The Unbearable Sweetness of Oversight!
Well, it’s a good day for the red, white and BLUE.
Special counsel for Fredo, contempt citations for Josh and Harriet, subpoena for Karl — and, cherry on the cake, scrutiny of John and Sam.
Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!!
Jude
House Panel Backs Citing Bush Aides for Contempt
Dan Eggen and Paul Kane, Washington Post
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The House Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to issue contempt citations for two of President Bush’s closest aides, moving nearer to a constitutional confrontation with the White House over access to information about the Justice Department’s dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.
The panel voted 22 to 17, along party lines, to issue citations to Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, former White House counsel. Both refused to comply with committee subpoenas after Bush declared that documents and testimony related to the prosecutor firings are protected by executive privilege.
“If we countenance a process where our subpoenas can be readily ignored, where a witness under a duly authorized subpoena doesn’t even have to bother to show up . . . then we have already lost,” committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said before the vote. “We won’t be able to get anybody in front of this committee or any other.”
The vote represents the first concrete step toward finding Bolten and Miers in criminal contempt of Congress. The issue will next be considered by the entire House, and if a similar vote occurs there, the citations could be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. But a floor vote appears unlikely before the end of next week, when the House recesses for a five-week summer break.
“Congress will act to preserve and protect our criminal justice system and to ensure appropriate Congressional oversight in all areas essential to the well-being of the American people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement. She added that she hopes the vote will “help the Administration see the light” on its privilege claims.
Contempt of Congress is a federal misdemeanor, punishable by as much as one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Previous contempt votes against officials in other administrations were settled by compromise, but officials on both sides have warned that resolution may be elusive in this dispute.
A Pelosi aide confirmed that a floor vote is unlikely until after Labor Day, giving Congress and White House counsel Fred F. Fielding another month and a half to negotiate a settlement of the legal standoff.
The Bush administration has said that it will block the prosecution of any contempt charges. A presidentially appointed U.S. attorney, it said, cannot flout a president’s determination that the materials and testimony sought are protected.
White House spokesman Tony Snow responded in strong terms: “Now we have a situation where there is an attempt to do something that’s never been done in American history, which is to assail the concept of executive privilege, which hails back to the administration of George Washington and, in particular, to use criminal contempt charges against the White House chief of staff and the White House legal counsel,” he said.
Miers’s attorney, George T. Manning of Atlanta, did not respond to a telephone message left at his office yesterday.
Republicans on the panel argued strongly against the contempt citations, and Democrats shot down two proposed GOP amendments before voting. “I believe this is an unnecessary provocation,” Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) said. “Absent showing that a crime was committed . . . I think the White House is going to win an argument in court.”
Sensenbrenner, the judiciary panel’s former chairman, said lawmakers should instead have filed a lawsuit challenging Bush’s executive privilege claim. But Conyers said the administration had provoked the battle by offering only private, off-the-record interviews of presidential adviser Karl Rove and other aides about their roles in the removal of the prosecutors.
House Republicans are anticipating a September floor showdown and plan to brief members next week on the contempt process and the current dispute.
Yesterday’s action came after seven months of hearings and subpoenas in the investigation of last year’s prosecutor firings. The dismissals culminated a two-year effort by the White House and the Justice Department that targeted some U.S. attorneys for removal partly because of their perceived disloyalty to the Bush administration and GOP priorities.
Several of the fired prosecutors have alleged that they were improperly contacted by GOP lawmakers or staff members about politically sensitive investigations.
Democrats say that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others have offered no reasonable explanation for removal of most of the nine prosecutors.
More than half a dozen senior Justice Department officials have resigned during the investigation. ++
FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales
LAURIE KELLMAN and LARA JAKES JORDAN, AP vis Huffwire
July 26, 2007
WASHINGTON — The head of the FBI contradicted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ sworn testimony and Senate Democrats requested a perjury investigation Thursday in a fresh barrage against President Bush’s embattled longtime friend and aide.
In a third blow to the Bush administration, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to compel the testimony of Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political adviser, in connection with its investigation.
“It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements,” four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement calling for a special counsel to investigate.
