March 18, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House political strategist Karl
Rove will face a Senate subpoena this week if he does not agree
to testify in a dispute over fired prosecutors that has put
pressure on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to quit, a Senate
committee head said on Sunday.
But minority Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee
stopped short of seeking to compel members of the White House
staff to testify under oath. They have called for Gonzales
to come to Congress to explain the firing of eight U.S. attorneys
and clear up the varying reasons given for their ouster.
The White House is in talks with Congress over whether to
allow testimony by officials including Rove -- whose former
aide had been selected to replace one of the fired prosecutors.
The replacement helped fuel charges the dismissals were politically
motivated.
But one way or another, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy (news,
bio, voting record) of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee chairman,
made it clear he wanted the officials to testify at the Senate
under oath.
"The final decision on putting on the agenda subpoenas
is mine," Leahy said on ABC's "This Week." "And
it will be on Thursday this week, among the subpoenas that
will be voted on, will be one for Karl Rove and one for (former
White House counsel) Harriet Miers, another one for her deputy."
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record) of Texas, one
of Bush's strongest Republican supporters in Congress, agreed
on the same show that the committee needed to hear Justice
Department officials.
But he said he feared Democrats "want to cut to the chase
and let's get Karl Rove there and have a political circus."
As far as subpoenas for the White House, Cornyn said he was
worried about violating the constitutional separation of powers
between Congress and the White House.
"This is what I'm talking about when I say a legitimate
investigation can be overreached," Cornyn said, saying
he did not want the probe to become "a political witch
hunt."
Critics say the Bush administration fired the prosecutors
to make room for Republican allies. Democrats say the attorneys
angered powerful Republicans, partly by pursuing corruption
probes against Republican lawmakers, and Gonzales fired them
in retaliation.
RESIGNATION CALLS
Gonzales is trying to fend off resignation calls from Democrats
and some Republicans. He has previously drawn fire for policies
that critics say eroded U.S. civil liberties and contributed
to abuse of foreign detainees.
A Newsweek poll on Saturday said 58 percent of the U.S. public
believed the prosecutors' firings were driven by political
concerns.
Gonzales called all the U.S. attorneys on Friday, a Justice
Department official said. "He apologized not for the dismissals,
but rather for the handling of the situation including that
the suggestion the prosecutors had performed poorly was ultimately
discussed publicly," he said.
The White House first said the idea of firing all the federal
prosecutors at the beginning of Bush's second term came from
Miers.
But e-mails last week brought up the involvement of Rove.
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