Contempt Of Congress

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http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport

Contempt Of Congress

This week, the showdown between the White House and Congress over the improper firing last year of nine U.S. attorneys is set to come to a head. At the center of the dispute are subpoenas issued last month by both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for the testimony of two former White House aides, Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers, as well as documents related to their involvement in the firing process. Last month, the White House invoked executive privilege to block the release of the documents. Today, President Bush is due to provide "a detailed justification of his executive privilege claims and a full accounting of the documents he is withholding." But the White House has signaled it will defy the order, with counsel Fred Fielding expected to tell "lawmakers that he has already provided the legal basis for the claims and will not provide a log" of the requested documents. Taylor, an ex-aide to Karl Rove who served as White House political director, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, but her lawyer has said that though she is willing to testify, the White House is urging her to ignore the subpoena. This morning, Bush invoked executive privilege to block Taylor and Miers from providing testimony. Bush's defiance of the subpoenas may lead Congress "to seek criminal contempt citations against the White House," which would bring the battle over separation of powers into the court system, leading to what could be an unprecedented constitutional struggle, as "no president has mounted a court fight to keep his aides from testifying on Capitol Hill."

CONGRESS CONSIDERING HOLDING WHITE HOUSE IN CONTEMPT: On June 29, after the White House invoked executive privilege, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the respective chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, sent a letter to Fielding demanding the details of "which documents, and which parts of those documents, are covered by any privilege" that the administration may invoke. The requested records log, "according to the committees, should describe each document withheld, including its source, subject matter, date and recipients." Though Leahy and Conyers note that "such privilege logs have been provided by the White House in previous Administrations," and that the Justice Department has already provided similar logs, the White House is balking, viewing "the request as a backdoor attempt to get sensitive information about deliberations." If Fielding refuses to provide the logs today, as is expected, the committees will "move to proceedings to rule on claims and consider whether the White House is in contempt of Congress," according to the letter. "We're going to pursue our legal remedies to press forward with the subpoenas," Conyers said yesterday on ABC's This Week.

BUSH BLOCKING AIDES' TESTIMONY: On Saturday, W. Neil Eggleston, the attorney for Sara Taylor, sent a letter to Leahy, writing that "Ms. Taylor expects to receive a letter from Fielding on behalf of the President directing her to not comply with the Senate's subpoena." In his letter, Eggleston claimed that "Taylor would testify without hesitation," but that she "faces two untenable choices": follow the President's wishes and be held in contempt of Congress or work with the Senate and risk alienating the President, "a person whom she admires and for whom she has worked tirelessly for years." Reacting to the letter, Leahy said, "The White House continues to try to have it both ways -- to block Congress from talking with witnesses and accessing documents and other evidence while saying nothing improper occurred." Taylor's testimony to Congress would be an important step in the investigation of why nine U.S. attorneys were singled out for firing last year, as she was one of the main contacts between the White House and the Department of Justice during the deliberations over the purge.

TAYLOR WAS DEEPLY INVOLVED IN FIRINGS: Taylor, who stepped down from her position at the White House in May, is reported to have been intimately involved in the firing process, especially the replacement of former Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins with former Rove-protege Tim Griffin. According to Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Taylor put "pressure" on the Department of Justice to bypass the Senate and install Griffin as the U.S. Attorney in Arkansas. Additionally, Taylor had a direct role in misleading the Senate about White House's actions when she signed off on a January 2007 letter to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) claiming that "that 'not once' had the Bush 'administration sought to avoid the Senate confirmation process' by exploiting the Patriot Act." After Cummins suggested publicly that the White House orchestrated his ouster, rather than the Justice Department, Taylor led the charge behind the scenes to attack and discredit him. In a February 2007 e-mail to Sampson, Taylor wrote that though she doesn't "like attacking" her friends, they should "tell the deal" on Cummins. In another e-mail, Taylor called Cummins "lazy," implying that he had been fired for performance-related issues -- the charge that first led the ousted U.S. attorneys to speak publicly about their dismissals.

sues -- the charge that first led the ousted U.S. attorneys to speak publicly about their dismissals.

UNDER THE RADAR

ADMINISTRATION -- ROVE: 'I MAKE NO APOLOGIES' FOR ANY OF ADMINISTRATION'S BLUNDERS: This weekend at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Karl Rove spoke at length about his involvement in a series of key administration blunders related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rove grossly distorted the conditions at Guantanamo Bay prison, claiming, "Our principal health problem down there is gain of weight, we feed them so well." In fact, Guantanamo prisoners are facing a mental health crisis, with over 40 suicide attempts, including one suicide in May. Some have been treated by "experts in treating torture victims." Rove fearmongered that 80-90 percent of violence in Iraq is due to al Qaeda. In fact, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell noted earlier in the Aspen conference, only 10 percent of violence in Iraq is due to al Qaeda. Rove also argued that "we all thought had weapons of mass destruction. The whole world did." But U.N.weapons inspectors and prominent members of the international community strongly disagreed with this assessment before the invasion. Downplaying his role in the CIA leak scandal, Rove said, "My contribution to this was to say to a reporter, which is a lesson about talking to reporters, the words 'I heard that, too.'" In fact, Rove may have intentionally leaked Valerie Plame's identity, writing in an e-mail to a reporter that " Wilson's wife...works at the agency on wmd ." One reporter said his conversation with Rove was the first time he heard anything about Plame. Subsequently, Rove partook in an "an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson." Nonetheless, Rove remains confident today. "Look, I make no apologies," he said.

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