Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on whether to authorize subpoenas for top White House officials who have been implicated in the recent firings of eight U.S. Attorneys. Throughout his presidency, Bush has asserted his executive privilege often. If Bush denies requests by the Senate and House to speak with Harriet Miers, Miers’ top aide William Kelley and Karl Rove, it could get ugly. From TPMmuckraker‘s news-culling of today’s papers, we see that the senate committee doesn’t really care whether the president authorizes the officials to explain themselves or not. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said, “Frankly, I don’t care whether Fielding (White House counsel who will report the President’s decision to Congress) says he’s going to allow people or not. We’ll subpoena the people we want…. If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don’t want to have.”
Did I mention I love divided government?
