At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
WHAT'S NEXT: The House can now vote on whether to approve the contempt citation. It takes only one chamber of Congress to approve a contempt of Congress citation.
If approved by the Democratic-controlled House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then can turn the matter over to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeff Taylor, for prosecution.
LOOKING AHEAD: Taylor, who was appointed by Bush, is supposed to "bring the matter before the grand jury for its action," according to the law.
But the Bush administration, which controls the Justice Department, has made clear it would not let a contempt citation be prosecuted because the information and documents sought are protected by executive privilege.
The experts cautioned that complaints by Democratic lawmakers about the administration's legal stance are undercut by a Justice Department legal opinion issued during the Clinton administration. It contended, as the Bush administration did this week, that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases in which a president has invoked executive privilege to withhold documents or testimony.
Ain't it ironic, the Dems pursuit of contempt charges may hinge on a Clinton Justice Dept. opinion that isn't in their favor? Seriously now, doesn't this congress have anything better to do than "get Bush" and win elections? Was that the "mandate" from the voters they keep speaking of?
It's time for a clean sweep of congress, the house and a president, congressman, representative that will listen to the people, do what best for the people here, and stop trying to police the world.
Elected people that will obey the constitution, help limitate, proverty, health care issues, etc.
Of course .What Conyers is trying to do is set up a basis for an impeachment charge .
Re: Your ratings comments. Absolutely, Gonzales stepped in it instead of citing the president's authority to fire US attorneys - and the Dems are now pushing for perjury charges. He may be cooked in that case, but what gets me is how the firings became an issue. The beef was over interim appointments, both houses passed legislation to address that, and the President signed it into law. There was nothing in the legislation to strike the president's right to fire US attorneys from code.
Specter acknowledged Bush's right to fire US attorneys "for no reason at all," but said he can't fire them for "a bad reason." Schumer demanded "clear and consistent reasons for each firing." Which is required by law?
"Each United States attorney is subject to removal by the President." Period, end of story.
That Bush has made numerous offers they've rejected, Feinstein got her "Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act" signed into law and they all at least acknowledge his right to fire the attorneys - just shows their interest lies elsewhere. Tony Snow gets it:
Quote:
Q You said the Democrats seem to want confrontation --
MR. SNOW: Seem?
Q Well, I'm paraphrasing, obviously. They say the same thing about the White House, of course.
MR. SNOW: But wait a minute. I cannot let them get away with that. We have talked about -- we've talked about a whole series of things where we have reached out and we have had a series of escalating proffers in terms of making people and information available. You simply cannot say that that is stubbornness on the part of the White House when we have made available all these documents, when we've made the people available, and the Congress itself has said, nope, we're just going to push this story to confrontation.
I think that the attitudes and approaches are significantly different. Proceed.
Q Well, that leads me to this question: How much negotiation went on, and do you think it was in good faith?
MR. SNOW: Yes, it was absolutely in good faith on our part. I mean, Fred Fielding went up --
Q On their part.
MR. SNOW: I don't know. I'm not going to characterize on their part. But I'll tell you what has happened is that there has been no demonstration that they've been willing to say -- to take up the offer, to get access to all the facts.
Here's the interesting thing. Suppose you do get these people in and we're writing on crayon or we're taking the notes and we're doing whatever we can to record each and every syllable that has been given in testimony, and somebody finds something that looks like a smoking gun -- well, what does Congress do? They go in and ask for more. That's perfectly possible. The kind of offer we have made does not serve as an endpoint, it serves as an opportunity for Congress to do a full investigation and if they have other questions, to ask us whether, in fact, we have other items that might come to bear on this.
We have made it possible for them to proceed down the road to gather information and to try to assess the situation, and they've just basically rebuffed it.
John.
Q With so many contempt possibilities out there now in the House and in the Senate, where there's actually bipartisan discussion of contempt citations --
MR. SNOW: Right.
Q -- don't you feel like you're kind of rolling the dice on what is, as you say, an important constitutional principle?
MR. SNOW: You don't roll a dice on a constitutional principle, you stand by it. And you do it for the sake of the institution. Keep in mind, again, the first assertion of executive privilege in this White House was on behalf of the Clinton administration. This is an administration that believes it is important to maintain that kind of confidentiality. Normally, if you lose it you lose the ability to recruit the kind of people you need, to bring folks in who are going to be able to give their best advice and counsel to a President. And let me repeat, if you did the same thing to Congress, they would consider that completely crippling; and if you did it in the court system, it would be even more crippling because it would profoundly compromise their independence.
So I will repeat, it is not rolling the dice, and in fact, is an acknowledgment that no matter how much political heat people may want to try to generate, or how many colorful statements they may have to make, this is about preserving the institution so it can work effectively and, in fact, have checks against the other branches of government so that they remain separate and co-equal.
Q Can I follow up? If the Senate Judiciary Committee decides to do a contempt proceeding on its own, what they call I think, inherent contempt, would the White House participate? Would you have lawyers --
MR. SNOW: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm not going to get into procedures. Let's just see what goes on. We still hope, because the House is not going to have a full vote on contempt at least until next week, we still hope cooler heads may prevail and people will think, okay, we'll take up an offer, we'll look at what you've got. I mean, that would make sense. That would show that, in fact, the real purpose here is not to try to create a big public furor, but to get at the facts and find out whether there was anything wrong in the President doing what Presidents may do, which is to fire people who serve at their privilege.
Linear Mode
