Top 'Attorneygate' investigator: No 'blind faith' for the White House

The Witch Hunt continues....they smell the blood in the water...just can't...quite....get a bite.


On a 7-3 ruling, House Democrats moved rapidly Thursday afternoon to rule that the White House had asserted executive privilege in a manner that was 'not legally valid.'
During the proceedings, a top House Democratic investigator of the firing of nine US Attorneys said that the White House's latest moves were not consistent with the current system of government in the United States. Another top Democrat accused the White House of turning over 'inaccurate' information about Karl Rove's role in the attorney firings.

The chair of the subcommittee that has authorized subpoenas in the investigation said that the White House was not deserving of 'blind faith.'

"The White House is asking Congress and the American people to simply trust on blind faith that the documents are appropriately being kept secret," said Rep. Linda Sánchez, Chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, during an approximately 20 minute hearing.

She added, "Our system of government does not allow the White House to demand this kind of blind faith and secrecy."
Rep. Sánchez then issued a ruling declaring that the White House's assertion of executive privilege over documents sought in subpoenas issued to former White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and the Republican National Committee was not legally valid. The grounds for the ruling largely echoed a similar ruling delivered last week after former White House Counsel Harriet Miers refused to appear before the committee.

Judiciary Committee John Conyers (D-MI), in a prepared opening statement, outlined some of the wrongdoing he saw that required House investigators to continue to pursue subpoenas and other steps.

"We have learned, for example, that the White House was involved in the politicization of the Justice Department," Conyers stated. "New Mexico Republican officials complained repeatedly to Karl Rove and his aides about a voter fraud case that they wanted former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to pursue. Mr. Iglesias was fired soon after some of these complaints, and one of the complaining Republican officials was suggested as his replacement."

He went on to warn that "the White House participated in false statements to Congress."
"Chris Oprison in the Counsel's office signed off on an inaccurate letter that the Justice Department sent to Congress claiming that Karl Rove did not play a role in the appointment of Tim Griffin to replace Bud Cummins," he explained.

The committee's chairman also implied an effort was being taken to obstruct the investigation of the Attorneys' firings.
"We also have evidence of a concerted effort both by the Justice Department and the White House to hide or downplay the role of White House personnel in this process," he argued.
In a Tuesday letter sent to Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan, Conyers warned that the party organization may face contempt proceedings if it fails to abide by Rep. Sánchez's ruling today.

"If the RNC...engages in 'unilateral action' by simply refusing to comply with a House subpoena absent a court order, the refusal to produce the documents called for could subject Mr. Duncan to contempt proceedings," Rep. Conyers wrote.

A similar warning was issued regarding Bolten.

The subcommittee's Democrats did not raise the specter of contempt in Thursday's hearing, but that didn't stop committee Republicans from speaking out against taking such a step in the future.

"These games may be strangely entertaining to lawyers, press hounds, and academics, but they are not parlor games, and they promise no productive ends," said Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee. "On the contrary, they pointlessly threaten to land in jail people who are asserting understandable claims to executive privilege."

However, Cannon also suggested that any contempt threat would have no power because it would not be upheld by the courts, and would in fact damage Congress's ability to conduct future investigations.

"We anticipate a court battle which I very much fear we will lose," he said. "By we, I mean Congress...we will perpetually undermine Congress's prerogatives in overseeing future administrations."

Harriet Miers also suggested in a Tuesday letter to Rep. Conyers via her attorney that she had little to fear from the threat of being held in contempt of Congress. Her attorney argued that the contempt of Congress statute would not apply to her.

For you Surrender Monkeys, be you Congress Members or Moonbats

Read this:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11-years-old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

This is not a horror story.

This is real.

This is from Michael Yon, a writer embedded in Iraq. He's not military and he's not a reporter for a major news source. He's there through donations from his readers.

The excerpt is from his blog, "Baqubah Update: 05 July 2007."

Read it and the other dispatches from Michael. Then sit there in front of your computer, in that air conditioned room with a straight face, and badmouth or troops and our president for being over there.

