Leahy Asks for a Chat with Bush

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wants to have a talk with President Bush. Man to man. Subpoena issuer to stonewaller. Just the two of them to work it out.

Leahy made the offer in a letter (pdf) to Bush yesterday (see below). In it, he explains why it’s time to chat. “The accumulated evidence” from the U.S. attorney firings investigation, he writes, “shows that the list of those to be fired was compiled based on input from the political ranks in the White House and that the reasons publicly given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up.”

The White House has rebuffed the committee’s efforts to speak with Karl Rove at all, based on an assertion of executive privilege — and though Rove’s aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor at least showed up to testify, they refused to discuss any internal White House deliberations about the firings. So now Leahy stands ready to issue citations for contempt of Congress to those who’ve refused to testify (meaning Rove for certain — it’s still unclear whether he’ll move to cite Rove’s aides).

Standing at the brink, Leahy writes that his colleague Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) has asked him “to write to you directly and suggest that we sit down together to work out our differences. That is the purpose of this letter.”

Leahy’s letter to Bush:

August 14, 2007

The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

For the last several months, I have been seeking the voluntary cooperation of the White House with the efforts of the Senate Judiciary Committee to get to the bottom of the scandal surrounding the firing of so many of the United States Attorneys you had appointed. If, as the testimony has indicated, this is about extending improper political influence into our justice system and then misleading Congress and the American people about that political corruption of law enforcement, I hope you would agree this is a grave matter.

The accumulated evidence shows that the list of those to be fired was compiled based on input from the political ranks in the White House and that the reasons publicly given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up. Recently during his sworn testimony, Attorney General Gonzales himself contrasted these politically-motivated firings with the replacement of other United States Attorneys for “legitimate cause.”

I have sent numerous letters to your White House counsel to no avail. For example, in a May 16 letter to Fred Fielding I outlined some of the indications of Karl Rove’s involvement. Yet, all of my good faith efforts have been rebuffed. The stonewalling leaves me and the Senate Judiciary Committee with few options other than considering citations for contempt of Congress against those who have refused to provide relevant testimony and documents to the Congress.

Senator Specter has urged me to write to you directly and suggest that we sit down together to work out our differences with respect to this matter. That is the purpose of this letter.

Respectfully,

PATRICK LEAHY
Chairman