By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
March 20, 2007
WASHINGTON - A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday
to accept his offer to have top aides speak about the firings
of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath,
or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not
back down.
Democrats' response was swift and firm: They said they would
start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White
House aides.
"Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That's
the formula for true accountability," said Patrick Leahy
(news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, said
he would fight any subpoena effort in court.
"We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition
aimed at honorable public servants," he said. "It
will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan
road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I
have agreed to make key White House officials and documents
available."
He added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural
to consider replacing them. While saying he disapproved of
how the decisions were explained to Congress, he insisted "there
is no indication that anybody did anything improper."
Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales,
a boost during an early morning call and ended the day with
a public statement repeating it. "He's got support with
me," Bush said.
The Senate, meanwhile, voted to strip Gonzales of his authority
to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.
Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged
eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political
corruption investigations, after a change in the Patriot Act
gave Gonzales the new authority.
Several Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Hillary
Rodham Clinton, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden and John Edwards,
have called for Gonzales' ouster or resignation. So have a
handful of Republican lawmakers.
"What happened in this case sends a signal really through
intimidation by purge: 'Don't quarrel with us any longer,'" said
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I.,
a former U.S. attorney who spent much of Monday evening paging
through 3,000 documents released by the Justice Department.
Bush said his White House counsel, Fred Fielding, told lawmakers
they could interview presidential counselor Karl Rove, former
White House Counsel Harriet Miers and their deputies — but
only on the president's terms: in private, "without the
need for an oath" and without a transcript.
The president cast the offer as virtually unprecedented and
a reasonable way for Congress to get all the information it
needs about the matter.
"If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find
the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed," Bush
said. "If scoring political points is the desire, then
the rejection of this reasonable proposal will really be evident
for the American people to see."
The House Judiciary Committee was expected to authorize subpoenas
for Rove, Miers and their deputies on Wednesday; the Senate
Judiciary Committee was to follow suit a day later.
Bush said he worried that allowing testimony under oath would
set a precedent on the separation of powers that would harm
the presidency as an institution.
"My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability
for presidents to get good decisions," he said. "If
the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being
hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations,
the president would not receive candid advice and the American
people would be ill-served."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate probe
into the firings, spoke dismissively of the deal offered by
the White House:
"It's sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them,
but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what
really happened here."
Even without oaths, Bush aides would be legally required to
tell the truth to Congress. But without a transcript of their
comments, "it would be almost meaningless to say that
they would be under some kind of legal sanction," Schumer
complained.
Fielding's meeting on Capitol Hill came a few hours after
Bush spoke with Gonzales in an early morning phone call — their
first conversation since the president had acknowledged mistakes
by his longtime friend and lawmakers of both parties had called
for Gonzales' ouster.
The White House offered to arrange interviews with Rove, Miers,
deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings,
a deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who
works for Rove.
"Such interviews would be private and conducted without
the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the
subsequent issuance of subpoenas," Fielding said in a
letter to the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary committees
and their ranking Republicans.
He said documents released by the Justice Department "do
not reflect that any U.S. attorney was replaced to interfere
with a pending or future criminal investigation or for any
other improper reason."
___
Associated Press writer Jennifer Loven contributed to this
report.
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