Leahy: "They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation,"

Looks like Leahy will follow up on the subpoenas. The white House is claiming Executive Privilege, but there's a catch to that.

From the AP:

Patrick Leahy ready to fight White House
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jul 1, 3:57 PM ET

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he was ready to go to court if the White House resiPsted congressional subpoenas for information on the firing of federal prosecutors.

"If they don't cooperate, yes I'd go that far," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He was asked in a broadcast interview whether he would seek a congressional vote on contempt citations if President Bush did not comply. That move would push the matter to court.

"They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation," Leahy said. "The bottom line on this U.S. attorneys' investigation is that we have people manipulating law enforcement. Law enforcement can't be partisan."

At issue is whether the White House exerted undue political influence in the Justice Department's firing of prosecutors. Leahy's hardening stance is pushing the Democratic-led investigation ever closer to a constitutional showdown over executive power and Congress' right to oversight.

The White House accused the committee of overreaching.

"After thousands of pages of documents, interviews and testimony by Justice Department officials, it's clear that there's simply no merit for this overreach," presidential spokesman Tony Fratto said.

He said Leahy "is seeking access to candid and confidential deliberations from the president's advisers — an intrusion he would never subject his own staff to. We have gone to great lengths to accommodate the committee in their oversight responsibilities."

Separately, the Senate has subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office for documents related to the administration's legal basis for conducting warrant-free eavesdropping on people in the United States.

Leahy and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who heads the House Judiciary Committee, have demanded a White House explanation by July 9 as to its grounds for claiming executive privilege in refusing to turn over additional documents.

The two lawmakers say that regardless of whether the White House meets the deadline, they would begin acting to enforce the subpoenas as appropriate under the law.

Legal experts have been somewhat divided over the scope of a president's power to shield information and ensure candid advice from top aides. The dispute, if it does head to court, could take months and ultimately outlast the remaining term of Bush's presidency, which ends in January 2009.

Last week, White House counsel Fred Fielding said Bush was claiming executive privilege. Bush also was invoking the privilege to prevent Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former political director, from testifying publicly under oath. More Here.

But here's the issue..."The president and the vice president are not above the law any more than you and I are," Leahy said.

And that is the crux of the matter with this administration. They think they are above the law and try to rig the rules to keep it that way. No other President and his admin have ever pushed this far into becoming close to a dictatorship!

Senate Committee Subpoenas Cheney, Whitehouse

From Think Progress:

Breaking: Domestic Surveillance Docs Subpoenaed
The Senate Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the Justice Department, and the National Security Council for documents related to President Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program. AP reports:

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.

The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal squabbles within the administration over the legality of the program, said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity because the subpoenas had not been made public.

Leahy’s committee authorized the subpoenas previously as part of its sweeping investigation into how much influence the White House exerts over the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The probe, in its sixth month, began with an investigation into whether administration officials ordered the firings of eight federal prosecutors, for political reasons.

UPDATE: Statement from the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Chairman Leahy issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice, the Office of the White House, the Office of the Vice President and the National Security Council for documents relating to the Committee’s inquiry into the warrantless electronic surveillance program. […]

“Over the past 18 months, this Committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program,” Chairman Leahy wrote in letters accompanying the subpoenas to Bush Administration officials. “All requests have been rebuffed. Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of Administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection.”

UPDATE II: The committee vote was 13-3, with all Democrats and Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Charles Grassley (R-IA) voting for subpoenas.

Gonzales supoenaed for Rove Emails

The Senators want all of Rove's email concerning the US Attorneys firings. Gonzales was served a subpoena today requesting these emails.

From the AP:

"It is troubling that significant documents highly relevant to the committee's inquiry have not been produced," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in a letter to Gonzales. The subpoena gives Gonzales until May 15 to turn over the information.

Not accepting the White House's explanation that some of the Rove-related e-mails may have been lost, Leahy subpoenaed any in the custody of the Justice Department. Leahy pointed to Rove's lawyer's statement that some of those the White House claims might be lost had been turned over to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

It was unclear whether any of those were related to the prosecutor firings, but congressional investigators believe that if Fitzgerald could retrieve some e-mails for his investigation, the ones related to the firings of U.S. attorneys are recoverable as well.

The White House has said it is trying to recover e-mails that were lost but has not promised to turn any over to congressional investigators.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Gonzales said during his April 17 testimony to Leahy's committee that he did not know the details but would get back to the chairman.

"I have not heard from you since," Leahy wrote, urging compliance with all of his panel's requests for information "to avoid further subpoenas."

