The money quote is, “As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton have just made a specific allegation of a crime, obstructing a federal investigation.

There are people in the Bush Administration, and among the professional staff in the intelligence agencies, who