I’m not usually one for wanting to see people hauled off to the slammer for refusing to do this or that. But please, please haul Sara Taylor off to the slammer.
Taylor, you may know, is the former White House political director. She has been subpoenaed to testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. And she claims she’s quite willing to do so as she’s done nothing wrong. But the White House is urging her to ignore the subpoena. And since, in the words of Taylor’s lawyer, the president is “a person whom [Taylor] admires and for whom she has worked tirelessly for years”, she doesn’t want to testify and thinks she shouldn’t have to.
Pleading the fifth is on the books. Various privileges, though most are bogus, can be asserted and litigated. But being a member of the Bush personality cult just isn’t a reason to refuse to testify.
Not yet at least.
White House officials debating whether to announce “intention” to begin withdrawal from Iraq.
Today’s Must Read: Libby, the U.S. attorney firings, warrantless wiretapping… a Justice Department lawyer tells why “I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time.”
Cindy Sheehan to run against Nancy Pelosi if she doesn’t move to impeach Bush in next two weeks. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.
In today’s Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv, we look at what Patrick Fitzgerald said and then how it got spun by the professional spinners …
White House makes it official: executive privilege invoked on any White House aides testifying in US Attorney scandal.
Must be pretty juicy stuff.
Update: Some highlights from the White House’s letter, which asks the Democrats to be nicer.
With Act II of the Democratic Congress’ efforts to end the Iraq War set to begin in earnest today, all the various legislative measures Dems are planning can seem bewilderingly complex.
So Spencer Ackerman has drawn up a handy guide to all the Dem initiatives being considered. Check it out.
Mitt Romney has a little fun badly distorting some recent Hillary remarks in order to claim she’s a Marxist.
House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) asks Bush to waive executive privilege for aides to tell Congress all about the Scooter Libby commutation. I wonder what the odds are in Vegas on the response.