All members of Congress — Republicans and Democrats — should be concerned about the executive power and privilege claimed by the Bush administration. But today’s House Judiciary Committee vote to hold two Bush aides in contempt may not be the smartest response.
The committee voted along party lines to hold Josh Bolten, White House chief of staff, and Harriet Miers, former White House counsel, in contempt for refusing to testify in an investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.
But former Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., argued, “Absent showing that a crime was committed in this process, I think the White House is going to win an argument in court,” the Washington Post reported. He contends that the better approach would be to file a lawsuit challenging President Bush’s executive privilege claim.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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57 Comments
This will make me look good and get me votes.
I wonder if they read this book:http://littledemocrats.net/index.html
I’m glad they are standing up to the Bushies. I’d like to see them do BOTH – sue and file contempt charges.
Contempt charges are bad because the Bush regime is above the law and we can’t hold them to account, just like Eagle endorsed politicians failed to do for the past six years.
Sensenbrenner’s comment is based upon U.S. v. Nixon, which involved, inter alia, the claim of Executive Privilege in an ongoing criminal investigation. To my knowledge,there is no Constitutional jurisprudence dealing with a claim of Executive Privilege against a subpoena issued by a constitutionally co-equal branch of government.
Why is it the eagle staff agree that this administration is corrupt, but doesn’t want the dems to do anything about it?
Stop giving them a pass or it’ll only get worse. It’s time to stand up for our rights, not cower down. They deserve that contempt charge.
Remember when the Congress had a cow when William “cold cash” Jefferson had his office searched by the FBI?
There’s always going to be a power squabble. But criminally charging the minions is stupid when you could just file a suit and let the courts decide.
I’m certainly no expert in this area. But executive privilege has a long history, being asserted by Presidents of both parties for as far back as the Republic has existed. Such a conflict between branches is inherent in a system where the functions of gov’t are separated into co-equal branches.
IIRC, wasn’t Meirs the president’s counsel? If so, it seems to me that not only may executive privilege may apply, but there may be a lawyer/client privilege issue. I may well be wrong there, we’ll see.
Here’s another perspective on the issue, with commentary, by persons who I’m sure have more qualifications than I. Enjoy.
http://volokh.com/posts/1185084836.shtml
Yup . . . one set of standards for Clinton. Another set for Bush.
But the agenda was different (for Congressional oversight) during the Clinton administration. The government reform panel alone, for example, issued 1,052 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2002, and only 11 subpoenas related to allegations of Republican abuse.
The panel received more than 2 million pages of documents and heard from 44 Clinton administration officials, including two White House chiefs of staff, according to statistics culled by Democratic staff on the Government Reform Committee
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has found that from October 1996 to March 1998 — well before the impeachment hearings — the Clinton White House staff had spent more than 55,000 hours responding to more than 300 congressional requests, and had produced hundreds of video and audio tapes, along with hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, to congressional investigators.
. . . .
The Energy and Commerce panel has not conducted aggressive inquiries into powerful industries under its jurisdiction such as oil, gas, and tobacco companies, Dingell and others have said.
Nor has the panel done a comprehensive inquiry into Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, which played a critical role in giving tax breaks to a number of oil, gas, and nuclear companies.
New Administration motto:
“We break the law so you don’t have to!”
I think it’s a winner.
GMC, at least at one time Ms Miers was the President’s counsel. The attorney-client privilege issue is certainly there to be explored.
I’ve no expertise in the Executive Privilege area either. So, off to the link you provided at some point to get some edification.
A short brief on the History of Executive Privilege from an author at Findlaw Web Site.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20020206.html
yeah Outlander, that was the REPUBLICAN congress that threw a fit about Jefferson’s search…or did you forget that?
Not at all Mom. What’s you point?
(Mine was that it works both ways with squabbles between the co-equal branches of the federal government)
Precedent or Insight?
