Hightower Lowdown

Early this year, Representative Maurice Hinchey asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to examine who in the department has actually authorized Bush's domestic spy program and why. We now know that top-ranking officials at Justice had refused the White House request for them to rubber-stamp such obviously illegal spying. So... who signed the authorization?

It was a straightforward and important question. "We are not asking for top-secret information," Hinchey noted. Yet only four months after beginning its probe, the OPR sent a fax to Hinchey saying that it was abruptly closing the inquiry.

Why? Because unnamed lawyers from higher up had ruled that OPR's investigators could not have security clearances for questioning any aspect of the spy program. "Without these clearances," wrote an OPR official, "we cannot investigate this matter."

In short, the very Bushites who excused themselves from obeying the law and the Constitution have now excused themselves from answering any questions about it. Hinchey's number is 202-225-6335.