Things are heating up in the "executive privilege" confrontation between Congress and the White House.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena Wednesday for all e-mails from White House adviser Karl Rove that relate to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
The subpoena is actually aimed at the Justice Department, not Rove, so it only covers communications he would have had with Justice. It'll be interesting to see if that gets around privilege objections, since communications with other departments don't usually count as confidential advice to the president.
He gave the Justice Department until May 15 to comply.
Meanwhile, Gonzales is scheduled to go before the House Judiciary Committee on May 10 and get the same grilling he got from the Senate a couple of weeks ago. His appearance will come amid a Justice Department probe of Monica "I plead the Fifth" Goodling, this time examining whether she sought to place Republicans in career prosecutor spots -- a violation of both tradition and civil-service law.
Much as the White House may not savor the prospect of replacing Gonzales, can that experience really be worse that the endless drumbeat of bad news they're going to endure if they keep him?
Goodling, Gonzales, politics, midtopia
2 comments:
If having to endure the "endless drumbeat of bad news" was the determining factor as to whether someone gives up and throws in the towel or not.....then Bill Clinton would have surely resigned sometime between 1998 and 2000. He didn't. Elected and appointed officials should NOT give up when they are confident what they did does NOT rise to the level of resignation. Even if Gonzales were to resign---IF the Senate confirmed another AG, it would be no time before he/she would be having to endure the same. The new Dem majority has vowed to do exactly what they are doing---trying to make Bush's last two years totally unbearable. Because they hate him. And it won't matter who he has in the position.
JP5
More false analogies, JP5.
Clinton was our elected president, not an appointed official. Very different bars for resigning.
And the bit about another AG being hounded is pure partisan speculation. It hasn't happened with Gates, Rumsfeld's replacement as SecDef.
In addition, it usually takes some time for bad behavior to occur and be uncovered. There simply isn't enough time left before the end of Bush's term for a new AG to get in the same sort of trouble Gonzales is in. Especially if he's actually, you know, competent.
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