And somehow the Democrats didn’t see this coming?
President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers’ demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.
Bush’s attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.
The Democratic chairmen of the two committees seeking the documents accused Bush of stonewalling and disdain for the law, and said they would press forward with enforcing the subpoenas.
"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."
Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.
"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He portrayed the president’s actions as "Nixonian stonewalling."
Above the law? Classic.
No, they are a different branch of our government and one CANNOT force the other to do this sort of thing UNLESS a crime has occurred. That is not the case here, no matter how much the Democrats want it to be so.
In his letter, Fielding explained Bush’s position on executive privilege this way: "For the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch."
This "bedrock presidential prerogative" exists, in part, to protect the president from being compelled to disclose such communications to Congress, Fielding argued. And he questioned whether the documents and testimony the committees seeking are critically important to their investigations.
Show trials and witchhunts.
No law has been broken, hell they haven’t even been able to come up with any plausible charge at all. Remember that with Nixon there WAS a crime involved, nothing of the sort here. The Democrats will lose this case easily.
All they want is to continue to raise the spector of Nixon, wrongly of course, when they speak of Bush so they throw up new charges of silly idiotic wrongdoings weekly. Anything to get their showtrials in the news, which the MSM is more then willing to do for them.
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