Taylor made for keeping White House secrets

July 12, 2007

So, what did the Senate Judiciary Committee learn from former White House political director Sara Taylor yesterday? Ostensibly, the hearing was about the Bush gang’s role in the U.S. Attorney purge scandal. Taylor agreed to appear, despite the White House “directing” her not to cooperate, under a dubious claim of executive privilege.

It led to the worst of both worlds. Taylor honored a subpoena (which was good), but honored Bush’s suspect claim to executive privilege (which was bad). She ended up repeatedly telling the senators that she couldn’t remember, couldn’t explain, or couldn’t talk about anything of interest. She invoked Fred Fielding’s name 24 times, and mentioned his letter about privilege 35 times.

But even more annoying, as Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick explained, was that Taylor was selective when it came to what was privileged information. In short, when she liked the question and wanted to answer it, Taylor testified. When she didn’t, she claimed she was forbidden from speaking.

Specter opines that Taylor correctly asserted the Fielding privilege in response to Leahy’s question about her conversations with the president. This makes it doubly strange later in the day when Taylor elects to answer that same question. (The president did not discuss the firings with her.) See? It’s not just the senators fighting about the scope of this amorphous executive privilege; even the witness can’t fix upon a clear rule. Taylor spends the morning huddling with her lawyer, Neil Eggleston, who in a most unlawyerly fashion urges her to disclose more, not less, ostensibly privileged information. The result is a session of bizarre push-me-pull-you testimony in which Taylor asserts this “privilege” that is not hers to assert, and then arguably waives that same “privilege” over and over again as she discusses in detail things that clearly fall within its vast scope.

At first this pattern of half-compliance with the subpoena just confuses the senators. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., huffs that “the fact that you are answering some questions but not others weakens the executive privilege claim even further. It shows how specious their claim is.” But later, Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Leahy begin to observe that in fact Taylor’s notion of the executive privilege seems to be that she can testify at length to exonerate friends at the White House, then clam up when she might implicate them. As Leahy growls toward the end of the day, “each time the finger points at you, you hide behind your oath to the president.”

Earlier this week, when the White House claimed privilege, Dems asked the Bush gang to explain the basis for the claim. The White House refused — effectively saying, “We can’t talk and we can’t talk about why we can’t talk.”

Taylor’s testimony raised a different possibility: the White House can’t explain the claim because their argument doesn’t make any sense, even to them.

Talking about hiring Tim Griffin? That’s fine. Talking about firing David Iglesias? That’s not fine. Answering questions about complaints raised against U.S. Attorneys? No problem. Answering questions about who Taylor talked to about these complaints? Problem. There was “absolutely no wrongdoing done by anybody in the White House,” but we’ll have to take her word for it, because she can’t explain what anyone in the White House did.

Perhaps the most noteworthy denial was Taylor’s insistence that the president himself was not involved with the scandal.

A former White House political director, Sara M. Taylor, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that she believed President Bush was not involved in last year’s dismissal of federal prosecutors.

Ms. Taylor said she “did not attend any meetings with the president where the matter was discussed” and could not recall seeing any presidential directives about the firings. Asked whether Mr. Bush was involved in the firings, she replied, “I do not have any knowledge that he was.”

Democrats dismissed Ms. Taylor’s testimony as part of what they called a continuing effort to conceal political motives behind the dismissals and to interfere with Congressional inquiries into how and why at least eight United States attorneys were removed.

But several Democrats said Ms. Taylor’s portrayal of the president’s role as minimal undercut Mr. Bush’s broad assertion of executive privilege, a doctrine he has used in an effort to block Congressional demands for documents and testimony of White House aides.

A few other related items worth noting:

* Alex Koppelman talked at some length to former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Bud Cummins, who Sara Taylor helped smear. Cummins’ perspective on yesterday’s hearing was quite illuminating and worth reading.

* Taylor used an unaccountable, private RNC email address to be “efficient.” That doesn’t make any sense.

* The fight over Harriet Miers’s subpoena is going to be even more contentious, and there’s some suggestion that the White House cannot legally block her from testifying.

After yesterday’s developments, Pat Leahy asked, “What is the White House trying to hide?” Apparently, quite a bit.

July 12, 2007 at 9:05 am

But several Democrats said Ms. Taylor’s portrayal of the president’s role as minimal undercut Mr. Bush’s broad assertion of executive privilege, a doctrine he has used in an effort to block Congressional demands for documents and testimony of White House aides.

So what? Unless they hold her and Miers in contempt the Executive Privilige claim holds. When are the Dems going to DO something?

