Waxman, Davis slam White House over ‘privilege’ claim

Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Tom Davis (R-Va.) on Tuesday jointly criticized the White House for a “legally unprecedented” and “inappropriate” use of executive privilege in the CIA leak case. 

{mosads}At issue is President Bush’s decision to withhold the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney from the Committee of Oversight and Government Reform. Doing so inhibits the panel’s investigation of the extent of the White House’s involvement in the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Wilson’s identity to the media.

“The president’s assertion of executive privilege over this document was legally unprecedented and an inappropriate use of executive privilege” Waxman, the panel’s chair, and Davis, the ranking Republican, said in a joint report.

Although both lawmakers agree that the president’s action was “inappropriate,” they disagree over whether Bush had the right to invoke executive privilege. Waxman rejects the validity of the assertion while Davis supports the privilege.

Waxman has been attempting to get access to the document since December 2007, and the committee issued a subpoena for it on June 24th 2008.

The Justice Department declared it would “not provide or make available any reports of interviews with the president or the vice president from the leak investigation” in response to the subpoena.

According to the report released Tuesday, Waxman requested a description of the withheld documents from Attorney General Michael Mukasey on August 5 but has not yet received the information.