Congress will not investigate whether the President broke the law in authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct a “terrorist surveillance program” in which calls going into and out of the United States are wiretapped without warrants.

On Thursday the Senate Intelligence Committee decided not to hold an investigation into the program, and while the House intelligence committee voted to hold hearings on the program, it decided only to determine what laws might be necessary to ensure that the program is made legal.

House committee Republicans were sharply divided on what the scope of the hearings should be.

Representative Heather A. Wilson, the New Mexico Republican and committee member who called last week for the investigation, said the review “will have multiple avenues, because we want to completely understand the program and move forward.”

But an aide to Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who leads the committee, said the inquiry would be much more limited in scope, focusing on whether federal surveillance laws needed to be changed and not on the eavesdropping program itself. — New York Times

And after a full-court press from the White House, the Senate committee decided not to do anything.

“It is more than apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent days, in recent weeks, to prevent the committee from doing its job,” Senate intelligence committee vice chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said after the panel voted along party lines not to consider his motion for an investigation. — Washington Post

Looks like we’re going to have a whitewash on this one.