Boxer Takes Stand To Get Bolton Records

You go, Barbara!

(SF Chronicle) Washington -- Sen. Barbara Boxer of California has erected a roadblock against John Bolton, President Bush's embattled nominee for U.N. ambassador, in a fight with the administration over access to documents.

Boxer said Friday she would lift her hold on the nomination if the administration provided the additional information she was seeking. Boxer took her action to slow Bolton's nomination after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday sent Bolton's name to the full Senate without a recommendation.

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Boxer and the other Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the Bush administration had failed to turn over documents in three areas: notes and drafts of a Bolton speech on Syria's military capabilities, private business records of Bolton's assistant Mathew Friedman and information from the National Security Agency and other spy services about whether Bolton tried to get the names of American officials whose communications were intercepted.

"These records may show something, or nothing,'' Boxer said.

Boxer said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the White House have promised complete cooperation with the committee, but so far they haven't delivered.