Two Senators Subpoena Obama Administration for Info on Fort Hood Shootings
Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have issued the first congressional subpoenasof the Obama administration Monday after accusing the White House of stonewalling requests for information about the Fort Hood shootings.
In a letter sent with the subpoenas, the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the FBI and Defense Department had ignored their requests for five months. The Nov. 5 shootings at the Texas base, the largest Army post in the United States, left 13 people dead.
Lieberman and Collins said they sought witnesses and documents about what the government previously knew about the alleged gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal M. Hasan, and whether it had adequately investigated his pre-shooting communications with Yemeni cleric and suspected terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi.
Lawmakers gave the administration until April 26 to respond or face a committee vote to take the administration to court.
“Given the warning signs of Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s extremist radicalization and growing hostility toward the U.S. military and the United States generally, why was he not stopped before he took thirteen American lives, and how can we prevent such a tragedy from happening again?” Lieberman and Collins wrote Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
