Nearly five months after former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias publicly testified to Congress that he was pressured by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to bring indictments against a prominent state Democrat before the 2006 election, the House ethics committee is shuddering to life. Sort of.
Iglesias will be interviewed by House ethics Chairwoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and ranking member Doc Hastings (R-WA) today*, according to The Albuquerque Tribune. But this isn't yet an investigation, the paper cautions -- just an interview which might lead to an investigation. Given that a committee investigation is a rare occurrence (far rarer, of course, than a criminal investigation of a member), watchdogs aren't getting their hopes up. Says CREW's Melanie Sloan, "I haven't seen anything to indicate they're going to do anything serious here."
And there's another reason for pessimism.* Hastings himself has been implicated in similar behavior, via his then-chief of staff. Former U.S. Attorney for John McKay testified in March that Hastings' right-hand aide called him to inquire whether he'd be pursuing allegations of Democratic voter fraud in the 2004 election.
Truthout first reported Iglesias' upcoming appearance Monday.
*Update: Hastings has recused himself and will be replaced by Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL). Also, the interview is tomorrow, not today.
Did Alberto Gonzales lie? Or were his "narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic,... technically correct"?
Yesterday, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, gave an 80-minute briefing to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and a few other senators about the NSA wiretapping program and its history, the first he's ever received, reportsThe Washington Post.
It's unclear whether Specter, who aggressively questioned Gonzales during last week's hearing, was convinced by what he heard. But he's said that he expects a letter from the administration at around noon today on the subject, which will be addressed to both Specter and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and released to the press. We'll bring it to you as soon as it's available.
As The Hillreports, "Tuesday’s letter may hold the key to Gonzales’s future. Specter has so far refrained from joining Democrats’ effort to unseat the attorney general and held off on judging the current flap."
Note: It's really not clear from Specter's statement what this letter is about -- whether noon is an ultimatum set by him, or whether it will serve as the public explanation from the administration for Gonzales' testimony. We'll just have to wait and see.
The Senate Judiciary Committee issued two more subpoenas as part of the U.S. attorney firings investigation today: one for Karl Rove and the other for his deputy, Scott Jennings. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced the subpoenas on the Senate floor.
The question for Rove and Jennings, of course, is whether to take the same course taken by Rove's former aide, Sara Taylor, who appeared before the committee to answer questions that were not covered by executive privilege -- or to take the approach taken by Harriet Miers, who refused to show up at all.
The subpoenas call for Rove and Jennings to show up on August 2nd and also produce documents by that date.
The Justice Department sent a letter yesterday to the House Judiciary Committee that made the administration's position official: a U.S. attorney will not enforce a citation of contempt, should it pass the House.
Or as the letter (you can read it here), sent to the committee yesterday by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski, put it:
"As it considers the contempt resolutions, we think it is important that the Committee appreciate fully the longstanding Department of Justice position, articulated during Administrations of both parties, that "the criminal contempt of Congress statute does not apply to the President or presidential subordinates who assert executive privilege."
That last quote is indeed from a 1995 opinion from Clinton's Justice Department, which The Washington Postreported on this weekend. As the Clinton-era DoJ officials behind that memo told the Post, they didn't think that Congress could force the U.S. attorney to prosecute, but did think that the president's assertion of executive privilege should be heard in court.
Of course, the committee chose to press on with the contempt citation anyway, forcing the issue, and the clash will likely nevertheless land in court.
Note: As we've noted earlier, whatever the DoJ has said about it, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Taylor (or someone in his office if he's forced to recuse himself), will still have to make the ultimate determination as to whether to enforce the contempt citation.
“The contempt proceedings in the House Judiciary Committee today are part of a broader effort by House Democrats to restore our nation’s fundamental system of checks and balances.
"The Constitution gives the Congress a crucial role in overseeing the Executive Branch in order to protect the American people against overreaching, incompetence, and corruption. I am hopeful that today’s vote will help the Administration see the light and release the information to which the Judiciary Committee is entitled.
"For the last six years, under Republican leadership, Congress failed to conduct its proper oversight role, resulting in fiascos such as the mismanagement of our Iraq policy, widespread corruption by contractors such as Halliburton, and the failed response to Hurricane Katrina.
“Congress will act to preserve and protect our criminal justice system and to ensure appropriate Congressional oversight in all areas essential to the well-being of the American people.”
As we noted earlier, the word is that a vote on this in the full House is unlikely before the August recess, pushing it back to September.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) followed up the House vote this morning with a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, saying that he still hoped the two sides could come to an agreement. That letter is below.
The Democrats' case is simple. Former and current White House officials have "absolute immunity" from Congressional subpoenas, according to this administration. And not only can they ignore a subpoena, but if Congress were to try and enforce that subpoena through a citation of criminal contempt, the administration would prohibit the District of Columbia's U.S. attorney from moving forward. That's a contemptible display of executive power, Democrats argue.
But the threat you fear may be worse than the threat you know. Or at least that's what Republicans argued during this morning's debate on whether the House Judiciary Committee ought to cite Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten with contempt. You can see our highlight reel of the back and forth here (Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) lays out the Dems' case towards the end):
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) laid it all out. There is "no evidence" of wrongdoing by the White House in the U.S. attorney firings, he says. And since there's no wrongdoing, it's likely that Congress will lose its battle with the White House in court. And if they lost, he says, future claims of executive privilege by the White House would be much stronger, since they'd be resting on the Supreme Court's decision. And that would "make the presidency in America, a much stronger, imperial office." Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) agreed, saying that Congress was in danger of handing the White House "a blank check."
A bemused John Conyers (D-MI) responded that he was glad that both sides of the aisle agreed on opposing an imperial presidency. "It's a concern that we share," he said, citing Cannon's concern of creating an imperial presidency. "Please, that's the last thing I want to do."
