White House Says 'No' to Subpoenas

WASHINGTON — President Bush formally rejected congressional demands Thursday for information about the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding informed the House and Senate Judiciary panels that the president would invoke executive privilege, a right that permits him to withhold the documents.

Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, the former political director, will not testify about the dismissals of the prosecutors as required by a subpoena next month, according to Fielding.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," Fielding wrote in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege."

The Judiciary committees want the documents and testimony for their wide-ranging inquiry into whether the federal prosecutors were fired to stop political corruption investigations of Republicans and hasten indictments against Democratic-leaning voter registration groups before last fall's election.

The Democratic chairmen of the Judiciary committees accused Bush of "stonewalling" their inquiry. They vowed to pursue other avenues to enforce their subpoenas.

"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The president's actions are akin to "Nixonian stonewalling," Leahy said.

The White House clearly believes that it has tried to accommodate the Judiciary panels. In his letter, Fielding said Bush "attempted to chart a course of cooperation" by releasing more than 8,500 pages of documents and sending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify before Congress.

It has also offered access to Miers, Taylor and other White House officials. But those interviews would be behind closed doors and without transcripts. Leahy and Conyers have repeatedly rejected that offer.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said Bush's assertion of executive privilege is unprecedented in its breadth and scope, showing an "appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government."

Fielding defended the use of executive privilege.

"For the president to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisers," Fielding wrote.

Legal experts say that forcing the White House to comply with the subpoenas will be difficult at best.

The House and Senate could approve contempt citations for failing to turn over the material, but they would need the Justice Department to enforce them, according to Stanley Brand, former general counsel to the House.

Another option is to send the Sergeant of Arms over to the White House to arrest officials for failing to turn over documents, but the last time that happened was in 1935, Brand said.

Going to federal court is a long shot, Brand said.

"All the judicial avenues are fraught with separation of powers pitfalls," Brand said. "It's not clear whether the courts can or will adjudicate a subpoena in this context."

Dawn Johnsen, a professor of law at Indiana University and the former head of the Justice Department's office of legal counsel, said the courts have historically stayed out of battles between the two branches over subpoenas.

Johnsen said that Congress might have better luck getting what it wants by flexing its political muscle and cutting off funding to the executive branch or refusing to approve a nomination.

"It's extremely difficult for Congress to enforce the subpoenas," Johnsen said. But the president has an obligation to "accommodate" legitimate needs that Congress has for executive branch information, she said, adding that usually leads to successful negotiations.

It was the second time in his administration that Bush has exerted executive privilege. The first instance was in December, 2001, to rebuff Congress' demands for documents from the Clinton administration.

Tensions between the two branches of government have been building since Democrats took back control of the House and Senate last fall.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, to compel records concerning the president's secret eavesdropping program.

"It's pretty clear that again members of Congress are engaged in an attempt ... to try to do what they can to make life more difficult for the White House," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "It also explains why this is the least popular Congress in decades, because you do have what appears to be a strategy of destruction rather than cooperation."

On the Web:

Senate Judiciary Committee: judiciary.senate.gov

House Judiciary Committee: judiciary.house.gov

White House: www.whitehouse.gov