Senate Committee Passes Bill to Monitor Contacts between White House and Justice DepartmentIf 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.
During questioning of Alberto Gonzales this spring, Whitehouse revealed that the Bush White House had thrown the door open to literally hundreds of White House officials being able to confer with Department officials about cases. A memo signed by John Ashcroft had initially opened the door. But a May, 2006 memo by Gonzales had exacerbated the problem and seemed to take special care in ensuring access for Cheney’s staff. Gonzales, under questioning, was characteristically befuddled by the document that he’d signed: “I’d have to go back and look at this…. I must say I’m troubled by this.”
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.
Earlier this year, a law overturning a measure that had allowed the attorney general to indefinitely appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation passed both houses and was signed by Bush.