The citation, of course, passed along party lines.
As expected the House Judiciary Committee approved citations of contempt against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in a vote just a few minutes ago. The vote was along party lines, 22-17. We'll have more from the committee's meeting shortly.
The AP reports, citing "a senior Democratic official," that "a vote by the full House would most likely happen after Congress' August recess."
The House Judiciary Committee is meeting now to vote on whether to cite former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten with contempt. The result of the vote isn't cause for much suspense, and neither is the probable Republican reaction, given that committee GOPers have consistently backed the White House in the dispute.
In preparation for the hearing, the committee has produced a 52-page memo (pdf) on the U.S. attorney firings in support of the resolution of contempt. The report lays out the numerous ways that administration officials might have broken the law in carrying out and then covering up the firings. The report goes a long way toward meeting the main quibble from Republicans on the committee, that Congress would be likely to lose a court battle over the assertion of executive privilege if they could not show criminal wrongdoing.
We'll have highlights from the hearing up soon after.
Yet another dispiriting revelation from Alberto Gonzales' hearing today.
During Gonzales' last hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned him about a memo from Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002 that had substantially increased White House officials' access to information about Justice Department cases. Under Clinton, only four White House officials had been authorized to discuss pending criminal investigations or cases with only three top Department officials. Ashcroft's 2002 memo had blown the door off that arrangement, raising the number of officials who could discuss such cases from seven to 447 (417 on the White House side). Under Whitehouse's questioning, Gonzales had professed to have been "concerned about that as White House counsel.”
Apparently not so much.
Whitehouse questioned him today about a May, 2006 memo which Gonzales himself had signed while attorney general. You can see it yourself here.
The memo widened White House access to case information even more and seemed to have been crafted with special attention to enabling the Vice President's staff, specifically his chief of staff and counsel, to have the unambiguous authority to discuss ongoing cases with Department officials. Given Cheney's chief of staff David Addington's extraordinary reach into the Justice Department (and the prosecution of Cheney's former chief of staff), that's cause for a raised eyebrow.
Gonzales seemed to have been taken off guard by Whitehouse's questions:
Whitehouse: "What-on-earth business does the Office of the Vice President have in the internal workings of the Department of Justice with respect to criminal investigations, civil investigations, and ongoing matters?"
Gonzales: "As a general matter, I would say that's a good question."
Alberto Gonzales refused to answer Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) question of whether President Bush had dispatched then-White House chief of staff Alberto Gonzales and chief of staff Andrew Card to make the infamous visit to John Ashcroft's hotel room in March, 2004.
"Did the president ask you to go?" Schumer asked. "We were there on behalf of the President of the United States," was Gonzales' repeated answer. That's "the answer that I can give you," Gonzales said. When Schumer inquired why, Gonzales implied that it might be covered by executive privilege since it related "to activities that existed when I was in the White House."
The Senate Judiciary Committee will review Alberto Gonzales' past statements to determine whether Gonzales lied to the committee in 2006 by saying there had been no internal Justice Department dissent over the legality of the president's Terrorist Surveillance Program (otherwise known as the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program). When confronted by the senators, Gonzales today offered a surprising explanation of his consistency and veracity: he repeatedly suggested there's a different intelligence program, other than the TSP, that Justice Department officials found legally dubious in 2004. If Gonzales is telling the truth, he just disclosed the existence of a previously unknown intelligence program. If not, the embattled attorney general could be in some serious legal jeopardy.
Gonzales's "no-dissent" testimony sought to assure outraged Senators that the Justice Department had complete confidence in the controversial warrantless surveillance program known as the TSP, which was first disclosed by the New York Times in December 2005. But that line was cast into serious doubt by ex-Deputy Attorney General James Comey's May testimony that he thought the TSP was illegal during a stint as acting attorney general in March 2004. Indeed, the top echelon of Justice Department leadership was prepared to resign over the president's decision to continue a surveillance program without Department authorization.
Today, Gonzales did something absolutely unexpected: he said that Comey's doubts were about "other intelligence activities" than the warrantless surveillance program President Bush confirmed in December 2005 -- i.e., the TSP. That's how his 2006 statement that the TSP was uncontroversial could still be correct.
But the senators weren't buying it. And they say that they'll be examining Gonzales' statements closely to see whether the attorney general has perjured himself.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) battered Gonzales about the distinction between the TSP and the "other intelligence activities" Gonzales alleges existed. Schumer pointed out that in a June press conference, Gonzales confirmed that Comey was in fact talking about the "highly classified program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago" -- that is, the TSP. But Gonzales said at the hearing that shortly thereafter, he contacted Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen to retract the statement -- and then he stuck to his line about there being "other intelligence activities" that were at issue in March, 2004.
Next up was Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA). The panel's ranking Republican, listening to Gonzales's new revelation -- or quasi-revelation, as the case may be -- said simply, "I do not find your testimony credible." Specter said that it was obvious that, as Gonzales initially confirmed last month, Comey was testifying about the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- meaning that Gonzales was not only lying to the Senate in his 2006 testimony, but lying today about "other intelligence activities" to cover up the lie. His advice to Gonzales was "to review your testimony carefully" and that the committee should see "if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."
Then it was Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)'s turn. Feingold, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, has received briefings on the TSP, and he came away from listening to Gonzales believing that the attorney general's 2006 testimony was "misleading at best."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), also a member of the Senate intelligence committee, later said he concurred with Feingold. "I have no choice but to conclude that you intended to deceive us and to mislead us away from the dispute that the Deputy Attorney General [Comey] subsequently brought to our attention." For his part, chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) advised Gonzales that the panel will "be looking at that transcript very, very closely" -- and that Gonzales should, too.