President Is Denied Executive Privilege
By Peter Baker and Susan SchmidtWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, May 6, 1998; Page A01
“A federal judge has ruled that President Clinton cannot use the power of his office to block prosecutors from questioning his senior aides, rejecting Clinton’s assertion of executive privilege in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation, lawyers familiar with the decision said yesterday.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/starr050698.htm
To explain it better Mom, do you think that the Republicans in Congress enjoyed the prospect of siding with Cold Cash Jefferson? And was it an unpopular thing to do? Yup. But they thought they were defending the legislative branch against intrusion by the executive branch.
Same reasoning as what the president is asserting here. What’s good for the goose..
House Committee OKs Contempt Citations for 2 White House Aides in Prosecutors Firings Flap
Wednesday, July 25, 2007Associated PressWASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee voted contempt of Congress citations Wednesday against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and President Bush’s former legal counselor, Harriet Miers.
“The 22-17 party-line vote — which would sanction for pair for failure to comply with subpoenas on the firings of several federal prosecutors — advanced the citation to the full House.
A senior Democratic official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the House itself likely would take up the citations after Congress’ August recess. The official declined to speak on the record because no date had been set for the House vote.
Committee Chairman John Conyers said the panel had nothing to lose by advancing the citations because it could not allow presidential aides to flout Congress’ authority. Republicans warned that a contempt citation would lose in federal court even if it got that far.”
cont’dhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290666,00.html
Outlander,
Given how guilty many Repubican Congressfolk have proven to be since Jefferson (Stevens, Murkowski, Young from Alaska, Cunningham from California), their willingness to stand up for Jefferson suggests that their motives were more personal than Constitutional. They didn’t want their dirty laundry exposed, and saw defending Jefferson as a first-line defense against that eventuality.
As for the bleatings by Sensenbrenner, well, given his wholesale handing over (as Chairman) of the House Judiary Committee to the Executive, his recent expressions of concern for the separation of powers don’t exactly ring true.
And think about Sensenbrenner’s statement for one moment. Is he saying that unless a crime is shown to have been committed, that Federal Courts would side with the Executive? What difference would the fact of whether or not wrongdoing had taken place have for the question of whether Congress is or is not within its bounds to subpeona those working for the Executive? If a crime is found to have been committed, then subpeonas are retroactively OK, but if no crime is found to have been committed, then they aren’t? What kind of ex post facto rationale is that?
Final point: does Sensenbrenner think Congress has inherent powers to investigate and issue subpeonas, or not? Precedent seems to be against him on this point.
“Congress’s Power To Compel
By Frank AskinSaturday, July 21, 2007; A13
It seems that the House Judiciary Committee is considering seeking help from the Justice Department to enforce contempt citations against Bush administration officials such as Joshua Bolten who refuse to respond to congressional inquiries into alleged White House wrongdoing. That would be a mistake.
Such a strategy leaves Congress beholden to hostile executive branch officials to enforce its prerogatives on exactly the type of charges that the administration said this week it would not allow officials to pursue. This strategy also would allow the president to pardon his underlings should they ever be indicted and convicted.
Yet under historic and undisturbed law, Congress can enforce its own orders against recalcitrant witnesses without involving the executive branch and without leaving open the possibility of presidential pardon.
And a Supreme Court majority would find it hard to object in the face of two entrenched legal principles.
First is the inherent power of Congress to require testimony on matters within its legislative oversight jurisdiction.
So long as Congress is investigating issues over which it has the power to legislate, it can compel witnesses to appear and respond to questions. That power has been affirmed over and over in prosecutions for contempt.
In modern times, this congressional power has been enforced by referring contempt cases to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for indictment and prosecution. That, of course, is the rub. It allows the president to exercise his plenary power under the Constitution to issue pardons “for offenses against the United States.”
But no law says that indictment and prosecution by the Justice Department is the exclusive means to enforce congressional prerogative.
