Here is part of Sen. Patrick Leahy hard hitting statement today regarding the hearing on “Preserving Prosecutorial Independence" and the implication's of Shrub's administration stonewalling and hiding behind "executive privilege". There is a storm brewing folks, which will end up in the courts - though I imagine the outcome will be ultimately tried in the court of public opinion. The sentence will be history remembering Shrub's administration as the most secretive and paranoid in United States history; even more than NIxon's. I hope the Senate Judiciary Committee will be relentless and aggressive in their search for the truth.
:kick:
You can run, but you can't hide! Joe Lewis<snip>
The White House continues to try to have it both ways, but at the end of the day it cannot. It cannot block Congress from obtaining the relevant evidence and credibly assert that nothing improper occurred. What is the White House hiding? Was the President involved and were his earlier statements to the American people therefore misleading? Or is this simply an effort by the White House legal team to protect White House political operatives whose partisan efforts have been uncovered in a new set of White House horrors?
For months, I have been giving the White House every opportunity to work with us voluntarily to provide the information we have sought. This week, the White House ignored an opportunity to meet its burden of explaining its blanket privilege claims. Specifically, what is it the White House is so intent on hiding that they cannot even identify the documents, the dates, the authors and recipients that they claim are privileged? Would we see the early and consistent involvement of Ms. Taylor and other high-ranking White House political operatives in what should be independent and neutral law enforcement decisions? Ms. Taylor’s honest testimony could help us begin to answer these questions. It is apparent that this White House is contemptuous of the Congress and feels that it does not have to explain itself to anyone -- not to the people’s representatives in Congress, nor to the American people. I urge Ms. Taylor not to follow the White House down this path.
This is a serious matter with serious consequences for the administration of justice. This is about improper political influence of our justice system – it is about the White House manipulating the Justice Department into its own political arm. It is about manipulating our justice system to pursue a partisan political agenda. It is about pressuring prosecutors to bring cases of voter fraud to try to influence elections – of sending a partisan operative like Bradley Schlozman to Missouri to file charges on the eve of an election in violation of Justice Department guidelines. It is about the unprecedented and improper reach of politics into the Department’s professional ranks – such as the admission by the Department’s White House Liaison Monica Goodling that she improperly screened career employees for political loyalty and wielded undue political influence over key law enforcement decisions and policies. It is about political operatives pressuring prosecutors to bring partisan cases and seeking retribution against those who refuse to bend to their political will -- such as the example of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired a few weeks after Karl Rove complained to the Attorney General about the lack of purported “voter fraud” enforcement cases in Mr. Iglesias’ jurisdiction. It is about high-ranking officials misleading Congress and the American people about this political manipulation of justice.
Along the way, this subversion of the justice system has included lying, misleading and stonewalling the Congress in our attempts to find out what happened. This Administration has instituted an abusive policy of secrecy aimed at protecting themselves from embarrassment and accountability. Apparently the President and Vice President feel they, and their staff, are above the law. In America no one is above the law.
complete statement here:
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200707/071107.html
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