That might represent a final chance for Gonzales to step back from the brink of a perjury investigation. Whatever Gonzales expected to get out of today's hearing, he left the Senate having raised two lingering and mutually exclusive questions: whether the Bush administration has pursued a second secret, internally controversial intelligence program of dubious legality; or whether the attorney general of the United States lied under oath. Gonzales looked this morning like he had beaten back his political foes. What he probably didn't expect is that this afternoon, he became his own worst enemy.
Monica Goodling testified to Congress in May about a meeting she had with Gonzales where he'd given her his recollection of the firing process. It took place in March of this year, after the U.S. attorney firing controversy had blown up and Congress signaled that it would be investigating. Gonzales' discussion of the matter had made her "uncomfortable," she testified.
Gonzales had repeatedly told both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that he had not spoken to any of the players in the firings about them in order to preserve the integrity of their testimony. That was evidently false, as Gonzales implicitly admitted today. But more than that, Gonzales has to worry about whether that conversation might constitute witness tampering or obstruction of justice. The Justice Department's internal probe of the firings has expanded to include whether Gonzales might have been improperly trying to shape Goodling's future testimony.
Today, Gonzales gave his best shot at explaining that conversation away. You had to understand the context, he said. And this was "in the context of trying to console and reassure an emotionally distraught woman.â He gallantly tried to assure her that "no one had done anything intentionally wrong" -- but just to make her feel better. He was not trying to "shape her testimony," he said.
It's become a staple of the Congressional hearings with Alberto Gonzales, the question: Who put the U.S. attorneys' name on the firing list?
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) provided a devastating rundown of the testimony from Justice Department officials, all of them disavowing having selected the names for firing. In response, Gonzales gave his usual response that he'd "approved the list that was given to me." So, the mystery continues.
Feinstein followed up, asking Gonzales just how many U.S. attorneys he'd fired during his tenure as attorney general. Seeming flustered, Gonzales didn't know. "There may have been others." He said that he'd "be happy" to get back to Feinstein with the answer.
This one is just for fun. Given the extensive damage that Alberto Gonzales has done to the Justice Department's credibility, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) wanted to know why Gonzales thinks he's the man to fix it?
"That's a very good question, Senator," a smiling Gonzales replied, before continuing on to explain that he'd decided "to stay and fix the problems."
If there's been a more brutal treatment of a cabinet official before Congress in recent memory, I haven't seen it.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-PA) failed to disguise their contempt for Alberto Gonzales in their opening statements. Leahy, after running down the laundry list of Gonzales' failures and instances of questionable testimony, said that the administration's stance on their surveillance programs was "just trust us." Well, "I don't trust you," said Leahy.
Specter was no more sparing in his criticism. Pointing out that the Justice Department suffered from a "lack of credibility, candidly, your credibility," Specter went on a tear of his own ("the list goes on and on"). On Gonzales' infamous visit to John Ashcroft's hospital bed in order to get the ill attorney general to sign off on the president's surveillance program, Specter said "It’s just decimating, Mr. attorney general, to your judgment and your credibility."
Congress won by T.K.O. two rounds ago, but Alberto Gonzales keeps coming back. He'll be testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow for the third time since the U.S. attorney firings controversy blew up in March.
This time around, in addition to the usual battery of questions about the firings, he'll have to respond to Monica Goodling's revelation that Gonzales talked to her about her recollection of the firing process shortly after Congress launched its investigation. The Justice Department's internal probe of the firings has expanded to include whether Gonzales might have been improperly trying to shape Goodling's future testimony. He's also sure to get questions about why he falsely testified to Congress that he didn't know of any counterterrorism abuses by the FBI.
Below is from Alberto Gonzales' opening statement for tomorrow's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's from the section of his 26-page statement titled "Politicization of Hiring in the Department":
I believe very strongly that there is no place for political considerations in the hiring of our career employees or in the administration of justice. As such, the allegations of such activity have been troubling to hear. From my perspective, there are two options available in light of these allegations. I could walk away or I could devote my time, effort and energy to fix the problems. Since I have never been one to quit, I decided that the best course of action was to remain here and fix the problems. That is exactly what I am doing.
Despite the administration's statements that a U.S. attorney would not be permitted to enforce a contempt citation from Congress, the House Judiciary Committee will vote Wednesday on whether to cite Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten with statutory contempt, according to a senior committee aide.
"This is a step we have to take to continue the process," the aide told me. "We're obviously aware of The Washington Post's story, and we're reviewing all of the options that are available to us."
According to the law, D.C.'s U.S. attorney Jeffrey Taylor is required to enforce Congress' citation, but the administration has argued that such a citation against a current or former White House aide for asserting executive privilege is unenforceable. Despite that, however, it would still be up to Taylor to make the determination. A further complication is that Taylor might be forced to recuse himself from the proceedings, due to his ties to some of the central players in the U.S. attorney firings.
The committee also has the option of "inherent contempt," which would result in a trial before Congress -- but as the Postreported this weekend, such an option isn't under "serious consideration" by Democrats.
See my post last week as for what might happen if Taylor were to refuse to enforce the citation.
The House Judiciary Committee will meet this Wednesday to vote on contempt citations against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, the committee announced today.
Says Chairman John Conyers (D-MI):
"This investigation, including the reluctant but necessary decision to move forward with contempt, has been a very deliberative process, taking care at each step to respect the Executive Branch’s legitimate prerogatives. I've allowed the White House and Ms. Miers every opportunity to cooperate with this investigation, either voluntarily or under subpoena. It is still my hope that they will reconsider this hard-line position, and cooperate with our investigation so that we can get to the bottom of this matter."
The committee had issued a kind of final deadline to Bolten to comply with the committee's subpoena by this morning. And in a letter this morning, White House Fred Fielding gave the same answer. The committee is targetting Bolten because the subpoena for White House documents related to the U.S. attorney firings was addressed to him, since he's the custodian. Miers, remember, refused to even show up for a hearing before the committee two weeks ago.