White House raps Hill probes

Over 300 investigations in 100 days.

WASHINGTON - The White House on Thursday pushed back against congressional
investigations of the Bush administration and said lawmakers should spend more
time passing bills to solve domestic problems.

In
a constitutional showdown with Congress, the administration claimed executive
privilege and rejected demands for White House documents about the firings of
eight U.S. attorneys.
The House and Senate Judiciary committees have set a
deadline of 10 a.m. next Monday for the White House to explain its basis for the
claim.

The administration has not said when or if it will respond. Spokesman
Scott Stanzel said Thursday the White House has received a many requests for
information since Democrats took control of Congress in January and has turned
over 200,000 pages of documents.
"They've launched over 300 investigations,
had over 350 requests for documents and interviews and they have had over 600
oversight hearings in just about 100 days," Stanzel said.
Democrats were
dubious of the figures but did not offer their own.

"His numbers are as faulty as the intelligence they used to make their
case for war," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nev.
"In the last six years, all they've had is a rubber-stamp
Congress. Since January, Democrats have demanded accountability, a change of
course and transparency," Manley said.

Stanzel said he arrived at the numbers by canvassing departments and
agencies about the number of inquires and investigations initiated by Congress
since the Democrats took control.
The assertion of executive privilege was
the latest turn in an increasingly hostile standoff over the Iraq war, executive
power, the war on terror and Vice President Dick Cheney's authority.

Subpoenas have been delivered to the offices of Bush, Cheney, the
national security adviser and the Justice Department about the administration's
warrantless wiretapping program.
In a letter to Congress last week, White
House counsel Fred Fielding said the administration had rejected subpoenas for
documents through the claim of executive privilege. That letter also made it
clear that neither former presidential counsel Harriet Miers nor former White
House political director Sara Taylor would testify on Capitol Hill next week, as
directed by the subpoenas.

Stanzel said Congress has "a lot to show in terms of activity and
requests and letter-writing, and that sort of thing, but not much to show in the
way of real legislation."

The Bush-haters have been busy. I'm embarassed to have voted democrat in the past. "Right and wrong" is not the basis for these witch hunts, it's merely a result of years of obstructionism and the "get Bush" mentality gone unchecked.

So much for what the people want.

White House, Cheney's Office, Subpoenaed

These people just don't give up. Their obstructionist mindset is in place so strong they just can't help it. That "get Bush" mentality is harmful and distracting. They should be concentrating OUR money on positive things...not this bullshit.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's warrant-free eavesdropping program.

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.

But with senators of both parties already concerned about the constitutionality of the administration's efforts to root out terrorism suspects in the United States, the committee shifted to the broader question of Gonzales' stewardship of Justice and, in particular, his willingness to permit the wiretapping program.

Piquing the committee's interest was vivid testimony last month by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey about the extent of the White House's effort to override the Justice Department's objections to the program in 2004.

Read more unbelievable crap here.

Cheney

Democrats give No Confidence vote on Gonzalez

Oh, how awful! The dems will vote to say they don't like Gonzalez. These wastes of our tax dollars have nothing more important to do than pass these ridiculous, non-binding votes. It's just a chance to play politics.

This just shows that all that posturing and time-consuming dog and pony shows they called hearings were chasing a meaningless "crime." This is all they can do to try to save face.

I agree with Bush who replied that this vote won't have an affect at all on his decision to keep Gonzalez or not. Bush also said they should be working on something more meanful, like the immigration bill.
No shit. I agree.

Did Valerie Plume Wilson Tell the Truth?

A senator’s investigation suggests the answer is no.

When Valerie Plame Wilson swore that she did not recommend or suggest her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002, Sen. Christopher Bond took note.

Wilson’s words, given in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, didn’t jibe with what Bond’s investigators had learned a few years earlier when they looked into the CIA leak matter. Now, we know why Bond was suspicious.

