Posted on 03/01/2008 7:52:08 AM PST by jdm
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has informed Nancy Pelosi that he will not enforce the contempt citations issued by the House last week. He informed the Speaker that neither Josh Bolten nor Harriet Miers committed any crimes, and therefore the Department of Justice didn’t really see the need to prosecute them:
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused on Friday to pursue contempt citations issued by the House of Representatives against a current and a former White House aide for not cooperating in a probe of the firing of U.S. attorneys.
Saying no crime was committed, Mukasey rejected a request by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to refer the citations to a federal grand jury investigation of current White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.
“The Department has determined that the non-compliance by Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas did not constitute a crime, and therefore the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers,” Mukasey said in a letter to Pelosi.
The next step will be for the House to file a lawsuit against the DoJ to force them into prosecuting the citations. That gets into some sticky areas of the law. The concepts of executive privilege have not fully been tested in the courts, and until now both elective branches have done their best to avoid an all-out legal confrontation.
In this case, though, the House has been itching for a fight. The White House has offered to meet the committee members partway, but they have insisted on demanding that the Bush administration give up its claim on executive privilege instead — which no one ever believed they would do. Mukasey found that Bush’s use of executive privilege meets legal requirements.
Now the courts will have to make a decision that will make one branch or another very unhappy, and for a very long time — all over terminations that were obviously in the purview of the executive, and after a fishing expedition that produced nothing more than an incompetent AG. Thankfully, we have a much more talented replacement at the helm.
‘neither Josh Bolten nor Harriet Miers committed any crimes’
until they get them under oath, I’m sure they can find someone with conflicting testimony....
Good job, AG!
It’s a good thing that the Prez’s pal, alfonso gonzaga, is not the AG, he would have brought the charges and thrown Cheney in for good measure.
Ms. Botox is always looking for a hair-pulling purse fight. And, Clintoon fired ALL of the incumbent U.S. Attorneys.
A thorough investigation into Pelosi and Reid would serve the country better; throw in Murtha and Kerry for good measure.
If you listen very carefully, you can hear the steam escaping from Frau Pelosi's ears...
NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED.
NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED.
NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED.
Repeat as necessary...
Nutjob Nancy will go back to her "secret place" and resume chanting in front of the voodoo dolls...
Amen.
Bush's worst failure as president has been his inability to bring key parts of the administration under his control: namely, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and the Justice Department. All of them are filled with rogue elements, some of them clintonoids, some of them going back to Jimmie Carter or even earlier. And Bush has done nothing to broom these messes out.
I can't blame him too much for the State Department. That's been broken for at least 75 years.
But the FBI is filled with clintonoids, the CIA is filled with clintonoids, and the Justice Department also has its share of clintonoids. Ashcroft did nothing to fix it, and Gonzalez was an incompetent idiot. Mukasey comes in too late to broom it out, but thank God he knows his duty, at least.
I think she’s spending too much time riding her broom out to San Fransicko to drink the Kool-aid. If she has any more work done she’s going to start to resemble Joan Rivers. I can honestly say that I am ashamed that she is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. What a disgrace.
As an alum from the prestigious Gonzaga University, I am kinda sensitive to your attempted use of the term as a pejorative...
“Ol’ stretchface” takes another header into a warm meadow muffin.
It's humor, something pubbies understand.
Do you object to using osamaobama's middle name?
Lighten up.
go to your rooms until you behave.
His worst failing is border security.
Forgive me my poor attempt at humor...I thought I was lightened up...
Hey Alaska; his post was humor! If anyone should lighten up.....
relax, the sun will be up in another month.
Thanks for noticing...[whew] for a little while there, I thought I was losing my touch...LOL
That only became entirely evident in the past year or two. Before that, Bush kept it partly under the table. I'd say his worst failure is security, period.
Because the FBI is broken, the CIA is broken, the Justice Department is largely broken--except for its new head--and Homeland Security is run by a lying moron who favors amnesty--just like his boss, as it turns out.
And airport security is largely broken too, since Bush early agreed to the Dem insistence that they should belong to the gov employee's union, at double the pay and pledged to vote Democrat. And they can no longer be fired for incompetence or malfeasance, so we're stuck with them forever.
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