By D. Cupples | Claiming executive privilege, the White House ordered current and former employees in July to not comply with subpoenas related to Congress's investigation into the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys.
Today, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) ruled that the White House's executive-privilege claim is legally invalid, partly because President Bush doesn't seem to have been involved in the U.S. Attorney firings. In an inadeqautely titled article, the Associated Press reported yesterday that Leahy ordered four current/former White House staffers -- including Karl Rove -- to comply with those months-old subpoenas.
The AP's title -- "Leahy: Bush Not Involved in Firings"-- is inadequate, perhaps misleading, because 1) Leahy didn't exactly say that; and 2) the main thrust of Leahy's ruling was not that Bush wasn't involved in the firings but that his executive-privilege claim is invalid. Readers who saw only the AP's headline likely got the wrong impression of Leahy's ruling.
What Leahy did say is that "there is no indication of presidential involvement" and that "significant and uncontroverted evidence" suggests that President Bush wasn't involved. (See ruling text) There's a big difference between Leahy's statements and the AP's headline.
One argument for an executive-privilege claim is that a President needs to get candid advice from his advisers and that he won't get candid advice if advisers face the possibility of having to later testify about their advice.
Leahy argued that President Bush (and his staffers) claim that Bush wasn't involved in the U.S. Attorney firings; thus, presidential advisers didn't advise him on the firings (if they did, then Bush was involved).
Leahy's ruling is one step on the path toward the issuing of contempt of Congress citations against the White House staffers who refused to testify or produce documents required by the subpoenas. The next step is a full vote of the Senate.
Given that the Senate has equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, there is a chance that the Senate will not vote to issue the citations.
See Memeorandum for blogger commentary.
Comments