The next step after the vote in the committee would be a vote in the full House.
A Congressional subpoena: to the Bush administration, it's just a piece of paper.
The administration will not permit a U.S. attorney to enforce a citation of contempt against Congress, as federal law instructs. That may shock you, but it's all old news, "a senior administration official" tells The Washington Post:
"A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case.... And a U.S. attorney wouldn't be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen....
"It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."
Of course, the expert on executive privilege quoted by the Post doesn't think it's such a settled question (the president's is a "breathtakingly broad assertion"). The administration points to an opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan years as support -- of course, that's just an opinion, which remains untested by the courts. The logic is that a U.S. attorney, as a subordinate of the executive branch and thus a representative of the president, would be prosecuting another presidential subordinate for asserting executive privilege. And you just can't have that. Or as an expert puts it to the Post: "Because we control the enforcement process, we are going to thumb our nose at you."
So what now? Certainly with the outright contempt being shown for Congress by the administration, it won't be long before they send the contempt right back. Harriet Miers will likely be first up, for her refusal to testify about the U.S. attorney firings, followed closely by White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who, on behalf of the White House, has refused to turn over documents. The Chair of the Republican National Committee might also be cited with contempt for refusing to turn over White House emails on RNC accounts. Also under subpoena and the likely subject of an executive privilege battle are the documents related to the president's warrantless wiretapping program
But if the U.S. attorney is unwilling to enforce a criminal citation of contempt, all those matters would end there unless Congress took other steps.
There is the option of inherent contempt, where the House or Senate Sergeant-at-Arms would seize the offending witness. A kind of Congressional trial would follow. If found guilty, the person could be detained until compliance with the subpoena or until the session of Congress ends. As the Post notes, that hasn't happened since the 1930's and (much to the chagrin of many TPM readers) seems unlikely to happen now.
As Marty Lederman points out, another option remains: "Congress could file a civil action in federal court seeking declaratory relief, or an injunction requiring enforcement of its subpoena." No doubt the Bush administration would seek somehow to quash that option, too. That would start a likely long process through the courts of motions, counter-motions, and appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Yep. As we said before, a president with nothing left to lose makes for a formidable stonewaller.
Four Democratic senators wrote Alberto Gonzales today to inquire whether Stephen Bradbury, the apparent acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was illegally carrying out his duties.
Bradbury was nominated for the top spot at OLC last year, but the Senate Judiciary Committee returned his nomination to the president, refusing to hear it until Bradbury's role in approving the National Security Agency's surveillance program became clear. The President shut down an internal Justice Department investigation of the matter last year by taking the unprecedented and unexplained step of denying security clearances to investigators from the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Today, the House Judiciary Committee took another step in its confrontation with the White House, with a ruling that the administration's claim of executive privilege to protect White House documents relevant to the U.S. attorney firings is invalid.
The ruling is a stepping stone towards a possible of vote of contempt against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, on whom the subpoena was served last month. The committee ruled against Harriet Miers' reliance on executive privilege last week when she refused to comply with a subpoena.
Update: For those legal eagles among you, the content of the ruling, by subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA), is below.
Today, the Justice Department announced that Craig S. Morford, currently the interim U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, will eventually replace Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty as the acting deputy. McNulty announced earlier this year that he'll be gone by late summer or until the administration names a successor.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, however, has signaled that it won't confirm any senior Justice Department appointees until it gets the documents and testimony it wants from the White House. So it's unclear when (if ever) Morford will take McNulty's place.
Morford has something of a high-profile background -- he led the prosecution of former Rep. James Trafficant (D-OH) and the Department's 2004 internal review of how prosecutors handled the case of three men accused of being part of a terrorist "sleeper cell" in the Detroit area.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales isn't scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee until next week. But given Gonzales' abysmal performances before the committee earlier this year, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), ever the gentleman, wants to throw Gonzales a line. So he's sent a list of questions to Gonzales in advance of the hearing. He writes:
When you last testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 19, 2007, you often responded to questions from Senators on both sides of the aisle that you could “not recall.” By some counts, you failed to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, and the most conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60 times.....
I would like to avoid a repeat of that performance. In order to assist you in your preparation, I send you the following questions in advance of your July 24 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Now on to the third development of this afternoon in the U.S. attorney firings subpoena battle.
On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to the Republican National Committee for the emails of White House staffers who used the RNC addresses -- the Justice Department emails show that Karl Rove and his aides often used the email addresses to communicate about the U.S. attorneys. The RNC has deferred to the White House on this, and the White House has in turn refused to turn over the emails, citing executive privilege.
The deadline to comply with the subpoena was this afternoon. And today, in a letter to the RNC, the White House said it needed more time, saying that attorneys had not yet had enough time to review all of the documents to establish whether to assert executive privilege. Emmet Flood, the special counsel to the President, wrote that the review should be done by July 31st. You can see the letter from the RNC's counsel to the committee and the White House's letter here.
Conyers accordingly agreed to postpone the subpoena deadline, but warned the RNC in a letter (see below) that "it would be improper for the RNC to refuse to produce subpoenaed documents in its possession based on an assertion of privilege by a third party" (i.e. the White House). It's not for the RNC to decide whether to hand the documents over, Conyers wrote -- if the White House wants to stop them, then the White House should do that in court.
But if the RNC still decides not to produce the documents, Conyers says that the committee may conduct contempt proceedings against RNC Chairman Robert Duncan.
If you're keeping track at home, that means the committee is now contemplating citing three separate figures with contempt: Harriet Miers, White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, and RNC Chairman Robert Duncan. And that's not counting the Senate Judiciary Committee's possible citation of Karl Rove's former aide, Sara Taylor. Phew.
