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Pelosi Bypasses Hastings on Intel
Bowing to public concerns about the ethical tone she was setting, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Rep. Alcee Hastings today that she would not name him chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Hastings, in an interview, said Pelosi did not indicate who she would select to head the sensitive panel, which oversees the nation’s intelligence community.
Pelosi has not chosen Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who is the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel.
Hastings, who was next in line after Harman, has been the focus of editorials criticizing his possible selection because of his impeachment and removal from the federal bench in the late 1980s on a bribery conspiracy charge.
Hastings and his supporters had argued that his impeachment came despite his acquittal on criminal charges. And he noted he has served on the secretive panel for seven years.
“You win some; you lose some; and some you get rained out,” Hastings said in the interview.
Hastings met with Pelosi for more than an hour today but said he would not disclose details of their conversation.
He acknowledged that the furor over his impeachment was the reason Pelosi would not name him chairman.
Pelosi has been under fire for the past few weeks after bucking her fellow Democrats and urging them to select Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., as House majority leader, despite the fact that he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1970s Abscam case.
Murtha was trounced in the Democratic caucus by Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Hastings said Pelosi’s decision had less to do with the facts in his case than the “negative climate and pressures” surrounding the appointment.
“She is no less subject to those pressures than I am,” Hastings said, adding that the Democratic Party’s future and “this country’s national security are a whole lot more important than I am.”
With Hastings out of the running, and Harman likely out as well, speculation focused on other potential chairmen, including Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, a former Border Patrol official who is third in seniority on the intelligence panel and who has the support of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus; or Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who is also on the committee.
Other potential chairmen being mentioned are Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Both previously served on the panel.
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