The president has ordered his Attorney General to ignore contempt charges against administration officials. Heinous, dictatorial behavior, vindicates the Anti-Federalist papers, yadda yadda. The US Attorney for DC remains a loyal Bushie, meaning that the decree just puts a finer point on something we already knew. Referring contempt cases to a department run by the slavishly loyal Gonzales were and remain a pointless waste of time.
With every other route shut, Congress has no other choice but to use inherent contempt proceedings to enforce its subpoenas. Frankly it pleases me that the president has forced Congress’s hand. Dems can either do the right thing, or they could fold up their chairs and go home. Ocf course, with Democrats it can go either way.
***
One other point: it will be fun to see “credible” conservatives like Captain Ed defend this. Will they jump the Hinderaker gap and decide that every trial involving a loyal Bushie must be automatically, a priori, politically-motivated and invalid? Unless they want to admit that their adored leader is a crackpot tyrant I don’t see much other choice.
***Update***
More from Lederman. As I said, there was no reason before this to think that a Bush official would pursue contempt charges against his own government. A case from the Reagan era establishes that they have an arguable basis for this, and the idea that Gonzo’s staff would challenge that precedent is beyond laughable.
Now the Dems can either go nuclear (inherent contempt would be nice) or make some noise and fold up their chairs. Wish I could say that I didn’t expect the latter.
***Update 2***
This helpful video explains the point of today’s announcement.
myiq2xu
What they should do is file contempt charges first, to force Dick to tell “the decider” to tell Fredo to ignore the charges. Then they can simultaneously use inherent contempt against Miers (or whoever) while holding impeachment hearings on Fredo for malfeasance. Meanwhile, the non-kool-aid drinking portion of the country (which is the majority of us) can feel even more contempt all the loyal bushies.
pharniel
at some point if a subpeona is issue from a credible source (congress) can’t the local cops round you up for that?
I mean, if the DC police/da wanted to play some heavy politics predicting a dem win in 08 they could score some major brownie points by using the patriot act against the rouge officails…
I dont’ think it’d be very credible in court, but i think it would be one hell of a PR stunt if handled right.
see for the best joke ever if captian ed defends this: http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1140.htm
norbizness
Always the least interesting aspect of one of these constitutional crises is what Captain Ed might think of it.
Walker
This is interesting:
As Sull says, the WH just gave her the perfect platform to grandstand. Maybe someone there has decided to start campaigning for Clinton.
Walker
Crap. Posted in wrong thread. Sorry.
pharniel
i think el capitan and freinds jsut will ignore it. like every other inconvienent truth.
Punchy
Here’s what I dont get (lawyers?)….If he can declare “EP” on anything he wants (and he declares it on everything), and then there’s absolutely NO recourse for Congress….hasn’t he just completely broken a check and balance?
Hasn’t he, in effect, completely neutered any significant and tangible response by the Legislative branch? If so, why the fuck isn’t this headlines on every news site? Seems pretty draconian to me…
Zifnab
He pre-empted Congress even filing charges? You must be freak’n kidding me? I thought Bush was trying to run out the clock, and here he’s lining up for a Hail Mary pass with some incredibly bad receivers.
I swear, this man is actively trying to get himself and everyone in his staff impeached.
mikkel
Congress can do something as Marty Lederman explained. I personally vote for the Sergeant at Arms arresting them route…especially if they still have the Congressional jail cell.
John Cole
As always, yet another power that President Hillary Clinton is going to LOVE.
Bob In Pacifica
Can we expect a battalion of some military force to “protect” Miers et al? Wasn’t there an additional force planned under one of the Fatherland security laws that would give the President his own special force above and beyond the Secret Service?
And if things get to that point that Congress is absolutely revealed as only an impotent debating society why should the king leave his throne in 2009?
demimondian
You know, it isn’t going to make me popular here, but I think that this is neither new nor wrong. Ever since the Gorsich decision, this is pretty settled law: the decision by a President to pursue a member of the Exectutive branch for for contempt is a political decision.
What I don’t understand is doing it in public. The President is saying to the Congress, “Go ahead, do your worst. Invoke inherent contempt.” Maybe their intent is to anticipatorily neutralize President Hillary by forcing Congress to put its teeth back into its mouth?
Tim F.
Yes, I said in the post that we already knew contempt citations would die in utero.
Not likely. Like commuting Libby’s sentence, the intent of this announcement is to make sure that snitches keep their yaps shut.