On page 205 of the newly released 226-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence, Bond has posted “additional views” that address the question of Plame’s testimony about her husband’s trip, the purpose of which was to check out reports Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger. The evidence Bond provides in his additional views contradicts Mrs. Wilson’s version of events.

SWORN TESTIMONY

In her testimony before the House, Mrs. Wilson said flatly, “I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him.” She told the House committee that a 2004 Senate report, which concluded that she had indeed suggested her husband for the trip, was simply wrong. In particular, Mrs. Wilson pointed to a February 12, 2002, memo she had written, which the Senate said showed that she had suggested her husband for the trip, and claimed that the Senate had taken the memo “out of context” to “make it seem as though I had suggested or recommended him.”

The 2004 Senate report to which Mrs. Wilson referred had quoted a brief excerpt from her memo. In the new report, Sen. Bond publishes the whole thing, and it seems to indicate clearly that Mrs. Wilson suggested her husband for the trip. The memo was occasioned by a February 5, 2002 CIA intelligence report about Niger, Iraq, and uranium. The report had been circulating in the intelligence community for a week by February 12, and Mrs. Wilson headlined her memo, “Iraq-related Nuclear Report Makes a Splash.”

The report forwarded below has prompted me to send this on to
you and request your comments and opinion. Briefly, it seems that Niger has signed a contract with Iraq to sell them uranium. The IC [Intelligence Community] is getting spun up about this for obvious reasons.

The embassy in Niamey has taken the position that this report can’t be true — they have such cozy relations with the GON [Government of Niger] that they would know if something like this transpired.So where do I fit in? As you may recall, [redacted] of CP/[office 2] recently approached my husband to possibly use his contacts in Niger to investigate [a separate Niger matter].

After many fits and starts, [redacted] finally advised that the station wished to pursue this with liaison. My husband is willing to help, if it makes sense, but no problem if not. End of story.Now, with this report, it is clear that the IC is still wondering what is going on… my husband has good relations with both the PM and the former minister of mines, not to mention lots of French contacts, both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.

To be frank with you, I was somewhat embarrassed by the agency’s sloppy work last go-round, and I am hesitant to suggest anything again. However, [my husband] may be in a position to assist. Therefore, request your thoughts on what, if anything, to pursue here. Thank you for your time on this.

More at The National Review.

The Oversight Congress: Trouble for Bush

The new Democratic majority's zeal for congressional investigations goes well beyond Alberto Gonzales and the fired federal prosecutors.

Aided by a new investigative team including a former mob prosecutor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Democrats have launched more than three dozen probes of the administration ranging from the White House to obscure agency heads. The House Oversight Committee alone has conducted 20 investigations.

With few legislative accomplishments in hand -- and only a few prospects in the offing -- it seems plain the 110th is shaping up as "The Oversight Congress."

This is troubling news for the Bush White House and Republicans. No fewer than six administration officials have resigned already amid the congressional probes -- and many more are in Democratic sights.

They are targeting a sweep of people and issues. Some are high-profile, such as the leaking of Valerie Plame's CIA identity or the U.S. attorney firings, subjects that make for compelling cable news dramas.

But many more are mundane: inefficiency at the federal crop insurance program or conflicts of interest in FDA contracting. Some are pragmatic, such as an examination of food safety following outbreaks of illness caused by contaminated peanut butter and spinach. Others are tragic: the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman and the misleading information the military provided to his family.
"We're seeing results when we peel away some of the layers in every department," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "People felt they could do whatever they wanted for whatever reason."

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Democrats had a mountain of issues to investigate.

"We have a huge backlog, and we'll try to use what we can to get to everything," he said.
The outbreak of investigations represents a significant change in Washington. For the first six years of the Bush presidency, Republicans controlled Congress and largely avoided tough oversight hearings and hard-hitting investigations, especially of the Iraq war and environmental issues.

In the 2006 campaign, Democrats promised change on this front and have delivered in ways most Americans would probably not notice.
Everyone knows about the investigation of the attorney general and his role in the firings of U.S. attorneys. Gonzales, of course, has vowed to stay on despite calls by a few Republicans for him to resign.

