Judiciary Committee approves subpoenas — for some administration witnesses

March 15, 2007

The good news is the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a big batch of subpoenas this morning as part of the investigation into the prosecutor purge scandal. The bad news is some of the administration officials who need to appear before the committee weren’t on today’s list.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday cleared the way for subpoenas compelling five Justice Department officials and six of the U.S. attorneys they fired to tell the story of the purge that has prompted demands for the ouster of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The voice vote to authorize the panel to issue subpoenas amounts to insurance against the possibility that Gonzales could retract his permission to let the aides testify voluntarily, or impose strict conditions.

The committee also postponed for a week a vote on whether to authorize subpoenas of top aides to President Bush who were involved in the eight firings, including political adviser Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and deputy White House Counsel William K. Kelley.

First, let’s look at who’s going to testify. Committee members approved subpoenas for key Justice Department officials involved in the scandal, including Kyle Sampson (Gonzales’ former chief of staff), Michael Elston (staff chief to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and the guy who allegedly threatened fired prosecutors), Monica Goodling (Gonzales’ senior counsel and White House liaison), Bill Mercer (associate attorney general), and Mike Battle (departing director of the office that oversees all 93 U.S. attorneys).

Six of the eight purged prosecutors (Lam, Cummins, Charlton, McKay, Bogden, and Iglesias) will also testify again.

And then there were the names you might be looking for but don’t see.

It’s not altogether clear from press accounts why some were subpoenaed and others not, but Sen. Schumer’s office released a statement saying that “Republican members of the committee blocked the authorization for subpoenas for White House officials, namely Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, and William Kelly.” Schumer added:

“This is the worst crisis at the Department of Justice that I have seen in my time in the Senate. It is a crisis of confidence, a crisis of credibility, and a crisis of management. And ridding the Department of one bad actor doesn’t begin to rid the Department of the taint of this scandal. That is why every day more and more Senators have joined me in my call for Alberto Gonzales to step down. Beyond a change in the top, we should also be doing everything we can to get correct and candid answers from the Department, once and for all. The sooner we do that, the sooner public confidence can be restored. And it won’t be a moment too soon. Today’s authorization for subpoenas gets us a major step closer.

“It is regrettable that members of the minority blocked subpoenas for some of the White House players. They should be joining in our efforts to get to the bottom of this.”

Well, they should, but there’s obviously a limit to their willingness to challenge the Bush White House.

It’s a temporary reprieve. The Judiciary Committee will take up subpoenas for Rove, Miers, and Kelley next week. Stay tuned.

“It is regrettable that members of the minority blocked subpoenas…”

Regrettaable? Aiding and abetting is criminal.

  • How? How did minority members block those subpoenas? This isn’t blackball, it’s majority rule in the committees. Is it the blue dog dems again?

  • In one way, it’s good to start at the bottom and work up. Now if they could just keep the underlings’ testimony secret from the big fish they might trip them up. Sucks any way though.

  • I agree with Dale. Going after the little fish first gives them the opportunity to rat out the bigger fish to save themselves. Then the committee can go after the bigger fish with an even bigger hook.

    Never mind the popcorn. I’m going to fire up the grill and chill a few brewskis for this one. It’s shaping up to be one fine kegger party.

  • Well, they should, but there’s obviously a limit to their willingness to challenge the Bush White House.

    Are there any good theories why that is? Will it take his approval rating going into the single digits? What on earth keeps these people on board?

  • Most of the remaining support Bush has comes from people who always vote and do it exclusively for Republicans. Going against that groupthink is a guaranteed way to lose for a Republican officeholder.

  • Delicious.

    I hope the Republicans drag their cloven hooves six ways to Sunday, because the American people need to see how corrupt they really are, and what better way than to see them fight a rear-guard action when it’s patently obvious that the whole Gonzales affair stinks to high heaven.

    I’d be less happy if they allowed Rove to be grilled immediately. He’s still on the skewer no matter what, and I want his roasting to be slow and painful.

