House Committee authorizes subpoenas of White House officials
 The House Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys by the Justice Department authorized the issuing of subpoenas of top aides to President George W. Bush today in a voice vote. They stopped short of issuing the subpoenas themselves.
"The motion passed to authorize the chairman to issue subpoenas," said a spokesperson for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers in an e-mail to RAW STORY.
A statement on the authorization will soon be forthcoming.
The authorization provided for subpoenas to "secure testimony at a hearing, and to obtain documents from these individuals, as well as unredacted documents from the Department of Justice and the White House, pursuant to the Committee’s investigation concerning the recent termination of United States Attorneys and related subjects" according to a notice at the House Judiciary Committee website.
Subpoenas for the following individuals would be covered by the authorization: D. Kyle Sampson, Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, William Kelley, and Scott Jennings.
Earlier in the day, a staff member of Rep. Linda Sanchez, who chairs the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law that voted on the authorization, clarified that the committee was stopping short of issuing the subpoenas for the moment.
""We will not necessarily issue the subpoenas immediately," said the aide in an e-mail to RAW STORY. "We are trying what we can to avoid doing that, but this vote will allow for the possibility that the White House will definitively choose to stonewall and slow-walk the investigation."
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