Leahy asks AG nominee: Will you block contempt charges?
The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked President Bush's attorney general nominee whether he would block criminal contempt proceedings against current and former administration officials.
In a letter sent Tuesday to nominee Michael Mukasey, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asks whether, as attorney general, he would go along with White House plans to block federal prosecutors from pursuing contempt charges.
The House Judiciary Committee earlier this year recommended contempt charges against two administration figures, and Leahy himself mulled contempt proceedings in the Senate if the administration did not provide subpoenaed documents and testimony related to the firing of nine US Attorneys last year.
"If the White House sought to prevent the U.S. Attorney from bringing contempt charges to a grand jury as required by law," Leahy wrote to Mukasey Wednesday, "would you take any action to prevent the U.S. Attorney from doing so?"
Leahy's letter sought to clarify Mukasey's opinions on a range of issues that have been sticking points in disputes between the president and Congress. Dates for Mukasey's confirmation hearings have not been set, but Leahy suggested the two meet in person Oct. 16.
In his letter, Leahy seems to be seeking assurances that Mukasey will not run the Justice Department in the manner of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales. Democrats widely panned Gonzales as little more than a Bush crony who politicized the Justice Deparment and demoralized career employees.
"We will need to explore with you how you would ensure the independence of federal law enforcement from political pressure, what steps you would take to restore morale at the Department and the public’s trust in the Department, and whether you would uphold constitutional checks on Executive power," Leahy wrote.
Along with the attorney-firing scandal, Leahy castigated Gonzales for enabling President Bush's overreach for authority.
"The Attorney General who recently resigned apparently believed that the President has a commander-in-chief override of the laws of this country, which contributed to his violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), his signing statement reservations, and other overreachings," Leahy wrote.
Leahy placed the blame for the ongoing controversies squarely on the White House, accusing the administration of deliberately stonewalling his committee's search for information.
"With so much to do and so much damage that needs to be repaired, I had hoped that the White House would have taken advantage of the time since the resignations of Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Rove to work with us to fulfill longstanding requests for information so that we could all agree about what went so wrong at the Department of Justice and work together to restore it," Leahy wrote. "Instead, they have left you to answer the unanswered questions and left longstanding disputes unresolved."
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