went to the press with it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/politics/21panel.html?hp July 21, 2004
G.O.P. Blames Clinton for Intelligence Failures
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, July 20 - The political haggling over the conclusions of the Sept. 11 commission began in earnest on Tuesday, with the leaders of the commission traveling to Capitol Hill for the first of a series of private briefings for members of Congress about the panel's final report.
After their briefing, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and other House Republican leaders held a news conference at which they suggested that the report, which is scheduled to be made public on Thursday, would show that intelligence and law enforcement failures before the Sept. 11 attacks were more the responsibility of the Clinton administration than of the Bush administration.
"The report covers eight years of the Clinton administration and eight months of the Bush administration," Mr. Hastert said, insisting at the same time that he did not want to see the report turned into a "political football" during an election year.
<snip>
Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, said that "clearly eight months of the Bush administration was not going to change all of the policies and procedures of eight years of the Clinton administration."
<snip>