But Democrats have three other scalps to claim from that probe and three from others rarely mentioned.

An Interior Department official resigned after an investigation by the House Natural Resources Committee suggested she had edited scientific reports to lessen endangered species protections. The head of the Education Department's student loan program stepped down after complaints from Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee.

And the official heading up the Minerals Management Service quit her job shortly after congressional Democrats held a hearing critical of the agency.

Resignations are not the only measure of a successful investigation. Often the result will be a change in policy.

The administration appointed a "food safety czar" after several congressional committees raised questions about the FDA's ability to protect consumers from food contamination. The Army announced it would not pay $19.6 million to Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc. after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee examined its arrangements with private security providers.

Read the rest here.

Conyers, Nadler seek more info on NSA eavesdropping program following Comey bombshell

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties on Judiciary, want more information from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales following the suprising revelations this week by former top DOJ official on infighting between the White House-Justice Department over the NSA's domestic eavesdropping program.
Specifically, Conyers and Nadler want to know if forrmer Deputy Attorney General James Comey's statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday - Comey described in full detail a March 2004 effort by Gonzales, then White House Counsel, and Andrew Card, former White House chief of staff, to get then Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the program over Comey's objections, a meeting that took place while Ashcroft was hospitalized - were accurate or whether Comey was describing another classified program.

Iraq Qaeda Group Demands U.S. End Search for Soldiers

Comment: WTF is up with these pieces of human shit that they can demand the U.S. do ANYTHING? They have our soldiers! They will pay a high price.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, an al Qaeda-led group, demanded on Monday that the U.S. military stop searching for three soldiers it says it is holding, saying this was the only way to secure their safety.

"Your soldiers are in our grip. If you want the safety of your soldiers then do not search for them," the group said in a statement on a Web site used by insurgents.

U.S. troops backed by helicopters have been searching for three American soldiers who went missing in an al Qaeda stronghold near Baghdad on Saturday after an ambush that killed four other U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter.

The posting did not carry pictures of the soldiers, make demands for their release or say what their fate would be. The group usually posts pictures of people it abducts as proof.

"You have suffered a setback today because you have described the U.S. soldier through your propaganda as invincible ... with grace from God the Almighty the U.S. soldier has been humiliated at the hands of faithful (Muslims)," it said.

"By searching for your soldiers you are only tiring yourself," it said, adding that the aggressive search showed that the U.S. military would rather "the whole army dead rather than having one crusader detained."

Push to oust Gonzales loses momentum

Republican members of Congress on Thursday leapt to the defence of Alberto Gonzales, the embattled US attorney-general, as Democratic efforts to oust him appeared to lose momentum.
Mr Gonzales faced a fresh barrage of question from Democrats over the controversial firing of several US attorneys when he appeared before the House judiciary committee.

But Republican committee members largely supported Mr Gonzales and called for an end to the investigation, easing pressure on one of President George W. Bush’s closest political allies.
Democrats have sought to prove that the firings of at least eight US attorneys last year were politically motivated, citing an e-mail by a Gonzales aide that judged federal prosecutors according to whether they were “loyal Bushies”.

“The list of accusations has mushroomed, but the evidence has not,” said Lamar Smith, the senior Republican committee member. “If there are no fish in this lake, we should reel in our lines of questions, dock our empty boat and turn to more pressing issues.”

Mr Gonzales looked more confident and relaxed than during his testimony to the Senate judiciary committee last month, when only one Republican senator rallied to his defence.

Repeating the arguments he made to the Senate committee, Mr Gonzales acknowledged that the firings had been mishandled but insisted they were made on performance, not political, grounds.

“I have publicly apologised to [the fired attorneys] and to their families for allowing this matter to become an unfortunate and undignified public spectacle,” he said. “I never sought to mislead or deceive.”

Democrats probed Mr Gonzales on revelations this week that a ninth attorney was forced from his job last year, in addition to the eight already known about.