The House Judiciary Committee will meet this Thursday to consider the White House's claim of executive privilege as to internal and external communications concerning the U.S. attorney firings, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) informed White House counsel Fred Fielding today.
The committee issued a subpoena to the White House for those documents in June; the White House refused, citing executive privilege. The White House reiterated that blanket refusal last week.
If the committee were to rule that the White House's assertion of privilege is invalid (as seems likely), that would be a step towards contempt proceedings. In this case, the subpoena was issued to Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff, and so it would be Bolten on the hook. Those proceedings would be distinct from those against Harriet Miers, were the committee to choose that course.
Former White House counsel Harriet Miers again refused to comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena today, citing executive privilege. The committee had set today as the final deadline for Miers to comply, or else face contempt proceedings.
Miers' attorney George Manning sent the letter to Conyers today reiterating her refusal to testify, writing that the committee was asking that "Ms. Miers do precisely what the President has prohibiting her from doing." Manning added that it wasn't Miers' decision: "The Committtee's dispute is not with Ms. Miers, but with the Executive Branch."
Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) had this to say:
"The subcommittee has overruled Ms. Miers' claims of immunity and privilege. Her failure to comply with our subpoena is a serious affront to this committee and our constitutional system of checks and balances. We are carefully planning our next steps."
Members of the House Judiciary Committee want the Justice Department to hand over documents, among them correspondence with the White House, related to three controversial prosecutions, including that of former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL).
In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, three Democratic House Judiciary members, including chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), voiced their concern that the Bush Administration's Justice Department has pursued and ignored prosecutions based on politics.
The letter names three specific cases they want to investigate. In addition to Siegelman's case, the other two are: former Wisconsin state procurement officer Georgia Thompson whose conviction was overturned by the Seventh Circuit and prominent Democrat and coroner Cyril Wecht who was accused of misusing his official staff (similar allegations against local Republicans were not investigated).
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers (D-MI) warned Harriet Miers' attorney today that the former White House counsel will risk contempt proceedings unless she complies with a committee-issued subpoena for testimony.
Miers was supposed to testify before a Judiciary subcommittee yesterday on the US attorney firings, but she did not appear after a White House attorney instructed her to stay home. The White House claims that executive privilege cloaks Miers from testifying.
Chair of the sub-committee, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) disagreed with that assertion, and ruled yesterday that the executive privilege claim wasn't properly asserted anyway.
The Republican National Committee has been slapped with a subpoena from a House Judiciary subcommittee demanding e-mail messages that could shed some light on Karl Rove's involvement in the firing of nine US attorneys.
The subpoena is online here. The RNC's custodian of records has until Tuesday at 10 a.m. to give the subcommittee the e-mails it wants.
The House Judiciary Committee was more friendly with the RNC in April when it sent a letter asking for the e-mails. The White House jumped in and told the RNC not to hand them over until all the messages had been reviewed, citing an "executive branch interest."
Back in the heady days of spring, it was a full-time job just keeping up with the bogus justifications for the U.S. attorney firings that were pouring out of the Justice Department.
But as Sara Taylor, Karl Rove's former aide, showed yesterday during her testimony, the tide's not over yet. A key part of Taylor's testimony was about her old friend Tim Griffin, another former Rove aide who became the U.S. attorney for Little Rock.
Griffin was only appointed, she said, because U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins had said he wanted to retire from the spot. He'd been quoted in the press to that effect, she explained. According to Taylor, Cummins wasn't really forced out -- as Cummins says he was and, well, as senior Justice Department officials have testified.
Cummins explained to Salon what that "press account" was Taylor kept referring to in her testimony:
Sometime in 2005, Cummins did tell a reporter for the Arkansas Times, a local newsweekly, that he was not likely to stay through the entirety of Bush's second term. [He subsequently reconsidered.]...
"If they're suggesting that, A) they monitor our free weekly tabloid in Arkansas to keep tabs on what their U.S. attorneys' plans are, and B) that they held on to that clipping for a year and a half and remembered it in June of 2006 without even picking up the phone and talking to me, it's kind of silly."
Here's our highlight reel of this morning's House Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Harriet Miers' very empty chair:
Subcommittee chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) ruled Miers' decision to abide by the White House's claim of executive privilege as invalid -- and was subsequently backed up by a party-line vote on the committee. That's the first step towards finding Miers in contempt -- the next would be a full vote in the committee.
To Democrats, the issue was simple. Miers was legally obligated to show up, and she didn't. As Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) put it, "Are Congressional subpoenas to be honored or are they optional?"
The Republicans on the committee responded with their usual accusations of Democratic overreaching and claims that the U.S. attorney firings investigation had uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing by the administration. But ranking member Chris Cannon (R-UT) also offered a more nuanced argument against proceeding with contempt proceedings -- without "evidence of criminality" on the part of the White House (he cited the example of Nixon), the House would likely lose the battle in court. And such a loss, he feared, would hurt the House's ability to investigate the White House in the future.
Rep. Conyers (D-MI) didn't think it was so complicated: "If we do not enforce this subpoena, no one will ever have to come before the House Judiciary Committee again."
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), who made it clear during the hearing that he's a big fan of executive privilege, interrupted to say that this was a unique circumstance, and that it's "not every day" that a witness produces a letter from the White House saying that he/she can't testify. "I don't think it's ever happened before," he said.
To which Conyers replied dryly, "It happened yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee."
As expected, the House Judiciary Committee voted today to authorize subpoenas for those White House emails on Republican National Committee email accounts relevant to the U.S. attorney firings.
It's up to Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) to pull the trigger, however, and actually vote to issue the subpoena.
