TOP SECRETThe House is expected to finally vote on the leadership’s surveillance bill this afternoon and debate is ongoing now. We’ll keep you updated on how it goes.
The reason the vote was delayed, of course, was the extremely rare secret session requested by Republicans (only the fifth since 1825).
It’s unclear exactly what went on. For one thing, it appears from comments Republicans made going into the session that they didn’t actually discuss the details of the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) tells the AP that he had read aloud the titles — but not details — of intelligence reports “that shows the nature of the global threat and how dynamic the situation is, and how fluid.”
Democrats are as dismissive afterwards as they were skeptical going in. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) dismissed it as “mysterious hocus-pocus” on the House floor this morning. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that he didn’t “hear any new information” that dissuades him from supporting the Dems’ bill. (Meanwhile, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) said in a statement that he was satisfied with the session and “As members go home, I hope the information and debate we heard will help inform their decisions when we consider the legislation that will be before the House tomorrow.”)
Dana Milbank writing in The Washington Post can hardly restrain his mockery of the whole thing — and has a hard time deciding whether the debate to go into closed session was sillier than the closed session itself.
But if it was a PR stunt, I have to say that the secret session seems to have fallen far short of the GOP’s staged walkout in garnering publicity.