The following is a press release from the Office of Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez
Washington - Chairwoman Linda Sánchez today announced that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (CAL) will meet tomorrow to vote on issuing subpoenas for certain former U.S. Attorneys who were recently fired by the Bush Administration.
If approved by the subcommittee, the subpoenas - which would be the first issued by the 110th Congress - would require Carol Lam, David Iglesias, H.E. Cummins, III, and John McKay to appear before a CAL Subcommittee hearing next week.
"In order to get the full picture of why these U.S. Attorneys were fired, we need to hear from the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys themselves," said Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers. "We look forward to their testimony on this issue."
"I called this meeting because we pledged to do everything we can to get to the truth of what could be brazen abuse of power by the Bush Administration," said CAL Chairwoman Sánchez.
The hearing, which is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, will consider a bill by Congressman Howard Berman that would reverse a new provision in the USA PATRIOT Act allowing the Attorney General to indefinitely appoint federal prosecutors through the end of the Bush Administration without Senate confirmation.
**The vote to issue subpoenas is scheduled for Thursday, March 1, at 4:00 pm in the Judiciary Committee Hearing Room (2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC).
It seems that every day there is a new development in this scandal. Now that Fitzmas is winding down, this might just take it's place. Thank you Karl. Thank you Alberto.
Alberto should never have said he would never fire a prosecutor for political reasons.
If you want to watch today's hearing live you can click this link to pick up a live webcast feed at 4:00 pm Eastern. Depending on what happens today I will probably be popping popcorn and dialing in.
UPDATE: The AP has done some additional reporting on this story. The Senate Judiciary Committee is sending letters to those fired before voting next week to compel their testimony. It is a race to the hearing chamber.
In response to the charge that David Iglesias was fired for not indicting some Democrats before last November's election as requested by two congressmembers to help Republicans in their election efforts Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "The suggestion that David Iglesias was asked to resign because he failed to bring an indictment ... is flatly false. This administration has never removed a United States attorney in an effort to retaliate against them or inappropriately interfere with a public integrity investigation."
The charge isn't that Iglesias didn't bring an indictment, it is he didn't bring an indictment when it could do Republicans the most good. Instead he elected to do his job, and wait for sufficient evidence to win convictions.
