The New York Times reports there's a showdown a comin' between Congress and the White House over executive privilege:
The House Judiciary Committee voted today to seek contempt of Congress citations against a top aide to President Bush and a former presidential aide over their refusal to cooperate in an inquiry about the firing of federal prosecutors.
The 22-to-17 vote along party lines escalates the battle between the administration and Congressional Democrats over the dismissals of nine United States attorneys last year, an episode that Democrats say needs airing but that many Republicans say is much ado about nothing.
“It’s not a step that, as chairman, I take easily or lightly,” the head of the panel, Representative John D. Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, said before the committee voted to cite Joshua B. Bolten, the president’s chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel.
To take effect, the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation must be voted upon by the full House, where Democrats have a 231-to-201 edge, with 3 vacancies. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not said whether she would seek House action before the lawmakers recess in early August, or allow the issue to simmer until the House reconvenes after Labor Day.
(snip)
The White House has refused, on the grounds of executive privilege, to make Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers available for sworn testimony before Congress. To do so, the White House argues, could stifle frank, confidential advice to the president, and future presidents, by their closest advisers.
THAT'S THE NUB OF THE FIGHT. The thing is, Congress is faced with a Catch-22: It can't make the Executive Branch enforce the contempt citation against itself. That's a problem as sticky as the executive branch faces with "What do we do with fall-between-the-cracks 'enemy combatants'?"
The Times again:
In the event that the full House voted contempt citations against Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers, the next legal step would be a referral to the United States attorney for the District of Columbia (a Bush appointee) for prosecution.
But there is a further complication: the White House asserted last week that the law does not permit Congress to require a United States attorney to convene a grand jury or otherwise pursue a prosecution when someone refuses on the basis of executive privilege to testify or turn over documents. That stance was repeated in a Justice Department letter to the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, I have a modest proposal for the House. I submit that representatives be every bit as creative as has the Executive Branch in dealing with "enemy combatants" and terror suspects.
First, the House needs to beef up the sergeant-at-arms office with a couple of crack units made up of former special-ops soldiers. Then the speaker's office needs to sign an order giving the sergeant at arms the power to carry out "renditions" against recalcitrant White House aides and former aides.
When Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers have been seized successfully from the streets of Washington (or perhaps Dallas, if Miers has tried to flee the long arm of the House), they could be taken to a secret offshore House facility, where they would be forced to maintain stress positions, be deprived of sleep and -- if all else failed -- be subjected to waterboarding until the gave up the goods on the president.
I don't know that President Bush could make any plausible objection to the practice, since he has declared rendition, offshore detention facilities and "enhanced interrogation techniques" as Not Torture and ordered that We Not Torture.
Which House goons deputy sergeants-at-arms would not be doing, because We Don't Torture, because "enhanced interrogation techniques" ain't torture (no matter what we thought after World War II, when we imprisoned Germans and Japanese for being equally "enhanced"), because the president and the attorney general say they ain't.
I mean, what would be the prob? No Big Whoop. Elegant and creative solution.
Right?
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