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TechnoratiHouse Sues White House Officials
The House Judiciary Committee filed suit Monday to force former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten to provide information about the firing of U.S. attorneys.
The lawsuit filed in federal court says Miers is not immune from the obligation to testify and that she and Bolten must identify all documents that are being withheld from Congress.
In a statement announcing the lawsuit, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said, "We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress."
Conyers said he is confident the federal courts will agree that the Bush administration's claims to be immune from congressional oversight are at odds with constitutional principles.
The White House took the opposite view.
"They continue to focus on partisan theater," White House press secretary Dana Perino said of House Democrats. "The confidentiality that the president receives from his senior advisers and the constitutional principle of separation of powers must be protected from overreaching and we are confident that the courts will agree with us."
The House committee early last year subpoenaed Bolten for documents and Miers for testimony in trying to make a case that the White House directed the firing of nine U.S. attorneys because they were not supportive enough of Republicans' political agenda.
Bolten and Miers refused to comply.
On President Bush's behalf, White House Counsel Fred Fielding said such information is private and covered by executive privilege.
The House passed the contempt citation by a 223-32 vote that most Republicans boycotted.
A week and a half ago, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he would not refer the House's contempt citation to a grand jury and that neither Bolten nor Myers had committed a crime.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then announced she had given the Judiciary Committee authority to sue Bolten and Myers in federal court.
The lawsuit says executive privilege - intended to protect the confidentiality of advice from the president's closest advisers - does not cover documents that don't involve the president.
The privilege also does not cover documents whose contents are widely known, previously released or that were the subject of extensive, previously authorized testimony, the lawsuit adds.
The lawsuit says the White House is making a blanket claim of executive privilege, despite the administration saying that the president was not personally involved in communications subpoenaed form Bolten.
It says Miers' conduct is inconsistent with representations that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel made to Congress in 1971 when OLC was being run by William H. Rehnquist, who later was named to the Supreme Court and later chief justice.
Rehnquist told Congress that a witness intending to invoke executive privilege may not simply ignore congressional subpoena and fail to appear.
Conyers said the administration "simply will not negotiate towards a compromise resolution, so we must proceed."
During the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court confirmed the legitimacy of the executive privilege doctrine. At the same time, the court found the privilege to be qualified and rejected President Nixon's assertion of privilege over the White House tape recordings.
The court ruling prompted Nixon to surrender the tapes to prosecutors and ultimately to resign from office.
© 2008 Associated Press
63 Comments so far
Show AllAgreed, perino is probably right.
If the courts will not hear cases of torture of innocent civilians due to "state secrets" I doubt this one will fly either.
Social studies 101 Checks and Balances!
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM,ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM;
JUST WHO DO THE DEMOCRATS THINK THEY ARE FOOLING ????????
THE DEMS HAVE ALREADY TIED THEIR OWN HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACK BY ALLOWING ROBERTS,ALITO,AND MARKASEY TO THEIR PRESENT POSITIONS WHICH THEY COULD HAVE BLOCKED EASLY, A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE ZIONIST STOOGES SCHUMAN , FIENSTIEN AND THE ONE BULLIT WONDER SPECTOR .
THANKS ALSO GO TO CONGRESSMAN CONGYERS FOR NOT INSTIGATING IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS AGAINST BUSH AND CHENEY WHICH WOULD HAVE BROUGHT THE PRESENT CONSTITUTIONAL CHRISIS
TO CONGRESSMAN CONGYERS,THROUGH ALL YOUR HARD WORK,AND THE WORK OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT,YOU HAVE STOOD AT THE DOORSTEP OF HISTORY,THEN TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO THE BASEMENT OF CONGRESS TO CONTINUE TO WORK AS WASHROOM ATTENDENT,YOU HAVE LOST THE RIGHT TO CONTINUE TO QUOTE THE GREAT MLT,YOU HAVE DROPPED THE BALL!!!!
This is how it is suppose to work. If you have a lunatic president and can not get the votes to impeach, you use the third branch of government to intervene. This is how the government was set up and this is how it is suppose to work.
Anything that any member of Congress can do to oppose the expansion of the "unitary executive" claim by BushCo. is an absolute good. I think this is what is meant by "fighting the good fight". Power must be chipped away at once it has grown strong. We won't get anywhere with the all-or-nothing approach of impeachment or nothing. We need to use Pelosi, Reid, Conyers et.al. for the greater good since it's not realistic that Kucininch or Gravel will be elected in the near future. Even if they could be, vigilance would still be the task of citizens who wish to live freely. Support correct effort when you see it.
and Hillary is running on the 'experience' platform?
