Ex-FEMA Head Wants 'All Facts' Public

Michael Brown Ready To Reveal Katrina Correspondence With Bush

(CBS/AP) 
Contacted Wednesday, he referred questions about the letter to Lester. The lawyer described his client as "between a rock and a hard place" between the administration's reluctance to disclose certain high-level communications and Congress' right to demand it.

"Mr. Brown is going to testify before Congress. If he receives no guidance to the contrary, we'll do as any citizen should do, and that is to answer all questions fully, completely and accurately," Lester said.

The letter set a 5 p.m. EST deadline Wednesday for the White House to reply to Brown. That passed without a response, Lester said.

Some administration officials have refused interviews by Senate investigators or have declined to answer even seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House.

The leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have accused the White House of crippling their inquiry after FEMA lawyers prohibited Brown from responding to some questions during a Jan. 23 staff interview.

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., did not have an immediate response to Brown's letter.

At that interview, Brown told investigators he was aware of management problems at the agency that were highlighted in a consultant's report months before Katrina. He attributed some of the problems to the agency's merger with the Homeland Security Department in 2003.

"What I wish I had done was, frankly, just either quit earlier or whatever and gone to certain friends that I can't talk about and said we got to fix this, I mean, what's going on is nuts," Brown said, according to a Senate transcript of the meeting.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office found the government still lacks sufficient plans and training programs to prepare for catastrophic disasters. But it also singled out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in several shortcomings.

The report, which marks the first congressional conclusions about the much-criticized federal response to Katrina, offered a harsh assessment of the government's preparations and reaction to catastrophic disasters.