And they pressed him on who originated the list of attorneys to be fired, seeking evidence of White House involvement in the decisions.

Mr Gonzales conceded that Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s political adviser, had raised concerns at the failure of some attorneys to pursue prosecutions against voter fraud.

But he said the list of under-performing attorneys was based on “the consensus of the senior leadership of the [Justice] Department”. He added: “I don't want the American people to believe that politicisation is running rampant in the department, because that's just not true.”

John Conyers, Democratic committee chairman, said the investigation would go on. “The department’s most precious asset, its reputation for integrity and independence, has been called into question,” he said. “Until we get to the bottom of how this list was created and why, those doubts will persist.”

The White House has repeatedly voiced support for Mr Gonzales, who served as general-counsel to Mr Bush when he was governor of Texas. Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond, said the Democrats would continue seeking evidence of wrongdoing.

Iraq Liberation Act

Possibly the most frightening aspect of the irresponsible moonbats who have taken over George Soros' Democrat Party is their willingness to rewrite history on the fly to suit their short-term convenience, with the eager assistance of their toadies in the media. Currently, their strategy of deliberately causing the USA to lose "Bush's war" in Iraq so they can hang it around Republicans' necks calls for erasing the fact that the war was undertaken with support from both parties.

The problem with their approach is, they haven't been able to shove all evidence of the past down the Memory Hole. For example, the Clinton era Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 makes it clear that regime change in Iraq was US policy even before Bush came to Washington.

The Act states plainly a historical fact that the media has done its best to obliterate — that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction, and that he used them against Iran and against his own civilian population. It confirms that Saddam committed genocide, killing Kurds by the tens of thousands. It also brings up the all-but-forgotten fact that Saddam attempted to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush, an intolerable act of aggression.

Here's a highlight from the Act:

On August 14, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105–235, which
declared that "the Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of
its international obligations'' and urged the President "to take appropriate
action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United
States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international
obligations.''

The Act calls for "indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of international law." It was cited as a basis of support in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, which Congress passed in 2002 with support from both parties.

Regardless of how the Dems and their MSM accomplices may distort or ignore the recent past, the war belongs to the whole government, not just those who are trying to win it.

Goodling Immunity Moves Forward

Huh. Just out from House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI):

Today the Department of Justice gave notice that it would not object to the
House Judiciary Committee's grant of use immunity for Monica Goodling. I believe
obtaining her testimony will be a critical step in our efforts to get to the
truth about the circumstances surrounding the US Attorney firings and possible
politicization in the Department's prosecutorial function. The Committee will be
moving expeditiously to apply for the court order so that we can schedule a
hearing promptly.

So despite the Justice Department's Inspector General's investigation into whether Goodling may have broken the law by considering the political affiliation of entry-level U.S. attorneys, the immunity will move forward. All that excitement for nothing.

Update: Here is the letter from the Justice Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility informing Congress that they will not object. A quote:

"...after balancing the significant congressional and public interest against
the impact of the Committee's actions on our ongoing investigation, we will not
raise an objection or seek a deferral..."

The Hunt for Karl Rove

WASHINGTON-- Now six plus years into the presidency of George W. Bush, I think we can discern a theme in his administration, one that the historians will pass on to future generations. I write as a historian myself here, in fact as a "presidential historian," if I may appropriate a title used in modern historiography.

Some will scoff at my claim, but in recent years I have written about as many books on presidential high jinks as Michael Beschloss, who is frequently called a "presidential historian" though he is not as amused by the presidency as I am.

Perhaps this is because I have mostly written about President Bill Clinton, the modern presidency's closest approximation to the late and laughable President Warren G. Harding. At this point in Clinton's administration several themes were discernible. There was the administration's effort to avoid the prosecutors -- as many as seven different officers of the court were out to get the President, his wife, and various cabinet officials. There was the President's effort to avoid impeachment and, worse, conviction. Less celebrated, but surely a long-standing theme of President Clinton's presidency (and for that matter of his whole adult life), was his effort to avoid various ghastly sexually transmitted diseases. It is increasingly likely that in the years to come the Clinton administration will figure as prominently in high school history classes as in high school sex education classes, and the lessons to be derived from the latter will probably be more beneficial to the commonweal.

