WASHINGTON -- Congress' in-house Law Library is rebuffing calls from the chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations committees to retract a report on the military-backed coup in Honduras that the chairmen charge is flawed and ``has contributed to the political crisis that still wracks'' the country.

The request, by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., has sparked cries of censorship from Republicans who say the Democrats don't like what the August report said: that the government of Honduras had the authority to remove deposed president Manuel Zelaya from office.

A spokeswoman for the Law Library -- one of six Library of Congress agencies -- said Thursday that the research agency stands by the report and that Librarian of Congress James Billington is preparing a response to the lawmakers.

Zelaya has been holed up at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa for several weeks, and high-ranking U.S. officials were working Thursday to try to broker a resolution.

OBAMA CRITICS

Critics of the Obama administration, which condemned Zelaya's removal, have pointed to the report as evidence that the White House was wrong when it sided with most Latin American countries in calling for Zelaya to be returned.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., charged that ``it was this administration that cut off aid to one of the poorest countries in Latin America and it was this administration that demanded Honduras reinstate a would-be dictator. Attempts like this to attack any critic and silence any opposition are harmful and should stop immediately.''

Republicans amped up their criticism Thursday, asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate the U.S. State Department's role in the crisis in Honduras.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, said Honduran members of Congress told visiting members of Congress that the U.S. ambassador to Honduras was trying to put ``Zelaya cronies'' into government posts.

``There seems to have been a pattern of aggressive involvement by our ambassador to actively try to violate the law and the constitution,'' he said. A spokesman at the state department declined to comment Thursday.

Kerry and Berman maintain the report ``contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States and Honduras.''

CONSTITUTION

The chairmen charge that a key line in the analysis was based on a provision of the Honduran Constitution that was struck down in 2003 and that ``critical portions rely exclusively on a single, outside individual who had previously and publicly declared his support for the coup.''

The report at one point concludes: ``Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system.''

Republicans, who have criticized the Obama administration for not recognizing the de facto Honduran government, accused the chairmen of looking to stifle dissent.

ROS-LEHTINEN VIEW

``They're trying to manipulate the legal division to suit their ideological and partisan views,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, who Wednesday hosted a Capitol Hill briefing with business owners from Honduras who said the turmoil is hurting the country's tourism industry.

``I don't think they'd have any problem with the report if it had concluded that Kerry and Berman's position was the right one.''

Ros-Lehtinen wrote her own letter to the Law Library, saying that the ``assertive request represents a bold and worrisome political intrusion into the institutional independence and professional integrity of the Law Library of Congress and the Library of Congress as a whole.''

Kerry and Berman in their letter to Librarian Billington said that their staff had provided the library with a ``number of written rebuttals from legal experts'' and had met with library personnel ``to detail inaccuracies and omissions in the report and to encourage corrective action.''