“I’m convinced that he’s not telling the truth,” added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The developments marked a troubling turn for Gonzales as well as the administration, which has been on the political defensive since congressional Democrats launched an investigation seven months ago into the firings of U.S. attorneys.
That probe revealed information that Democrats have sought to weave into a pattern of improper political influence over prosecutions, of stonewalling and of deceit in sworn testimony before Congress.
The White House defiantly stuck by Gonzales and denied that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller had contradicted the attorney general. Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Gonzales and Mueller can make only limited comments in public about the classified program.
“This is the latest in a long line of artful distortions by people who have spent the last six months hurling allegations at the attorney general,” Snow said. “It is inappropriate and unfair to ask people to testify in public settings about highly classified programs.”
“The president meanwhile maintains full confidence in the attorney general,” he added.
Democrats insisted that Gonzales had been untruthful and that the White House had encouraged top aides to flout congressional subpoenas in the U.S. attorney probe.
But Gonzales took the toughest hits Thursday, when four Senate Democrats issued a list of examples of what they said was the attorney general lying to Congress under oath - the basis for their request to Clement to appoint a special counsel to investigate.
Among the Democrats’ examples of Gonzales’ untruthfulness was his emphatic and repeated statement to the Judiciary Committee Tuesday that his dramatic nighttime visit to the bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 was not related to an internal administration dispute about the president’s secret warrantless eavesdropping program.
Last year, Gonzales told the panel that there had been no internal administration dispute about the program, but former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the panel that he, Ashcroft and Mueller were among the top Justice Department officials who believed the program was illegal and were prepared to resign over it.
In his own sworn testimony Thursday, Mueller contradicted Gonzales, saying under questioning that the terrorist surveillance program (TSP) was the topic of the hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials.
Mueller was not in the hospital room at the time of the dramatic March 10, 2004, confrontation between Ashcroft and presidential advisers Andy Card and Gonzales, who was then serving as White House counsel. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee he arrived shortly after they left, and then spoke with the ailing Ashcroft.
“Did you have an understanding that the discussion was on TSP?” asked Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, in a round of questioning that may have sounded to listeners like bureaucratic alphabet soup.
“I had an understanding the discussion was on a NSA program, yes,” Mueller answered.
Jackson Lee sought to clarify: “We use ‘TSP,’ we use ‘warrantless wiretapping,’ so would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?”
“The discussion was on a national NSA program that has been much discussed, yes,” Mueller responded.
The NSA, or National Security Agency, runs the program that eavesdropped on terror suspects in the United States, without court approval, until last January, when the program was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Other examples of what Sen. Charles Schumer called Gonzales’ “lying” that merited a probe by a special prosecutor included the attorney general’s sworn testimony that he had not spoken about the firings with other witnesses because the matter was under investigation.
His former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, testified under a grant of immunity that Gonzales had privately recounted his recollections of the firings and asked for her opinion on his version.
“There’s no wiggle room,” Schumer said. “Those are not misleading. Those are deceiving. Those are lying.”
Not signing the letter to Clement was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who instead sent a letter to Gonzales Thursday giving him a week to resolve any inconsistencies in his testimony.
“The burden is on him to clear up the contradictions,” Leahy said.
Ranking Republican Arlen Specter, R-Pa., agreed, calling the call for a special counsel premature, and he took particular aim at Schumer, who has led the probe into the firing.
“Senator Schumer’s not interested in looking at the record, he’s interested in throwing down the gauntlet and making a story in tomorrow’s newspapers,” Specter said.
Meanwhile, Leahy subpoenaed Karl Rove, the architect of Bush’s rise to the White House and his top political adviser, to provide testimony and documents related to the firings by Aug. 2. Also subpoenaed is a White House political aide, J. Scott Jennings. The Justice Department included both men on e-mails about the firings and the administration’s response to the congressional investigation.
White House Counsel Fred Fielding has consistently said that top presidential aides _ present and past - are immune from subpoenas and has declared the documents sought off-limits under executive privilege.
