Senate moves forward on Rove, Bolten contempt citations

December 13, 2007

If you’d given up following the Senate Judiciary Committee weighing its next move against White House aides who blew off its subpoena, you’re not alone. There was some sporadic movement on this over the summer, and then a few other issues — namely the confirmation process for a new Attorney General — put the matter on the backburner.

But lawmakers haven’t forgotten about the U.S. Attorney purge scandal, and today, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to issue contempt citations to those Bushies who failed to comply with subpoenas.

The committee voted 11-7 to cite White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten for refusing to hand over documents related to the firings and to cite former White House adviser Karl Rove for refusing to testify and hand over internal documents.

The recommendation will move to the Senate floor for a vote. A White House spokesman dismissed the initiative as “politics.”

The move marks the first time the Senate committee has voted for a contempt of Congress citation against anyone in the investigation into the firings.

The vote comes a month after the Judiciary Committee completed a preliminary investigation that concluded that Bush was not personally involved with the firings, which negates the White House’s claim to executive privilege and/or immunity.

Better yet, in a very pleasant surprise, the committee was not along party lines — Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) crossed over and joined Dems in the contempt citations. Kudos to both of them for putting the Senate’s interests above Bush’s.

As for what happens next, it could get tricky.

It would be up to the full Senate to approve the citations. If successful, Dems would need the law-enforcement cooperation of the Justice Department interested in enforcing the rule of law.

Would new Attorney General Michael Mukasey do the right thing?

Unlike Gonzales, Mukasey did not rule out allowing a federal prosecutor to take the case of any contempt citations passed by Congress. House leaders also have filed a contempt citation in their chamber against Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, but no floor vote has been scheduled.

Likewise, a new attorney general scrambled the political calculus for citations in the Senate. Leahy held off on his ruling while the committee moved Mukasey’s nomination, in part because committee officials felt there seemed little point in pursuing citations the White House seemed certain to block.

But Mukasey’s testimony and his promise to quit if Bush ignored his legal advice gives any citation — even the threat of one — more weight.

Jim Oliphant notes how things could unfold.

The next step would be for Leahy’s committee and then the full Senate to vote on contempt citations for Rove and the rest. But even if that happens, the matter would then be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution.

That man is Jeffrey Taylor, whose previous job just happens to have been as an adviser to Gonzales.

Stay tuned.

Perhaps Mr. Taylor will have to recuse himself if he is a former advisor to Gonzales. Even Ashcroft knew enough to do that. Our rule of law is in tatters, even a Republican should be able to see that.

  • Pretty sad that we wonder about whether the law will be followed based not on the offense but on who in the “Justice” Department is in charge of upholding the law. Most likely he will hold up the law instead.

  • I’m sure now that they’ve delayed it this far, the Bushies will say “it’s all election year politics”.

    Hey Gracious, if Republicans could “see” anything we wouldn’t be here. They are blinded by their one core ideology: We Hates Democrats.

    And can I have a dime for every time Grassley and/or Spector made nice noises and then did nothing meaningful? I’ll be rich!

  • Contempt, contemptible, contemptuous; all are synonymous with the Republican party. This will come to nothing. Even if the DOJ does take action the Bush administration will invoke Executive Privilege and National Security, they’ll delay, stonewall, “lose” records, cry “Politics!” and “Witch Hunt!” accuse the Dems of neglecting the people’s business and play out the clock until December 31st, 2008 – at which time George Bush will grant Presidential pardons for any and all illegal acts committed by his administration or any of it contractors. They’ll be baskets of them, already signed, with the names of the recipients left blank for ease of use, at the White House, DOJ, DHS, and the Pentagon.

  • Rigging the deck – an old offense that could lead to a gunfight. This WH goon-squad has been working to stack the political deck of our beloved nation. Now they’ve been caught on so many levels, their only hope is that they have sufficiently stacked the judidiary deck enough to have their cohorts rule in their favor even though it is plain to any commoner that their behavior over the past 7 years has run the gamut of insensitivity to unlawfulness. Let’s get them! -Kevo

  • And what are the chances it survives a full Senate vote? Maybe someone can tell me whether this is something that requires a cloture vote; if it does, I think it dies in the Senate for lack of 60 votes to invoke cloture.

    If a citation is issued, it is referred to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, who then decides whether to convene a grand jury, and whether to prosecute. So, even if it gets that far, there is no guarantee it will live to see an actual prosecution. As infrequent as contempt citations are issued, prosecutions under them are almost nonexistent. They can be a tool to obtain the information originally sought via subpoena, but I would not look for anything dire to happen to Rove and Bolten.

    Losing a full Senate vote on the citations, though, can be expected to harden the administration’s refusal to allow those subpoena’d to comply. Not to mention the endless yammering about the waste of time, and the partisan witchhunt, and all the usual chest-thumping and smug grins.

    Ugh.

    And I still haven’t figured out why there has apparently been no consideration of the inherent contempt option – which seems like it might have more of the kind of teeth in it that Rove and Bolten might pay attention to.

  • Sounds like the equivalent of conjuring up a hurricane to blow a leaf across the yard.

    I mean really, what’s the point? To go through all those steps, and waste all those resources, just to slap Rove and Bolten on the wrist at best, and even that wouldn’t actually get done because Bush would pardon them. And as a practical matter, it would never get that far. The wheels of justice grind even more slowly than the rest of government.

    Face it. Bush has run out the clock. He got away with the crimes of the century. What’s the point of bothering with this piddling matter when the game is over?

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