Come on!
http://www.ryanhartman.wordpress.com
"Sue em?" They should throw those bums in jail! That's where they belong!
The Dems have not "run the clock"on this one - yet.
There is still sufficient time to get the Bush Administration into civil court but it is criminal offenses r=that are being addressed.
Start Impeachment Proceedings!
Executive privilege cannot be used in impeachment proceedings!
Cindi Sheehan for President! Now that would be a choice!!!
Boy, it's a good thing you took impeachment off the table Nancy, so we could focus on these more pressing issues. Like this old news, oh and let's not forget about weather Roger Clemens is lying about taking drugs when he plays baseball. Yeah I'm sure glad you've got no distractions for this!
Give me a fucking break. So what are we gonna do if we find out the White House actually did give the orders to axe those lawyers? We aren't gonna impeach anyone for it. No, this is just one final smoke-screen to occupy the media and Americans attention until Bush's term is up.
Fucking pathetic!
Nader is still the only candidate that voices support of progressive values and wishes, like it or not.
When (and if) Obama raises the same issues as Nader, I will consider voting for him, otherwise no.
As for Clinton or McCain supporting those idea, I've never heard of a below 0 degrees F. day in southern calif yet.
The aim of the Dems here is low. Any hearings at best will nab lower-level functionaries, rather than Bush or Cheney. So the Dem Party focus on this part of the Bush administration's criminality is really just a hint that impeachment is absolutely off the table!
The resistance of the Bush administration to Congress will be used to signal to the "Reagan Democrats" throughout this Presidential campaign cycle that they should abandon McCain and the lawless Repugs this time around.
This isn't a smart strategy because middle-of-the-road voters are too ignorant to depend on, or they'll vote based on pure emotion, and they will get plenty of red-blooded jingoism to feast on from the Repugs.
Once again, the Dem Party's aim is not to support the will of its Dem base. Those Dem voters have long since been taken for granted. Instead, the Dem Party is continuing to pursue a failed strategy that it's maintained for the last three Presidential elections. They intend to try and rope in the middle-of-the-road voters.
The Dem base wants impeachment, and they are not going to get it from the Dem Party, which does not represent them. The problem for the Dems is they've neglected their base for so long that the base may go elsewhere, even faced with Bomb-Bomb McCain as a consequence.
The Dems haven't considered the consequences of defying their base, especially with regard to the wars, which Clinton and Obama plan to support if elected. Both Clinton and Obama have indicated their war support by the highly hedged language they use on this issue. Given that prospect of years of more war, progressives can't support a Dem candidate. And they shouldn't.
Vicki1129: My first instinct in response to your post was to say OK, I resemble that remark but the more I think about it...
You're correct that the current makeup of the Senate makes it almost impossible there, and as reported in the article most of the Republicans boycotted this vote in the House.
No, I'm not unrealistic, I'm out of patience. The common myth is that "it can't happen here" but when you take the totality of the thrust of this current administration and the determination of the conservative movement of the last fifteen years, it really is hard to have any faith in the future.
So they can't get the Congress to function in the manner constituionally intended. But they could obstruct, stonewall, listen to their conscience and the voices of the majority of the citzens of this country and put those values back into the debate.
You may be right, and I hope for all our sakes you are, but I have this nagging feeling way down deep that YOUR attitude is naive, for these are not ordinary times and we are not dealing with men and women that are cut out of ordinary political cloth. They are ideologues the likes of which this world hasn't seen for 70-some years.
This is the least of Bush's offenses, ignore it and focus on one which has real substance and bearing on people's lives. There are plenty to choose from.
DOES ANYBODY HAVE AN IDEA OF HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE BEFORE THIS MATTER, IF EVER, COMES TO A DATE WHERE GIVING UP DOCUMENTS OR GIVING DEPOSITIONS WILL BE HELD TO BE LEGAL? THE BUSH , CHENEY CRIMINALS WILL KEEP THIS MATTER IN THE COURTS FOREVER. THEY WILL LONG BE GONE WITH BLANKET AMMUNITY BEFORE THEY GET TO MEYERS AND BOLTON.
The Congress can adjudicate the matter just as it can put a President on trial. It doesn't need to appeal to a corrupt AG, nor does it need a corrupt SC, which illegally installed this President in office. The fact that it is going to court is another example of the gutless character of this Congress. It is too cowardly to go after the big dog in the WH, so it is attempting to salvage some self-respect by harassing his operatives. Hand it over to the courts, let is wither a while, and forget all about it when Bush is booted. Pelosi and Conyers get to talk tough for a while. It's a sham.
