House Dems file contempt motion in court

House Judiciary Committee lawyers declared that the White House and Congress are at a “constitutional impasse” in a legal motion filed Thursday in federal court aimed at forcing former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to testify before the panel.

The Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to Miers and Bolten for testimony and documents in its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

The House approved a contempt motion against Bolten and Miers after White House Counsel Fred Fielding claimed a broad executive privilege against compliance with the subpoenas.

In the filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the House Judiciary Committee is seeking a “partial summary judgment” against Miers and Bolten.

The lawyers compared the Bush administration's refusal to cooperate with the panel’s probe to President Nixon’s attempts to stonewall inquiries into the Watergate scandal.

"Not since the days of Watergate have the Congress and the federal courts been confronted with such an expansive view of executive privilege as the one asserted by the current presidential administration and the individual defendants in this case," House General Counsel Irvin Nathan and other House lawyers wrote in their lengthy motion.