Washington – Senate Democrats opposed to President Bush’s nomination of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador are trying to delay a Senate vote with a legislative maneuver that ultimately could lead to a filibuster.
Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said the aim was to compel the State Department to provide more information about the embattled undersecretary.
But department spokesman Richard Boucher said, “We think that we have provided everything that is relevant to this nomination.”
The nomination was voted out of the Foreign Relations Committee 10-8 on Thursday without an endorsement, and Democrats vowed to take their fight to the Senate floor.
Boxer said Friday she would use procedural delays until Democrats receive the requested information.
“It is not fair to bring this nomination to the floor for debate and a vote until all the information has been delivered,” she said.
Boxer said the Democrats want to know if Bolton sought the names of U.S. officials whose communications were intercepted by U.S. intelligence; details on the private business activities of a Bolton assistant, Mathew Friedman; and the circumstances of a tough Bolton speech on Syria.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who is leading the drive to scuttle the nomination, is backing Boxer’s request for a hold, a legislative device to keep the Republican leadership from beginning debate, said his spokesman, Norm Kurz.
Boucher said the State Department had cooperated “very extensively” with the committee but that “there are certain kinds of requests that we don’t feel comfortable producing.”
The reason, he said, was that providing internal communications, e-mails and notes to Congress would have a “chilling effect” on exchanges among officials in the department.
And yet, Boucher said, “we don’t want to turn this into a showdown between branches of government.”