Indeed, in an 1895 case ( United States v. Chapman), the defendant unsuccessfully argued that Congress could not have such cases of contempt prosecuted through the courts but must punish such defiance on its own, without judicial assistance. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that judicial enforcement of Congress’s inherent power was optional.
This power of Congress to punish contemptuous behavior itself was reinforced in 1934. In Jurney v. McCracken, the Supreme Court denied a writ of habeas corpus to a petitioner who had been taken into custody by the Senate sergeant- at-arms for allegedly destroying documents requested in a Senate subpoena.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001802_pf.html
I’d say Sensenbrenner’s comment is a ruse, and an implied threat as well. In either case, Conyers ain’t buying it.
Sounds like Bush and his supporters believe Clinton’s claim of executive privilege should have been upheld, or not challenged at all.
They must believe also that congress got in wrong in being able to subpoena his aide Monica.
leftcoaster,
HA HA HA HA!!!!!! Indeed.
Today John Yoo has an Op-Ed defending Bush’s claims of Executive Privilege: back in 1998, he published another Op-Ed attacking Clinton’s same claims. Check out Glenn Greenwald on Salon.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/24/yoo/index.html
Consistency–it really is too much to ask of Republican “intellectuals.”
For those interested, note the case cited above involving the denial of Executive Privilege to President Clinton involved a criminal investigation, squarely in line with the decision of SCOTUS in U.S. v. Nixon.
And, CF2K, the history (judicial and otherwise) indeed supports a Congressional trial for Contempt of Congress. I raise the question of how does Congress enforce its verdict? I am aware that the Sergeant-at-Arms of whichever body holds the trial is to take the person into custody and keep him/her there until the contempt is cured or the end of the Session of Congress, but does the confinement facility of the Congress still exist? If not, then the issue arises of whether the Executive, which runs the prisons, may be forced by Congress to house the convicted party in a federal facility. I’m without an answer here, but suggest that, based on and analogizing from the authority contained within the DOJ memo from the Reagan Administration on Executive Privilege upon which the current administration relies, the answer is no.
Couldn’t they just arrest the person and then make a ruling that confinement will include Government paid quarters, such as a contracted Hotel?
VT,
Excellent question. In addition to your reading of the memo, which suggests that the right /duty of enforcement belongs to Congress, there’s also the fact that self-enforcement of the Executive by the Executive doesn’t seem terribly likely at the moment, given the fact that Alberto Gonzales is the head of the DOJ.
“Is he saying that unless a crime is shown to have been committed, that Federal Courts would side with the Executive? What difference would the fact of whether or not wrongdoing had taken place have for the question of whether Congress is or is not within its bounds to subpeona those working for the Executive? If a crime is found to have been committed, then subpeonas are retroactively OK, but if no crime is found to have been committed, then they aren’t? What kind of ex post facto rationale is that?”
Posted by: CF2K | July 25, 2007 at 04:01 PM
CF maybe he is saying no more fishing expeditions. You think.
Here’s a good article from Melanie Sloan, a former assistant US Attorney. She lays out the probable courses that matters could take in the near future, as well as some of the precedent from the 1983 showdown between Congress and the Reagan Administration over Anne Gorsuch.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/24/2730/
ksgrm,
Maybe he is. But if that’s his view, it shows that partisanship is his sole concern, rather than Constitutionality and the doctrine of the Separation of Powers.
Wow–another great article about the enforcement of Congressional subpeona powers here.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/8/1731/15806
Dear Republicans: don’t let the link title scare you off. The basis for the author’s discussion is a 2003 report on Congressional Subpeona Powers from the Congressional Research Service. Pretty substantive stuff, which shows that generally, Congress has been the victor in battles such as the one we see shaping up.
Oh, and the 1983 battle over Anne Gorsuch? It was orchestrated by Fred Fielding, who is the current White House counsel. With this gang, the Ratf*cking never ends.
“maybe he is saying no more fishing expeditions”
How many millions for Ken Starr? Paybacks are hell.