  • Second to Dale’s question- what are the parlimentary rules on subpoenas? Can minority members block it, or does a majority have to approve it? (and if the latter, then which Democrat went along?)

  • ***What on earth keeps these people on board?***
    ———-Allen K.

    One word: COMPLICITY.

    The fact that Republicans on the Hill continue to support this oh-so-obviously corrupt administration can only be explained by their deeper-than-doo-doo complicity in the whole sordid affair. ReThugs have defended every questionable act by this “sham-ministration” from the very beginning. They have supported, and participated in, repeated attempts to investigate anything—even investigations conducted by members of their opwn political party. What is it that they so desperately need to hide from public view?

    COMPLICITY.

  • CNN has this on why the upper echelon weren’t subpeonaed (sp?):

    But the committee’s ranking Republican warned against moving too hastily.

    “I think the subpoena issue has to be handled with great delicacy because when a subpoena is issued there is a suggestion that the person will not come in voluntarily,” said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. “When the person will not come in voluntarily, there is a suggestion that the person has something to hide.”

    The committee postponed a vote on the authorization to use subpoenas to compel White House officials to testify, including President Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

    In other words, Specter caved again.

  • I agre with Dale and Curmudgeon. Letting the little fish go first will create more ammunition to go after the big ones. The case should start to granulate with their testimony and the soap opera will only have more drama after the plumbers go first

    And Arlen’s idea about not subpoenaing Alberto, Harriet and Kelly is a good two edged sword handed to the Dems by the Repubs: if they refuse to comply or are hesitant to testify, the Dems can use Arlen’s own argument against them that they must have some illegal to hide. Thanks Arlen!

  • TPM is saying that CREW is asking for Congress to look into how Scott Jennings a Rove aid, used the gwb43.com (owned by the RNC). To me this is just another piece of evidence that this was a GOP – political – move. Why else would use an outside domain for “official” business.

    http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002771.php

  • I don’t understand how the republic-thugs were able to block the subpoena of anyone. Aren’t the Dems now the majority? This is so corrupt it stinks. I think though that this is a story that will come out because they do have the underlings, and the underlings have to see what happened to Libby.

  • Its a brilliant plan…we are winding down the news cycle….why do a Thurs/Fri news dump of a subpeona of Rove…….

    Do it next Monday and the media has all week to digest it….brilliant!!!

  • Why do the Democrats continue to blast and ‘be outraged by’ Republicans for the very things that they themselves have done? Clinton fired ALL 93 US Attorneys when he was in office, to put in his own people – and primarily to remove the US Attorney for Arkansas. That wasn’t politically motivated!? Did everyone forget? It was unprecedented – but somehow overlooked in this whole debate, not surprising given that almost all mainstream media has now become akin to Pravda and Al Jezeerah. After two years of investigation of this handful of attorneys, and the removal of 7 (count ’em 7, not 93 ) this is a big outrageous scanda and ‘politically motivated’ – what’s the matter, can’t we fire people in American anymore for doing a bad job? Libby goes to prison for not remembering, but Bill Clinton couldn’t recall, ‘did not have sex with that woman!’ and didn’t get impeached for lying under oath, his laxity on terror, ushering in the world trade agreement which began the outflow of American jobs in the name of ‘the global economy’ (read that ‘redistributon of wealth’), decimating the military and our intelligence agencies – destroying communication between the CIA & FBI which was in part responsible for 911. Sandy Burglar stuffed critical oiginal documents in his pants from the National Archives to avoid putting any blame on the Clinton administration for 911 – he got a slap on the hand – no prison time. Several Dems (Barney Frank, Gerry Studds & Mel Reynolds (pardoned by Clinton) and many more) behaved just as reprehensibly as Mark Foley and are still sitting in office or were pardoned. The Dems build a lot of glass houses yet delight in lobbing stones. We need to demand more from our elected politicians than finger pointing and false indignation.

  • I have this picture of KB sitting in a dark basement, illuminated only by his monitor, frantically pasting this on to every blog comment page he can find that Fox Nonews, LGF, et al. have informed him are members of the Great Moonbat Conspiracy.

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