Senate Committee Issues Subpoenas to Rove and Deputy

Josh Marshall’s TPM Mucraker

By Paul Kiel – July 26, 2007, 12:56 PM

Finally, the big one.

The Senate Judiciary Committee issued two more subpoenas as part of
the U.S. attorney firings investigation today: one for Karl Rove and
the other for his deputy, Scott Jennings. Senate Judiciary Chairman
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced the subpoenas on the Senate floor.

The question for Rove and Jennings, of course, is whether to take
the same course taken by Rove’s former aide, Sara Taylor, who appeared
before the committee to answer questions that were not covered by
executive privilege — or to take the approach taken by Harriet Miers,
who refused to show up at all.

The subpoenas call for Rove and Jennings to show up on August 2nd and also produce documents by that date.

Update: Leahy’s statement is below.

Leahy’s statement:

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is issuing subpoenas
to political operatives at the White House for documents and testimony
related to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the mass
firings of U.S. Attorneys and politicization of hiring and firing
within the Department of Justice. This is not a step I take lightly.
For over four months, I have exhausted every avenue seeking the
voluntary cooperation of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings, but to no
avail. They and the White House have stonewalled every request. Indeed,
the White House is choosing to withhold documents and is instructing
witnesses who are former officials to refuse to answer questions and
provide relevant information and documents.

We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows
that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of
at least nine United States Attorneys last year. Testimony and
documents show that the list was compiled based on input from the
highest political ranks in the White House, including Mr. Rove and Mr.
Jennings. The evidence shows that senior officials were apparently
focused on the political impact of federal prosecutions and whether
federal prosecutors were doing enough to bring partisan voter fraud and
corruption cases. It is obvious that the reasons given for these
firings were contrived as part of a cover up and that the stonewalling
by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort. Just
yesterday during his sworn testimony, Mr. Gonzales contrasted these
firings with the replacement of other United States Attorneys for
“legitimate cause.”

The White House has asserted blanket claims of executive privilege,
despite testimony under oath and on the record that the President was
not involved. The White House refuses to provide a factual basis for
its blanket claims. The White House has instructed former White House
officials not to testify about what they know and instructed Harriet
Miers to refuse even to appear as required by a House Judiciary
Committee subpoena. The White House has withheld relevant documents and
instructed other witnesses not to produce relevant documents to the
Congress but only to the White House.

Last week, the White House did much to substantiate the evidence
that it is intent on reducing United States Attorneys and federal law
enforcement to merely another partisan political aspect of its efforts
when it dispatched an anonymous senior official to take the position
that the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia would not be
permitted to follow the statutory mechanism to test White House
assertions of Executive privilege by prosecuting contempt of Congress.
In essence this White House asserts that its claim of privilege is the
final word, that Congress may not review it, and that no court can
review it.

Yesterday, during an oversight hearing with Mr. Gonzales, the senior
Senator from Pennsylvania, the Ranking Republican on the Senate
Judiciary Committee rightly asked:

“Mr. Attorney General, do you think constitutional government in
the United States can survive if the president has the unilateral
authority to reject congressional inquiries on grounds of executive
privilege and the president then acts to bar the Congress from getting
a judicial determination as to whether that executive privilege is
properly invoked?”

There can be no more conclusive demonstration of this
Administration’s partisan intervention of federal law enforcement
than if this Administration were to instruct the Justice Department not
to pursue congressional contempt citations and intervene to prevent a
United States Attorney from fulfilling his sworn constitutional duty to
faithfully execute the laws and proceed pursuant to section 194 of
title 2 of the United States Code. The President recently abused the
pardon power to forestall Scooter Libby from ever serving a single day
of his 30-month sentence for conviction before a jury on multiple
counts of perjury, lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice.
Stonewalling this congressional investigation is further demonstration
that this Administration refuses to abide by the rule of law.

This stonewalling is a dramatic break from the practices of every
administration since World War II in responding to congressional
oversight. In that time, presidential advisers have testified before
congressional committees 74 times voluntarily or compelled by
subpoenas. During the Clinton Administration, White House and
Administration advisors were routinely subpoenaed for documents or to
appear before Congress. For example, in 1996 alone, the House
Government Reform Committee issued at least 27 subpoenas to White House
advisors. The veil of secrecy this Administration has pulled over the
White House is unprecedented and damaging to the tradition of open
government by and for the people that has been a hallmark of the
Republic.

The investigation into the firing for partisan purposes of United
States Attorneys, who had been appointed by this President, along with
an ever-growing series of controversies and scandals have revealed an
Administration driven by a vision of an all-power Executive over our
constitutional system of checks and balances, one that values loyalty
over judgment, secrecy over openness, and ideology over competence.

What the White House stonewalling is preventing is conclusive
evidence of who made the decisions to fire these federal prosecutors.
We know from the testimony that it was not the President. Everyone who
has testified said has said that he was not involved. None of the
senior officials at the Department of Justice could testify how people
were added to the list or the real reasons that people were included
among the federal prosecutors to be replaced. Indeed, the evidence we
have been able to collect points to Karl Rove and the political
operatives at the White House.

A former political director at the White House made a revealing
admission in her recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee
when she refused to answer questions citing the oath she took to the
President. In this constitutional democracy, the oath taken by public
officials is to the Constitution, not any particular President of any
particular party. The Constitution itself provides the oath of office
of the President. Every President since George Washington has shown to
“preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States.” The oath for other federal official is prescribed by
Congress through statute and provides that every federal
officer’s duty is not to support and defend any particular
President or Administration but “to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States” and “to bear true faith
and allegiance” to our founding principles and law.

