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.