The White House refused — effectively saying, “We can’t talk and we can’t talk about why we can’t talk.”

Well, at least Bush is getting a better class of speechwriter – but I didn’t realize Steven Soderbergh was a Republican.

“Look, it’s not in my nature to be mysterious. But I can’t talk about it and I can’t talk about why. ” – Rusty Ryan, “Oceans 12”

“Sex, Lies, and Videotape” indeed.

When are the Dems going to DO something?

Take your pick:
–in an afterlife
–in a parallel universe
–right after Bush fires Gonzales
–right after Bush shoots Cheney in the face and then resigns (Cheney dies of fright)

I think Vermont’s own Pat Leahy delivered the killer blow yesterday when he busted Taylor on the executive privilege argument.

The testimony itself was not very revealing – by design, on Taylor’s part – but Leahy caught her out in this exchange:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/11/leahy-taylor-privilege/

Just look at Taylor’s face as Leahy busts her. She can see the fork in her. She’s thinking, “F*ck, I should have said I don’t remember.”

And what Leahy is on to is that the claims of executive privilege are actually meant as a tactic to bully the people subpoenaed by Conyers and Leahy. The consequent obstruction of Congress is the second-order effect of the bullying and harrassment that flows down from the executive privilege claim.

You see, when Taylor knows she’s been busted, she’s not thinking, “Sh*t, Congress can now nail my a** to the wall.” She thinking, “F*ck, I should have said I don’t remember. Because now the WH legal argument is a demonstrable fraud, and Karl is going to kill me.”

I think us libs have been a little slow on the uptake here. We’ve all been scratching our heads, wondering how on Earth the Bushies think they can make the executive privilege claim in this area. But that’s not the point. They want Miers and Taylor and everyone else to know that when they testify, they are dead people if they so much as breath at the wrong time.

Remember, the DoJ tried to hector Iglesias before he testified. This is a more subtle, and far more pernicious attempt to shape the testimony Congress receives.

A new low for the Loyal Bushie Brownshit Cabal. Isn’t it obvious now that the only way that Dick&Bush are going to acknowledge the propriety and legitimacy of the U.S. Federal Government, the law, and the Constitution, all of which they have unlawfully and summarily exempted themselves from, is through impeachment hearings?

To echo a sentiment seen here at TCR numerous times, does “Dick” have to suck the blood from a live infant on the Senate floor for there to be any meaningful consequence for the traitors’ malfeasance? Just what would the Democratic majority in Congress consider impeachable and the prosecution thereof morally imperative?

Our Constitutional Republic is being undermined by a Private Corporate Cabal and by and large the Dems aren’t raising too much of stink about it. Where does it all end? What price are We, The People, willing to pay before we demand that the traitors are brought to justice and tried for treason?

I think what you have here is a net that is slowly being drawn smaller and smaller, and while it seems like the Dems are playing the same old game of “all talk, no action,” I actually think they are taking each development the WH throws at them, carefully examining the weak spots and strategizing ways to exploit those weak spots and close off avenues of escape.

I think a lot of that “thank you so much for cooperating as much as you think you can,” talk was the equivalent of the spider sweet-talking the fly, and based on Taylor being lulled into thinking she was smarter than some of the committee members, it appears she neither helped her own case, and did some damage to the privilege claim.

I think the committee is aware that this may end up in court, and I think what you saw yesterday was the establishment of a record that is going to bolster their argument that the claim of privilege is bogus, for one, and as a result of Taylor’s selective testimony, effectively waived.

Don’t give up just yet – I think it’s going to get a lot more interesting.

Anne – I sure hope you are right. Everyday I lose more and more confidence that anything is going to be done with these crooks.

JKap, was that Loyal Bushie Brownshit Cabal intentional, or a freudian typo?

In either case, kudos.

Andrew Sullivan had a clip of Leahy going after her because she said she took an oath to the president (not the Constitution). While she did correct her self I actually think she came closer to telling the truty by saying she took an oath to the president.

I would like to see a poll of every single Republican congresscritter, ask them all if they think it’s OK for mysterious unnamed people in the executive branch to hire and fire prosecutors for reasons which cannot be revealed to congress, but must be accepted as kosher because… the president says so.

And is this new power of political prosecution just for Republican presidents, or can Democratic presidents look forward to using it too?

I’d like to see what they say, can unknown underlings of the next Democratic president hire and fire prosecutors (and anyone else for that matter) and then hide their reasoning behind “executive privilege”? Will the Republicans not want to know why president Gore replaced such key components of the rule of law? Or will they be fine with being given the mushroom treatment?