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a contempt citation against two other Bush confidants, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. The full House is expected to vote on the citation in the fall, but the Justice Department has said it won’t prosecute the two. ++
Associated Press Writers Ben Feller in Washington and Brendan Riley in Carson City, Nev., contributed to this story.
Specter to probe Supreme Court decisions
Carrie Budoff, Politico
July 25, 2007
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.
Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate.
“There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it,” Specter said, singling out Roberts.
The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP and future nominees because Democrats are increasingly complaining that the Supreme Court moved quicker and more dramatically than advertised to overturn or chip away at prior decisions.
Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who served as chairman during the hearings, said he wants to examine whether Roberts and Alito have “lived up” to their assurances that they would respect legal precedents.
Judicial independence is “so important,” Specter said, but an examination could help with future nominations. “I have done a lot of analyzing and have come to the conclusion that these nominees answer just as many questions as they have to.”
Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), a Judiciary Committee member who voted against both nominees, said a review “could lead us to have a different approach.” He said senators need to be “more probing” with their questioning of nominees.
“Certainly Justice Roberts left a distinct impression of his service as chief justice. And his performance on the court since, I think, has been in conflict with many of the statements he has made privately, as well as to the committee,” said Durbin, who was unaware of Specter’s idea.
“They are off to a very disturbing start, these two new justices. I am afraid before long they will call into question some of the most established laws and precedents in our nation.”
The idea for a review came to Specter when he said he ran into Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.
Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, drew attention last month for suggesting that Roberts and the conservative majority were flouting stare decisis, the legal doctrine that, for the sake of stability, courts should generally leave past decisions undisturbed.
“It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much,” Breyer said, reading his dissent from the bench to a 5-4 ruling that overturned school desegregation policies in two cities.
Roberts has defended his rulings as applications of “existing precedent.”
Specter, however, said Breyer’s statement was “an especially forceful criticism of the Roberts court.”
“I only noticed it in a couple of cases,” Specter said of the court overturning or undermining precedents. But Breyer, in their Aspen conversation, said “there were eight.”
Those that have earned the most criticism from liberals were rulings that struck down desegregation programs, upheld a federal law prohibiting late-term abortions and weakened restrictions on broadcast ads during campaigns.
“The reality is, although John Roberts and Samuel Alito promised to follow precedent, they either explicitly or implicitly overruled precedent,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor.
“It is important to point out how the confirmation hearings were a sham. There is nothing you can do about it now; they are there for life. But it is important as we look to future hearings.”
Conservatives such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a Judiciary Committee member, have no complaints. “I don’t have any concerns about them whatsoever,” Sessions said of Alito and Roberts.
Like other Republicans and many Democrats, Specter grilled the nominees on their approach to precedent, often as a way to discern their thoughts on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling establishing abortion rights.
And Specter repeatedly sought assurances that Roberts and Alito would respect what the senator considered settled law.
Roberts said there would be instances that called for a reconsideration of prior decisions. But, he added, “I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent. Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness.”
Alito called stare decisis “a very important doctrine,” although it was not an “inexorable command.”
“I agree that, in every case in which there is a prior precedent, the first issue is the issue of stare decisis,” Alito said. “And the presumption is that the court will follow its prior precedents. There needs to be a special justification for overruling a prior precedent.”
Before voting to confirm Roberts and Alito, Specter cited their statements on precedent as reason enough to put them on the high court.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said at the time that he, too, found Roberts’ statements “reassuring” and voted to confirm him. He voted against Alito.
“Oh, sure,” Lieberman said Tuesday when asked whether he is concerned about the court’s treatment of precedent. “I am interested in what Arlen has to say.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the testimony from Roberts and Alito was misleading in light of their rulings.
“I very much got the idea, the strong chain of reasoning, that they had great respect for stare decisis and they didn’t want to be activist judges,” said Feinstein, who voted against both nominees. “As you know, some of these latest cases have pretty much shattered precedent.”
A review could put “judges on notice that they can’t come in front of the Judiciary Committee, say one thing and leave one impression, and then go out and do another,” she added.
Specter, who said he will do the review when he “gets a spare moment,” would not go as far as Feinstein on whether he feels misled.
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Specter said. ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Add comment July 26th, 2007