Senate Committee Passes Bill to Monitor Contacts between White House and Justice Department

[kpete]

Senate Committee Passes Bill to Monitor Contacts between White House and Justice Department
By Paul Kiel - September 21, 2007, 11:15AM

If Dick Cheney or his right-hand lawyer David Addington are talking to Justice Department officials about individual cases, Congress wants to know about it.

What could be the second law change to emerge from the U.S. attorney firings scandal passed the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), would require the White House and Justice Department to detail in reports to Congress twice a year which Department officials had spoken to which White House officials about cases.

..........

The bill passed the committee by a bipartisan 14-2 margin with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) voting against.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced during yesterday's business meeting that attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey had told him that he'd fire Department officials who spoke to people in the White House about cases without his say-so.


http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004251.php

[Retired AF Dem]

1. If this became law (I doubt it)

would it be grandfathered to end when we take the WH in 08?

[cali]

2. It will become law

Look at the committee vote; only 2 repukes voted against it. And why would we want it to have it voided in 2008?

[wain]

3. Will we like this law as much

in 2009 when we take back the White House?

[cali]

4. I will.

I don't want the WH, any WH, using the JD as an extension of the current president's personal- not legal- agenda. As I understand it, prior to bushie, communications between the WH and Justice, were limited to only a couple of people in the WH. bush completely changed that, and part of what went so terribly wrong under Gonzo, was the use of Justice as a political arm, with political operatives within the admin, communicating on political issues with JD officials.

[WHAT]

5. sounds good...

k

[L. Coyote]

6. Let's amend that on ther Senate floor to be retroactive to 2001.

Such that, at the least, the names and number of contacts, and cases involved have to be reported, and stiff penalties apply for non-compliance.

End run the subpoena stalling!