March 20, 2007
White House Offers to Have Rove, Miers Lie to Congress in Secret Session
Congress is getting ready to subpoena Rove and Miers, which likely will trigger a claim of executive privilege and at least a messy court action if not a political showdown. So the White House comes out with its counter-offer: they’ll testify in secret session, so long as there is no transcript and they’re not under oath.
Translation: we want to be able to lie to Congress in a way that creates neither liability nor evidence — so we can lie about our lying after the fact and no one can prove us wrong.
This is beyond chutzpah!
Posted by Michael : March 20, 2007 04:36 PM | Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | TechnoLinks
Slashdot
It!
Yeah, schedule it for April Fool's Day
Posted by: BroD at March 20, 2007 04:51 PMRove has made several public and on-the-record comments regarding the DOJ US Attorney purge.
Miers is now in private life, and not employed by the WH at all.
Do you know how these facts accept executive privilege claim?
And hey, the big mass firing came on Dec. 7. Isn't there some fancy Legal Latin for that -"thing speaks for itself"? Can we say "Book -em" yet?
Posted by: execprivquestion at March 20, 2007 06:09 PM'accept executive privilege' ? Sorry, meant 'affect executive privilege' .
Posted by: execprivquestion at March 20, 2007 06:13 PMIt should be interesting to see what comes of all this. I absolutely don't want them to have a secret session. These are issues that matter to the public, and need to be aired publicly. To do otherwise is to undermine any remaining trust in this administration.
Posted by: Stephanie at March 20, 2007 06:37 PMIANAL, but I believe:
1) Rove's on-the-record public statements are not worth the paper they're not printed on. Lying under oath is a crime, lying in politics is business as usual.
2) Executive privilege claims apply to the event, even if the advisor subsequently leave the government.
Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at March 20, 2007 07:05 PMIt should be interesting to see what comes of all this. I absolutely don't want them to have a secret session. These are issues that matter to the public, and need to be aired publicly. To do otherwise is to undermine any remaining trust in this administration.