS...

NOW WITH THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS' ACT -TRIALS WILL BE HELD IN SECRET...IS IT POSSIBLE THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS'ACT WAS
CONCOCTED SO THAT THE TERRORISTS DO NOT HAVE THE CHANCE IN OPEN PUBLIC COURTS TO TELL THE PEOPLE & THE PRESS JUST WHAT
THE KNOW & WHO AT ALL MAY HAVE HELPED THEM ALONG THE WAY...

AHMED KHALFAN GHAILANI SEEN IN FLORIDA YET FOUND IN PAKISTAN
TELL ME HOW HE GOT BACK TO THAT NATION AFTER THERE WAS A GLOBAL A.P.B. ALL POINTS BULLITIN OUT ON HIM - I DON'T SEE THAT HAPPENING...

ALL ONE HAS TO DO IS ASK A.K.G. WHERE WAS HE CAPTURED - HE WILL NOT LIE ABOUT THIS - THERE IS NO REASON TO...

AS FOR F.A.M.+ A.S. I KNOW WHERE THEY WERE INITIALLY SENT WHERE ARE THEY NOW - WHO KNOWS - HOWEVER SOMEONE DOES...ARE
THEY SOMEWHERE NEVER TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN OR HAVE THEIR DAY IN COURT...OR WERE THEY FLOWN SOMEWHERE & RELEASED
SO THAT THE REWARDS FOR JUSTICE PROGRAM DOES NOT HAVE TO PAY THEIR REWARDS...

NOW YOU CAN IMAGINE THE BULK OF INFORMATION & INTELLIGENCE THAT WAS SENT TO CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS - ONLY FOR NO ACTION TO BE TAKEN...

I BELIEVE MANY HI-LEVEL CABINET OFFICIALS RESIGNED OUT OF DISGUST OVER THIS ADMINISTRATIONS' DELIBERATE & WILLFUL ACT TO ATTEMPT TO COVER ALL OF THIS UP...POWELL ASHCROFT RIDGE & OTHERS NOT TO MENTION THEN U.S.MARSHAL DIRECTOR BENJAMIN RENYA WHO I HAD CONTACTED IN THE PAST FOR MY PROTECTION RIGHTS AFFORDED TO ONE FROM THE REWARDS FOR JUSTICE PROGRAM

IT EVEN GETS BETTER WHEN O.P.R. RUINED A INVESTIGATION BY STARTING AT THE BOTTOM WITH ME INSTEAD OF GOING RIGHT FOR THE WHITE HOUSE - BUSH DELIBERATELY DENIED OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILTY OFFICIALS SECURITY CLEARANCES BECAUSE THE "NSA" OVERHEARD MY 7/05 CALL TO O.P.R.

WHEW I AM NOT EVEN NEAR DONE YET - ENOUGH CORRUPTION YET...

NATIONAL SECURITY 4 US

[JimZ]

How any Kansas voter could return Pat Roberts back to the Senate after all his cover-up jobs for the administration would be beyond me. I know he wasn't up for re-election this year but we'll see how ignorant the Kansas voters are if they re-elect this guy again, when he is. What a crook. And a crook for a moron who is president. Doesn't sound like Pat has very good judgement; he has not enough intelligence to head an "intelligence" committee. Obviously, he doesn't care about America; only about the Republican party. Go ruin another committee, Pat. Go ruin American further, Pat. I am NOT a Democrat, either. Never have been.

[Kevin Judge]

The Roberts' "Hacktacular" joyride against truth and accountability has now mercifully come to an end. Too bad the bastard doesn't have the cajones to endure the payback that is long overdue.

Rot in hell, Pat Roberts.

[bastet]

Roberts has been too tight with Cheney for too long. Clean house, stick him on the committee that keeps track of how many pens the government uses in a year.

[Dana]

This is great news, but when are Lindsay Graham and Jeff Sessions, my bugaboos, going to be shown the door?

[d walker]

It's so good to see that you've got Roberts figured out. I'm from Kansas but have lived in NYC for many years....we all were beginning to think you didn't see through this crook. thanks!!!

