Who Do You Have To Blow To Get Impeached Around Here?

Pelosi promises congressional contempt charge for Harriet Miers; Speaker reiterates impeachment is not on her agenda.

Nancy Pelosi (center) meets volunteers and immigrants at a citizenship workshop in San Francisco. Chronicle photo by Kurt Rogers

SFGate.com reports:

Congress this week will take the next step to force the Bush administration to hand over information about the dismissal of U.S. attorneys and the politicization of the Justice Department, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday.

The House Judiciary Committee will bring contempt of Congress charges against the administration this week, said the San Francisco Democrat. She did not specify who the subject of the action would be, but Pelosi spokesman, Brendan Daly, said later it would be former White House counsel Harriet Miers, who defied a House Judiciary Committee subpoena to appear.

"They have disregarded the call of Congress for information about their politicizing the Department of Justice. We can document that. Those are actual facts and we will bring the contempt of Congress forth," said Pelosi, who spoke with reporters at a San Francisco workshop for people who want to become U.S. citizens.

She also addressed criticism of the farm bill and reiterated her opposition to impeaching President Bush.

Lawmakers have increasingly put pressure on the administration to share documents and records -- and for officials to testify, under oath, in front of Congress -- about why nine U.S. attorneys, including Kevin Ryan in San Francisco, were dismissed from their jobs in December 2006.
Congress has for months been seeking information about which administration officials were involved in the dismissals of the attorneys. The White House, however, has claimed "executive privilege" for many of those requests, meaning the executive branch is free from oversight of the legislative and judiciary branches of the government in those instances. A House judiciary subcommittee has voted to reject such reasoning.

Contempt of Congress is defined by federal law as action that obstructs the work of Congress, including investigations. If both the White House and Congress stick to these positions, the matter could become a constitutional question for the courts to decide.

White House spokesman Rob Saliterman said such an action by the House Judiciary Committee shows an interest in "partisan attacks" above real finding of facts.
"It's unfortunate congressional Democrats are continuing on the course of confrontation," Saliterman said.

Pelosi also reiterated Saturday that she would not engage in what would perhaps be the biggest confrontation possible with the White House -- seeking the impeachment of Bush over the Iraq war.

The speaker said she had "no hesitation" criticizing the president about his handling of the war, but said there were more important priorities for lawmakers -- such as health care and creating jobs -- than the divisive pursuit of impeachment.

"Look, it's hard enough for us to end the war. I don't know how we would be successful in impeaching the president," Pelosi said.

She did note that calls for the president's removal are not coming just from San Francisco.

"I'm not unsympathetic to the concern people have -- I hear it all over the country. People here have said to me, 'Well, people on the left want the president to be impeached.' I hear it across the board across the country. It's not just the left," Pelosi said.

The speaker also addressed criticism that the version of the farm bill moving through the House does not go far enough with reforms. The bill, which Pelosi supports, is expected to be up for a vote by the House this week.

Bay Area food and environmental activists had formed a new coalition to compete with the traditional farm lobby on the bill. They wanted the bill to put more of a focus on diversity of crops, local farming and increasing fresh fruits and vegetables in school lunches and the food stamp program.

Activists also wanted lawmakers to move money from subsidizing crops to environmental and nutrition programs.

Pelosi said she is "very proud" of the bill and that reforms were made in it that will shift the country's agricultural policies.

"It is a careful balance that I think says you're never going to see a farm bill that looks like past farm bills again," Pelosi said. "This one takes us into the future."

Bush to Congress: "Since You Won't Agree To Let My Aides Lie To Your Oversight Committees, I'm Claiming Executive Privilege"

Bush goes from letting his aides (Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, Sara Taylor, et al) talk with the various oversight committees of Congress, "as long as they are not under oath, there is no transcript, audio- or videotape of the proceedings, and it's behind closed doors where the public can't watch/listen," to refusing to let them testify by claiming executive privilege.

In the parallel universe where the Constitution reigns supreme, Republicans are coalescing with Democrats behind an impeachment inquiry.

But we don't live there anymore.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

President George W. Bush, invoking executive privilege for the second time in his clash with lawmakers over the firing of federal prosecutors, said Monday that he would refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas for testimony from two top former aides.

In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Bush's counsel, Fred Fielding, declared that the legislative and executive branches of government were at an impasse. Fielding wrote that Bush was directing the two aides - Sara Taylor, former White House political director, and Harriet Miers, former White House counsel - not to testify.

"The assertion of executive privilege here is intended to protect a fundamental interest of the presidency: the necessity that a president receive candid advice from his advisers and that those advisers be able to communicate freely and openly with the president," Fielding wrote.

He added that in the case of the firing of federal prosecutors, "the institutional interest of the executive branch is very strong."

The move was not unexpected.

Bush said last month that he had no intention of letting Miers or Taylor testify.

Bush offered at that time to allow the two women, as well as other top aides - including Karl Rove, his chief political strategist - to be interviewed by lawmakers if the interviews were not under oath and were not transcribed. Though Democratic leaders in Congress rejected that offer as insufficient, Bush renewed it Monday.

The latest refusal to comply with the subpoenas raises tensions in an already tense legislative-executive clash and heightens the likelihood that the two sides will wind up in court. Congressional Democrats are trying to determine who sought the firings of nine federal prosecutors, and why. They want to know whether White House officials, including Rove, interfered with hiring and firing decisions at the Justice Department for political reasons, or perhaps to thwart certain investigations.

Bush said in June that he would not comply with subpoenas for documents in the case. At that time, the committee chairmen - Representative John Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy - wrote to Fielding to complain that Bush was not acting in good faith.

In his letter, Fielding complained about the tone and language the Democrats used, telling them he wanted to convey "a note of concern over your letter's apparent direction in dealing with a situation of this gravity."

Leahy was dismissive of Fielding's letter, saying in a statement: "This is more stonewalling from a White House that believes it can unilaterally control the other co-equal branches of government. What is the White House trying to hide by refusing to turn over evidence it was willing to provide months ago, as long as that information was shared in secret with no opportunity for Congress to pursue the matter further?"

Sara Taylor has been subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 11, 2007, and Harriet Miers has been subpoenaed for the following day. Sara Taylor has said that she wants to testify, and both are required to appear, no matter what Bush claims. It will be up to Taylor and Miers as to whether they will honor Bush's claim of executive privilege. And it will be up to Bush to go to court and get a restraining order prohibiting them from speaking to the committee.

Stay tuned.