Leahy to White House: A-HEM

Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), following up an angry letter last night to Alberto Gonzales, wrote White House counsel Fred Fielding today to warn that if the White House did not stop stonewalling the committee’s U.S. attorney firings investigation, then “I will have no choice but to issue subpoenas to try to get to the truth in this matter.”

Leahy first requested interviews with Karl Rove and other White House staff two months ago. Leahy’s request was met with a White House offer to have Rove and others interviewed privately with no oath and no transcript. Efforts by Leahy and others, including ranking member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), to get the White House to moderate its offer have been unsuccessful.

During those two months, the Senate and House judiciary committees have been steadily accumulating evidence of White House involvement in the firings. And so Leahy’s writing again. You can read the letter here.

Some excerpts below the fold.

From Leahy’s letter:

To date the White House has not produced a single document or allowed even one White House official involved in these matters to be interviewed….

It appears from the evidence gathered by the Committee in five hearings, eight interviews with current and former officials from the Department of Justice, and review of the limited documents produced by that Department that White House officials played a significant role in developing and implementing the plan for the dismissals. Indeed, the plan seems to have originated in the White House and was formulated by and with coordination of the White House political operation….

The White House cannot have it both ways—it cannot withhold the documents and witnesses and thereby stonewall the investigation and, at the same time, claim that it knows of nothing improper. The involvement of Mr. Rove was initially denied but must now be conceded, as it was by the Attorney General and by the Attorney General’s former chief of staff during their Senate Judiciary Committee testimony….

[Gonzales’ tesimony before the Senate, in which he claimed to have forgotten many of the events connected to the firings,] appeared to be part of an effort to minimize admissions of the involvement of and direction received from the White House. There is evidence that White House officials were deeply involved in what appears to be an effort to impose political influence on federal law enforcement. If the White House continues its refusal to provide information to the Senate Judiciary Committee on a voluntary basis, I will have no choice but to issue subpoenas to try to get to the truth in this matter.