SAN FRANCISCO - Lawmakers on Friday requested documents from the White House and Pentagon describing how and when the Bush administration learned the circumstances of Pat Tillman’s death.

The House Oversight Committee wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding requesting “all documents received or generated by any official in the Executive Office of the President … that relate to Corporal Tillman.”

A second letter was sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The committee, headed by California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), gave the administration until May 18 to produce the documents.

Tillman, the former NFL star-turned-Army Ranger, was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004.

Although Pentagon investigators determined quickly that he was killed by his own troops, Tillman’s family and the American public were not told the true circumstances of his death for five weeks. Instead, the Army claimed he had been killed by enemy gunfire.

The oversight committee held its first hearing on Tillman’s death earlier this week. Tillman’s family has said they believe the erroneous information peddled by the Pentagon was part of a deliberate cover-up that may have reached all the way to President Bush and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

A White House spokeswoman said this week that Bush did not learn about the unusual circumstances of the Army Ranger’s death until after the soldier’s memorial service on May 3, 2004.