"It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, that the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."
I’m stuck on this one. Real stuck. The Contempt of Congress Citations issued against Josh Bolten and Karl Rove are because they have refused to testify in the Congressional Hearings investigating the Department of Justice. They base their refusal to testify on the Executive Privilege of the President. The President is saying that his constitutional prerogatives [Executive Privilege] allow him to order the Department of Justice to not prosecute the Congressional Citations. Let me say it again. The President’s staffers are subpoenaed the testify in Congress about their involvement in a Department of Justice scandal. The President tells them not to testify. When the Congress Cites them for Contempt, the President orders the Department of Justice to ignore the Citations. There is a circularity about this that boggles the mind. It’s the kind of absurd ruling that Senator Whitehouse was calling our attention to last week. President Bush is accused of trying to take over the Department of Justice for political gain. His defense against that charge is to take over the Department of Justice for political gain.
The only difference between this and the Watergate cover-up is that Bush and Cheney have pre-emptively taken over the Department of Justice. During Watergate, our salvation was the courage and integrity of governmental officials like Elliot Richardson and Archibald Cox. We’re in a different arena now. Such people are not emerging from the crowd. Where are they?
The answer to that question is obvious. They were all fired.
Because of his past Watergate experience, Cheney (who controls Bush) knew what to do to, to get his way, without getting caught. John Dean (Nixon’s “Harriet Miers”) has said as much in his books —