Incontriverable Evidence Bush Not Involved In U.S. Attorney Mess

Therefore, the claim of executive privilege is out the window. If these criminal tricksters don't show up, hit 'em with contempt and send the capitol police to put them in jail until they honor the congressional subpoenas.

As far as Bush goes, he is does seem guilty of participating in the cover-up that followed.

Leahy: White House aides must comply with subpoenas

From Ted Barrett
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected White House claims of executive privilege and demanded Thursday that key White House aides testify in the case of the controversial firings of U.S. attorneys.

Sen. Patrick Leahy ruled that president has no claim of executive privilege protecting Karl Rove and others.

The committee's investigation has found "significant and uncontroverted evidence that the president had no involvement in these firings," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said. Thus, the White House can't claim executive privilege or immunity, which are meant to protect private communications between a president and White House aides, he ruled.

The committee has issued subpoenas for White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former political adviser Karl Rove, among others.

The Bush administration has insisted that last year's firing of the attorneys was handled properly, but critics have charged that they were forced out for political motives and, in one case, to allow a protégé of Rove's to take one of the posts.

The ruling, which was expected, is a formal step necessary before the committee can vote to find the White House in contempt. Such a move would require a vote of the full Senate before being turned over to the U.S. attorney in Washington.

The attorney would have to decide whether to prosecute the administration that appointed him.

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Besides Bolten and Rove, the committee issued subpoenas for former White House political director Sara Taylor and her deputy, Scott Jennings, both of whom Leahy and others on the committee think were involved in making political judgments on which U.S. attorneys to fire.

"In light of the evidence gathered by the committee showing the significant involvement of White House political officials in improper politicization of law enforcement, the White House is not entitled to withhold key evidence," Leahy wrote in his ruling.

He accused the White House and Justice Department of "lying, misleading, stonewalling, and ignoring the Congress" in its investigation.

"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," Leahy wrote.

The White House has offered to allow Rove and others to be interviewed privately about their actions. The Democratic-led Congress has rejected that offer, in part, because of White House insistence no transcript be made.

The Judiciary Committee is likely to move on the matter in December, an aide to Leahy said.

Though U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, the Justice Department's initial characterization of the dismissals as "performance-related" triggered angry protests from the former prosecutors

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Most Corrupt-To-The-Core Addminstration Ever

Bush Aide Addresses Missing RNC E-Mails

At Senate Hearing, Jennings Is Silent on U.S. Attorneys' Firings; Rove Is Absent

By Paul Kane
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2007; A02

A young White House political aide was grilled inconclusively by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday about the firings of U.S. attorneys after Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, failed to show up at the committee's hearing in response to a subpoena.

J. Scott Jennings, 29, the deputy political director for the White House, refused to address the firings but tried to explain how thousands -- or possibly millions -- of White House e-mails to and from the political office were transmitted only through communications accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee.

That use of the RNC accounts put some of the political office's messages outside the reach of the National Archives, which sought to preserve them under a federal law mandating eventual public access, and the reach of Democratic congressional investigators, who have sought to look at them for evidence of improper actions.

Jennings offered a stripped-down explanation: He wanted a White House-supplied BlackBerry and was told no, and so he got one from the RNC, as many other political affairs aides had done. "I was receiving a lot of e-mail on my official account. And I requested [a BlackBerry] at that moment, and I was told that it wasn't the custom to give political affairs staffers those devices," Jennings said.

Jennings, 29, appeared as part of the panel's ongoing investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year as well as other allegations of politicization at the Justice Department, a probe that has created offshoot inquiries into whether the Bush White House violated laws restricting political activity by federal employees.

In e-mails among top Justice staffers, obtained by the committee months ago, Jennings figured prominently in discussions about at least two of the ousted U.S. attorneys. But Jennings cited Bush's claim of "executive privilege" in refusing to answer questions about it. Rove, whose RNC e-mail address shows up on some of the e-mails discussing the firings, cited the same privilege claim in refusing to appear.

"Where is Karl Rove? Why is he hiding? Why does he throw a young staffer like you into the line of fire while he hides behind the White House curtains?" Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Jennings, who said that he spoke several times a day with Rove.

Jennings's testimony on the RNC e-mails was the most detailed explanation to date of why President Bush's top political aides had sent and received so many e-mails on their RNC accounts. House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) is probing whether the use of RNC e-mails for official purposes violated federal laws requiring presidential records to be preserved.

The RNC told Waxman recently that it has more than 200,000 e-mails sent and received by Rove, Jennings and Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director.

Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel has said that aides such as Jennings and Rove, whose jobs required them to deal with outside political groups on a regular basis, were trying to avoid violating Hatch Act provisions forbidding federal property to be used for political purposes. But Stanzel added that the White House has issued a new policy on e-mail usage, directing aides to more carefully consider records preservation rules.

Jennings also confirmed that he has given more than 10 briefings to political appointees at federal agencies about the election prospects for Republican candidates. Jennings said the meetings were merely meant to thank the appointees and boost their morale, not to suggest they steer federal contracts and decisions for political purposes.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.