Now in the spring of 2007 I think a perceptible theme has emerged in the Bush administration. Dramatists might entitle it "The Hunt for Karl Rove." Since the 2001 inauguration, multitudes of journalists have set out to snare him. Entire congressional staffs have pursued him. Wily fellow that he is, Rove has evaded every trap. Called five times before the grand jury in the Valerie Plame burlesque, he never lapsed into a serious misstatement and certainly not into the perjury that cooked President Clinton's goose. Back he went to the White House every time with a smile on his face and doubtless a head full of stratagems with which to flummox the Democrats further. I would not be surprised to read in Rove's memoir that he actually enjoyed the grand jury appearances. They filled the liberal Democrats with such hope. They left them in such despair.

At this very minute there are at least two congressional investigations hot on his trail. One is investigating whether the Republican National Committee set up separate e-mail accounts for Rove and his henchpersons in the White House to use. Another is investigating whether these desperados arranged political briefings for political appointees in the government. Both investigations will probably find that Rove and his cronies did precisely what they are suspected of doing. Yet once again Rove will go scot-free. The problem the investigators have is that there is nothing wrong with Rove's actions. They are perfectly legal and, at least in the case of the e-mail accounts, required by law.

What we have here is the criminalization of politics. Nothing Rove has done is criminal, but by dragging him before congressional hearings and even better grand juries his political opponents hope that they will catch him in a misstatement that can be prosecuted as perjury.

Leahy issues subpoena for Rove e-mails

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena Wednesday for all e-mails from White House adviser Karl Rove that relate to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

Quote:

“Attached please find a subpoena compelling the Department by May 15 to produce any and all emails and attachments to emails to, from, or copied to Karl Rove
related to the Committee’s investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial
independence and the Department of Justice’s politicization of the hiring and
firing and decision-making of United States Attorneys, from any (1) White House
account, (2) Republican National Committee account, or (3) other account, in the
possession, custody or control of the Department of Justice,”

Leahy said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The senator had requested the information from Gonzales when the attorney general testified before the committee and in a follow-up letter. However, Leahy said that Gonzales did not respond.

“I continue to hope that the Department will cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, but it is troubling that significant documents highly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry have not been produced,” Leahy said in the letter.“Indeed, despite multiple requests for the Department to produce documents voluntarily related to the Committee’s investigation into the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys and politicization at the Department, the Department’s production of documents has been selective and incomplete,” Leahy added.

“Many documents have been withheld or redacted without any legal basis being set forth." Leahy said the Department of Justice has until May 15 to comply with the subpoena.

Obstruction tactic at its best.

The Democrat's Obsession with Karl Rove

Hollywood Girls Gone Wild

The showdown at the White House Correspondents' dinner was more emotional and lasted longer than was first reported. It started when Laurie David introduced herself to Karl Rove.

He knew who she was--Hollywood's leading Bush-hater and a producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's film on global warming. David quickly launched into a harangue. President Bush has done nothing on global warming, she said. Rove answered that Bush has funded more research on the subject than any president. That's worthless, David responded. All the scientific questions have been answered, she insisted.

Now's the time for action! Rove cited the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which projects a modest rise in sea level of 7 to 23 inches over the next century. David told Rove he was wrong. We've had the hottest summer and winter ever, she said, plus extreme weather events. The president needs to talk to real global warming experts. Rove said he already does. "Would you like me to give you a list?" he asked. She didn't.

You don't have anybody who understands the seriousness of the issue talking to the president, David said. Yes, we do, Rove said, mentioning the president's science adviser, Dr. John Marburger.

