Senator Leahy and the WH subpoenas

Sen. Leahy promised to fight the White House yesterday on Meet The Press (transcript):

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he was ready to go to court if the White House resisted congressional subpoenas for information on the firing of federal prosecutors.

"If they don't cooperate, yes I'd go that far," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He was asked in a broadcast interview whether he would seek a congressional vote on contempt citations if President Bush did not comply. That move would push the matter to court.

"They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation," Leahy said. "The bottom line on this U.S. attorneys' investigation is that we have people manipulating law enforcement. Law enforcement can't be partisan."

Amen to that! Also in motion are subpoenas issued to the WH and the OVP "for documents related to the administration's legal basis for conducting warrant-free eavesdropping on people in the United States."

Leahy and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who heads the House Judiciary Committee, have demanded a White House explanation by July 9 as to its grounds for claiming executive privilege in refusing to turn over additional documents.

The two lawmakers say that regardless of whether the White House meets the deadline, they would begin acting to enforce the subpoenas as appropriate under the law.

To spurn the congressional subpoenas -- conveying a "Nixonian attitude" that the WH is above the law -- could mean the House and Senate would vote to bring contempt charges. If Leahy is as serious as I believe he is, and without full cooperation from the Bush Administration, he will press for contempt citations on the basis that executive privilege in this instance has no legal merit:

Over the years, Congress and the White House have avoided a full-blown court test. Under federal rules, lawmakers could vote to cite witnesses for contempt and refer the matter to the local U.S. attorney to bring before a grand jury. Since 1975, 10 senior administration officials have been cited, but the disputes were all resolved before getting to court.

Leahy proposed a reasonable solution to avoid a fight: WH officials can provide sworn testimony recorded into transcripts behind closed doors. However, the information would be made available to the public. That's how transparency in government works, something the secretive, deceptive, and criminal Bush-Cheney regime regularly and intentionally subverts.

Over in the Wingnutosphere at RedState.com, Mark Kilmer on Sunday whined that Leahy's oversight efforts were "repeated public harassment" of the WH (Waah! Boo-hoo-hoo!) and added that Leahy is "doing this, he said, because the American people care a lot."

Yes, we do care a lot -- 68% of us wanted WH officials to answer "all questions" and thought Congress "should issue subpoenas to force White House officials to testify under oath." The Bushies have transformed the DOJ into the political partisan arm of the GOP using our tax dollars, an enterprise that's unethical and illegal. Back in mid-April, two thirds of Americans, including a narrow majority of Republicans, realized the USA firings were politically motivated. The public isn't fooled by Bushie WH shenanigans. And we're pissed.

Victor Gold, the former Deputy Press Secretary to Barry Goldwater, expressed his disgust over the current DOJ situation during an interview with Bill Moyers:

I think it's a corrupted justice department. When I say "corrupted," I don't mean dollars and cents. I mean corrupted in terms of... our constitutional values. And I think you've heard some of the prosecuting attorneys who were fired speak out and the-- some of the investigation-- the investigations bringing out exactly what's going on up there. And when you corrupt the justice system, the Justice Department, that's the most important department of government in terms of protecting our constitutional values. One of the reasons I wanted the Democrats to win [in November] was because I knew the yo-yo Republicans on the Hill were not going to investigate even [though] they-- we-- we claim we are the constitutionalists. We are the ones concerned about the Constitution. We want strict constructionist judges. We don't want ...overreaching federal government. The fact is... I knew there would be investigations. And I-- I-- I want these investigations to go on 'cause they weren't going on when the Republicans were in control of Congress.

Next question: When will Congress crank up Cheney's impeachment?

And regarding Bush... ITMFA!

UPDATE: Seriously, it's time to put impeachment back on the table. Are you listening, Madam Speaker?

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DOJ's Elston resigns

Another senior DOJ official, Michael Elston, has resigned. According to a DOJ anonymous source, Elston has accepted a job at a Washington law firm and his last day at the scandal-laden DOJ is next Friday.

McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, became the fifth department official to leave his post since the controversy over the firings rocked the nation's top law enforcement agency....

... Elston's name first surfaced when one of the fired U.S. attorneys, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, disclosed in March that Elston had phoned him to suggest that senior department officials would retaliate against the prosecutors if they discussed their firings publicly.

In an e-mail written to five of the ousted U.S. attorneys minutes after the Elston call, Cummins said of the conversation: "I was tempted to challenge him and say something movie-like such as `are you threatening ME???'"

The department denied that Elston was trying to intimidate or silence the dismissed U.S. attorneys.

Elston's name also showed up on numerous e-mails in which department officials weighed which U.S. attorneys to fire. In one e-mail, he was informed about how the department would deal with the fallout from the firings.

In recent testimony, the former interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Bradley Schlozman, disclosed that he sought approval from Elston before bringing indictments for voter-registration fraud against four workers for a liberal-leaning group [ACORN] just days before the 2006 election. Department policy discourages such prosecutions on the eve of elections.

Elston's boss, McNulty, announced recently that he would leave his job at the end of the summer.

Paul Kiel itemizes some of Elston's "hit jobs" at the DOJ :

-- He allegedly called three of the fired U.S. attorneys [Charlton, McKay, and Cummins] and made an implicit threat that the Justice Department would detail the reasons for their firings if they didn't stay quiet.

-- He allegedly rejected a large number of applicants to Justice Department positions because they were Democrats.

-- When Carol Lam, the former U.S. attorney for San Diego, asked to stay on the job longer in order to deal with some outstanding prosecutions (the expanding Duke Cunningham case among them), Elston told her not to think about her cases, that she should be gone in "weeks, not months" and said "these instructions were 'coming from the very highest levels of the government.'"

-- He called around to the U.S. attorneys whom he had placed on one of the draft firing lists to apologize when he discovered that his list would be turned over to Congress.

Let me get this straight: Schlozman fingered Elston in getting approval for the ACORN indictments by going over Craig Donsanto's head. As Corpus Juris explained, "...everyone agrees the indictments flew in the face of Donsanto's own manual, DoJ rules and long standing tradition." And now Elston plans to leave the DOJ. Uh-huh.

The rats are deserting the sinking ship at the Bush Administration's DOJ. Now if only the WH firewall, er, I mean AG Gonzales would resign. But don't hold your breath.

POSTSCRIPT: Background on the ACORN indictments are here and here and here.

UPDATE: WaPo adds a few details and a statement from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

"Alberto Gonzales appears to be the last man standing, but he should have been the first to go," Schumer said. "Almost every official involved in the U.S. attorney firings is gone, but that doesn't change the simple fact that the buck stops with the attorney general."

Indeed.

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Document Release Implicates Sara Taylor

Think Progress is reporting that the Department of Justice has released new documents connecting former White House political chief (and top aid to Karl Rove) Sara Taylor and her deputy Scott Jennings to the U.S. Attorney scandal. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has released the following statement.

These documents, which should have been released by the Department long ago, provide further evidence that White House officials like former Political Director Sara Taylor were deeply involved in the mass firings of well-performing prosecutors. The Department of Justice should not be reduced to a political arm of the White House. We need an end to the White House’s stonewalling of our investigations so we can learn the truth.

Here is a link to the released documents.

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