Zero. Not one congressional committee in the House or Senate has expressed even a little interest in holding hearings on the White House illegally leaking the name of a covert CIA agent to the press.
I know congressional Republicans are inclined to do Bush’s bidding in most instances, but I have to admit I expected at least a couple of committees to go through the motions of pretending to care about this controversy.
To be sure, hearings can be held in a stacked-deck fashion, allowing lawmakers to point to the hearings as proof of responsible governing, without substantively trying to uncover any meaningful information. Committee chairpersons can (and do) limit witness lists, for example, to make sure political opponents can’t ask questions that may lead to embarrassing revelations.
But so far with the Plame Game, nothing. Keep in mind, as far back as July, less than two weeks after Bob Novak’s infamous column was published, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice chairman and ranking Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s identity “vile” and “a highly dishonorable thing to do; highly, highly dishonorable.” He began pushing for committee hearings into the matter, but no one listened. And since Republicans control Congress, Rockefeller didn’t have many options.
Not surprisingly, when Clinton was in the White House, Republicans in Congress held Soviet-style show trials, I mean, fair-minded committee hearings at the drop of a hat. With Bush occupying the Oval Office, suddenly the GOP has lost its taste for similar hearings, even with the White House under criminal investigation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), for example, said he doesn’t believe the scandal “runs [within] our committee’s jurisdiction.”
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine), whose committee has broad oversight over the entire executive branch of government, said last week she was content to have this “handled by the Department of Justice” because it is “a law enforcement issue.”
Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) dismissed calls for hearings, saying, “This is an old story.”
Old story? Whitewater was a 12-year-old land deal that the Clintons had lost money on, yet multiple congressional committees spent months on hearings. At least two senior officials in the Bush White House commit a felony by leaking classified information just three months ago and Sen. Roberts dismisses it as an “old story”? Unbelievable.
Not incidentally, what we have here is John Ashcroft’s Justice Department investigating George Bush’s (and Karl Rove’s) White House — with no congressional oversight. All the while, Democratic calls for an independent special counsel are ignored.
This is not to say that all the problems are in the Senate. The House has also decided to take a pass on looking into the White House’s criminal conduct.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), for example, has expressed no interest in holding hearings and a spokesperson for the committee told reporters last week that the issue hadn’t come up.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Goss (R-Fla.), a former CIA agent himself, has dismissed calls for hearings in his committee as well.
Goss told the New York Times that the scandal was a result of a “dose of partisan politics.” When asked to explain the difference between the House’s treatment of Clinton and the free ride they’re giving Bush, Goss said, “If somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I will have an investigation.”
As Mark A.R. Kleiman, a UCLA poli sci professor and prolific blogger, said last week, Goss’ approach is eerily reminiscent of the Red Queen’s “verdict-first rules” in Alice in Wonderland.
“In [the Red Queen’s] scheme, remember, the evidence came last, after the trial,” Kleiman said. “In Goss’ the evidence — not just a strong basis for suspicion, but proof strong enough for a jury — needs to come before any investigation, rather than being the product of investigation.”
Exactly. Goss and other Republicans would have us believe investigations should come after evidence is discovered, not the other way around.
When Clinton was president, congressional committees didn’t wait until the evidence proved wrongdoing; the committees held hearings to determine if there was wrongdoing. With Bush, everything is backwards. There’s evidence of a crime — the leaks — but Republicans refuse to investigate until the matter is proven conclusively.
This is not only an example of ethically- and intellectually-bankrupt partisanship on the part of congressional Republicans, it’s also an odd historical example of Congress willingly ceding authority. Most of the time, even with a partisan agenda at stake, Congress and its committees battle to maintain some control over events. Now, with the White House remarkably under criminal investigation, Congress is satisfied to sit on the sidelines and remain spectators.