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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Bush Invokes Executive Privilege In Fight Over Firings Of U.S. Attorneys Published Monday July 9th, 2007 President George W. Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny demands by Congress for testimony from two former aides about the firings of several federal prosecutors. The White House did, however, offer again to make former counsel Harriet Miers and one-time political director Sara Taylor available for private, off-the-record interviews. In a letter to the heads of the House and Senate judiciary panels, White House counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith. But he refused the demand by legislators that the president explain the basis for invoking privilege. The latest move in the separation of powers fight between the legislative and executive branches came as members of Congress began returning from their Fourth of July recess. An atmosphere of high tension accompanied the resumption of work as a fight also loomed there between majority Democrats and some key Republicans and Bush over his Iraq war policy. In his letter regarding subpoenas the judiciary panels has issued, Fielding said: "The president feels compelled to assert executive privilege with respect to the testimony sought from Sara M. Taylor and Harriet E. Miers." "You may be assured that the president's assertion here comports with prior practices in similar contexts, and that it has been appropriately documented," the letter said. Fielding was responding to a 10 a.m. EDT deadline set by the Democratic chairmen, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Representative John Conyers of Michigan, for the White House to explain it's privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it and provide logs of which documents were being withheld. As expected, Fielding refused to comply. He said he was acting at Bush's direction, and he complained that the committees had decided to enforce the subpoenas whether or not the White House complied. "The committees have already prejudged the question, regardless of the production of any privilege log," Fielding wrote. "In such circumstances, we will not be undertaking such a project, even as a further accommodation." Conyers' response left little doubt where the matter was headed. "Contrary (to) what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the courts that will decide whether an invocation of executive privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally," the House chairman said in a statement. The privilege claim on testimony by former aides won't necessarily prevent them from testifying this week, as scheduled. Leahy said that Taylor, Bush's former political director, may testify as scheduled before the Senate panel Wednesday. The House judiciary committee scheduled Miers' testimony for Thursday, but it was unclear whether she would appear, according to congressional aides speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations were under way. The exchange Monday was the latest step in a slow-motion legal waltz between the White House and Congress toward eventual contempt-of-Congress citations. If neither side yielded in that circumstance, it would go to a federal court. The probe into the U.S. attorney firings was only one of several Democratic-led investigations of the White House and its use of executive power spanning the war in Iraq, Bush's secretive wiretapping program and his commutation last week of Lewis (Scooter) Libby's prison sentence.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
License to lie. Schumer, I think, said, "anyone involved so heavily in secrecy generally has something to hide." No kidding.
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