White House irks Lieberman over Hood info - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

White House irks Lieberman over Hood info

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate oversight committee chided the Obama administration Tuesday for not providing information to U.S. lawmakers probing the Fort Hood killings.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, said his Homeland Security panel still has not received the personnel file of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged in the Nov. 5 shooting spree that left 13 people dead at a Texas military base.

Lieberman and other committee members met behind closed doors with Pentagon officials to discuss the military's procedures for collecting and sharing information about U.S. service members who might be a threat to others.

The briefing could have been open, Lieberman said, but the Defense Department refused to testify in public.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department is following normal procedures when Congress has an interest in a subject related to a criminal investigation. But providing Hasan's personnel file is prohibited by privacy laws, he said.