The Los Angeles Timespoints out something that we didn't stress yesterday about Miers' refusal to appear at the House Judiciary Committee hearing today even though under subpoena. And that's that Miers and the White House are relying on a new opinion by the Justice Department, dated July 10th, that argued that "the President and his immediate advisers are absolutely immune from testimonial compulsion by a Congressional committee." The opinion was described in White House counsel Fred Fielding's letter to Miers' attorney.
The opinion, as paraphrased by Fielding, says it's not even close:
"...this constitutional immunity exists to protect the institution of the Presidency and, as the Department's opinion illustrates, this position has been shared by numerous Administrations, Republican and Democratic, for more than 60 years."
The Times of course rolls out a couple legal experts to say that the Department is, to put it mildly, overstating the case.
But there's a likely practical effect to the opinion, as the Times points out: it does more than just provide Miers and the White House some cover, it "raises questions about whether the Justice Department would prosecute senior administration officials if Congress voted to hold them in contempt for not cooperating with the investigation."
If Congress were to vote Miers in contempt of Congress, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. would be charged with enforcing it -- something less likely to happen if his Department has taken such a view.
Now, there are other ways for Congress to pursue their citation of contempt if the U.S. attorney refused to enforce it, and as I reported earlier this week, it seems likely that somehow, some way, the whole mess will land in court. And if it gets there, the Department's extraordinarily expansive view of privilege will finally be put to the test.
Meanwhile, it's all made Chairman John Conyers' (D-MI) decision about whether to move for a contempt citation much easier.
"Bud is lazy – which is why we got rid of him in the first place."
That's what Sara Taylor, Karl Rove's senior aide, wrote to Kyle Sampson in February of this year. During the hearing this morning, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wanted to know: who was "we"?* Who'd decided that U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins was lazy? And who decided on that basis to "get rid of him?" It certainly doesn't sound from the email that this was the Justice Department's decision.
A few answers, several digressions, and many minutes later, Taylor finally refused to answer the question and invoked executive privilege to protect internal White House deliberations.
Sen. Whitehouse responded that it was a prime example of the "ludicrous and extreme" assertion of privilege by the administration that Taylor couldn't testify about an email that the committee already had.
It's case in point for why Democrats want to hear more from Taylor and others to find out whether the White House was behind the firings.
*Note: "We," Taylor said, was "the administration" -- of which both Justice Department appointees and White House officials are a part.
Taylor apologized earlier in the hearing for calling Cummins lazy.
Harriet Miers' attorney has told the House Judiciary Committee that she will not appear for her scheduled hearing tomorrow -- taking a much different tack from that taken by Sara Taylor today.
In his letter to the committee sent last night, Miers' attorney George Manning referred back to his letter sent Monday, in which he said that "Ms. Miers has no choice other than to comply with direction given her by Counsel to the president."
As Marty Lederman lays out here, the president's assertion of executive privilege is not legally binding -- but the committee's subpoena is. Miers could defy the president's direction (such as it is), or take the approach Taylor chose and refuse to answer certain questions.
Chairman Conyers responded in a letter to Manning:
"A congressional subpoena, such as the one issued to Ms. Miers, carries with it two obligations: the obligation to appear, and the obligation to testify and/or produce documents. Even if a witness intends to assert privilege in response to a subpoena, that intention to assert privilege does not obviate the obligation to appear....
A refusal to appear before the Subcommittee tomorrow could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings, including but not limited to proceedings under 2 U.S.C. § 194 and under the inherent contempt authority of the House of Representatives.
We are prepared at the hearing tomorrow to consider and rule on any specific assertions of privilege in response to specific questions. We strongly urge you to reconsider, and to advise your client to appear before the Subcommittee tomorrow pursuant to her legal obligations.
The committee will meet tomorrow morning, regardless of whether Miers shows.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former U.S. attorney himself, pursued the most grueling, unrelenting and outright damning line of questioning of the day.
Whitehouse wanted an answer to a simple question. The topic was those by-now famous briefings that Karl Rove and his aides (Taylor included) gave at a number of agencies throughout the federal government. The slides from one of those briefings, given at the General Services Administration, showed that Rove's aides had briefed officials there on which Republican Congressional candidates were in danger.
Whitehouse wanted to know: during those briefings that Taylor gave, did she mention the "names of particular candidates?"
It took about three minutes for a rambling, stuttering Taylor to admit it. Taylor didn't want to. She talked about how the briefings were "informative," how they were meant to "thank employees," how they were meant to impart some knowledge about the "political landscape." Finally, she admitted, "It's hard to give the landscape without talking about the people who were the stars in the show."
"I took an oath the president, and I take that oath very seriously," Sara Taylor said in answer to a question early in the hearing.
And right after a break, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked her if she was sure about that. "Did you mean, perhaps, you took an oath to the Constitution?" Leahy asked. It was a telling exchange.
"I know that the president refers to the government being his government -- it's not," Leahy reminded her.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Taylor whether any other administrations had fired 10% of the U.S. attorneys in the middle of a term. The answer is no. But Taylor wasn't sure -- maybe Clinton or Reagan had done it in a "more artful" way?
Later, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) wanted to know whether Taylor had ever gotten specific complaints from Republicans around the country about certain U.S. attorneys. Taylor said she couldn't remember, because she'd gotten so many complaints about so many things. In fact, Taylor said, “I can’t remember what I had for breakfast last week.”
The former U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins was going to step down, and Karl Rove's former aide Timothy Griffin was just the logical one to replace him -- that's the story Sara Taylor told today, under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA).
You can see her lay it out here:
It all sounds so harmless. But there's a number of problems with that. First, if Bud Cummins had long planned to step down, no one told him that. Taylor cited press accounts that Cummins was looking to retire as U.S. attorney, but Cummins had not informed his superiors at the Justice Department that he was leaving and had not requested to be replaced. And when Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last February, he said that Cummins had been fired in order for Griffin to take his place.