Not to belabor the obvious, CF2K, but that’s why Mr. Fielding was brought in. Seemed apparent to me from the beginning. As you know, Mr. Fielding “earned his spurs” during Watergate.
And here’s another one which catalogues the three kinds of contempt: inherent; statutory criminal; and civil.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×1393713
As before, Republicans, don’t let the link scare you off: the text is taken from a Congressional Research Service manual, dated May 1, 2007, located here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30240.pdf
Still no answer to Vaughn Tolle’s question of where Congress would imprison folks found to be in contempt. CF2K will keep looking.
VT,
Indeed. Bush and Cheney knew very well this was coming down the pike, and that even if they couldn’t make their claims of the Unitary Executive stick with the Supreme Court, that they needed to run out the clock to stay in office and out of jail.
Hence, to quote The Muppet Movie, they brought in the “hired frog killer from the coast”–Fred Fielding.
Seems to me that the version of the “Four Corners Offense” currently in vogue will be successful, pending a large shift in the votes in Congress.
For me, this is the money quote in Greenwald’s piece:
“Like every good authoritarian, Yoo’s only real principle, his only True Conviction, is that the Leader is Good and Right.”
. . . unless the “leader” is Bill Clinton. I think these Unitary Eeecutive types see two types of government: the Hailed Monarch (e.g. Bush) or an Occupying Enemy (e.g. Clinton).
IT’S A TRAP!
They aren’t interested in holding these two pawns responsible for contempt. They want the big guns.
So…
Step 1 – File contempt charges against the pawns.
Step 2 – Bush tells the D.C. prosecutor to back off or else.
Step 3 – D.C. prosecutor backs off.
Step 4 – Bush is now guilty of witness tampering (ordering the peons to not testify) and obstruction of justice (ordering the D.C. prosecutor to ignore a lawful order.)
Step 5 – Impeachment on 2 charges that Bush openly committed and admitted to.
Sounds like a damn good plan, Jordan.
Trouble is, the political animals that call themselves Congressional Democrats aren’t going to impeach.
They saw how the American people turned against the Republicans when they tried to burn Clinton at the stake.
Thanks to their mindless vengance against all things Clinton, Bill left office more popular than REAGAN (yes, that’s right–facts don’t lie) and Hillary is now the front-runner.
Way to not only shoot themselves in the ass but shoot America in the ass at the same time . . .
Why impeach when you can just watch GW like the Wicked Witch melt before your eyes.
If harriet’s role as the president’s lawyer makes it ok for her to thumb her nose at congressional supeonas…
… how did congress get John Dean to testify? Wasnt he also White House Council?
If lawyers break the law in “service” to their client, you mean they are above investigation and prosecution?
I understand lawyer client privelege, but they sure made John Dean dance. Are you telling me he “testified” voluntarily?
I doubt Mr. Lund that witness tampering would even be attempted.
Proving the essential elements of said tampering would be outside of the venue of that Court because the defendants would be represented by their own counsel.
The motion to dismiss from the D.C. Courts would be by the defendants Counsel and not the President.
And there is nothing illegal about that.
Looks like Gonzo is going to be charged with perjury, since this memo directly contradicts what he said today. Bush has more pardons from where libby’s came.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070725/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/congress_gonzales_2;_ylt=AiUYHCdVubbiWx4Bbwsjw7NlM3wV
I think they Dems should get over themselves, they are turning all of this into a “gotcha” game and who has the best memory contest.
How could Gonzo be expected to remember such a dramatic incident, where he had to pay a visit to a critically ill Ashcroft, and everyone was threatening to reisgn.
This whole show just keeps getting better and better. I’m patiently waiting for the customary mantra of “they ain’t got nothing”, seems this time AGAIN, a few more of geedubyahs sacrificial lambs will fall by the wayside. Friends are getting in short supply nowadays. Only one more year to make it and the walls are crumbling fast…Ya gotta love a good movie played out in geedubyahs world.
