Conyers Hails Landmark Ruling on White House Subpoena

(Washington, DC)-- In a ruling today, United States District Court Judge John Bates ruled that former White House counsel Harriet Miers is not immune from Congressional subpoena and is required to testify on the U.S. Attorney scandal and the politicization of the Department of Justice in response to a House Judiciary Committee subpoena. He also rejected procedural arguments by Ms. Miers and White House Chief of staff Josh Bolten, and ruled that Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers are required to produce non-privileged documents and specifically describe documents withheld from production based on executive privilege claims. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. had the following statement:

"Today’s landmark ruling is a ringing reaffirmation of the fundamental principle of checks and balances and the basic American idea that no person is above the law. Judge Bates’ decision makes clear that the Congress had the right to subpoena Harriet Miers to learn of her role in the US Attorney firings, that her claim to be immune from subpoena was invalid and that the Committee was entitled to challenge that claim in Court. The Judge also ruled that the White House may not claim Executive Privilege over documents without describing them in reasonable detail so that these claims of privilege can be evaluated by Congress. We look forward to the White House complying with this ruling and to scheduling future hearings with Ms. Miers and other witnesses who have relied on such claims. We hope that the defendants will accept this decision and expect that we will receive relevant documents and call Ms. Miers to testify in September."

The decision can be found linked here.