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Democratic Leaders Delay Contempt Again
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 24 January 2008
Nearly seven months after the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Bush
administration officials in contempt of Congress, the Democratic leadership
has again delayed action on the matter.
Just two weeks ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi seemed prepared to bring
the contempt citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former
White House counsel Harriet Miers to the House floor for a vote when Congress
came back from their winter break this week.
The contempt citations were issued in July 2007, when Bolten and Miers refused
to cooperate with the Congressional investigation into the potentially criminal
firing of nine US attorneys by the Bush administration. Initially, Pelosi signaled
her support for the citation of contempt, but has repeatedly delayed a vote
on the matter.
According to top Democratic leaders, the effort to pass an economic stimulus
package currently stands in the way of the most recent attempt to move the citations
to the floor for a vote. Lawmakers are apparently apprehensive to take action
that could derail bipartisan cooperation on the economic package. Pelosi's office
has not set a time frame for the vote.
"Right now, we're focused on working in a bipartisan fashion on stimulus,"
House majority leader Steny Hoyer said.
However, the need for bipartisan cooperation on the economic stimulus plan
does not answer a key question: Why has Speaker Pelosi delayed a vote on contempt,
a vote she has previously said she supports, for almost seven months?
Spokespeople for House Democratic leaders did not return requests for comment.
Democratic aides contacted by Truthout were not willing to discuss the intraparty
debate regarding contempt on the record.
Bush claimed "executive privilege" to prevent his advisers from turning
over documents and from giving testimony to investigators. This action was referred
to as "stonewalling" by investigators because it severely limited
the ability of Congress to figure out who was behind the firings and why the
nine prosecutors were fired. The House Judiciary Committee voted to reject Bush's
claim and to hold the officials in contempt of Congress in July of 2007.
"[The Bush administration has] disregarded the call of Congress for information
about their politicizing the Department of Justice. We can document that. Those
are actual facts and we will bring the contempt of Congress forth," Pelosi
told reporters on July 20, 2007.
After the 2007 summer recess, the US attorney firing investigation fell off
the front pages, in part because two of the major subjects of the investigation,
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and presidential aide Karl Rove, resigned.
At the time, Democrats insisted a deal with the White House had not been made
and the investigations would continue despite the resignations, but little substantiative
action has been taken by the Democratic leadership since.
In anticipation of a floor vote, the House Judiciary Committee prepared an
extensive contempt report
laying out the case for contempt. In October 2007, the Washington, DC, newspaper
Roll Call quoted an unnamed Democratic aide who said the contempt vote was going
to take place in November. In December, a Democratic aide told Truthout the
vote would take place before the end of the month. Both predictions proved false.
Just before the winter break, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to charge
Rove and Bolten with contempt of Congress, although Senate majority leader Harry
Reid has not yet set a date for a full Senate vote.
Even if the House or Senate were to charge Bush administration officials with
criminal contempt, it is unlikely the officials would be charged. A criminal
contempt charge would have to pass through the Department of Justice (DOJ) and
be brought to trial by the US attorney for Washington, DC, Jeffrey Taylor, a
deeply connected administration prosecutor who served in the DOJ at the time
of the firing scandal.
Bush administration officials previously stated they would not enforce Congressional
contempt citations against current or former administration officials. Under
questioning during his confirmation hearings, current Attorney General Michael
Mukasey ducked questions about the enforcement of Congressional contempt citations.
Even if Mukasey allowed the criminal contempt citations to go to trial and
the Bush administration officials were found guilty, Bush could pardon them.
"The Democratic leadership is presumably aware that the President can
ultimately short-circuit any contempt process by using his pardon power,"
said Ohio State University Law Professor and separation of powers expert Peter
Shane.
Shane has advocated the use of Congressional appropriations powers to force
the executive branch to cooperate with the ongoing investigations. In a column
in Roll Call, Shane said Congress should "refuse any further appropriation
to pay senior advisers in the Executive Office of the President who are not
serving in advice-and-consent positions," unless and until the White House
decides to negotiate with Congress. According to Shane, this move would be a
"surgical strike," because it would "entail no real risk to any
function of the executive branch critical to the daily lives of American citizens."
Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout.
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