Taylor couldn't account for that discrepancy, only saying that everything would gone better (it was "awkwardly handled") if there had been "better communication."
But there's another problem with that, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pointed out in her questioning.
Taylor had written in an email to Kyle Sampson after the firings that Cummins was "lazy," which was "why we got rid of him in the first place."
Taylor apologized to Feinstein for that "unnecessary comment" and said that she'd "heard that," but that it was not a fair comment.
Karl Rove and his aides at the White House have regularly used email accounts provided by the Republican National Committee to send and receive emails that should have been sent and received on the official White House system under the Presidential Records Act. When Sen. Leahy asked Taylor about this, she said that the email system had been created in order to avoid violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government resources for political means.
That's true, of course, except that Rove and his aides seem to have used the RNC emails for just about everything, regardless of whether it was a political matter. When Leahy pressed Taylor as to why she'd emailed Justice Department aide Kyle Sampson about the replacement of U.S. attorneys using her RNC account, Taylor answered that she'd done it as "someone trying to be efficient with their time." If so, Rove's shop must have been very efficient.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wanted to know: Since the 2004 election, had Sara Taylor spoken with the president about replacing U.S. attorneys?
Taylor declined to answer, citing the president's invocation of privilege. Leahy replied that he wasn't after the content of the discussion, just whether it occurred. Taylor declined again.
It's just a sample of the testimony as it's progressed this morning, where Taylor has actually answered a number of questions that would seem to be covered by privilege, but not others. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) later remarked that Taylor's willingness to answer certain questions had "weakened" the White House's claim of privilege.
Update: Later in the hearing, Taylor answered the question -- it was no.
That's from Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) opening statement at the hearing, as he made a point of saying that the Senate Judiciary Committee's fight is not with Sara Taylor, but "with the White House," which, he said, had issued a "gag order" in the form of an assertion of executive privilege.
Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-PA) said that he hoped that the committee would not seek to cite Taylor with contempt for refusing to answer questions that the president claimed was protected by privilege.
Sara Taylor, until recently Karl Rove's former aide at the White House, will begin her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a matter of minutes.
You can see Taylor's opening statement here. In it, she says that she intends "to follow the President's instruction" and not testify about conversations she had at the White House about the U.S. attorney firings. However, there may still be certain questions she can answer:
"While I may be unable to answer certain questions today, I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee's need for the information outweighs the president's assertion of executive privilege...
I look forward to answering those questions not covered by the President's assertion of executive privilege."
We'll bring you updates as the hearing (which will probably be relatively short) continues.
Update: For those wanting to watch, the hearing is on C-Span3 and streaming from the committee's website.
Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee will vote to authorize subpoenas against the Republican National Committee for emails relevant to the U.S. attorney firings. The RNC, you'll remember, provides email to a number of White House aides, including Karl Rove and his staff.
Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) requested the emails back in April, and yesterday, he got his final answer from the RNC, via the White House: no. In a letter to the RNC's counsel, White House special counsel Emmet Flood wrote that the RNC emails, since they involved White House officials, were covered by the president's assertion of executive privilege last week. The RNC has said that it will abide by the White House's direction. You can see Flood's letter to the RNC here.
The committee's subpoena, if issued later, would add yet another dimension to the fight over documents and testimony and yet another test, if the battle goes to court, of the president's claim of privilege.
Note: House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has also been conducting an investigation of the White House's off-the-record email system.
Former White House counsel Harriet Miers will comply with the president's assertion of executive privilege, her lawyer wrote the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. Nevertheless, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and subcomittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) have asked Miers to appear anyway.
The committee subpoenaed Miers last month, ordering her to appear this Thursday. In a letter to Conyers yesterday, Miers' lawyer George Manning wrote that Miers is "subject to conflicting commands, with Congress demanding the production of information that the Counsel to the President has informed her she is prohibited from disclosing." He went on, overstating the president's power to stop Miers from testifying:
Ms. Miers is, of course, respectful of her obligations to respond appropriately to the subpoena issued and served upon her. In these circumstances, however, as I am sure you know, Ms. Miers has no choice other than to comply with direction given her by Counsel to the president in his letters mentioned above. This is particularly so because, as the members of the Committee are aware, the assertion of the privilege in this circumstance is supported by the thorough and reasoned opinion of the Solicitor General of the United States....
Accordingly, and will all due respect, I must inform you that in light of the President's assertion of Executive Privilege, Ms. Miers cannot provide the documents and testimony that the Committee seeks.
As I reported yesterday, Miers does in fact have a choice. She could choose to defy the president's direction, though the move would certainly send the battle to court. You can read Manning's letter here.
Conyers was straightforward in his reply, saying that he was just writing to confirm that Miers would be appearing Thursday:
I understand from your letter that Ms. Miers may decline to produce documents or answer questions based on your interpretation of letters you have received from the White House, and those claims will be considered at the hearing, but it is of course incumbent on Ms. Miers to appear at the hearing pursuant to the subpoena.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has taken the same approach to Karl Rove's former aide Sara Taylor, who's scheduled to appear before his committee tomorrow.
Earlier today, the White House made it official and asserted executive privilege with regard to former White House aides testifying before Congress about the U.S. attorney firings. What happens next?
Enter the experts.
I asked Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School and Marty Lederman of Georgetown Law to walk me through.
First, although the president has "directed" Sara Taylor, Karl Rove's former aide, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, not to testify, the decision is still up to them, both said. Although the traditional expectation is that aides will comply with determinations of executive privilege by the president, both could still refuse. It would be a "career ending move" to be sure, Turley added, but there is no legal impediment.