It's not going to work because most of the sitting Federal judges are right wing Republicans and will rule in the administration's favor.
Kelmer: good list, I'd add the relaxing of EPA regulations, and FDA regulations, the tax breaks for the very rich, the continued lack of accountability in the military faction of the US budget, and a general slash and burn version of morality sure to bring to the US the powerful boomerang of karmic blowback.
RICHARD PAYNE: I see it the way you do, as per the loss of the Constitution and how few have noticed the full import of what this means. A coup has succeeded and it's been so blatantly in our faces that it's been blinding for its absented light.
In public they huff and they puff, but in the end they are the Bush-enablers.
So this time instead of voting for the lesser of the two evils I'll be voting NEITHER OF THE TWO EVILS - and so should you (if you don't want to be a complicit).
Jim Glover,
Just what I was thinking too - everyone is getting braver the closer it gets to Jan 09. Even the media. I notice CNN has been running a program called "Broken Government" and I notice many commentators/pundits on MSM are becoming more and more outspoken. Way too little, too late....
Lets just impeach the whole blasted government.
Maiden March...
Where are the Bilderbergs and the other elite groups? Being the puppet masters as usual and everyone else being the puppets. Everything going on is to divert our attention from the destructive moves, by the powers that be, that are going on and being all but ignored by all media.
Get the DVD "ENDGAME". (amazon has it)It will knock your socks off. then google U.S.A+Canada+Mexico after you watch the video. And keep in mind the pharmaceuticals in water supplies and the bad water KBR is giving our troops that is making them sick. Plus all the other atrocities you can think of being brought down on people here in the U.S. plus all over the globe.
And the coming election? It's nothing but another farce. That too is decided by the power groups...who runs and who wins.
If you can't hang em for crimes against humanity, maybe we can get Bush for 'obstruction of justice', sort of like getting Capone for income tax evasion. Umm, one can only wish.
the squeeky wheel might get the grease....
Just about everything that the Bush Administration has touched by word or deed has turned to shit and shit is what the next administration will have to shovel..Who is up to the task?
Have you noticed how folks get more brave in fighting back the Bush Syndicate, the closer it gets to Jan 09!
executive privilege ain't gonna mean shit to a whole planet that wants some dumb mother fucker to pay and little george just loves the role.
But I thought that ALL Americans were not above the Constitution...
Yeah way to go. Boy this Conyers and Pelosi really sound as though they are going to get to the bottom of this. They really sound as though they know what they are doing and how the system works. They may even have read the US Constitution.
OOOPPPS my mistake, this is the same two politicians (as opposed to statesmen) who have refused to allow Constitutional Procedures as in IMPEACH &Prosecute Bush et.al ........and yet now they act upset because Bush and Co. laughs in congress' face?
What in reality did these two useless politicians think would be the outcome of going along with this nonsense? That Bush & Co., along with many in Congress, give a damn about the rule of law, The US Constitution, or even America is a sad joke upon the Nation.......or, what once was the Nation. For without the Constitution, I contend we no longer have a nation, but, have been taken over without even ackowledging the fact.
To think we have better things to do than Impeach and Prosecute Bush et.al Rep. Pelosi and then turn around and have to sue them in court .......and you still have the nerve to collect your pay and show your face in public, while you act as if you are doing something righteous......big brass ones my dear. And Rep. Conyers, you sir haven't let the Impeachment proceedings out of the Judicial commitee which you head and you act upset and say they can't ignor the Congress? Sir, awaken to the fact that they've been ignoring the Constitution for years while you've done nothing ....not even your duty.
And, while you may be too dense or frightened to stand your post, along with Pelosi and many of the rest of Congress you have lost not only control of the Executive branch but of the nation.
IMPEACH & PROSECUTE ALL IN THIS GOVERNMENT WHO DENY AND DEFY THE US CONSTITUTION NOW....this is long over due and we can't nor shouldn't wait for elections to come.........if there is a Constituion ....if there is the rule of law........if there is a country with any Statesmen and Patriots left NOW is the TIME for ACTION
Here is a partial transcription of this case I brought back from the future (along with blue ray disks of Survivor season 42, "Survivor Roanoke")
House Judiciary Committee vs. Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten
Judge – (to the accused) Do you have anything to say to these damning and irrefutable charges before I sentence you, er, I mean before I pass judgement?
