Senator Leahy by Philip Baruth

Author:Philip Baruth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of New England

And so began a month of substantive, intense—and often fantastically strained—negotiations. Howell did far more than merely serve as Leahy’s point person on the overall legislation; she also coordinated and integrated the work product of the several other committees charged with polishing smaller pieces within their own bailiwicks, such as the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, tasked with addressing terrorist money laundering.

Each day, teams of negotiators worked around a huge conference table in the Senate Judiciary Hearing Room, Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building—so many teams from so many agencies and departments that Howell occasionally lost track of who was in the room, arguing for or against which provision.

Leahy would stop by the hearing room as often as his schedule allowed, but Howell would brief him at length each evening, without fail, either in his official offices or sometimes in his hideaway office in the Capitol.63

It was a grueling process, reformulating some of the most complex and arcane procedures in American jurisprudence. Outside Room 226, though, another set of negotiations was being conducted in the klieg-light court of public opinion, and there, for the first time in a very long time, Leahy found himself substantially handicapped.

His gruff voice and grave demeanor still carried great weight; it wasn’t that. Leahy remained the chair of Judiciary and had the weight of a Senate majority firmly behind him. But his message was clearly not what a frightened nation wanted to hear. His argument was that the situation was epic in its complexity and required time enough for proper, thoughtful action—otherwise we risked a permanent diminishment of our constitutional freedoms. And some risks would have to be accepted in a free society.

The administration, however, was more than happy to simplify. President Bush, in remarks to employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation on September 25, two weeks after the attacks, said, “I see things this way. The people who did this act on America, and who may be planning further acts, are evil people. They don’t represent an ideology, they don’t represent a legitimate political group of people. They’re flat evil. That’s all they can think about, is evil. And as a nation of good folks, we’re going to hunt them down, and we’re going to find them, and we will bring them to justice.”64

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