Leahy Presses White House To
Cooperate
With Panel’s Probe Into U.S. Attorney Firings
…Warns White House Counsel Continued Refusal
Could Lead To Committee Subpoenas
WASHINGTON (Wednesday, May
16) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today
pressed the White House to cooperate with the panel’s ongoing
investigation into the mass firings and replacement of U.S. Attorneys or
face congressional subpoenas.
“I have reached out to you many times
during the past two months seeking voluntary cooperation from the White
House with the Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the mass firings
and replacements of U.S. Attorneys. To date the White House has not
produced a single document or allowed even one White House official
involved in these matters to be interviewed,” Leahy wrote in a letter to
White House Counsel Fred Fielding.
Evidence gathered by the Committee through
several hearings, interviews with current and former Justice officials,
and reviews of limited documents produced by DOJ, the Committee has
learned that White House officials played a significant role in
developing and implementing the plan for the dismissals, Leahy noted.
The Committee has authorized Chairman
Leahy to issue subpoenas for several White House officials as well as
documents in its custody related to the panel’s investigation.
“There is evidence that White House
officials were deeply involved in what appears to be an effort to impose
political influence on federal law enforcement. If the White House
continues its refusal to provide information to the Senate Judiciary
Committee on a voluntary basis, I will have no choice but to issue
subpoenas to try to get to the truth in this matter,” Leahy said.
The text of the letter
is below.
A PDF
is also available.
May 16, 2007
Fred Fielding, Esq.
Counsel to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. Fielding:
I have reached out to you many times
during the past two months seeking voluntary cooperation from the White
House with the Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the mass firings
and replacements of U.S. Attorneys. To date the White House has not
produced a single document or allowed even one White House official
involved in these matters to be interviewed.
It appears from the evidence gathered by
the Committee in five hearings, eight interviews with current and former
officials from the Department of Justice, and review of the limited
documents produced by that Department that White House officials played
a significant role in developing and implementing the plan for the
dismissals. Indeed, the plan seems to have originated in the White
House and was formulated by and with coordination of the White House
political operation.
Along with nine other Members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, I sent you a letter on March 22, 2007,
explaining why your “take it or leave it” offer of off-the-record
backroom interviews was unacceptable because it would constrain the
Committee’s and the public’s access to key information and prejudge the
outcome of the investigation. Republican Members of the Committee have
publicly and privately recognized that such off-the-record meetings are
inadequate, as well. In a letter I sent with Chairman Conyers dated
March 28, 2007, I tried to work with you to find ways to narrow our
dispute by gaining access to documents you had offered to provide as a
way to further our investigation. Your response has been to restate
your initial, unacceptable “take it or leave it” offer.
We learned from press accounts that the
White House cannot account for the e-mails of almost two dozen people at
the White House, including some the Judiciary Committee has asked to
question in connection with its ongoing investigation. The White House
has since admitted that these officials utilized e-mail accounts,
addresses and equipment provided by the Republican National Committee
and Republican campaigns to communicate about the plan to replace a
number of United States Attorneys.
To date there has been no production of
relevant e-mails to the investigating Committees. I have since learned
that the White House has requested that any e-mails relevant to the
Committee’s investigation that are in the custody, control or possession
of the Republican National Committee, be turned over to the White House
rather than directly to the Judiciary Committee. The Republican
National Committee has apparently agreed.
The refusal of the White House to provide
relevant documents and access to White House staff who played
significant roles in these firings and in the encroachment of politics
into law enforcement presents an obstacle to the ability of Congress and
the public to get to the truth. The Committee has learned in documents
and then heard in the testimony of Attorney General Gonzales, his former
Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson, and other high-ranking Department of
Justice officials, that Karl Rove, Mr. Rove’s deputies Sara Taylor and
Scott Jennings, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, and Deputy
White House Counsel William Kelly, were involved.
In fact, White House officials have been
involved at every step of the plan to replace the U.S. Attorneys:
-
We have learned that Karl Rove and
then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales were involved from the
beginning in plans to remove U.S. Attorneys. According to documents
obtained from the Department and Mr. Sampson’s testimony, Mr.
Sampson discussed the plan with then-White House Counsel Gonzales
not long after President Bush’s re-election in late 2004. A January
9, 2005 e-mail released by the Department shows that Karl Rove
initiated inquires as to “how we planned to proceed regarding U.S.
Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request
resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively
replace them, etc.” In his response to queries from David Leitch, a
White House official, Mr. Sampson expressly deferred to the
political judgment of Mr. Rove as to whether to proceed with plans
for the replacement of U.S. Attorneys, writing,“[I]f Karl thinks
there would be political will to do it, then so do I.”
-
Mr. Sampson, who has testified that he
“aggregated” the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired, was apparently
in frequent contact with White House officials about multiple
versions of proposed lists of possible U.S. Attorneys for dismissal
and potential replacements over the course of nearly two years.
-
According to documents and testimony,
Ms. Taylor, the head of the White House political operation and
deputy of Mr. Rove’s, and Mr. Jennings, another aide to Mr. Rove,
were involved in the discussions and planning that led to the
removal of Bud Cummins and bypassing the Senate confirmation process
to install Tim Griffin, another former aide to Mr. Rove, as U.S.
Attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas. They were part of a
group that discussed using the Attorney General’s expanded authority
under the Patriot Act reauthorization to avoid the opposition of the
Arkansas Senators by appointing Mr. Griffin as interim
indefinitely. In fact, in one email, Mr. Sampson described Mr.
Griffin’s appointment as “important to Harriet, Karl, etc.”
-
Mr. Sampson testified that Ms. Taylor
was upset when the Attorney General finally “rejected” this use of
the interim authority -- a month after telling Senator Pryor he was
committed to finding a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney.
-
The evidence gathered so far also
shows significant White House involvement -- including by Mr. Rove
-- in the decision to dismiss David Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for
the District of New Mexico. We have learned from the testimony of
the Attorney General and Mr. Sampson that Mr. Rove talked to the
Attorney General about concerns that prosecutors were not
aggressively pursuing voter fraud cases in districts in
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. One of these districts was
that of Mr. Iglesias, who was added to the list of U.S. Attorneys to
be replaced. We have also learned that Mr. Rove’s aide, Mr.
Jennings, set up a meeting between White House Liaison Monica
Goodling and New Mexico Republican officials in June 2006 to talk
about the U.S. Attorney “situation” in New Mexico, describing it as
“sensitive.”
-
We also know, through press accounts
and testimony, that after the midterm election, Mr. Rove discussed
the performance of Mr. Iglesias with Senator Domenici, who himself
had called Mr. Igelisias before the election to ask whether he was
bringing indictments against a Democratic official in the lead up to
the election. According to Allen Weh, Chairman of New Mexico's
Republican party chairman, when he asked Mr. Rove during a holiday
party in 2006 “is anything ever going to happen to that guy?” --
referring to Mr. Iglesias -- Mr. Rove responded, “He’s gone.”
-
The concern by White House officials
with purported voter fraud extends beyond New Mexico. We have
learned that Mr. Rove sent Mr. Sampson a packet of information
related to Wisconsin. According to his testimony, Mr. Sampson gave
this packet to another Department official, Matthew Friedrich, and
also asked him to look into the voter concerns in districts relayed
by Mr. Rove to the Attorney General. The packet apparently sent by
Mr. Rove contains a 30-page report concerning voting in Wisconsin in
2004 and also handwritten notes suggesting a concern with
prosecution in numerous districts.
-
John McKay, former U.S. Attorney for
the Western District of Washington, testified that when he met with
Ms. Miers and her deputy Mr. Kelley to interview for a federal
judgeship, he was asked to explain “criticism that I mishandled the
2004 governor's election” after which Republicans were upset with
him for not intervening in that closely contested election.
-
Since the firings of these U.S.
Attorneys for political reasons became public, there has been an
effort to hide the role of White House officials. According to
documents and the testimony of Mr. Sampson, the Attorney General was
upset after the February 6, 2006, testimony of Deputy Attorney
General Paul McNulty because Mr. McNulty’s testimony put the White
House involvement in the firings into the public domain. The
Administration’s February 23, 2007, response to a letter from
Senators Reid, Schumer, Durbin and Murray regarding the firings
stated, “I am not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the AG’s
decision to appoint Griffin.” Earlier e-mails indicate that the
appointment of Mr. Griffin, another former deputy to Mr. Rove, was
important to Mr. Rove. The White House apparently signed off on
this letter. Many parts of this letter have since been retracted.
Recent reports indicate that among the e-mails withheld from the
investigating Committees are e-mails indicating that White House
officials were consulted about that misleading letter.
-
According to the testimony of
Department officials, Mr. Rove and other White House officials
attended a meeting at the White House on March 5, 2007 -- the day
before Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella
testified before the House Judiciary Committee -- to “go over the
admin position on all aspects of the US atty issue.”
Even though the White House has not
provided a single document or witness, the President and others speaking
for the Administration continue to state that “nothing improper” has
occurred and that “there is no credible evidence of wrongdoing.” I
continue to await an answer to my April 5, 2007, letter to you asking
for the “reviews by White House staff” that led the President to
conclude as of March 20, 2007, that there was no wrongdoing, including
any information that has led the President to discount the mounting
evidence of impropriety revealed as the investigation continues.
The White House cannot have it both
ways—it cannot withhold the documents and witnesses and thereby
stonewall the investigation and, at the same time, claim that it knows
of nothing improper. The involvement of Mr. Rove was initially denied
but must now be conceded, as it was by the Attorney General and by the
Attorney General’s former chief of staff during their Senate Judiciary
Committee testimony.
The strong, and bipartisan, concern and
sadness about this affair and the damage that has been done to the
integrity of the Department of Justice was only deepened after the
Attorney General’s testimony. At the Senate Judiciary Committee’s April
19, 2007, hearing with the Attorney General, Senators from both sides of
the aisle saw their questions go unanswered and witnessed the Attorney
General’s failures to recall what he did and what others did in
developing and implementing the Administration’s plan to fire United
States Attorneys who had not shown sufficient fealty to their political
aims.
This appeared to be part of an effort to
minimize admissions of the involvement of and direction received from
the White House. There is evidence that White House officials were
deeply involved in what appears to be an effort to impose political
influence on federal law enforcement. If the White House continues its
refusal to provide information to the Senate Judiciary Committee on a
voluntary basis, I will have no choice but to issue subpoenas to try to
get to the truth in this matter.
Sincerely,
PATRICK LEAHY
Chairman
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