Taylor is still scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and Chariman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said yesterday that he expects her to show. You might call that an optimistic stance. Taylor's lawyer Neil Eggleston has not said outright that she won't testify. But he sent Leahy a letter on Sunday saying that the president would be asserting his privilege and that "absent the direction from the White House, Ms. Taylor would testify without hesitation before the Senate Judiciary Committee." In other words, it sounds like Taylor will accede to the president's assertion.
Even if Taylor decided to defy the president's direction and testify, the White House would surely seek to bar her testimony in court through a restraining order, an injunction, or some other means, both experts agreed.
But if Taylor refuses to testify, then the ball's in Congress' court.
OK, so the White House and Congress are locked in a pitched battle over the testimony of key aides. But that doesn't mean Democrats have to be mean about it.
Some highlights from White House counsel Fred Fielding's letter to the House and Senate judiciary committees this morning:
Let me begin by conveying a note of concern over your letter's tone and apparent direction in dealing with a situation of this gravity. We are troubled to read the letter 's charge that the President's "assertion of Executive Privilege belies any good faith attempt to determine where privilege truly does and does not apply." Although we each speak on behalf of different branches of government, and perhaps for that reason cannot help having different perspectives on the matter, it is hoped you will agree, upon further reflection, that it is incorrect to say that the President's assertion of Executive Privilege was performed without "good faith."...
One final observation underscores the preordained futility of any White House compliance with this demand. When your letter states that your Committees ''will take the necessary steps to rule on [the President 's] privilege claims and appropriately enforce our subpoenas" and that the Committees will enforce their subpoenas "[wjhether or not [they] have the benefit of the information" (emphasis added), only one conclusion is evident: the Committees have already prejudged the question, regardless of the production of any privilege log. In such circumstances, we will not be undertaking such a project, even as a further accommodation."
Fielding gravely concludes: "And I likewise convey the President's request that further interbranch relations in this matter be distinguished by respect for the constitutional principles of both institutions and marked by a presumption of goodwill on all sides."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) replies:
"We are extremely disappointed with the White House letter. While we remain willing to negotiate with the White House, they adhere to their unacceptable all-or-nothing position, and now will not even seek to properly justify their privilege claims. Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the Courts that will decide whether an invocation of Executive Privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is more to the point (and, well, a little mean):
“I have to wonder if the White House’s refusal to provide a detailed basis for this executive privilege claim has more to do with its inability to craft an effective one."
President Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides in connection with the firings of federal prosecutors.
The White House, however, did offer again to make former counsel Harriet Miers and one-time political director Sara Taylor available for private, off-the-record interviews.
In a letter to the heads of the House and Senate Judiciary panels, White House counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith and refused lawmakers' demand that the president explain the basis for invoking the privilege.
A 25-year veteran of the Justice Department writes in The Denver Post today to remind everybody what it's all about:
As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time.
The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. The unconscionable commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act and the deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse.
In the course of its tenure since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has turned the entire government (and the DOJ in particular) into a veritable Augean stable on issues such as civil rights, civil liberties, international law and basic human rights, as well as criminal prosecution and federal employment and contracting practices. It has systematically undermined the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism, and it has sought to insulate its actions from legislative or judicial scrutiny and accountability by invoking national security at every turn, engaging in persistent fearmongering, routinely impugning the integrity and/or patriotism of its critics, and protecting its own lawbreakers. This is neither normal government conduct nor "politics as usual," but a national disgrace of a magnitude unseen since the days of Watergate - which, in fact, I believe it eclipses.
There's a reason you don't typically hear from lawyers who are still with the Department. And that's because if there's one thing at which this administration has proven itself reliable, it's their their consistency in attacking critics. John Koppel, the author of the op-ed, is mindful:
I realize that this constitutionally protected statement subjects me to a substantial risk of unlawful reprisal from extremely ruthless people who have repeatedly taken such action in the past. But I am confident that I am speaking on behalf of countless thousands of honorable public servants, at Justice and elsewhere, who take their responsibilities seriously and share these views. And some things must be said, whatever the risk.
There are a number of deadlines for congressional subpoenas for White House documents and/or testimony approaching over the next couple weeks -- two, for instance, this week regarding the U.S. attorneys investigation. It seems that we'll soon learn how many different ways the White House can say, "no."
The White House has decided to defy Congress's latest demand for information regarding the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys, sources familiar with the decision said yesterday. Such an action would escalate the constitutional struggle and propel it closer to a court showdown.
Senate and House committees have directed President Bush to provide by tomorrow a detailed justification of his executive privilege claims and a full accounting of the documents he is withholding. But White House counsel Fred F. Fielding plans to tell lawmakers that he has already provided the legal basis for the claims and will not provide a log of the documents, the sources said.
The standoff suggests that neither side is prepared to budge in the fight over documents and testimony in the widening U.S. attorney investigation. Officials in both camps said no serious negotiations are taking place to resolve the dispute. Fielding plans to follow up his letter by further asserting executive privilege later this week, the sources said, directing former White House aides Harriet E. Miers and Sara M. Taylor not to testify in response to congressional subpoenas.
You can see last week's request from the committees for that log here. "A serious assertion of privilege," the chairmen wrote, "would include an effort to demonstrate to the Committees which documents, and which parts of those documents, are covered by any privilege that may apply." According to the Post's sources, "White House officials viewed the request as a backdoor attempt to get sensitive information about deliberations."
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Today's Must Read
Senators: Justice Department's Chief Counsel Breaking the Law
Gonzales Appoints New Deputy Attorney General
Leahy to Gonzales: Start Trying to Remember Now
Miers Again Refuses to Comply with Congressional Subpoena
House Judiciary Wants Docs On Prosecution of Dems
Cummins Debunks Taylor Story on Firing
Miers A No-Show, Committee to Rule against Claim of Privilege
Conyers to Pursue RNC for White House Emails
Subpoena Battle: What's Next?
White House to Congress: Nanny Nanny Boo Boo
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