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Senate Committee to Vote on Subpoenas in Wiretapping Probe    [

    Officials: Subpeonas for 2 Ex-Bush Aides
    By Laurie Kellman
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 13 June 2007

    Two congressional committees are issuing subpoenas for testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor on their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors, according to two officials familiar with the investigation.

    Democrats probing whether the White House improperly dictated which prosecutors the Justice Department should fire also are subpoenaing the White House for all relevant documents, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been formally made public.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee's subpoena for Taylor compels her to testify on July 11, while the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena for Miers compels her testimony the next day.

    "We'll review them and respond appropriately," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

    The White House has repeatedly refused to make current and former officials involved in the firings available except in private interviews, without transcripts. Congressional investigators have refused that offer.

    The subpoenas come a day after newly-released Justice Department documents revealed that Taylor was closely involved in the firings. In a Feb. 16 e-mail, Taylor described a U.S. attorney in Arkansas who was fired last year as "lazy" - "which is why we got rid of him in the first place," according to to the documents.

    Former prosecutor Bud Cummins, reached Tuesday night for comment, responded: "I'm sure I have some faults, but my work ethic hasn't been one them." Taylor also complained that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told senators that Cummins was replaced at the urging of Miers, who was White House counsel at the time.

    It's the first time during the five-month investigation that Congress is compelling testimony from White House insiders over the firings. Not yet on the subpoena list is President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, but only because Democrats have not yet finished interviewing those below him, the officials said.

    Democrats say the firings are evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales allowed his traditionally independent federal law enforcement agency to be run, in effect, by the White House.

    Republicans point out that U.S. attorneys serve at the president's pleasure and can be fired for any reason, or none at all. Former and current top Justice Department officials have said the list of the eight fired was drawn up on the advice of several senior officials. E-mails made public have shown that Miers, Taylor and Rove were looped into the decisionmaking process and attended meetings on the firings.

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    Judiciary Panel Wants Wiretap Docs
    By Rachel Van Dongen
    Roll Call

    Wednesday 13 June 2007

    Opening a new front in its battle with the Justice Department, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday will consider authorizing subpoenas for documents linked to the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program.

    The move comes after a May 21 letter in which Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) demanded documents related to the legal opinions and analysis surrounding the controversial program.

    The lawmakers asked for a response by June 5 but were rebuffed and are now set to consider authorizing Leahy to issue the subpoenas in a Thursday business meeting. Republicans have the procedural right to block the issuance of the authority for one week, but Specter signed the May 21 letter and it seems unlikely that he personally will object.

    Authorizing Leahy to issue subpoenas would be the boldest Congressional move yet to confront the Bush administration over the warrantless wiretapping program.

    House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) also have vowed to consider authorizing subpoenas after a similar letter, and testimony from a top Justice official, yielded no information.

    At a hearing of Nadler's subcommittee last week, Steven Bradbury, the principal deputy assistant attorney general and the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, said the department would not turn over the documents because of their "confidential nature."

    The move also comes at a time when the White House is seeking support for legislation to expand its wiretapping powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But Democrats have declared they won't consider the measure until getting their hands on previous legal opinions.

    In their May 21 letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Leahy and Specter sought a range of documents from 2001 to the present. They include documents pertaining to the president's authorization and reauthorization of the wiretapping program and any predecessors; "memoranda or other documents" about the legal basis for the program from Justice, the NSA, the Defense Department, the White House or "any other entity within the Executive Branch"; and communications about the program with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

    "Your consistent stonewalling and misdirection have prevented this Committee from carrying out its constitutional oversight and legislative duties for far too long," Leahy and Specter wrote.

    They added that while much of the information they seek "may currently be classified" that should be "no excuse" for refusing to provide the information to all lawmakers and "select, cleared staff."

    The move comes after the dramatic May testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Comey riveted Senators by giving his account of a hospital bedside visit to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.

    Comey related how Gonzales and Card tried to get Ashcroft to approve reauthorizing the NSA program over the legal advice of department officials, including Comey, who served as acting attorney general until Ashcroft recovered. The program was briefly renewed without Comey's approval but later was adjusted to assuage Justice concerns after Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller met personally with President Bush. Mass resignations, including those of Ashcroft, Mueller and Comey, were threatened.

    Comey's testimony was an outgrowth of the ongoing probe into the firing of nine federal prosecutors in 2006 . Democrats contend that the U.S. attorneys were fired for improper political reasons and that Justice officials, including Gonzales, have given misleading and shifting explanations about the firing process.

    Gonzales insists that nothing improper, or illegal, was done, and Bush has stuck by him in the face of Congressional calls for resignation. Republicans beat back a Democratic-sponsored no-confidence vote on Gonzales this week.