First_Timer,
That’s exactly the attitude we don’t need in this country. This isn’t “tag” or some other game. This involves peoples’ lives.
The Democratic Congress is spending way too much time on this investigation stuff when they should be attending to the people’s visit.
Congressional Oversight was meant to be directed towards the agencies which make the country go, not witch hunting individuals.
Complaining about eight attorneys who got fired who already served several years in a temporary job is a total waste of everyone’s time and is contemptuous of the trust the American People give them.
This is a pissing contest and that’s all it is.
Accountability (hopefully) will come to bushco; it’s about time.
“The Democratic Congress is spending way too much time on this investigation stuff when they should be attending to the people’s visit.
Congressional Oversight was meant to be directed towards the agencies which make the country go, not witch hunting individuals.”
Remember Ken Starr? Newt Gingrich? PAYBACKS ARE HELL AIN’T THEY!?
Jordan Lund,
God, I wish the Democratic leadership were that smart.
However, I’ll take these subpeonas. Given my postings above, this is clearly a fight that Democrats can and should undertake.
After all, if Senate Republicans want to obstruct any and all Democratic legislation from being voted on, much less passed, they have only themselves to blame when a bunch of bored committee chairs fill up their otherwise empty days by issuing subpeonas.
The Phantom,
Yeah, I think Gonzo went a bit far this time by effectively calling a bunch of Senators liars. And if CF2K is not mistaken, filing charges would be the first step in impeaching Gonzo–something a number of Republican Senators would probably sign on for.
Bush has been spoiling for a Constitutional showdown for six years now. Fine. Let him bring out his make-believe legal rationales and see whether his handpicked Supreme Court is willing to go all the way.
CF2K, for one, doesn’t think they’ll take too kindly to these absolute claims of Executive Privilege.
And what do you know–today is the 33rd anniversary of Rep. Barbara Jordan’s speech to the House Judiciary Committee, regarding the impeachment of Richard Nixon. CF2K has included that great lady’s speech below, with a link to the audio file.
**********************************
“Mr. Chairman:
Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, “We, the people.” It is a very eloquent beginning. But when the document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included in “We, the people.”
Today, I am an inquisitor; an hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total; and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution, for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office.
The Constitution doesn’t say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive. The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judges the same person.
We know the nature of impeachment. We have been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to “bridle” the Executive if he engages in excesses. It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men. The framers… limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term, “maladministration.” ….
Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: Appropriations, tax reform, health insurance, campaign finance reform, housing, environmental protection, energy sufficiency, mass transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.
This morning, in a discussion of the evidence, we were told that the evidence which purports to support the allegations of misuse of the CIA by the President is thin. We are told that that evidence is insufficient. What that recital of the evidence this morning did not include is what the President did know on June 23, 1972. The President did know that it was Republican money, that it was money from the Committee for the Re-election of the President, which was found in the possession of one of the burglars arrested on June 17.
What the President did know on June 23 was the prior activities of E. Howard Hunt, which included his participation in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, which included Howard Hunt’s participation in the Dita Beard ITT affair, which included Howard Hunt’s fabrication of cables designed to discredit the Kennedy Administration.
We were further cautioned today that perhaps these proceedings ought to be delayed because certainly there would be new evidence forthcoming from the President of the United States. There has not even been an obfuscated indication that this committee would receive any additional materials from the President. The committee’s subpoena is outstanding and if the President wants to supply that material, the committee sits here. The fact is that on yesterday, the American people waited with great anxiety for eight hours, not knowing whether their President would obey an order of the Supreme Court of the United States.
At this point, I would like to juxtapose a few of the impeachment criteria with some of the President’s actions.
Impeachment criteria: James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention. “If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there is grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached.”
We have heard time and time again that the evidence reflects payment to the defendants of money. The President had knowledge that these funds were being paid and that these were funds collected for the 1972 presidential campaign. We know that the President met with Mr. Henry Petersen twenty-seven times to discuss matters related to Watergate, and immediately thereafter met with the very persons who were implicated in the information Mr. Petersen was receiving… The words are, “If the President is connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter that person, he may be impeached.”
