WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- The chairwoman of a Senate panel has refused a Democratic request to subpoena the White House.
The panel is probing the Bush administration's widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina.
"In my judgment, such subpoenas are neither warranted nor appropriate," wrote Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
Collins's letter was in response to a request from the committee's ranking member, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., in which he told her the administration's failure to allow the production of documents and witnesses "has left the Committee without much of the information it needs to understand and assess the specific roles played by specific (White House) officials and the specific actions taken by the (White House)."
"The Committee would be remiss if it were not to follow up on the multiple questions regarding White House action left unanswered," he concluded.
Calling the committee's investigation "an extraordinary undertaking," and "the most comprehensive" of the three inquiries into the Katrina response, Collins replied that they had "received and analyzed 820,000 pages of documents, formally interviewed more than 325 people, and received hearing testimony from 80 witnesses."
