Bush Is Told to Justify Executive Privilege: Could lead to criminal contempt, referral to prosecutor

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Bush Is Told to Justify Executive Privilege
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 30, 2007; Page A02

The chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees yesterday ratcheted up their fight with President Bush over documents on the firing of U.S. attorneys, sending the White House a barbed letter demanding that the president back down from a claim of executive privilege -- or give Congress a detailed explanation for withholding each document.

In the letter to the White House counsel, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) accused the administration of a "veil of secrecy . . . unprecedented and damaging to the tradition of open government."

The correspondence came a day after the White House invoked executive privilege, for the second time in Bush's tenure, to block the release of internal e-mails and other documents that congressional investigators are seeking to clarify what role Bush's senior staff played in the Justice Department's removal of nine chief federal prosecutors last year. The firings have triggered bipartisan calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to resign.

Yesterday's letter marks Congress's first move toward enforcing subpoenas issued by the committees this month....The committee chairmen told the White House to provide a signed letter from Bush asserting executive privilege, as well as a description of each withheld document, a list of who has seen the documents, and the legal basis for arguing that they may be shielded from public view.

That demand, with a July 9 deadline, is the beginning of several steps lawmakers are empowered to take to try to overcome the executive privilege claim. Those steps could culminate in Congress voting to find the president in criminal contempt and to refer the matter to a federal prosecutor with a recommendation to issue an indictment....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062902082.html?nav=hcmodule

[notadmblnd]

1. well I'm glad they've finally gone beyong issuing strong statements

congress is now attaching barbs to their letters. Now if there were just a couple of tasers at the other end.....

[kurth]

2. FACT: 'Letters' go to the White House dumpster

Start serving them court papers.

[kestrel91316]

3. Well we know how far THIS will go:

".....find the president in criminal contempt and to refer the matter to a federal prosecutor with a recommendation to issue an indictment...."

Especially given the DOJ's unwillingness to obey the law......

Yeah, right. Have DOJ indict a sitting president instead of Congress impeaching him - now THAT will work.....

[Catshrink]

4. He can't possibly reply by July 9

He's on vacashun with Dad and Vlad:

[pacalo]

6. What an idiot.

Look how the other two are looking straight ahead as the boy king acts like a grammar school kid playing hooky from school.

[H2O Man]

5. I suspect

that she means "civil contempt."