House Committee to Consider Contempt for Bolten, Miers

The other shoe drops.

The House Judiciary Committee will meet this Wednesday to vote on contempt citations against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, the committee announced today.

Says Chairman John Conyers (D-MI):

“This investigation, including the reluctant but necessary decision to move forward with contempt, has been a very deliberative process, taking care at each step to respect the Executive Branch’s legitimate prerogatives. I’ve allowed the White House and Ms. Miers every opportunity to cooperate with this investigation, either voluntarily or under subpoena. It is still my hope that they will reconsider this hard-line position, and cooperate with our investigation so that we can get to the bottom of this matter.”

The committee had issued a kind of final deadline to Bolten to comply with the committee’s subpoena by this morning. And in a letter this morning, White House Fred Fielding gave the same answer. The committee is targetting Bolten because the subpoena for White House documents related to the U.S. attorney firings was addressed to him, since he’s the custodian. Miers, remember, refused to even show up for a hearing before the committee two weeks ago.

The next step after the vote in the committee would be a vote in the full House.

Update: See update here for details on the vote.