That's when the debate got more heated and more physical. Sheryl Crow, the singer, suddenly appeared. Without introducing herself, she demanded that Rove tell her how many corporations were financing Marburger's research. Rove responded that Marburger has a long and distinguished academic record.

David said Bush must lead on global warming and America must emulate China--China!--by signing the Kyoto Protocol. (China indeed signed, but didn't agree to curb greenhouse gases.)
Crow was more insistent, poking Rove in the chest and pinching his arm. She said Rove worked for her. Rove said he worked for the American people. Crow said she and David were the American people. And at that point, Rove turned and sat back down at his table, where he was a guest of the New York Times.

The point of recounting this stunt by two of Hollywood's most prominent limousine liberals--who have accused Rove of rudeness--is to put him in the proper political context. He is the chief target of Democrats, liberals, and the left, and they burn with a desire to see him discredited, fired, and jailed. If all else fails, and it has so far, they'll settle for tainting him as impolite.

More at The Weekly Standard.

GOP Breaks Truce over Rice Threat

Republicans largely kept their mouths shut this year as Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) scheduled hearing after hearing and sent letter after letter from his post as chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

On Tuesday, they finally made some noise.

Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), the ranking Republican on Waxman's committee, drew the line during an press conference protesting a scheduled vote to issue a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

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"This isn't even a close call," Davis said of the threatened subpoena. "This is way over the line."
Waxman wants Rice to testify under oath about President Bush's now-infamous claims that Iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger. He has scheduled the vote for Wednesday.

But Davis and others said Tuesday the Rice subpoena would be a gross abuse of the committee's jurisdiction.
"This is not only an overreach; it's disruptive," Davis said. "This is nothing but a partisan witch hunt."

His remarks coincide with a coordinated assault by Republicans in the House, criticizing Waxman on a range of topics because of his determination to question Rice, one leadership aide said.

Davis, who worked closely with Waxman when he himself chaired the committee, argued that Waxman is threatening the subpoena solely in order forcing Rice to raise her right hand and take an oath before a bank of television cameras that would then broadcast the politically damaging image around the world.

Republican Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Lamar Smith of Texas joined the Virginia Republican on Tuesday to protest this latest attempt to call the secretary of state before the committee.

Members of the minority deliberately kept their mouths shut during the first months of this year, so their protests would have more weight when they came, GOP leadership aides have said. This signals the end of that truce.

The secretary of state has a busy schedule, Smith argued, and she should not be compelled to appear before the oversight panel, which potentially includes days of preparation.
"I thought to myself, that's too much," Smith said.

Waxman is investigating President Bush 2003 State of the Union claim that agents for Saddam Hussein tried to buy materials for a nuclear weapon in Niger, a claim that is now widely held to be false.

The Republicans emphasized past investigations of this question by other national and international organizations and said the committee's current inquiry belabors the point.
"This is not about trying to protect the administration," said Shays, who was a consistent critic of the White House and his own leadership during the Republicans' tenure in the majority.

Davis conceded that his staff contacted the State Department after Waxman scheduled the session to vote on subpoenas and that officials at State are concerned about the impact Rice's testimony would have politically and practically on her schedule.

The four Republicans were less defiant of the other three subpoenas the House will vote on Wednesday in a series of separate, although somewhat related, investigations.

These include subpoenas for former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, for emails from the Republican National Committee and for a list of contacts from the White House between administration officials and a defense contractor in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal.

"I think it's a fishing expedition," Davis said of Waxman's possible subpoena of RNC emails, "but I think he has every right to do that."

Republicans are now circulating Waxman quotes from his tenure as the ranking Democrat under a former Government Reform chairman, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), to help frame the debate in their favor.

In 1997, for example, Waxman said, "It makes no sense to direct multiple Congressional committees to investigate the same abuses -- Multiple investigations are duplicative and wasteful." That, Davis argued, is exactly what the oversight chairman is doing.

"The very thing Henry Waxman complained about, he's becoming," Shays said.
The committee did not respond to an email asking for comment.