Pb
You know, I hear this a lot, it seems like a pretty common assumption about Hillary Clinton–but I have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it about her past history that makes you think she’s just
Rudy Giuliani in a dressa female Giuliani-type autocrat?Zifnab
It’s less of an assumption and more of a winger nightmare. Back in the mid-nineties, during the gun regulation debates and healthcare reform initatives, the fRight wing wanted us to think that Hillary Clinton was going to swoop in on a black helicopter and take all our guns. We’d lose our firearms today, and by next week we’d be getting frog-marched into liberal Soviet-style concentration camps. Hillary was the big bad authoritarian, a nascent Stalin or Hitler, who was going to crush the American people under her boot with the might of the executive branch.
:-p Now, after years of bedwetting over evil liberals with too much executive power, followed by years of propping up the Boy King George with all the executive priviledge they cna get their arms around, conservatives get to face their greatest fear. President Hillary H. “Unlimited Executive Authority” Clinton.
Jake
You know what they say: If you can’t beat ’em, defund ’em.
As the Bushites are so fond of saying: Clinton did it too!
cain
So I’ll take “Dems will blink first” in this crises for $100, Jack.
I see a lot of subpeonas but not a lot of action. Talk is cheap.
cain
not the senator
There was no Gorsuch-Burford decision, Reagan caved and handed over the Superfund documents before the case made it to court. So the Ted Olson, OLC Executive Privilege claim was never ruled on.
Andrew
What’re the statutes of limitation on contempt and obstruction? Two years will be plenty of time for President Hillary to throw the entire Bush DoJ in jail.
Dreggas
Welcome To fortress AMerica, the police State
Now can we get them? Huh? Now?
Rome Again
Interesting link Dreggas. This blows my mind:
I always thought so, but never saw it laid out before my eyes like that. WOW, just WOW!
Dreggas
Yep, my father all but confirmed it. They really are hoping we’re attacked again so “we’ll see that they are right” and then give up every last bit of our freedom out of fear and somehow think they’ll protect us.
Rome Again
I got news for your father, that won’t be my reaction.
jenniebee
Pfft, I’ve been saying that for years. It’s been obvious for ages that these people are “governing” (it turns my stomach to use that word for what they’re doing, but I have no other) in such a way that their only hope for not spending a lot of time in jail after they leave office is that no Democrat should ever take office in their lifetimes. Their contempt for the public is palpable, their contempt for the process of democracy has been evident since before they took office (all this talk of legitimacy… bah!), and their good faith – our system really and truly depends on our leaders working together in good faith to preserve Constitutional Democracy above all – has been a sham from beginning to end.
So here we are, they’ve refused to go to Congress, and the recourse is… a long legal battle, maybe. If they take steps to “postpone” leaving the WH at all, and put even a fig-leaf of legitimacy on it, what recourse do we have? Seriously, if they don’t have a good faith interest in preserving the Country more than in preserving their own place at its head, is there any way to stop them?
Grumpy Code Monkey
The problem is the precedent being set by this administration for a unitary executive being accountable to no one. The next President, whether HRC or one of the Thompson twins, would naturally try to retain those expanded powers. So imagine the shrieking from the Right if President H. Clinton decided that hey, maybe she should illegally spy on American citizens, or imprison them without ever bringing charges, or use her executive authority to deny clearances to the OPR so they can’t investigate any scandals, or commute sentences of staff members so that they don’t have to serve a day in prison for breaking the law.
While I’m small enough to admit that such shrieking would be sweet, sweet music to my ears, I also realize that unchecked executive ambition spells doom for the Republic, regardless of which party’s in charge.
Dreggas
Yeah, mine neither, I’ve said it elsewhere, if we get attacked while shithead is still in office it will be time to take him out of office.
Dreggas
Yeah I am small enough to admit I would like to see them lie in it but I’d have to lie in it as well and detest the idea.
Perry Como
Best comment I’ve seen on this is basically, our government is now like a game of Calvinball.
Crust
Actually, there is another choice: impeachment. A good place to start would be by impeaching Gonzales.
Dreggas
Agreed. Of course that would really lay down the gauntlet, if the pres tried to say he was immune all hell would break loose.
Crust
Dreggas re impeachment (starting with Gonzales):
I see that even streiff at RedState (a foremost legal authority of course) recognizes this:
Johnny Pez
I swear, this man is actively trying to get himself and everyone in his staff impeached.
He’s testing a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that the Dems are such a bunch of gutless wonders that he can tear the Constitution to shreds right before our eyes and they won’t do anything to stop him.
He’s waiting for experimental verification before “postponing” the 2008 elections.