It’s Subpoena Time: The New York Times published this scathing editorial, demanding that the Senate Judiciary Committee issue subpoenas to White House political adviser Karl Rove, and former White House counsel Harriet Miers to "testify in public and under oath" on their roles in the U.S attorney scandal. According to the Times:
Congress has now heard from everyone in the Justice Department who appears to have played a significant role in the firings of the prosecutors. They have all insisted that the actual decisions about whom to fire came from somewhere else. It is increasingly clear that the somewhere else was the White House. If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.
The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable. As for documents, the White House has released piles of useless e-mail messages. But it has reported that key e-mails to and from Mr. Rove were inexplicably destroyed. At the same time, it has argued that e-mails of Mr. Rove’s that were kept on a Republican Party computer system, which may contain critical information, should not be released.
The big question now is when will the Senate issue those subpoenas?
On Monday, the Senate will take a vote of no confidence in Alberto Gonzales: I found this little news item through Americablog. This story can also be found on Think Progress, Roll Call, CNN Political Ticker, and ABC News The title really says it all--the Senate plans to take a vote of no confidence for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday. In fact, ABC News reports:
The U.S. Senate has never held a no-confidence vote before. Or at least not one they could find at the Senate Historian's office. At the moment, the Democrats aren't entirely sure what to make of the historical precedent.
"A lot of things have happened in 200 plus years of congressional history," said Senate historian Richard Baker. At Baker's office in the U.S. Capitol, they search through old newspapers online and internal records to try to find another instance of a no-confidence vote. But so far, they are stumped.
No-confidence votes, after all, are a European convention -- in countries on the Continent and in the United Kingdom, governments are usually controlled by the political party (or coalition of parties) and headed by the prime minister. In those states, a no-confidence vote is used by the out-of-power party to demand a new election. A successful no-confidence vote means it's time for a new prime minister.
But here in the United Sates, where those clever framers separated power between the generally elected executive and the locally elected legislature, there hasn't been a need for no-confidence votes. The Senate already has the power to assert itself over the executive branch because it has the discretion to appropriate the funds that the president uses to run the government and it also has the power to OK (or not) the president's nominations (Gonzales was confirmed by a Senate vote of 60-36 in 2005).
So, Baker said a no-confidence vote is "completely irrelevant to the operation of the American governmental system. But having said that, it is well within the Senate's right to have the Senate express its opinion on any subject," Baker said.
President Bush has already called the Senate's no confidence vote on Gonzales "pure political theater" in this May 21, 2007 CNN story. It is going to be interesting to see how this vote plays out--especially if a number of Republicans break away from the Bush administration and vote for this no confidence in Gonzales. Think Progress is reporting that conservative senators are being quiet as to whether they would vote for a no confidence in Gonzales, even though a number of these conservative senators have called for Gonzales to resign.
More GOP "Culture of Corruption: This is a wicked NY Times story which exposes how Representative Don Young of Alaska steered a $10 million earmark, in a 2006 transportation bill, towards building a road near Fort Myers, Florida. This is the saga of Coconut Road. According to the NY Times:
Mr. Young, who last year steered more than $200 million to a so-called bridge to nowhere reaching 80 people on Gravina Island, Alaska, has no constituents in Florida.
The Republican congressman whose district does include Coconut Road says he did not seek the money. County authorities have twice voted not to use it, until Mr. Young and the district congressman wrote letters warning that a refusal could jeopardize future federal money for the county.
The Coconut Road money is a boon, however, to Daniel J. Aronoff, a real estate developer who helped raise $40,000 for Mr. Young at the nearby Hyatt Coconut Point hotel days before he introduced the measure.
Mr. Aronoff owns as much as 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The $10 million in federal money would pay for the first steps to connect the road to Interstate 75, multiplying the value of Mr. Aronoff’s land.
He did not return phone calls seeking comment. A consultant who helped push for the project spelled out why its supporters held the fund-raiser.
I will say it is interesting how Rep. Don Young seems so intent on building roads and bridges to nowhere.
Bush hires lawyers to fight legal battles with Congress: This McClatchy story shows just how besieged and embattled this Bush administration has become:
Faced with a flurry of document requests and expanding congressional investigations, the White House announced Friday that Bush had hired nine lawyers, including five who'll fill new jobs in the president's legal office. The recruits have solid experience in white-collar crime, government investigations and constitutional law.
Legal experts said the hires indicated that Bush was gearing up to fight congressional inquiries that he considered an encroachment on presidential power. The president has accused Democrats of seeking to score political points by delving into White House deliberations on a host of issues.
"This indicates a war-on-all-fronts legal strategy against congressional oversight," said Washington lawyer Bruce Fein, who served as the deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration.
Bush, who's tested the limits of presidential authority on issues ranging from electronic eavesdropping to the control of presidential papers, has made no secret of his frustration with congressional investigations.
After six years with a compliant Republican-led Congress, the White House is facing a host of congressional investigations and demands for top presidential advisers to testify. The White House and Congress could be headed for a showdown if Democrats follow through on threats to subpoena White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for an investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.
"The White House is laying in its stone wall," said John Flannery, a former federal prosecutor and a Democratic activist. "They are preparing to deflect the subpoenas for Rove and Miers from the beaches of Capitol Hill to the heights of the Supreme Court if necessary."
President Bush gathering more lawyers to battle the congressional inquiries into the scandals and corruption that this administration has committed over the past six years. They don't want accountability.
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