Defense attorney - Your honour, we claim "state secrets privilege", hey if it is good enough to get you off torture and illegal wiretapping charges, it should be good enough for this. Oh, and George says you're doing a heck of a job.
Judge – Why didn't you say so before? Case dismissed!
WTF March 10th, 2008 3:33 pm
http://www.thousandreasons.org/reasons.php
WTF,
Nice link! Thanks.
Pete Yost writes: "A week and a half ago, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he would not refer the House's contempt citation to a grand jury and that neither Bolten nor Myers had committed a crime.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then announced she had given the Judiciary Committee authority to sue Bolten and Myers in federal court."
It's Miers, not Myers, in case no one mentioned it.
I agree with the sentiment: too little, too late. But it must be done relentlessly. This is not about a stain on a dress; it's about removing the stain on our nation. It's time for Michael Mukasey to update his resume.
Go Cindy Go!
Great recall, Kelmer!I'm 75plus but I refuse to replace peacefulconflictresolution impulses,---call it naive hopefullness, if you will,---but I'm saddened by the alarmingly profound cynicism, bitterness, and nilhism underlying the comments of too many of our colleague posters,---which they have every right to express.... but people is the DEM. Party a totaly bought and paid for deaf-and-dumb monolith???.....check out 89yr young Pete Seeger.....he has never and will never STOP TRYING....as we gain numerical strength, we have to keep PUSHING a little at a time...convince "the rulers" that ignoring the real majority with impunity must ultimately undermine their awesome power and privilege.Perhaps only another economic or militant catastrophe will cause such a change in mindsets!BUT Don't tell me that key players: scientists, teachers, the unemployed and underemployed, military leaders, true conservatives,"ENLIGHTENED nonend-times capitalists MORE unbought media types and celebrities can't be won over IF THERE IS A GREATER EMPHASIS ON UNCOVERING COMMON GROUND! No small task!
Where does the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg and The Council on Foreign Relations weigh in on this? Should we ask Hillary or Obama, both are members of one or the other so get real, their agenda is wired for more of the same. We're screwed 9 ways to Sunday but we keep having these discussions like something will be different. No one, literally no one will get in that House who could really bring about change.
I'm glad the Democrats are pursuing Miers and Bolton. Many lament and whine
when the Democrats don't act, and lament and whine when they push at the Bush Administration. Why? I suspect many of the whiners are young and impatient, others
are unrealistic. The Dems took a rough beating from a bully Republican Congress
and a dumbed-down press and Republican echo chamber from 1993-2006 -- 13 years. They're coming back but they've already taken as much control as they can, having
to contend with a Republican president and lack of a veto-proof majority.
Take heart. Once the presidency shifts to the Dems, change will happen more quickly.
You'd better be ready to get on board and help, rather than obstruct, the progressive cause.
By the way, if your Democratic primary choice is not at the top of the ticket this
year, don't go drifting to a nefarious 3rd-party candidate or stay home fuming and snorting because you didn't get your way. The reason is obvious: you'll certainly play a role in handing a White House victory to the Republicans.
Lose their souls? WHAT souls?
they're just empty shells.
To steamroll Congress?
What's a 'Congress?'
We used to have a 'Congress' way back before these BAD days (Bush And Dick). Once upon a time we even had a Constitution and the Rule of Law along with an Apple in Every Pot and Chicken Pie.
Sheehan for Congress?
Grooooovy.
I take that back. The lawsuit is going somewhere....from the taxpayers pockets into the lawyers pockets. And the ongoing farce continues. A good laugh at the dinner tables of the "law-breakers...whoops, I mean law-makers......
executive privilege is the privilege of the executive not to have to testify about it's crimes. There's no room for secrecy in a real democracy. Even the argument that the president won't get good advice if the person giving the advice will be held accountable for said advice doesn't hold any water. IF the advisers weren't advising the president to break the law, then there's no repercussions.
Incidentally, ...this law suit will go NO WHERE!!
Any bets on who wins this one?
Vince, lol. Are you still with us? :)
jcrumb March 10th, 2008 3:29 pm This is a great idea...BUT, do not believe the income tax collected is going toward anything other than paying the INTEREST on our outstanding debt. The Chinese and international bankers are financing this illegal war. It's still a great idea and it WILL get their attention. Money-wise, it's a drop in the bucket....BUT, I do whole-heartedly support withholding ALL tax payments. It's a great form of passive resistance.
"We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress."
