Patrick Leahy Urges White House To Work With Congress On U.S. Attorney, DOJ Scandals

MONTPELIER, Vt. (August 14, 2007) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday sent a letter to President Bush urging him to work with Committee members to reach a final agreement for the testimony of key officials in the ongoing investigation into the mass firings of federal prosecutors and the politicization of hiring and firing within the Department of Justice.

The Leahy letter requests a meeting with President Bush to discuss the firings, in which evidence indicates White House political operatives were involved. The White House has prevented key officials, including Karl Rove, from appearing before congressional oversight committees, and has limited the testimony of others with claims of executive privilege.

The text of the letter is below.

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August 14, 2007

The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

For the last several months, I have been seeking the voluntary cooperation of the White House with the efforts of the Senate Judiciary Committee to get to the bottom of the scandal surrounding the firing of so many of the United States Attorneys you had appointed. If, as the testimony has indicated, this is about extending improper political influence into our justice system and then misleading Congress and the American people about that political corruption of law enforcement, I hope you would agree this is a grave matter.

The accumulated evidence shows that the list of those to be fired was compiled based on input from the political ranks in the White House and that the reasons publicly given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up. Recently during his sworn testimony, Attorney General Gonzales himself contrasted these politically-motivated firings with the replacement of other United States Attorneys for “legitimate cause.”

I have sent numerous letters to your White House counsel to no avail. For example, in a May 16 letter to Fred Fielding I outlined some of the indications of Karl Rove’s involvement. Yet, all of my good faith efforts have been rebuffed. The stonewalling leaves me and the Senate Judiciary Committee with few options other than considering citations for contempt of Congress against those who have refused to provide relevant testimony and documents to the Congress.

Senator Specter has urged me to write to you directly and suggest that we sit down together to work out our differences with respect to this matter. That is the purpose of this letter.

Respectfully,

PATRICK LEAHY
Chairman

Source: Senator Patrick Leahy

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