Congress subpoenas White House over prosecutor firings
by Frank James
Congressional Democrats have threatened for months to subpoena former White House officials related to the Capitol Hill investigation of why several federal prosecutors were fired. Today the lawmakers are finally acting on their repeated warnings.
They issued a subpoena to the White House for e-mails related to the prosecutors' firings and they want them by June 28.
This from the letter over the signature of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
We issue this subpoena with extreme reluctance, and only after making repeated attempts, as reflected in letters of March 9, March 22, March 28, and May 21, to secure voluntary cooperation from the White House in this matter. In response to a series of attempts to secure such cooperation, however, and a clear warning that we would have no choice but to utilize compulsory process if voluntary cooperation was not forthcoming, you have simply repeated the same unacceptable "take it or leave it" offer you made several months ago. Our Committee has made abundantly clear that we appreciate and respect the institutional prerogatives of the White House and that we remain ready and willing to resolve the issues on a cooperative basis. Unfortunately, we have not seen any indication of such willingness from the White House.
As recited in detail in previous letters, and as demonstrated again by documents produced just yesterday by the Justice Department, there can be no doubt that White House officials played a central role in originating, supervising, approving, and dealing with the aftermath of the plan to replace at least nine U.S. Attorneys since President Bush's re-election, a role that remains largely unexplored and inadequately understood. Many of these facts are recounted in previous letters from Senator Leahy and from me, on May 16 and 21, respectively.
To cite just a few examples, e-mails provided by the Department of Justice show that Karl Rove and Harriet Miers were involved from the very beginning in plans to remove U.S. Attorneys after President Bush's re-election, and that the Department official who compiled the lists of U.S. Attorneys to be fired, Kyle Sampson, was in frequent contact with White House officials on the subject. Yet after extensive review of Department documents and on-the-record interviews with a variety of senior current and former Department officials, no one at the Department seems to know who suggested putting most of the U.S. Attorneys on the list to be fired. One such U.S. Attorney, David Iglesias, appears to have been put on the firing list only after Karl Rove relayed complaints about Mr. Iglesias to the White House Counsel's office and the Department, and only after Mr. Rove was specifically enlisted by several prominent New Mexico Republicans in their effort to have Mr. Iglesias fired. E-mails demonstrate that shortly before the implementation of the firing plan, final circulation to "Karl's shop" was considered a "pre-execution necessity."
The precise role of White House officials, however, has been kept a mystery. After an initial round of false statements to Congress on that subject - including written misstatements that the Department was forced to correct, and false testimony that remains uncorrected to this day - Justice Department witnesses have been unable or unwilling to shed any meaningful light on the basic facts regarding who at the White House played what role in selecting these U.S. Attorneys for replacement and why. Also troubling in this regard is an incident Monica Goodling described to the House Judiciary Committee, in which the Deputy Attorney General apparently sent her away from a Senate meeting saying that her presence might prompt Senators to ask questions about the role of the White House in the U.S. Attorney firings and replacements. Taken together, these facts raise grave questions about the role of the White House and its political supporters in the U.S. Attorney firings, and about the Administration's extensive efforts to minimize or conceal that role. Only fair access to White House information will allow these crucial questions to be answered.
It may prove difficult however for the White House to produce the desired e-mails, however, since it has previously said some White House e-mailing was was conducted on Republican National Committee equipment and that some of the e-mails were lost.
Conyers and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also issued subpoenas to Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former White House political director, compelling them to testify in July.
Taylor was in the news today even before the subpoenas hit. McClatchy reported that she was upset back in February when Justice Department officials told Congress that the administration pushed out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark. in order to replace him with a Karl Rove protege.
weblogs.chicagotribune.com |
