Congressional Dems: embarrassing lack of action on key issue

Judiciary Committee chair, Senator Patrick Leahy, is drawing a line in the sand.  The New York Times reports that he will use the confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee, Michael Mukasey, to leverage information about White House influence on the Department of Justice and an executive commitment to stop using the department to skew elections.

A key test, Leahy said in a letter to President Bush's nominee, would be Mukasey's willingness to answer questions the White House won't about a litany of issues, ranging from warrantless eavesdropping to what Mukasey would do to prevent federal prosecutors from being used to influence elections.

All this may turn out to be little more than fine words if the White House -- once again -- has its way.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has declared those details off-limits under executive privilege.

The problem seems very clear to many of us looking in from the outside .  There are elements in the Democratic party which seem unwilling to have any serious confrontation with the Bush administration.  Take Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel.  They are, in their own very annoying way, obstructing justice -- or so it would seem from Muckraker's latest post.

"The scandal at the Department of Justice has gone on long enough," said Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL) back in March. "Careers have been destroyed and legitimate public corruption cases have been derailed. It is time for accountability -- it is time for the truth."

Six months and several Department senior resignations later, it's a different time. The urgency is gone.

More than two months after the House Judiciary Committee passed contempt resolutions against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers for ignoring committee subpoenas, it's still unclear when, or if, Democrats will hold a vote on the full floor.

The leadership has indefinitely delayed taking up the issue. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) told The Politico last month, “I don’t think anything is going to happen on that for a while,” and couldn't offer a range.

Paul Kiel goes on to report:  "A source familiar with the ongoing discussions told TPMmuckraker that getting the leadership to bring the contempt resolutions to the floor at all is an 'uphill struggle.'"