It was the committee's first subpoena issued since the firings caused an uproar earlier this year and imperiled Gonzales' job.

The order compels the Justice Department to turn over "complete and unredacted versions of any and all e-mails and attachments to e-mails to, from, or copied to Karl Rove" related to the firings, written on White House, Republican National Committee or any other e-mail accounts.

The committee is probing whether Rove and other top White House officials conducted official business on RNC accounts intended for political work, then deleted them in violation of the law.

The Senate Committee is about to really get tough and demand and subpoena for everything. And Rep. Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee will also want to see those emails. It's about time this admin is beining investigated. They can spy on us, but we want to know what they are doing or not doing for this country.

From Think Progress:

UPDATE: Paul Kiel notes: “Since the subpoena is to the Justice Department and not to the White House, it sidesteps any executive privilege concerns.”

WH say no Rove , no emails

The White House Counsel Fred Fielding sent a letter to Conyers and Leahy saying they won't budge on their decision to not allow Rove and the other WH aides to testify under oath. He's also trying to head off Conyer's attempt to get the emails about the US attorneys firing from the RNC.

Politico has the story:

White House Counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter today, told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, that the White House has not budged in its refusal to allow the panels to question several White House aides, including Karl Rove, about what they know regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, moving the two sides closer to a constitutional battle over the scandal.

Fielding also appears to be trying to head off an attempt by Conyers to obtain e-mails and documents from the Republican National Committee regarding the firings. Roughly 50 White House officials, including 22 curent aides, used e-mail accounts controlled by the RNC to send messages, including some related to the prosecutor firings, and Conyers asked RNC Chairman Mike Duncan to turn over those records today.

Fielding also said that "it was and remains our intention to collect e-mails and documents from those [RNC-controlled] accounts as well as the official White House e-mail and document retention systems" as part of a broader deal with the two committees on staffer testimony.

Fielding has offered to allow Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and other Bush aides to be questioned by committee investigators, but only behind closed doors, and not under oath. Fielding also won't allow any transcript of those interviews to be made. Conyers and Leahy have rejected the offer as woefully inadequate, and while both committees have authorized subpoenas for Rove, Miers and the others, only Conyers has issued up until now and those were for documents only.

Conyers immediately countered Fielding's letter, dismissing it as an attempt by Fielding to extend executive-privilege protection to e-mails sent by White House officials on RNC servers, which Conyers suggested was legally suspect.

The utter arrogance of this administration is unbelievable. It seems we do have an emporer and his Richelieu.

Fallout from the Fired State Attorney-gate

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is on the hot seat. Now even Republicans are starting to call for his resignation. With Alberto, it's not just the State Attornys who have been fired, it's also the warrantless wiretapping and, I think, many of the Dems still hold him responsible for the torture decisions.

President Bush is still standing up for him but this may not last long. Pressure is coming from both sides of the aisle now.

The AP reports:

“I think the president should replace him,” Sununu said in an interview with The Associated Press. …

“We need to have a strong, credible attorney general that has the confidence of Congress and the American people,” said Sununu, who faces a tough re-election campaign next year. “Alberto Gonzales can’t fill that role.”

“I think the attorney general should be fired,” Sununu said.

Next up to be questioned....Rove:

Think Progress reports:

Today on CNN’s Situation Room, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) blew off White House signals that Karl Rove and other senior Bush officials may resist testifying before Congress on the U.S. Attorney purge.

“Frankly, I don’t care whether [White House Counsel Fred Fielding] says he’s going to allow people or not. We’ll subpoena the people we want,” Leahy said. “If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don’t want to have.” Asked whether he’ll subpoena Rove, Leahy answered, “Yes. He can appear voluntarily if he wants. If he doesn’t, I will subpoena him.”

And more on Rove from the Chicago Tribune:

Former Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) said Tuesday that White House political adviser Karl Rove told him in the spring of 2001 that he should limit his choice for U.S. attorney in Chicago to someone from Illinois.

According to Fitzgerald, who was determined to bring in a prosecutor from outside the state, Rove "just said we don't want you going outside the state. We don't want to be moving U.S. attorneys around."

Fitzgerald said he believes Rove was trying to influence the selection in reaction to pressure from Rep. Dennis Hastert, then speaker of the House, and allies of then-Gov. George Ryan, who knew Fitzgerald was seeking someone from outside Illinois to attack political corruption.

Things seem to be falling apart for Bush and his admin. Truth eventually will out.