Bush has something to hide, evidently

[Lanya]

  via Think Progress:
There's No Precedent Barring White House Aides From Testifying
  According to the Congressional Research Service, under President Clinton, 31 of his top aides testified on 47 different occasions. The aides who testified included some of Clinton’s closest advisors:

        Harold Ickes, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff - 7/28/94

        George Stephanopoulos, Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy - 8/4/94

        John Podesta, Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary - 8/5/94

        Bruce R. Lindsey, Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President - 1/16/96

        Samuel Berger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs - 9/11/97

        Beth Nolan, Counsel to the President - 5/4/00

    In contrast, between 2000 and 2004, Bush allowed only one of his closest advisers, then-Assistant to the President for Homeland Security Tom Ridge, to appear in front of Congress. He has also refused three invitations from Congress for his aides to testify, a first since President Richard Nixon in 1972. Clinton did not refuse any.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/20/white-house-testify/

[Amianthus]

[snip]

So, are we allowed to compare Bush to Clinton or not?

Seems to me that the "Clinton did it too" argument was to supposed to be invalid?

[Lanya]

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The White House Offer on the U.S. Attorney Imbroglio

Marty Lederman

Thanks to Talking Points Memo, here's the letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding, offering to allow Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, William Kelley and one other White House official to be interviewed by members of Congress. Most folks are focusing on the fact that the testimony would be unsworn, untranscribed, and "private." Of those, I think "untranscribed" (and thus not available to the public) is the most important.

But much more important than that is that the White House would limit the scope of the testimony, and of any documents provided, so that they would not cover communications made within the White House -- i.e., among the presidential advisors who (presumably) most directly counseled the President to remove the U.S. Attorneys. And it's presumably in those communications that any evidence of the actual reasons for the removals would be contained.

Can't say that I'm surprised -- this is a common bargaining position for the President (to resist providing information the closer it gets within the Executive Office to the President himself). But it's not at all uncommon for such close aides to testify about such matters -- happened all the time in the Clinton Administration, if this CRS Report is any indication. (And Byron York to similar effect.)

It'll be interesting to see how Congress responds.

[Notice, by the way, the conspicuous absence of any mention of executive privilege. They must have concluded that asserting or even mentioning it will be a political kiss of death -- thus they'll reserve it as a tactic of last resort. But it does suggest that Congress has a good deal of bargaining room here before this ever gets to an impasse.]

Posted 5:37 PM by Marty Lederman [link]

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/03/white-house-offer-on-us-attorney.html

[BT]

Did The President fire the US Attorneys or did AG Gonzales do it under the law on the books when it happened?

I realize the Senate and House are moving to restrict the AG from direct appointments and firings, was the rationale behind it the that was delegating too much power to the AG?

[Lanya]

We're all going to have to wait to find these things out.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013166.php

[BT]

We're all going to have to wait to find these things out.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013166.php

Doesn't look like you have anything there other than speculation. Carry on. It's about noise, not the law.

[Lanya]

[........]

Meanwhile, amid the controversy over the administration's firing of the eight federal prosecutors, little attention has been paid to the fact that President Bill Clinton, after first sacking all 93 U.S. attorneys appointed by Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush, also fired or "resigned" three or four of his federal prosecutors.

One was Larry Colleton, who resigned shortly after he was videotaped grabbing Jacksonville, Fla., television reporter Richard Rose by the throat. Unclear why that was such a big deal.

Another Florida federal prosecutor, Kendall Coffey, resigned "amid accusations that he bit a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club after losing a big drug case." (There was a strict Clinton policy against biting.) A third Clinton firing, noted by a Congressional Research Service report, was of San Francisco prosecutor Michael Yamaguchi, who seemed to have crossed swords with local judges and Justice Department officials. Clinton replaced him with Bush I Justice Department chief of the criminal division, a fellow named Robert Mueller, whom Bush II appointed FBI director.

But, with those few exceptions, the Clinton folks "didn't ask for resignations" after the first term, former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick recalls. In contrast to other positions, where people might expect to be replaced after four years, she said, "we considered [the prosecutors' jobs] to be a serious law enforcement function" and didn't think of replacing them after one tour.
[........]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032001480.html

[BT]

A third Clinton firing, noted by a Congressional Research Service report, was of San Francisco prosecutor Michael Yamaguchi, who seemed to have crossed swords with local judges and Justice Department officials.

Guess the dems will investigate that one too.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is time to put that despicable weasel Carl Rove on the stand and grill him until his porcine brow is dripping with pigly sweat.

Firing prosecutors who were appointed by Juniorbush himself because they failed to prosecute innocent democrats and did prosecute corrupt Republicans is clearly wrong.

What do you think Rove and Myers have to hide? Why should they NOT testify under oath?

[BT]

What do you think Rove and Myers have to hide? Why should they NOT testify under oath?

Guess we will find out once the courts tell them they have to testify.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Obviously the plan is to put Rove on the stand under oath, catch him in one of his many lies, and slap him upside the head with a big fat perjury charge, and send him away to share a cell with a big guy named "Crusher". It would serve the noble purpose of preventing future Roves from slithering another incompetent warmongering sockpuppet buffoon into the presidency.

It's a sterling idea, and would make good reality TV, too.

[Plane]

Obviously the plan is to put Rove on the stand under oath, catch him in one of his many lies, and slap him upside the head with a big fat perjury charge, and send him away to share a cell with a big guy named "Clinton". It would serve the noble purpose of preventing future Roves from slithering another incompetent warmongering sockpuppet buffoon into the presidency.

It's a sterling idea, and would make good reality TV, too.