Dems subpoena White House over attorney firings scandal

Congressional Democrats yesterday subpoenaed the White House and two former presidential aides as part of the U.S. attorney firings scandal, escalating a clash with political and legal consequences beyond 2008.

{mosads}The Senate and House judiciary committees subpoenaed testimony and documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political affairs director Sara Taylor. The White House was subpoenaed for documents on its involvement in the ouster of federal prosecutors.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate Judiciary chairman, added one more potential name to Democrats’ list. Committee investigations have confirmed that Taylor and her former boss, senior presidential adviser Karl Rove, participated in the firings, Leahy said in a statement.

“Some at the White House may hope to thwart our constitutional oversight efforts by locking the doors and closing the curtains, but we will keep asking until we get to the truth,” Leahy said.

The chairmen set deadlines of June 28 for documents from Taylor and Miers, summoning Taylor to testify on July 11. Miers is ordered to the House on the following day.

“Let me be clear: This subpoena is not a request, it is a demand on behalf of the American people for the White House to make available the documents and individuals we are requesting to help us answer the questions that remain,” Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the House Judiciary chairman, said in a statement.

Democrats built their case for White House subpoenas methodically, maximizing public focus on the ousted prosecutors and steadily leaking new evidence of the purge. Conyers listed five requests for voluntary cooperation in a letter to President Bush’s current counsel, Fred Fielding. Leahy reminded Fielding that he had offered some of the subpoenaed documents in a March offer for off-the-record, un-transcribed interviews that lawmakers from both parties rejected.

After another document release late Tuesday and the failure of a Senate no-confidence vote in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, however, many on and off the Hill saw summonses as the next logical step.

The Senate Judiciary panel’s ranking Republican, Arlen Specter (Pa.), said he believed the subpoenas were appropriate. Still, he vowed to keep negotiating with Fielding for a new offer of documents and testimony to head off the constitutional impasse that could result.

“A confrontation is not in the public interest,” Specter added. “The last one took more than two years. There’s going to be a new president before that would be decided.”

The prospect of such a prolonged investigation may not deter Democrats, who view the nine fired U.S. attorneys as symbols of mismanagement and abuse of power by the Bush administration. Some Republicans have framed the attorneys probe as largely driven by political gamesmanship, directly criticizing Senate Democratic campaigns chief Charles Schumer (N.Y.), while Democrats have framed it as a quest for accountability.

A president ignoring congressional subpoenas is certainly not good politics and certainly won’t play well with the American people,” one House Democratic aide said.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) predicted that the fallout from the investigation would hurt Democrats more than the president and his party.

“One of the reasons why this Congress has such low approval ratings … is because it has no record of accomplishment,” Cornyn said. “One of the reasons it has no record of accomplishment is because the new majority has diverted its attention to these kinds of political sideshows.”

If Taylor, Miers or the White House fails to comply with the summonses, Leahy and Conyers would face the thorniest decision yet in their inquiry: whether to seek a citation for contempt of Congress. Leahy declined to discuss hypothetical scenarios, but a House Judiciary spokeswoman said Conyers would rule nothing out.

“The committee will take any steps necessary to ensure that [compliance with the subpoenas] happens,” the spokeswoman said.
The president’s deputy press secretary, Tony Fratto, said the White House will “review the subpoenas and respond accordingly.”

The White House has been forthcoming in offering documents and interviews, he added. “But it’s clear that Sen. Leahy and Rep. Conyers are more interested in creating a media drama than getting the facts.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former U.S. attorney himself, said any claim of executive privilege in rejecting the subpoena would be difficult to prove. George Washington University law Professor Jonathan Turley agreed, saying the offer of private interviews with administration officials dilutes the White House’s case.

“It would have been far better for the White House to say that aides would not speak in any context to disclose this information,” Turley said in an interview. “Instead the White House adopted this absurd position that it’s willing … so long as there’s not a threat of perjury.”

A professor at the University of Richmond law school, Carl Tobias, agreed that an executive privilege claim would have rough sledding in court. But he still saw an opening to avoid a lengthy court battle if the administration agrees to new concessions.

“The White House and Congress hopefully will be able to reach a reasonable accommodation regarding the testimony, and Senator Specter is working diligently to achieve that goal,” Tobias said. “However, the White House has not yielded much, and if it does no more, I expect Congress will issue contempt citations.”

The summonses arrived less than a day after the administration released e-mails showing Taylor and Miers to be involved more intimately than previously known in the pushback to Democratic critics and media coverage of the firings scandal. Taylor was subpoenaed through her attorney, who was unavailable to comment yesterday. The House subpoena went directly to Miers.