?????????
I've got this damn chest cold so that when I laugh too hard I start hacking in convulsions, deprived of oxygen,
oh no, I think I'm going to pass out.
kelmer asked: What is the list of Bush scandals at now?......I give up. i know I missed some.
Not even close. This link documents them all, with updates every day. Hint: The list is in the thousands.
http://www.thousandreasons.org/reasons.php
That didn't take long. It's the SOS. Doink around long enough and they will all be gone or pardoned. Or both. They can find the time and energy to prosecute baseball players but can't uphold the constitution. Bush and Co should be under the jail by now if we were still under the rule of law.
Soooo...if Der JUNIORS "rights" to privacy and confidentiality and his.."constitutional rights" are questioned then all of a sudden the Admisnistration is ADAMENT(sic?) about "overreaching" by the courts...FUCKING HYPOCRITES!..
To me this is really the fundamental mortal fatal flaw of the Right Wing Aristocracy in America...that they ONLY believe in "rights' for themselves...falt out, and are UNABASHED about it...just OPEN about spying on the rest of us and TORTURE being..."OKAY" and yet...when it comes to them..OH NO! you better not trample MY rights...as in "I've got mine, Fuck you!"
They BELIEVE in a SEPERATE class structure, this is the PROOF...
AND YET AGAIN, I MUST SAY....YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT...IT IS APRIL, TAX TIME...THINK OFTHIS: WHAT IF 100 MILLION OF YOU..JUST DIDN'T PAY? CAN YOU IMAGINE THE REALITY OF THAT? HOW FAST DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD DO ONE OF TWO THINGS: DECLARE MARTIAL LAW AND JUST GET IT OVER WITH, OR..AND THIS IS WHAT I THINK THEY WOULD DO...ACTUALLY SUDDENLY GIVE A SHIT WHAT WE WANT..THAT FAST..BECASUE AFTER ALL..YOU ARE PAYING FOR ALL OF IT..THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO TORTURE SUSPECTS, THE PRESIDENT WHO ENGAGES IN ILLEGAL WAR AND SO MANY CRIMES THEY ARE TOO NUMEROUS TO LIST...AND AGAIN..YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT. SO DON'T...PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS..AND DO NOT PAY..THEY CAN'T DO WHAT THEY DO WITHOUT THE MONEY...PERIOD! IT IS THE LAST "POWER" WE HAVE..THE POWER OF THE PURSE...AND NOTHING MORE...WE MAY NOT EVEN REALLY HAVE THE VOTE...SO...DO NOT PAY..DO NOT PAY...DO NOT PAY...
It's about damned time.
Why did the Dems wait more than a year with this? The ligitation will drag though the courts and Bush will run out the clock.
for the love of money & political power, most will lose their souls.
Continue to fight and stick by your convictions and then the Miers and Boltens will be banished for life I say!!!
What is the list of Bush scandals at now?
I have lost count.
Voter suppression in Florida/Stolen election 2000
Surveillance on Americans pre 9 11
ignoring NSE warning of 911
911 response--allowing people back to ground zero
attack on Afghanistan
Enron
Haiti Aristide
Global Warming
Energy Task Force
making the case for an attack on Iraq-lying lying lying
Plame affair
joking about not finding weapons of mass destruction
torture policy
Gitmo torture
Abu Graib torture
Treatment of vets
suppressing iraq war dead photos
Bush refusing to attend funerals
election fraud 2004
Katrina
Spying on Americans post 911
fired US attorneys
missing white house emails
Lebanon Israel relations
Palestine Israel relations
Attacks on Somalia
Economy
I give up. i know I missed some.
If Congress wins, and they are forced to testify, you can bet the documents in question will turn up missing (the White House dog ate them).
The key block that's in place is the calendar. The Dems have successfully run the clock out on this one.
Now its at the point where they can use it to score cheap headlines against the admin without any real threat of action actually occurring. It would probably be summer before this ever gets to a federal court, if that fast. And should any of this lead beyond these two into evidence of impeachable offenses (and of course it was Bush or his aides ordering them to do this), then it would be next fall already before that would even be known.
Perfect timing for the Dems if all they want is cheap headlines during the election season. Way too late for the Dems if they were actually serious about upholding the Constitution.
As usual, the Dems sell the Constitution down the river in exchange for partisan political advantage.
I'll bet their really scared now.
The House has already provided authority for the Judiciary Committee to file a civil enforcement action in federal district court and the House shall do so promptly," she said. "As public officials, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect our system of checks and balances and our civil lawsuit seeks to do just that."
