By The Boston Globe
WHEN the history of the Bush administration is written, one
of the most disturbing chapters will be the 2006 purge of US attorneys - all
Bush appointees - who failed to toe the White House line by aggressively
prosecuting Democratic officeholders or winking at possible misdeeds by
Republicans.
The sacking of the
Congress rightly wants to know where the orders for the
purge came from, and has brought contempt citations against Bush's chief of
staff, Joshua Bolten, and his former counsel, Harriet Miers, for refusing to
respond to subpoenas. The White House has claimed executive privilege and
balked at letting Bolten and Miers testify. At the end of last week, Attorney
General Michael Mukasey said he would not refer the contempt citations to a
federal grand jury. Pelosi immediately responded that she would go to Plan B,
giving the House Judiciary Committee the authority to file a civil lawsuit against
Bolten and Miers in federal court.
Earlier in the confrontation, the White House offered to
make its officials available if the testimony were in secret, not under oath,
and off the record. But negotiations came to a halt after congressional
Democrats demanded at least a transcript.
This is not the first time that the executive and legislative branches have locked horns over attempts to secure testimony from administration officials. According to the Congressional Research Service, there have been at least 74 instances in which White House advisers have testified before Congress once a congressional committee had cited them for contempt. The White House would be wise to make this the 75th such case, instead of trying to use executive privilege to defend the politicization of the Justice Department.