[LetImpeachmentRing]

a) Yes, Mr. Stearns, it is DemocratIC Senator from West Virginia, not "Democrat" Senator... a tired right wing zinger courtesy of Frank Luntz; And b) perhaps the exposure of Pat Roberts as a shameless lapdog for this failed and criminal Presidency during the past crucial years of the Iraq fiasco will further induce "red staters" to stop voting against their own interests. I was heartened that several such dominoes tumbled in November: Talent, deWine, Burns & Allen, ... and starting in '08, we need a few more to answer for their conning of the red with anti-abortion, anti-evolution, and anti-gay, etc. smokescreens while they have screwed the country - and YOU. Your jobs have been shipped overseas along with your precious sons and daughters. Those nimrods in Oklahoma, Idaho and Wyoming have to go, along with religious zealot Brownback, and, speaking of Bonds, Bonds.

[bob]

Pat,
It's good to see you leave intel matters to smarter, more honest people than youself. You had your day in the sun, now go crawl back into your hole.

[Darren]

Roberts was the biggest partisan hack imaginable. He *STILL* hasn't released the part of the Senate Report on prewar intelligence that looked into how the Bush admin used the intelligence. I'm not surprised he might bail out, since he's about to become ridiculed beyond belief once Rockefeller takes over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Report_of_Pre-war_Intelligence_on_Iraq#.22Phase_two.22_of_the_investigation

[Shoreline_Dem]

Even though Hassert won, there has been lots of press that he will be leaving Congress. Pat Roberts might not go that far, but certainly his stewardship of the Senate Intell. Committee has been so partisan based - just like the rest of the 109th Congress - that any change has to be welcome. So many Executive branch abuses just waiting for SOME investigation to happen.

I know the Dems have not put on the table a possible impeachment of Schrub. I am all for not dragging the country through what the R's did to Clinton. However, should solid proof of "high crimes" show up during ANY real investigation, I think they should move forward with it - even withstanding the fact that the Devil himself - Dick C - would become the president. Hey, perhaps he will purger himself during the Scotter Libby trails - one can only hope.

In CT, the majority were dumb enough to send the neocon, R-lite, 2-faced liar Joe LIEberman (I-CT) back to the Senate. Joe changed his story on the disaster in Iraq and drew support from 30 of D's in CT, including the Speaker of the CT House. What a loser. I only hope the FEC finds that Holy Joe's $387K petty cash fund has broken some rules and he gets a hefty find (and more!).

Don't be surprised if Roberts seeks and wins another term. I don't know Kansas, but I hope they are wiser than the folks here in CT.

[JerryTheAngel]

Never got around to that "2nd Phase" of investigating the pre-war intelligence, eh Pat?
I seem to remember Pat "I have the flat affect of a sociopath" Roberts, promising on Meet The Press that the "2nd Phase" oversight was "on track".

Roberts is an accessory to war crimes. He deserves to rot in prison with all of the other warmongers who have committed treason to our country by covering up and lying about leading this country into the worse foreign policy blunder in our nation's history.

The voters of Kansas who elected Roberts to the Senate have blood on their hands. ANYONE who voted to give Bush the ChickenHawk a 2nd term despite the obvious failures in Iraq can also join this club of YOU HAVE THE BLOOD OF OUR BRAVE TROOPS ON YOUR HANDS TOO CLUB.

As long as they keep getting their tax breaks, can drive their SUV's, and basically sacrafice nothing during wartime, then the status quo is acceptable to these selfish and intellectually shallow voters.

[kcmedia]

This quote from the Lawrence World Journal is something out of Orwell.. "Washington media representatives have been high in their praise of Roberts for the manner in which he has handled the chairmanship and his effort to keep partisan politics to a minimum in the committee’s deliberations and investigations."

Who cares if 'Washington MEDIA" representatives have high praise for Roberts??? Non partisan? Are they kidding? Roberts carried the water for the White House even better than Limbaugh!Drug his feet on the 'run up to war' non-evidence for 3 years! Give me a break!
Then they say:
"Now, there are concerns that, with the change in the committee’s chairmanship, partisan politics may be far more pronounced,..." I'm not sure where these folks have been, but I can guarantee you the ONLY reason Roberts wants off is that he doesnt' want to take 2nd chair to Rockefeller - or any other Dem - because he's afraid they will do to him, what he did to them.

I am hoping that Dems will rise above politics and put policy first. Unlike what we've had for the last 6years!

[ho de do]

I'll ho de do...

...don let it hit ya on the be'hine mr. Roberts..

[slowbob]

As they say: Good riddance to bad rubbish !