If they’re fine with it, and if the Bushies manage to get away with this shit, then the next Democratic president should use this newly minted executive power to the hilt. Every six months they should fire every prosecutor who hasn’t indicted at least one Republican. And when the Republicans cry foul the president should claim that no one knows who actually picked the names, and that no one can talk about if the president was involved. But rest assured there was no political shenanigans, because… president Gore’s underlings say so.

But of course Democrats will never do such a thing, and the Republican crooks know that. So here we are, watching our democracy being bludgeoned to death by a bunch of thugs who know we will never use the same tactics against them.

Re: Diane @ #8
…was that Loyal Bushie Brownshit Cabal intentional, or a freudian typo?

Thx. Typo. A new anti-Bush slur is born. Forever I will refer to them as the Loyal Bushie Brownshi(r)t Cabal.

As much as I would love to get even for all the wrongs that have been done since Bush took office, the last thing we need is a continuation of the tactics and policies that have been so damaging. Continuing what Bush has started, only from the other side, would be just as damaging, and would continue the erosion of important principles that form the basis for the democracy.

After years of railing against the Bush WH for what they have done, it makes no sense to me that we would want to also destroy our credibility and the ability to be trusted, by doing it ourselves.

What’s so dangerous about allowing these actions and policies and precedents to stand is that, in hands that are even worse than Bush’s, they could mean the end to hundreds of years of democracy. I happen to think that the players currently playing for our side are better than that – I cannot say the same for those on the GOP side. This kind of precedent in the hands of a Giuliani or a Thompson could be devastating – and I have every confidence that they would be the ones to use them to the hilt – and beyond.

I would much rather “get even” by reversing these things, by drawing a line, and defining what is and what is not acceptable, than I would to just hand off unchecked power to those we have no reason to believe or trust would use it wisely, or in the best interests of the country or the people.

Much as I support Leahy, he missed an opportunity by not asking “Are you testifying to this committee that the President is demanding of his staff loyalty oaths to himself, and not the United States of America?”

As Leahy growls toward the end of the day, “each time the finger points at you, you hide behind your oath to the president.”

There. Is. No. Oath. To. The. President.

Despite the desire of these despicable scum to hand themselves over to a Dear Leader, they take an oath to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Of course, when it’s you who are The Enemy Domestic, I’m not sure how you defend against yourself, though I wouldn’t mind seeing the reintroduction of the old British tradition of a dishonored officer being provided a loaded pistol in a private room that no one enters until the fatal shot has been heard.

The last time officials of a sovreign nation took an oath of personal loyalty to the person of The Leader was in Germany, following the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. We can easily see what that did, since it meant the German Officer Corps found themselves unable to take action to overthrow that worthless piece of excrement. What are we going to do when the officers of the Imperial Stormtroopers here are required to take a similar oath? I’m sure that – unfortunately – many of them think they already have.

Can’t Congress simply find these witnesses guilty of contempt and order federal marshals seize them?

What is it with the Democratic “leaders” anyway? I realize their first loyalty has to be to their corporate sponsors, but must they be so damned timid, legalistic and mincing? Can’t they even pay lip service to what we returned them to office for? The GOP seems perfectly capable of using its minority status to frustrate the entire nation; can’t the damned Dems muster the courage to at least appear to fight back?

You are of course right, Anne, as you seem to be with all your posts. But I do still find myself thinking how nice it would be to find at least a few of them face down in a dark alley, bleeding out from the proverbial large-caliber exit wound. Rove and his acolytes certainly come to mind as people we are never ever going to be able to trust so long as they are outside of a cell buried so deep we have to pump air in to them.

Specter’s latest pronouncements:
“Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the committee, said he would oppose any effort to hold Ms. Taylor in contempt, telling her at the close of the hearing,’I think you have tried to do your best.’ ”

Specter on accepting Bush’s conditions for testifying: “[Because the whole argument with the white house is going to drag on for years,] I think we ought to give consideration to bringing in those individuals and finding out what we can under the president’s terms. It doesn’t preclude us from compulsory process and proceeding with the subpoenas at a later time.”

What we’ve learned from this: Nothing, because we already knew that Specter is a complete waste of oxygen.

People like Specter are the key to impeachment: if people like him are in fear of being thrown out of office and are facing massive bipartisan calls for Bush’s impeachment or resignation, then they’ll get on board, but until such a time, impeachment is dead in the water.

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