for ignoring Plamegate subpoena
Buzzflash
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has ignored a subpoena issued June 16 by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asking for documents relevant to its Valerie Plame leak investigation, including FBI interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Committee Chair Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent Mukasey a letter July 8 informing him that the Committee would vote July 16 on whether or not Mukasey will be found in contempt of Congress.
Waxman allowed for the assertion of Executive privilege WRG to access to Bush's actual testimony in the Pame Investigation but....
Vice President Cheney's must be produced. Libby had told the FBI it was "possible" Cheney instructed him to inform members of the press about Plame's identity.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the Scooter Libby trial, responded to the Committee's requests for documents and told Waxman he knew of no agreement that would prevent the interviews from being shared with the Committee:
Text of 9 page letter
Note: It's pdf so here's an excerpt.
The arguments you have raised for withholding the interview report are not tenable. When the FBI interview with the Vice President was conducted, the Vice President knew that the information in the interview could be made public in a criminal trial and that there were no restrictions on Special Counsel Fitzgerald's use of the interview. Mr. Fitzgerald clarified this key point last week, writing to the Committee that "there were no agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and either the President or Vice President regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews." .
Vice President Cheney's attorneys have consistently maintained that he is not an "entity within the executive branch." Whether this unusual claim is accurate or not, I am aware of no freestanding vice presidential communications privilege, let alone one that covers voluntary and unrestricted conversations with a special counsel investigating wrongdoing. There certainly was no such understanding when our Committee sought the FBI interview report of an interview with Vice President Gore. The Justice Department produced the interview to the Committee despite the fact that it contained discussion of official White House business.
In his closing remarks in the criminal trial of Mr. Libby, Special Counsel Fitzgerald stated: "There is a cloud over what the Vice President did that week." Your cooperation in this matter could go a long way to dispelling this notion or perhaps confirming Mr. Fitzgerald's fears. Either way, this Committee and the American people are entitled to know what happened. For similar reasons, you should also produce the unredacted versions of the interviews with White House staff that the Committee has subpoenaed.
So...Waxman fires off a sternly worded letter to follow-up on a sternly worded subpoena.
I do like the words about Cheney's arguments for not cooperating with the law "aren't tenable" and seem "interesting" and "unusual" but nonetheless, they aren't amused and want what they want.
Will THIS go anywhere?
I think a lot of people now, wisely, aren't really holding their breath. It's all been just a bunch of stern talking and posturing as they run out the clock on Bush's term, the Constitution gets gutted in a most-nuanced manner, and Bush et al skate off into the sunset, unfettered by a commoners Law.
There is a sort of surreal quality to it....watching this potential capitulation slowly unfold, here in the lazy days of summer.
It's sort of like a foreign film in which nothing perceptible really seems happen until its over.