Q On the August 6th memo or analysis report that the President received, is the reason that he doesn't want to release that to congressional investigators is that that he fears that Democrats will use the other secret contents of that report for political purposes, in an attempt to embarrass him?
MR. FLEISCHER: David, I don't really think it's anything, per se, about that memo, in and of itself, on the 6th as much as it is the overall principle about the President's daily brief, which is shared with such an extraordinarily small number of people who are in a need-to-know situation, a need-to-know position, so they can use that information to protect the country, to prevent the next possible attack.
I think that's what the President is concerned with. He's also concerned with the fact that if the presidential daily brief, which is a highly sensitized -- the most highly sensitized classified document in the government -- if that document were to be at risk of public reporting, public release, the people who prepare it will hold back and not give the President of the United States, the person who needs most of the -- the most information, they will be inclined to give him less, rather than more, because they fear it will get made public and that could compromise sources or methods.
Q If I can just follow up. Are there negotiations underway now that would allow the intelligence committees to review that report secretly or --
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't think so. I'm not aware of any, David. Because the administration has strong thoughts about the presidential daily brief which have been conveyed --
Q If it gets --
MR. FLEISCHER: We'll continue to talk to Congress. I mean, this is an ongoing process and we're going to make this a process where we work well together. The nation deserves that Congress and the presidency to work well together on this type of investigation.
Q If it's subpoenaed -- if it's subpoenaed, will the President refuse to turn it over?
MR. FLEISCHER: David, that's a hypothetical that I really don't think Congress is going to put themselves in the middle of.
President's National Brief Controversy
The analysts...
provided President Bush with the August 6, 2001 PDB (President's Daily Briefing) including the warning that Bin Laden planned to attack the U.S., and mentioned hijacked airplanes as one possibility (apparently not as suicide missiles, but the more traditional skyjack style).
What did the President do with that warning?
Did anything happen? None of his senior aides were present at the August 6 briefing, which took place at the ranch in Crawford, Texas... From a distance, it looks as if the warning came but they all were on vacation.
Washington, D.C(04-08)
The most contentious moments of today's nationally televised hearing of the commission investigating the September 11th terrorist attacks focused on the controversial secret intelligence briefing received by President Bush on August 6, 2001 - a top-level document called the President's Daily Brief. Commission members Bob Kerrey, Richard Ben-Veniste and Timothy Roemer each asked national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to declassify the document, and each time she ducked the direct question, telling Mr. Roemer that "I think you know the sensitivity of presidential decision memoranda."
excerpt from today's testimony
mirror of excerpt from today's testimony
"...the direct quotes from the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief read into the record today, both by commission members and by Dr. Rice, point to an underlying reality - that the Brief could be declassified and released publicly simply by blacking out the sources-and-methods information."
The complete story of
The President's Daily Brief Coverup
by Thomas S. Blanton was just realeased today at the National Security Archive