“We will find out what happened,” Mr. Leahy said. The committee’s leading Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, agreed on the need to “get to the bottom of this issue,” but he cautioned against any rush to judgment just because subpoenas have been authorized.
Rush to judgment? For many of us, it doesn't seem in the least like a "rush," but rather a five year slow crawl at best. At long last some key officials in the Justice Department will be coming up before the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath. The New York Times reports:
By voice vote, the panel approved subpoenas for D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales; Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty; Monica Goodling, Mr. Gonzales’s senior deputy; Bill Mercer, the associate attorney general, and Mike Battle, who is stepping down as head of the office that oversees the 93 United States attorneys across the country.
Anyone in the White House?
“We have asked for administration officials and now former officials to cooperate with the committee, and I hope that they will,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the committee. “If they cooperate, we will not need to issue subpoenas.”
However, it seems earlier assertions that Rove is invulnerable because of his current position seem to be wrong. Rove is definitely in their sights.
The committee put off for a week a decision on whether to authorize subpoenas on top White House aides involved in the dismissals: Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s political adviser; Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Deputy White House counsel William K. Kelley.
Some of the dismissed prosecutors will be subpoenaed as well.
The Judiciary Committee also approved subpoenas today for six of the eight prosecutors who were let go: Carol C. Lam of California, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, Paul Charlton of Arizona, John McKay of Washington State, Daniel Bogden of Nevada, and David Iglesias of New Mexico.
It may be that Alberto Gonzales is out of a job before any inquiry.
The president’s statement did little to tamp down speculation that Mr. Gonzales would be forced to resign. Nor did it settle the growing furor on Capitol Hill, where a Republican senator became the first in his party to call for Mr. Gonzales to step down, and the new White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, met with lawmakers on the possible testimony of administration officials, including Mr. Rove.
...Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire became the first Republican lawmaker to call for the attorney general to step down. “The president needs a strong, reliable, assertive attorney general who will be effective in dealing with Congress on domestic security, immigration issues and the war on terrorism,” Mr. Sununu said in a telephone interview. “Unfortunately, Alberto Gonzales over the last 18 months has lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people, and he’s not in a position to serve the president effectively.”
In the meantime, we will want to know more about the report that President Bush may well have obstructed justice:
Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews. Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.
And the Senate plans next week to undo the damage it did by okaying a last-minute insert into the Patriot Act allowing the president to appoint new US attorneys without confirmation.
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