*****
James Madison, again at the constitutional convention: “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”
The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregarded the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, concealed surreptitious entry, attempted to compromise a federal judge while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice. “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”
If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that eighteenth century Constitution should be abandoned to a twentieth century paper shredder.
Has the President committed offenses and planned and directed and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That’s the question. We know that. We know the question.
We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question.
It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
I yield back the balance of my time.”
http://www.massachusettsobserver.com/barbarajordan.htm
Bush has just gotten cocky after four years of a rubberstamping congress that could not and would not stand up to the Administration (hell, they were all cohorts). Kansans must do their part and remove our rubber stamping, boot licking members of congress when we get our chance in 2008. If for no other reason, than to show that we will not put up with it.
The Eagle is just another MSM outlet that offers up a white washed and half truth reporting of the bush/cneney fiasco.Bush will go down in history as thieves and liars.And the newspapers wonder why many people get their news off the internet instead of reading this MSM crap.
As proof the Eagle asks… “gosh why would a Vote No website link to the Eagle stories?
Hummm, could it be because your reporting is slanted to the Vote No hype and lies?Vote No is Operation Rescue people who have come back to continue to try to control the people of Wichita.
I’ll get my news off the web, thanks anyway.
You know, as a Clinton fan, when he did the whole double talk of the definition of the word ‘is’, I thought surely nobody could top it. Till today when I saw Alberto Gonzales’s testimony before congress.
And this isn’t nearly as silly of a reason than whether someone got a blow job.
This administration is so corrupt, so bold about it…I cannot see how any true American can support them. I am ASHAMED of this country!
Like I said the other day, looks like perjury charges are coming for Gonzo. Lucky for him, bush will pardon/commute his sentence, or maybe pre-emptively absolve him for all of his sins.Democrats seek perjury investigation of Gonzales 1 hour, 17 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A special counsel should be named to investigate possible perjury by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in sworn testimony to Congress, four U.S. Senate Democrats wrote in a letter on Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENTThe senators wrote U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement asking that he appoint an independent counsel to investigate Gonzales’ testimony to Congress regarding the firing of prosecutors and President George W. Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program.
Please when is congress going to get back to business instead of pursuing all these worthless investigations?
Failed to support border control today and they have still NOT passed any of the 12 remaining appropriation acts to keep our government running after 30 September.
Same congress people ran for election last fall talking about those no-good do-nothing republicans who did not get the budgets passed on time.
I believed their campaign promise and voted for some of them.
And now, they turn out to be no better than the republicans.
There was an article earlier last month talking about the Gonzalez aide who was being asked to testify. Her lawyer asked that congress not force her to testify, because if the did, the president would invoke executive privledge. He then said 1 of 2 things would happen.
1. Congress would cite her for contempt, and she would have her life impacted forever for not testifying and this wouldnt be fair.
2. She would testify about a man she has served for six years, (pres bush) and would feel bad about it.
Ok, Please explain to me, absent of Lawyer / Client privledge, what LEGAL rational there is for someone avoiding testifying to congress about work they do on MY tax dollars? Congress writes the checks, and congress oversees what is done with the money. How is ther any basis for not testifying before congress when they are required to by law? Because they don’t want to?
Give me a break. The privledged communication exceptions we have in this country are needed, don’t get me wrong. I shouldnt be required to incriminate myself, or my spouse. My doctor or priest shouldnt be able to incriminate me. But because my boss won’t get good advise from me about what to do? That seems totally bogus, because the only way that would be true is if my advise is to break the law!
Scott – since she “would feel bad about it” maybe they are worried about her low self-esteem. After all, she DID work for BushCo.
She also stated at the hearing that she took an oath to the president, rather than the constitution. Kind of like that marine that posts here often, thinks his duty is to the cic.