Bush to Congress: You’ll get nothing and you’ll like it

July 9, 2007

Well, I can’t imagine anyone is surprised by this stonewalling.

President Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides in connection with the firings of federal prosecutors.

The White House, however, did 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 and refused lawmakers’ demand that the president explain the basis for invoking the privilege.

I particularly enjoyed that last part. Bush appears to be pushing the principle of executive privilege to its extreme (and then some), suggesting that privilege not only protects conversations between the president and his aides, but also discussions between aides themselves that the president has nothing to do with. In Taylor’s case, she doesn’t even work for the administration anymore, and she’s willing to testify, but the White House is claiming conversations she may or may not have had with anyone are entirely off-limits.

Better yet, as of today, the White House position is that Bush is not only refusing to cooperate with the investigation, he’s also refusing to say why he’s refusing to cooperate.

Fielding said in his letter to Leahy and Conyers that lawmakers can be “assured” that Bush is claiming executive privilege appropriately and that, in his context, “it has been appropriately documented.”

Persuasive, isn’t it? The president is taking an expansive view of privilege, he’s blocking willing witnesses from honoring a subpoena, he’s withholding relevant materials, and he’s impinging on an ongoing congressional investigation, but we should all feel “assured” that the White House’s conduct is entirely kosher. Why? Because the White House says so.

Politically, I suspect the White House realizes how ridiculous this stonewalling makes them appear, but they’re doing it anyway. By refusing to abide by congressional subpoenas, the Bush gang is acting very much like it has a great deal to hide, which of course, they do.

There also seems to be a subtle shift in rhetoric with regards to the U.S. Attorney purge scandal.

Old line: the White House wasn’t involved in the scandalous firings.

New line: The White House no longer wants to talk about whether Team Bush was involved in the scandalous firings.

Even in terms of the court of public opinion, who’s going to buy this?

…who’s going to buy this

The only two who count? (Laura and Barney.)

True love is truly sweet, innit?

  • Clinton cooperated with privilege logs and Bush doesn’t?

    Can you say double standard?

  • Oh, come on – there is no way the Congress can just continue to take this kind of abuse from Bush. No way. It is unconscionable that the response to the committee is devoid of any acknowledgment that our system of tri-partite government means that there are times when one branch does have to answer to the others.

    This is not about preserving the confidentiality of the president’s ability to get advice – this is about covering up something that if revealed, would probably make impeachment a foregone conclusion, if not outright calls for resignation.

  • It all comes under the apparently well-respected philosophy know as The Divine Right of the Bush Crime Family to be Above the Law.

  • I am so sick of these guy’s and their non-sense. They are as close to dictator’s as they can be. They even have their own private army to fight for them. Nothing would make me happier than to see every one of them spend the rest of their lives in prison. Of course that never happens to ” special people ” and we all know how special they are! It seems we will be lucky if we ever get rid of them.

  • Does anyone know what could happen to Taylor if she chose to testify anyway ,even though Bush has invoked executive privilege?

    Does that expose her to any kind of legal jeopardy?

  • I wonder if Nancy Pelosi can still say impeachment is off the table with a straight face?

  • This is what Democrats get for preemptively taking impeachment off the table.

    Once you announce that you *won’t* use all your available tools to force Bush to do something, why would you be surprised when he says you can’t make him do anything?

    Bush may be dumb at some things, but you can’t say he doesn’t understand leverage. Democrats may be smart at some things, but you can’t say they *do* understand leverage.

  • Taylor isn’t vulnerable to any kind of legal jeopardy for testifying when Bush doesn’t want her to.

    Otherwise, she’d be claiming a stronger defense than “I don’t wanna talk bad about my preznit,” which is not an established legal defense to non-compliance with a lawful subpoena, despite what Bush and his armada of amoral asshole attorneys would have you believe.

    I wonder if Rove would have her threatened, rendered, or whacked, though. Because all of those things are, apparently, entirely legal for Republicans to do in defense of Bush.

    On a brighter and utterly unrelated note, thank god we beat the commies and their the-government-is-always-right legal/political propaganda-and-enforcement machine. Three cheers for the rule of law… may it rest in peace.

  • I’m more that certain that the Republicans will rediscover the need for Presidential candor, strict Congressional oversight, limits on the power of the Executive Branch and a balanced budget just as soon as a Democrat is elected President.

    Why, I can already hear the calls for openness, testimony under oath from members of the administration and the decrying of deliberations made under the cloak of Executive Privilege.

    Not to mention cries of politicizing various government agencies and losing the war in Iraq.

    You read it here first.

