Bush administration investigations

There have been a number of investigations regarding the George W. Bush administration, some of which are still on-going.

Current

 * Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
 * Medicare Prescription Drug Bill Vote Scandal, 2003
 * Memogate
 * National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9-11 Commission)
 * Valerie Plame
 * Weapons of mass destruction investigation

Previous

 * Paul O'Neill

-- Alexander Bolton, in his March 25, 2004, "Dem complaints pay off with nine probes. New tactics yield run of high-profile investigations" in The Hill, writes that "At least nine high-profile investigations have been triggered in the wake of a flood of Democratic demands targeting the heretofore scandal-free Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. ... They range from an inquiry on the cost of the new Medicare law to multiple probes on the alleged failure of intelligence in monitoring Iraq's weapons programs."


 * 1: Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Dara Corrigan is "looking into whether Bush administration officials committed wrongdoing by withholding from Congress key data about the cost of the Medicare bill."
 * 2: The General Accounting Office (GAO) is "investigating the legality of White House video news releases touting Medicare's new prescription-drug benefit."
 * 3: "Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) and Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) alerted U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft of two federal criminal [statutes] they say Bush administration officials broke during congressional consideration of the Medicare bill." (March 24, 2004).
 * 4: The "House and Senate intelligence committees, along with an independent commission chaired by former Sen. Charles Robb (D-Va.) and Judge Laurence Silberman, are investigating the accuracy of prewar Iraqi intelligence."
 * 5: "Last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to expand the investigation of prewar intelligence to include scrutiny of how policymakers used that data to justify the year-ago invasion."

"These three investigations of prewar intelligence on Iraq coincide with four other inquiries that the executive branch is conducting on possible intelligence failures prior to the U.S. invasion. They are being conducted by the CIA Iraq Survey Group, a CIA internal review team, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a U.S. Army investigative team."


 * 6: "In addition, after steady demands from angry Democrats for a special prosecutor, Ashcroft gave in and named U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate who told columnist Robert Novak, among other journalists, that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA officer."


 * 7: "Congress recently extended by 60 days the reporting deadline for a special commission investigating intelligence failures prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."


 * 8: "On Capitol Hill, the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee voted last week to undertake a formal probe of bribery allegations connected to the narrow passage of the Medicare bill in November. The ethics committee made public its efforts to investigate the bribery charges after House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) sent a letter to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insisting the panel take action. ... The Justice Department is also looking into the bribery allegations, which Democrats routinely highlighted in the weeks following the Medicare vote."


 * 9: "Earlier this month, as a result of Democratic pressure, six members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Justice requesting that a prosecutor consider a criminal investigation into how GOP aides obtained internal Democratic documents from a computer and whether they then leaked the documents."

Additionally, Henry A. Waxman "has demanded details of how Halliburton, a company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, won no-bid contracts to provide a variety of services in occupied Iraq. He has also asked the GAO to investigate the meetings of a Cheney-led task force on energy policy, an issue that is scheduled to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. ... Waxman has also asked the Justice Department to investigate 'repeated discussions' Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, had with the executives of companies in which he had substantial investments."