Senate Judiciary Dems push contempt motion

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are pushing forward with a resolution holding the White House in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with their subpoenas for information and testimony related to the firings of several U.S. attorneys.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Tuesday put the contempt resolutions on the committee’s agenda for Thursday’s meeting. The move comes after Leahy issued a ruling last week calling the White House’s claims of executive privilege and immunity “overbroad, unsubstantiated and not legally valid.”

{mosads}The vote could be postponed for a week under Judiciary Committee rules. Leahy, however, has said he wants to consider the criminal contempt resolutions as soon as possible.

The panel issued subpoenas to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House political director Sara M. Taylor in June, and to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and White House Deputy Political Director J. Scott Jennings in late July.

According to Leahy, Bolten produced none of the White House documents compelled by subpoena, and Rove failed to appear before the committee to testify as required by subpoena after the White House claimed that he was immune from testifying.

Taylor and Jennings did appear before the committee for sworn testimony. However, both cited the White House’s claim of executive privilege and declined to answer many of the committee’s questions about their roles in the dismissals of U.S. attorneys.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday the White House’s response to the panel’s subpoenas is long overdue, and she predicted that the committee would pass the contempt resolutions, with a vote in the full Senate coming after the December recess.

“I can’t say that it’s a good holiday card, but this has been percolating for a long time,” she remarked. “The committee has felt like it’s been stiffed by this White House.”

Judiciary Committee Republicans, including Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and John Cornyn (Texas), were skeptical of a Democratic contempt strategy against the White House when asked about the Thursday committee vote.

But other Republicans who were particularly critical of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other Justice Department officials during committee testimony on the U.S. attorney firings earlier this year simply said they needed more time to consider the issue.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he was not aware that the contempt resolutions had been placed on the committee’s Thursday agenda, and added that he needed time to “look at it.”

Conservative GOP Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), who called on Gonzales to resign while questioning him during his testimony, also begged off for now.

“I haven’t even looked at Thursday yet,” he said when asked whether he planned to vote for or against the contempt resolution in committee.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking member of the Judiciary panel, never called on Gonzales to resign. But he said the Justice Department was unable to function while its leadership was embroiled in the controversy, and he harshly questioned several senior Justice Department officials about the U.S. attorney firings.

A spokesman for Specter declined to say how he planned to vote on the contempt citation.

When Leahy issued the ruling last week, Specter did not indicate whether he would support it. He did say, however, that he thought the committee and the White House should come to some accommodation because any contempt citation ultimately would face a lengthy court battle that would likely continue after President Bush has left office.

“Well, the last contempt citation took two years to decide,” he told The Associated Press. “And I have said, in the committee room, that we ought to try to work out a compromise because they’ll never get anything in the tenure of this administration through compulsion in the courts.”

During negotiations with the White House, Specter supported the committee’s right to issue the subpoenas and rejected a White House offer to allow top aides to testify behind closed doors. The White House said it would allow the testimony only if there was no written transcript — a proposal Specter flatly rejected.

Meanwhile, House Democrats already have moved forward with contempt charges against the White House. In early November, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) readied a contempt-of-Congress citation against the White House for failing to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony from Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. Conyers filed the contempt resolution with the clerk of the House in a move intended to give the administration one last chance to comply with the subpoenas.

The House contempt vote had been scheduled for late November but then was put off until mid-December, according to House Democratic aides.

If Democrats pass the measure and the White House continues to assert executive privilege to deny the access, a constitutional showdown between the two branches eventually could reach the Supreme Court.

Manu Raju contributed to this report.