Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair declared on Wednesday that it was the default position of the intelligence community to keep Congress fully apprised of significant and current operations.
In a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the president's top intelligence official did not directly address recent allegations from some members of the House of Representatives that they were kept in the dark about a covert CIA operation. But he did seem to hint that, in the future, the administration would be cognizant and respectful of the legislative branch's legal responsibility for oversight.
"What I'm finding in my six months in the job is that there are a lot of legacy issues that we have to work our way through as we establish a new relationships with the Congress and this is one of several," Blair said, during the question-and-answer session. "What I think is really important is that we are working with Congress in a new, and I think better, way. I have been very clear with the Congress that we will lean on the side of telling them about things. The statute says we will inform Congress fully and currently of significant intelligence actions and we take a very broad interpretation of that. If there is any doubt in our minds, our default position is 'let's tell the Congress' about this. They are a partner in this. It is going to be better if we all work together."
The remarks add yet another element to what has been, at best, a difficult-to-pin-down approach from Blair on matters of congressional oversight and covert programs. Last week, the DNI Director told the Washington Post that the CIA had acted properly in not briefing the required members of the House leadership on a program that is reported to have been set up to target suspected terrorist leaders in friendly countries.
"It was a judgment call," he said. "We believe in erring on the side of working with the Hill as a partner."
That statement seemed to stand in contrast to the clear intention of Title V of the National Security Act of 1947. And when asked to clarify what he meant by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) in a letter, Blair retreated a bit.
"In my discussion with the Washington Post, I never offered a legal judgment about whether the CIA was required to brief the Congressional oversight committees on this specific program; I merely indicated that whether a particular matter requires notification to the Congress often involves the exercise of judgment," he wrote in response to Feingold's letter.