November 14, 2007

White House Allows Clearances In NSA Investigation

Just four days after Michael B. Mukasey was sworn in as attorney general, Justice Department officials said Tuesday that President Bush had reversed course and approved long-denied security clearances for the Justice Department’s ethics office to investigate the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. The department’s inspector general has been investigating the department’s involvement with the N.S.A. program for about a year, but the move suggested both that Mr. Mukasey wanted to remedy what many in Congress saw as an improper decision by the president to block the clearances and that the White House chose to back him.

Bush Gives Clearances for N.S.A. Inquiry, New York Times, November 14, 2007.