Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

“What is it about 'So Help Me God' that Rove and Bush find so offensive?”

And, from TPM: “Bush: We were concerned about the lack of prosecutions of bogus voter fraud claims.”

The White House's offer to the Senate that it would make Rove and Miers available only for a secret off-the-record no-oath “chat” — something with the legal value of cocktail party chatter — is risible. And even if the Crawford gang hasn't figured out that others are wise to their game, surely Fred Fielding understands that. So they can't seriously believe that the Senate will take such an insulting offer.

Which raises the question of why the White House is proffering such a silly idea. What have they been drinking? I can only think of three possible justifications for this strange move:

1. This could be a pure, cynical PR ploy to attempt to look reasonable. Given how CNN swallowed it hook line and sinker (“unprecedented access to Justice Department documents” — missing the point that the offer, which is far from unprecedented, doesn't include access to the key White House documents) this has to count as the most generous explanation.

2. The staff gets it, but the boy in the bubble doesn't get it, and he overruled the staff.

3. The truth is so awful, that Rove can't be allowed near a Bible. If nothing else, he'd be taking the Fifth over and over again.

I've heard a fourth explanation, but it's so crazy, that only someone who thought that the administration was hell-bent on creating disasters would believe it:

4. The administration wants to create a Constitutional crisis. It thinks it will win any votes in the Senate as it only needs a third plus one, and also win the in court of public opinion just like Clinton did (see “bubble” at (2) above). And the hardliners (Cheney) think that the precedents set by previous administrations of recognizing that senior appointees can be required to testify was mistaken; what's more they think that their hand is strong enough to allow them to rectify this. In short, they see Congress much as they saw Iraq.

Say it ain't so.

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!

Haven't read them all yet, but so far this White House document dump is mostly multiple copies of dull things. You have to wonder why they couldn't have dumped these on Friday as originally planned … were they busy arguing over which of the good ones to take out?

Anyway, the Left Coaster has a nice summary of the only interesting items I've noticed so far, an extended correspondence with and about Margaret Chiara from the Western District of Michigan. Basically, main Justice was willing to trash her reputation behind her back, but not to her face. And indeed, they were willing to appoint her as a trainer of other prosecutors, so either they didn't think she was that bad or they were happy to pay hush money as long as she avoided the press. See US Attorney Purgegate – Margaret Chiara for the details. No one comes out looking particularly good.