Senate Dems: Let’s TalkFollowing House Democrats yesterday, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) held a press conference today to send a simple message: let’s talk.
As Schumer put it:
I hope the White House recognizes a ten letter word, C-O-M-P-R-O-M-I-S-E. That’s what its all about. And now both parties at this end of Pennsylvania want to sit down and negotiate, but we’re waiting for the White House.
Schumer pointed to Sen. Arlen Specter’s (R-PA) proposal to the White House yesterday as an indication that both Republicans and Democrats thought the White House offer of a private meeting with no oath and no transcript was unacceptable. Specter proposed to allow the aides to be questioned publicly by just a limited number of lawmakers without putting them under oath. “When you have the lead Democrat and the lead Republican closer to one another than the White House is to either of them, it really puts a burden on the White House,” Schumer said.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) — who’s said he doesn’t see what “all the hubbub is about” — met with White House counsel Fred Fielding today to discuss the dispute.
Update: More from Sen. Feinstein:
“This is not going to go away. It’s not going to diminish. We are very serious in the pursuit of truth here. And there is only one way that we are going to get that truth. And that is in the open with a transcript, so that everybody can hear the same thing….“What has really surprised me is the defensive mode of this White House. It’s not really called for. This is all within our right. We are the supervisory body, the oversight body. We have the right to ask these questions, we have the right to issue these subpoenas. And the stonewalling of it, I don’t think achieves anything other than encourage the American people to believe that where there is smoke there really is fire.”