Waxman has full subpoena authority, and has used the tool a limited number of times so far.
He scheduled Wednesday's vote because the State Department, the RNC and the White House have not provided him and his committee with all the information they asked for, according to a collection of letters he sent top administration officials last week.

Davis said he and Waxman have had a productive working relationship in the past and expects that to continue moving forward, hinting, "I don't know what pressure he's under from his leadership."

But this marks a stark turn in their relationship and a departure for Republicans, who, to this point, have stood by as Waxman peels back layer-upon-layer of potential malfeasance and mismanagement in the current Republican administration.

White House Faces Sweeping Congressional Oversight

Thursday 26 April 2007

Congress took unprecedented action against the Bush administration Wednesday, using its sweeping powers to vigorously pursue testimony and documents from key White House officials and agencies on issues that have mired the administration in at least a half-dozen scandals.

Covering a broad range of topics including allegations of widespread corruption, two Congressional committees authorized subpoenas - one for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to compel her to testify about how a now-discredited 2003 claim that Iraq sought yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address. Subpoenas were also approved for the Republican National Committee to secure thousands of emails missing from an RNC server used by White House officials, and to require testimony by top officials of the RNC.

Additionally, the House Judiciary Committee granted immunity to former Justice Department official Monica Goodling, and approved a subpoena to force her to testify before Congress about her role and the role of White House officials in the firings of eight US attorneys last year. In an interview Tuesday on the program "Hardball," David Iglesias, the former US attorney from New Mexico, said Goodling "holds the keys to the kingdom" and could very well implicate key officials in the White House in the firings if she testifies. Iglesias was fired last year by the Department of Justice under questionable circumstances.

The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), also approved a subpoena for Sara Taylor, a deputy to White House political adviser Karl Rove. Rove is said to have played a major role in the US attorney firings, and his use of an RNC email account to conduct official White House business has come under fire. The RNC said it lost thousands of emails Rove had sent over the past few years. The emails may shed further light on the nature of Rove's involvement in the firings and a number of other issues Congress is looking into.

Rice Signals Rejection of House Subpoena

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.

Rice said she would respond by mail to questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Bush administration's prewar claims about Saddam Hussein seeking weapons of mass destruction, but signaled she would not appear in person."I am more than happy to answer them again in a letter," she told reporters in Oslo, where she is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

The comments were her first reaction to a subpoena issued on Wednesday by the committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.Rice said she respected the oversight function of the legislative branch, but maintained she had already testified in person and under oath about claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa during her confirmation hearing for the job of secretary of state."I addressed these questions, almost the same questions, during my confirmation hearing," she said.

"This is an issue that has been answered and answered and answered."Rice noted that she had been serving as President Bush's national security adviser during the period covered by the panel's questions and stressed the administration's position that presidential aides not confirmed by the Senate cannot be forced to testify before Congress under the doctrine of executive privilege.

"This all took place in my role as national security adviser," she said. "There is a constitutional principle. There is a separation of powers and advisers to the president under that constitutional principle are not generally required to go and testify in Congress."

"So, I think we have to observe and uphold the constitutional principle, but I also observe and uphold the obligation of Congress to conduct its oversight role, I respect that. But I think I have more than answered these questions, and answered them directly to Congressman Waxman."

Comment: In other words..."Piss up a rope." The only female in the bunch and she has more balls than any of them.

Source

House panel votes to subpoena Rice on Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmakers voted on Wednesday to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify about administration justifications for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.On a party-line vote of 21-10, the House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee directed Rice to appear before the panel next month.

Republicans accused Democrats of a "fishing expedition." But Democrats said they want Rice to explain what she knew about administration's warnings, later proven false, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for nuclear arms."There was one person in the White House who had primary responsibility to get the intelligence about Iraq right -- and that was Secretary Rice who was then President George W. Bush's national security adviser," said committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat.

"The American public was misled about the threat posed by Iraq, and this committee is going to do its part to find out why," Waxman said.

Comment: Good old "Bi-Partisanship" in action. Source