Conyers: Tell Us MoreJoseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest Communications, delivered a pair of twin bombshells last week, when he asserted in a court filing that the National Security Agency had approached Qwest six months before 9/11 about participating in a legally dubious program, and that after the company declined, the administration yanked hundreds of millions in government contracts.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers’ (D-MI) eyebrows are firmly in the raised position. So today he wrote Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and senior Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein, who both testified before his committee last month, to inquire: “I ask that you provide the Committee with an immediate briefing on the facts behind these recent revelations, and that you then provide us with any documents concerning the nature and scope of these pre-9/11 activities and the legal basis for conducting them.”
Questions about possible retaliation against Nacchio after he refused to participate — including not only the loss of contracts, but also federal prosecution (he was convicted earlier this year of insider trading charges) — are, one assumes, to follow.
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