Saturday, June 30, 2007

Executive Privilege vs Congressional Investigators



See Original Story

In a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, the heads of the Senate and House Judiciary committees demanded an explanation in 10 days of why the White House claimed executive privilege on subpoenaed documents and vowed to invoke "the full force of law."

"The veil of secrecy you have attempted to pull over the White House by withholding documents and witnesses is unprecedented and damaging to the tradition of open government by and for the people that has been a hallmark of the republic," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Fielding.

They gave the White House until July 9 to furnish the factual and legal bases for the executive privilege claim and documentation that President Bush personally signed off on it.

Whether or not the White House meets the deadline, "we will take the necessary steps to rule on your privilege claims and appropriately enforce our subpoenas backed by the full force of law," Leahy and Conyers wrote.


The problems among the White House and the Congressional investigators appear to be headed for court. The District of Columbia would favor the Bush Administration as would most courts, thanks to Bush and the Republicans who has been running this country for the past six years.

I would not be surprise if this matter went on long after Bush has left the White House.

13 comments:

Larry said...

I hope the Democrats will fight this and not back down. Henry Waxman seems to be the only Democrat who has pursued them with vigor.

LET'S TALK said...

larry I think this will end up in the court way after this President is out of office.

Our only recourse is to impeach this President and his Vice President.

Leo said...

I must say I'm thrilled to see that the democrats are at least finally standing up and going after the President and Vice-President on some of these issues. I agree with you that there is probably not enough time left in Bush's administration to get to the "end" of the investigations, but the dems. are giving me new hope that they might at some point actually consider impeachment. I doubt it, but they are showing signs of life at least-lol. Good post.

D.Pod said...

I really don't understand Bush anymore. There are some doctors suggesting that he has presenile dementia.

Thanks for the compliments and for the link up. I sort of linked you beforehand. I hope I didn't break any blog-rules by not asking permission; I'm kind of new at this.

I also checked out a few articles on Murdoch's tax evasion...very interesting. Thanks very much for the tip. What makes me sick about it is that his corporations are notorious for weasling out of paying corporate taxes, which I think is awful. The Constitution clearly calls for a corporate tax and that's important! I usually like savvy and great businessmen, but Murdoch rubs me the wrong way.

Next time I try to keep my comments to War and Peace length, instead of the Encyclopedia-like length this one is at right now.

Enjoy your 4th of July weekend!

LET'S TALK said...

Leo the Dems are learning to play the way the Republicans have been playing. It's good to know that you are feeling better.

david caspian, your comments can be as long as you like. I love to read the comments and posts of other bloggers.

You guys have a great 4th and be safe.

DivaJood said...

Perhaps the July fireworks will be a showdown between the White House and Congress. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Congress will not back down.

Anonymous said...

Actually... I believe that if committee brings a 'Contempt of Congress' charge against the administration, they have to go to DoJ to get it prosecuted, and you know what will happen then...

Snave said...

I agree with Kvatch, therein lies the problem. Unless they do something about Gonzales first and conduct a purge/cleansing at the Department of Justice, I'm not sure the Dems have much hope of getting anything done that would ultimately involve a Supreme Court ruling.

The current Court doesn't march along with Bush 100% of the time, but there are four powerful right-wing ideologues in place who may want to help the administration preserve its power. I don't trust Roberts, Thomas, Scalia and Alito to leave their personal politics out of any such decisions.

It seems so obvious to me that the administration has things to hide, or else they would be happily handing over whatever information was being requested. It also seems that due to the effort they are exerting to keep things secret, there must be some pretty explosive stuff they don't want us to know about. Like maybe stuff they have done that they know is criminal... What a bunch of creepy people.

I am 100% behind Conyers and Leahy on this one. Their 10-day ultimatum the Bu$hCo ramps things up a notch or two, and while I'd bet they don't expect the White House to cooperate at all, they are making a fairly aggressive attempt to shed as much light on things as possible. I agree, LT... this could go on for a LONG time after Bush and Cheney are out of office. If we think we are seeing "stonewalling" now, I don't think we have seen much more than just the beginning of it.

David, as long as I comment at this blog, you don't need to worry about how lengthy your comments may get. As you can see here, being concise is rarely if ever one of my strengths!

Anonymous said...

The game is up. Everybody knows by now that Shooter actually runs the Government. He took a "silent" position and applied Stalinist tactics to it, and now he's a festering sore that is infecting the whole of America.

I do believe that Chimpy is senile, so I also believe that going after Shooter is the way to correct the problem. It's a shame the dems have no spine or we might actually see something done.

LET'S TALK said...

DivaJood, I do not think Congress will back down. We will see this in the rig courts that Bush owns.

Kvatch, just about everyone in the DOJ has to seclude themselves for conflict of interest.

Snave, Conyers and Leahy are no Reid and Pelosi. I think they will push this as for as they can.


JollyRoger, I think that you will see a different type spine with Conyers and Leahy.

Suzie-Q (S-Q) said...

Congress must proceed with this and take it as far as they can!

We need to call for IMPEACHMENT NOW!

LET'S TALK said...

We shall see where Congress takes this very soon.

Tom Harper said...

The outcome of this showdown will determine whether America remains a Republic or becomes a kingdom. It's that simple. We have to prevail.

Who Hijacked Our Country