Is Roberts Trying To Influence Or Scuttle Judiciary Hearings?

Senator Pat Roberts the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee seems to be attempting to influence if not outright put a stop to Arlen Specter's (R-PA) Judiciary Committee hearings investigating domestic spying by the NSA. In a letter sent to Specter and the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), ABC News reports Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Friday the Bush administration's domestic spying is within the president's inherent power under the Constitution, and he rejected criticism that Congress was kept in the dark about it. The program is "legal, necessary and reasonable," the Kansas Republican wrote in a 19-page letter, taking a particularly expansive view of the president's authority for the warrantless surveillance. "Congress, by statute, cannot extinguish a core constitutional authority of the president," Roberts wrote. As we all know, Roberts is to the right of Attilla the Hun and has always been a Bush water carrier. Roberts, IMO should stick to his own committee and the Gestapo like tactics he uses there and butt out of the Judiciary hearings and its' agenda. Not only should they summon National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, but also (as the Democratic members are requesting), Attorney General Gonzales and Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence along with former Attorney General John Ashcroft and ex-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey who is on record as objecting to parts of the spying program. This is critical to the rights of privacy for all Americans and it would seem to me that even Republicans, if they are true patriots as they claim to be, would support the Judiciary hearings.