Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Heard an interesting snippet on NPR yesterday, and I found the transcriplt at NPR : Documents Show Justice Ranking U.S. Attorneys. Here's the key quote:

In a letter Thursday, White House Counsel Fred Fielding told Congress he won't budge from his original offer — to let Congress interview White House staffers privately, with no oath or transcript.

Sources tell NPR that Fielding actually wants to negotiate with Congress about how the interviews will take place. But Fielding has not been able to persuade President Bush to go along.

Assuming this is accurate, the most likely back story to this leak is that Fred Fielding is trying to save his reputation. And that means there's some really bad stuff lurking behind the stonewall. It also fits the public image of Bush as stonewaller-in-chief. (Shorter GW Bush: 'Congress, read my lips, no Iraq withdrawal. But come on by for a chat and I'll be happy to harangue you as long as you listen quietly.')

An alternate explanation for this story is that someone, perhaps Fielding perhaps someone else, is trying to put pressure on Gonzales or the White House to see reason. But I think that's less likely here. In previous administrations, leaks like this used to be salvos fired in internecine wars among the palace guard. That's been remarkably not the case in this administration due to a combination of exemplary message discipline and know-nothing disinterest in both reportage and reality. Then again, Fielding earned his chops in two of those earlier administrations…

One stop shopppig for your informed Rove-Plame-email speculation: Firedoglake – The Case of Patrick Fitzgerald and the Missing Emails:

Did Fitzgerald know about the emails? I think he did, having learned about the emails from Adam Levine, though I think the 250 missing email pages came from the deleted WH emails. So does the discussion of the missing emails impact Fitzgerald's case in any way? I don't know. It seems that, at the very least, this confusion offers Waxman (or Conyers) an opportunity to renew his request to talk to Fitzgerald, at least about the limited scope of the email evidence turned over. And possibly, if Fitzgerald didn't get to do the full forensic analysis of the GWB43 servers he might have liked to do in December 2005, this would offer a great opportunity to do so. After all, Fred Fielding can't very well claim executive privilege prevents Fitzgerald from investigating the RNC servers, since BushCo has already turned over the crown jewels, the morning Vice Presidential Daily Briefings, so as to appear to be cooperating with Fitzgerald's investigation. So by having Fitzgerald seize the RNC servers, rather than Waxman do it, you do it under the aegis of an ongoing criminal investigation.