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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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October 14th,
2008 - Lawmakers: Bush Stymied Plame Probe |
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Lawmakers: Bush Stymied
Plame Probe Panel “Puzzled” by Use of Executive Privilege to Shield Documents By Justin Rood ABC News October 14, 2008 President Bush sidetracked a
congressional probe by wrongly invoking executive privilege, according to a
draft bipartisan congressional report released today. This June, the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee served a subpoena to the Justice
Department for reports of interviews between FBI agents and Bush and Cheney. The interviews had been
conducted for former Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's probe into the
outing of former CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame, which concluded last
year. The House panel was conducting its own inquiry into the matter. The White House objected to
the committee's subpoenas, and the panel dropped its efforts to obtain the
Bush transcript, the draft report said. But the committee said it reiterated
its request for the Cheney report, even threatening a contempt citation for
Attorney General Michael Mukasey if the document was not produced. In response, the White House
asserted its executive privilege to withhold the document, according to the
panel's draft report. The White House's argument, crafted by Mukasey,
asserted among other things that the report "summarize[d]
deliberations" among top aides preparing advice for Bush himself, and
therefore is protected by the executive privilege, the report related. The
power is meant to ensure presidents can receive confidential advice. The panel disagreed, calling
the move "legally unprecedented" and "inappropriate." "There is no precedent
holding that summaries of presidential conversations given to third parties -
as opposed to the original conversations themselves - are subject to claims of
executive privilege," it wrote in its report. The document, considered a
draft because it had not been voted on by the full committee, was
nevertheless approved by the panel's ranking Republican, Rep. Tom Davis, Va. The panel also said it was
"puzzled" by the White House's use of executive privilege to shield
documents relating to Cheney, since the vice president himself had earlier
argued he was not a member of the executive branch. Former Special Prosecutor
Fitzgerald wrapped up his investigation without indicting Cheney. He won a
conviction against Cheney's senior aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
for obstructing justice. "There is a cloud over
the vice president," Fitzgerald said in his closing argument in that
trial. "And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed
justice." A year later, Cheney's role
in the Plame affair is still obscured, the report said - this time due to
Bush, whose executive privilege claim "prevented the Committee from
learning the extent of the Vice President's role in the disclosure of Ms.
Wilson's identity," the panel wrote. In a separate draft report
released today, the committee concluded that Bush abused his authority when
he used executive privilege to justify withholding 2,000 pages of documents
relating to the EPA's compliance with the Clean Air Act. Without those
documents, the panel said, it was unable to fully answer questions relating
to the EPA's decision to bar California from regulating greenhouse gases. "Rather than releasing
a politically-motivated draft report attacking the President just three weeks
before Election Day, Democratic leaders in Congress should focus on
addressing the important economic and security needs of our nation,"
said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel. Copyright © 2008 ABC News
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