U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy ruled illegal the president’s executive privilege claims protecting long-time political adviser Karl Rove and President Bush’s chief of staff, John Bolten, saying evidence shows the president was not involved in the firings of U.S. attorneys last winter.
Leahy directed Rove, Bolten, former political director Sara Taylor and her deputy, J. Scott Jennings, to comply ”immediately” with their subpoenas for documents and information about the White House’s role in the firings of U.S. attorneys or face contempt charges.
”I hereby rule that those claims are not legally valid to excuse current and former White House employees from appearing, testifying and producing documents related to this investigation,” Leahy wrote.
The ruling clears the way for the comittee to vote on whether to advance contempt citations to the full Senate.
The executive privilege claim ”is surprising in light of the significant and uncontroverted evidence that the president had no involvement in these firings,” Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in his ruling. ”The president’s lack of involvement in these firings – by his own account and that of many others – calls into question any claim of executive privilege.”
AP: Senator Rejects Bush Privilege Claim
This ruling also opens the door to a more detailed investigation of Rove’s role in political prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice, now under the control of newly confirmed Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
Interestingly, the right-wing smear machine out of the Montgomery U.S. attorneys office has been strangely quiet in recent weeks since Mukasey’s Senate confirmation. Apparently, one of his first acts upon taking over the reins at Justice was placing a gag order on assistant U.S. attorney Lous Franklin.
Also, sources say Rob Riley, the son of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, has pulled out of cooperating with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” which could air its show on the case of jailed former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in the next week or two.