I pointed out to Ms. Taylor that the oath I have been privileged to
take as a United States Senator is likewise to the Constitution. I
proudly represent the people of Vermont. I know it is a privilege to
serve as a temporary steward of the Constitution and the values and
protections for the rights and liberties of the American people that it
embodies. My oath is not to a political party and not even to the great
institution of the United States Senate, but to the Constitution and
the rule of law. As a former prosecutor, I feel strongly that
independent law enforcement is an essential component of our democratic
government, and that no one is above the law.

Despite the constitutional duty of all members of the Executive
branch to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”
the message from this White House is that the President, Vice
President, and their loyal aides are above the law. No check. No
balance. No accountability.

The law says otherwise. The criminal contempt statute, 2 U.S.C.
§ 194, provides that if a House of Congress certifies a contempt
citation, the United States Attorney to whom it is sent has a
“duty” and “shall” “bring it before the
grand jury for its action.” For this White House to threaten to
intervene in an effort to preempt further investigation, cover up the
truth and avoid accountability is an insult to the rule of law. This
law was duly passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by a duly
elected President of the United States. It is derived from law that has
been on the books since 1857, for 150 years.

The Bush-Cheney White House continues to place great strains on our
constitutional system of checks and balances. Not since the darkest
days of the Nixon Administration have we seen efforts to corrupt
federal law enforcement for partisan political gain and such efforts to
avoid accountability.

Given the stonewalling by this White House, the American people are
left to wonder: What is it that the White House is so desperate to
hide? As more and more stories leak out about the involvement of Karl
Rove and his political team in political briefings of what should be
nonpartisan government offices, I think we have a better sense of what
they are trying to hide. We have learned of political briefings at over
20 government agencies, including briefings attended by Justice
Department officials. This week, the news was that Mr. Rove briefed
diplomats on vulnerable Democratic districts before mid-term elections.
Why, Senator Whitehouse properly asked at our hearing yesterday, were
members of our foreign service being briefed on domestic political
contests? Mr. Gonzales had no answer. Similarly, why were political
operatives giving such briefings to the Government Services
Administration, which rents government property and buys supplies? In
her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the former
political director at the White House ultimately had to concede that
her briefings included specific political races and particular
candidates being targeted.

In this context, is anyone surprised that the evidence in our
investigation of the firings of U.S. Attorneys for political purposes
points to Mr. Rove and his political operations in the White House?
Despite the initial White House denials, Mr. Rove’s involvement
in these firings is indicated by the Department of Justice documents we
have obtained and from the testimony of high-ranking Department
officials. This evidence shows that he was involved from the beginning
in plans to remove U.S. Attorneys. E-mails show that Mr. Rove initiated
inquires at least by the beginning of 2005 as to how to proceed
regarding the dismissal and replacement of U.S. Attorneys. The evidence
also shows that he raised political concerns, including those of New
Mexico Republican leaders, about New Mexico U.S. Attorney David
Iglesias that may have led to his dismissal. He was fired a few weeks
after Mr. Rove complained to the Attorney General about the lack of
purported “voter fraud” enforcement cases in his
jurisdiction.

We have learned that Mr. Rove raised similar concerns with the
Attorney General about prosecutors not aggressively pursuing voter
fraud cases in several districts and that prior to the 2006 mid-term
election he sent the Attorney General’s chief of staff a packet
of information containing a 30-page report concerning voting in
Wisconsin in 2004. This evidence points to his role and the role of
those in his office in removing or trying to remove prosecutors not
considered sufficiently loyal to Republican electoral prospects. Such
manipulation shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan
political purposes.

Documents and testimony also show that Mr. Rove had a role in the
shaping the Administration’s response to congressional inquiries
into these dismissals, which led to inaccurate and misleading testimony
to Congress and statements to the public. This response included an
attempt to cover up the role that he and other White House officials
played in the firings.

Despite the stonewalling and obstruction, we have learned that Todd
Graves, U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Missouri was fired
after he expressed reservations about a lawsuit that would have
stripped many African-American voters from the rolls in Missouri. When
the Attorney General replaced Mr. Graves with Bradley Schlozman, the
person pushing the lawsuit, that case was filed and ultimately thrown
out of court. Once in place in Missouri though, Mr. Schlozman also
brought indictments on the eve of a closely contested election, despite
the Justice Department policy not to do so. This is what happens when a
responsible prosecutor is replaced by a “loyal Bushie” for
partisan, political purposes.

Mr. Schlozman also bragged about hiring ideological soulmates.
Monica Goodling likewise admitted “crossing the line” when
she used a political litmus test for career prosecutors and immigration
judges. Rather than keep federal law enforcement above politics, this
Administration is more intent on placing its actions above the law.

With our service of these subpoenas, I hope that the White House
takes this opportunity to reconsider its blanket claim of executive
privilege, especially in light of the testimony that President was not
involved in the dismissals of these U.S. Attorneys. I hope that the
White House steps back from this constitutional crisis of its own
making so that we can begin to repair the damage done by its untoward
interference with federal law enforcement. That interference has
threatened our elections and seriously undercut the American
people’s confidence in the independence and evenhandedness of law
enforcement. Mr. Rove and the White House must not be allowed to
continue manipulating our justice system to pursue a partisan political
agenda. Apparently, this White House would rather precipitate an
unnecessary constitutional confrontation than do what every other
Administration has done and find and accommodation with the Congress.
If there are any cooler or wiser heads at the White House, I urge them
to reconsider the course they have chosen.

There is a cloud over this White House and a gathering storm. I hope
they will reconsider their course and end their cover up so that we can
move forward together to repair the damage done to the Department of
Justice and the American people’s trust and confidence in federal
law enforcement.

Powered by ScribeFire.