  • Hey, when you were personally chosen by God from before the beginning of all time to save America in her hour of greatest need, as a special dispensation, from the twin scourges of oral sex and high marginal rates of income tax, you don’t have to explain anything to anybody, ever.

    Take it up with God why don’t ya?

    Goodbye e pluribus unum, hello Deus vult!

  • I am a right wing nut case: just look at the reactions to my other posts but…

    I htink the reason that Bush is being forced into his absurd position is that he is afraid that a single crack in the wall will weaken his position so much that his entire empire will crumble.

    He figures that his best chance at survival is to refuse everything since to allow anything would start him down that sharp slippery slop to real accounabilty.

    He figures he owes it to Constitution to keep the Presidency strong and that history will look back and say that Bush was right.

    Frankly, I think he is crazy but, after all, I am a right wing nut job.

  • And this is a shock, how? Bush don’t give two shits about any law that keeps him from doing what he wants including the constitution. It’s the way he is and mostly likely the way his peers (real base of BIG MONEY not the wannabe Christer rubes and deluded) is and reinforces itself thru social interactions.

    Rules are ONLY for the “small” “unimportant” people like us, not them.

  • *****Racerx****#7 Yes, Pelosi will loudly proclaim that there’s a new congress in town…That Bush thinks he is above the law but that he is not above the law and that is actions are are outrageous…
    Then turn right around and be entirely silent about impeachment or holding this administration accountable. WTF. They point their fingers and say see? see?…It’s just terrible…Shake their heads and walk off. I don’t get it. Never was there more need to impeach than now yet Pelosi and Coyers just shake their head and do nothing. Go figure.

    Take a person who cannot possibly incriminate you and make a really big deal about anyone wanting to question them and then, finally allow questioning under protest. Then when they get nothing loudly proclaim “with hunt”, etc. while in the mean time you just continue to destroy all incriminating evidence and block interviews with those who do know something by saying we gave into you once and you’re just being ridiculous.

  • The unhinged disregard and contempt for the law, the Constitution, and propriety continue to reach new, totalitarian heights within the Loyal Bushie Brownshirt Cabal.

    There is but one remedy to the crisis facing our Constitutional Republic and the Democratic leadership in Congress knows it. But the American People have not been made mad enough yet to force their hand and get the impeachment machine fired-up and running.

    We must get mad as hell and demand impeachment from Congress. Not political calculation, not excuses, not 67-vote retreats of cowardice, but accountability. Accountability without consequences is not accountability, but lip-service.

  • bjbotts, I suspect blackmail or other threats are being used to keep Pelosi at bay. Her words and actions make no sense otherwise, unless it’s some kind of clever trick we’re not aware of.

  • It’s constitutional crisis time! – Comment by naschkatze @10

    Don’t be so excited. Remember, whichever way the lower court decides, the case will get decided by the Supreme Court. Let me count the votes….

    I fear the only way to resolve any of this will ultimately be by Constitutional amendment….

  • Isn’t it time for Leahy to tell the White House that the Judiciary Committee will refuse hold any confirmation hearings on judge nominees until they get serious and negotiate on the material on which subpoenas have been issued?

    The Republicans will complain about obstructionism, but Hatch and Republicans did not suffer any repercussions for their actions when Clinton was President.

  • Even in terms of the court of public opinion, who’s going to buy this? — CB

    Even if nobody among the public buys it, nobody at the WH is gonna give a rat’s arse. It’s not as if they have to turn a profit by selling anything. It’s not a real shop; it’s just a “front” for their criminal activities.

  • I’d like to see Bush tell the entire hypocritical Democrat congress to stick it! Leaky Leahy, Schumer, Conyers and the rest of the idiot congress, why don’t they get to work and figure out a way to help win in Iraq. Instead they attack the prez as though he id Bin Laden. As far as I’m concerned they (Democrat Congresspeople) are dragging this country down the tubes!! Tax and surrender, tax and surrender, tax and surrender. Man are they out of touch with America, and the polls show it!

  • I see the Democrats are pandering to the looney Left again. Better break out your supplies of tin-foil hats, because I’m sure a White House censor is reading all of these posts and reading your minds and the Secret Police are going to be knocking all of your doors down tonight. Or at least correcting your poor spelling and bad grammar! If I were a psychiatrist, I’d have to charge all of you for diagnosing your Bush Derangement Syndrome… Oh, BTW, I won’t be back to read your hateful comments in response, so don’t waste your time…

    Robert

  • Why does it matter to start with why he fired them? It’s the presidents privilege or at least that’s what the Dem’s said when Clinton fired a couple of hundred of them. Being a Libertarian myself (and definitely not a Bush fan) I really don’t feel that I have a dog in this fight but it sure looks like the Dem’s are two faced to me.

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