U.S. Attorneys Investigation Waits on House Leadership

“The scandal at the Department of Justice has gone on long enough,” said Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL) back in March. “Careers have been destroyed and legitimate public corruption cases have been derailed. It is time for accountability — it is time for the truth.”

Six months and several Department senior resignations later, it’s a different time. The urgency is gone.

More than two months after the House Judiciary Committee passed contempt resolutions against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers for ignoring committee subpoenas, it’s still unclear when, or if, Democrats will hold a vote on the full floor.

The leadership has indefinitely delayed taking up the issue. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) told The Politico last month, “I don’t think anything is going to happen on that for a while,” and couldn’t offer a range. Three weeks later, that hasn’t changed.

And apparently scheduling concerns are not all that’s at issue. A source familiar with the ongoing discussions told TPMmuckraker that getting the leadership to bring the contempt resolutions to the floor at all is an “uphill struggle.”

An aide to the Democratic leadership, however, said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is “committed” to bringing the votes to the floor. When? That’s unclear. “We are working with the judiciary committee, consulting with the leadership and will bring it to the floor when we are ready,” the aide said.

As we outlined last month, the contempt resolutions against Miers and Bolten constitute just one piece of the stalled push by Democrats to get information from the White House about the U.S. attorney firings. But no other piece is so near a court clash with the White House, which has so far successfully stonewalled the committee’s inquiries. The court battle itself is likely to last many months.

The issue, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has argued, goes right to the heart of Congress’ oversight prerogatives. After Miers didn’t even show up to claim executive privilege, Conyers asked, “Are Congressional subpoenas to be honored or are they optional?… If we do not enforce this subpoena, no one will ever have to come before the House Judiciary Committee again.”