The White House countered with its own pledge to fight House leaders to the end.
"If Speaker Pelosi insists on taking this case to a court, they will be met with opposition at the courthouse door and at every step of any court case," White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto said. "The president's case is strong, and he would not have asserted executive privilege if he did not believe he would prevail in the face of attempts to challenge his decision."
Pelosi's statement closely followed Mukasey's letter to her Friday saying White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers were right in refusing to provide Congress White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.
Mukasey says they committed no crime.
"The department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers," Mukasey wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The House voted two weeks ago to cite Bolten and Mukasey for contempt of Congress and seek a grand jury investigation. Most Republicans boycotted the vote.
Pelosi requested the grand jury investigation on Thursday and gave Mukasey a week to reply. She said the House would file a civil suit seeking enforcement of the contempt citations if federal prosecutors declined to seek misdemeanor charges against Bolten and Miers.
Mukassey took only a day to get back to her. But he had earlier joined his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, in telling lawmakers they would refuse to refer any contempt citations to prosecutors because Bolten and Miers were acting at Bush's instruction.
A civil suit would drag out a slow-motion crawl to a constitutional struggle between a Democratic-run Congress and a Republican White House that has been simmering for more than a year. Any court showdown might not occur until Bush is out of office in 14 months.
Democrats say Bush's instructions to Miers and Bolten to ignore the House Judiciary Committee's subpoenas was an abuse of power and an effort to block an effort to find out whether the White House directed the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 for political reasons.
Republicans call the whole affair a political game and walked out of the House vote on the contempt citations in protest.
The 223-32 House vote on a resolution approving the contempt citations Feb. 14 was the first of its type in 25 years. The White House pointed out that it was the first time that such action had been taken against top White House officials who had been instructed by the president to remain silent to preserve executive privilege.
In his letter, received by the House early Friday evening, Mukasey pointed out that not only was Miers directed not to testify, she also was immune from congressional subpoenas and was right to not show up to the hearing to which she had been summoned.
"The contempt of Congress statute was not intended to apply and could not constitutionally be applied to an executive branch official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege," Mukasey wrote, quoting Justice policy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she intends to sue the Bush administration in response to Attorney General Michael Mukasey's refusal to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she intends to sue the Bush administration in response to Attorney General Michael Mukasey's refusal to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she intends to sue the Bush administration in response to Attorney General Michael Mukasey's refusal to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury.
As Ms. Sheehan says, too little too late. I think they let it go on so long specifically to facilitate the admin's attempt to run out the clock--more enabling.
The Dems have been complicit all along, in spite of the numerous hearings and bread and circus--for all the grandstanding of Conyers and Wexler and the other semi-opposition, nothing has come of the seven years of Constitutional abuse--nobody yet has had to face justice.
When the current crowd of war criminals and their enablers are swinging at the ends of ropes, I'll believe the Dems actually accomplished something.
As citizen participants we must "catch the Dems in congress doing the right thing". When this happens, or possibly happen, we should encourage them to move forward. The support of the citizenry for these moves is most important.
Even as a part of the Bush Administration these people are still citizens of the United States of American and as a citizen they are subject to the same laws that we are subject to. If anyone of us refused a subpoena we would be looking at contempt of court and jail time. What a bunch of malarky that the White House passes executive privledge. They just make up new rules as they go along and thumb their collective noses at the Constitution. If anything did come of this I would expect the A.G. to simply sternly glare at the opposition and they would fold up like a bad hand in poker.
Too little, too late.
WE are going full steam ahead with defeating the head do-nothing (except collude with BushCo) Democrats' lead Bush-Collaborator, Nancy Pelosi.
We need money to do this, though.
www.cindyforcongress.org
Love
Cindy
It's about time. Even if the White House continues to refuse it goes down in history as another episode of the failed Bush Admin. and their abuse of power & authority.
That Pelosi allowed this to go forward ensures that the blocks are already in place to make sure that this is as far as it will get.
And yet, she and Conyers, with the complicity of the corporate controlled media, will reap the PR rewards for "trying their best." Pelosi will milk this for everything she can in her run against Cindi Sheehan.
It's a scam, folks. They're trying to play on your idealistc hope - hope that will only get flushed down the toilet, just like every other time you've hoped they'd stand up against this renegade administration. Nothing will happen.
The democrats are pushing. How can that be? It must be safe to push on this one or they would have surrendered already like they have done most of the time.