1 Boring Old Man

Mr. LEAHY,
from the Committee on the Judiciary,
submitted the following

REPORT

together with MINORITY VIEWS
[To accompany Resolutions finding Karl Rove and Joshua Bolten in contempt of Congress]

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The Committee on the Judiciary, reports favorably on resolutions authorizing the President of the Senate to certify the facts of the failure of Karl Rove and Joshua Bolten to appear and testify before the Committee on the Judiciary and to produce documents as required by Committee subpoena and recommends that the resolutions do pass.

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^{X. Conclusion}

^{The Committee reports these resolutions and the facts in support thereof finding White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in contempt of Congress because of their continuing non-compliance with the Committee’s subpoenas.}

^{The Committee has conducted this investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys and politicization of hiring and firing at the Department of Justice and now refers these contempt resolutions pursuant its constitutional legislative, oversight and investigative powers and in order to fulfill its responsibilities to the Senate and the American people.}

^{The investigation was met initially by misleading and inaccurate statements from Department officials regarding the reasons for the firings, then by stonewalling by the White House despite evidence of significant involvement by political officials at the White House, and ultimately by the resignations of numerous Department and White House officials, including the Attorney General. The conduct of these officials has been the subject of an internal investigation at the Department that has now confirmed the Committee’s findings of serious wrongdoing and led to a referral of the matter to a Special Prosecutor for further investigation to determine whether crimes occurred.}

^{The Department of Justice engaged in the unprecedented firing of U.S. Attorneys for political reasons and that the White House’s partisan interests in the prosecution of voter fraud and public corruption played a role. Attorney General Gonzales and the other former top officials at the Department abdicated their responsibility to ensure the independence of law enforcement. The Committee has pursued this matter on a bi-partisan basis because the injection of political bias into the determination of which cases should be prosecuted is corrosive to the very foundations of our system of justice.}

^{In light of the evidence showing that White House officials played a significant role in originating, developing, coordinating and implementing these unprecedented firings and the response to Congressional inquiries about it, the investigation will not be complete without information available only from the White House and from current and former White House officials. The White House’s unsubstantiated blanket claims of privilege and novel claims of immunity do not trump the Committee’s well-established need for the information it has sought about the firings and do not excuse current and former White House officials from complying with the Committee’s subpoenas.}

^{The report basically advances the Senate case against Bolten and Rove, after the House’s attempts to get Bolten and Miers and, arguably, Rove to testify were thwarted by the Appeals Court’s stay on the House lawsuit. Since the House expires at the end of their term, their suit against the White House also expires. But the Senate doesn’t. In other words, I believe this report  lays the ground work for continuing the battle in January. Rove may not be out of the woods yet, for having to testify about his wrong-doing on the US Attorney purge.}

This was the scandal that finally broke the  back of the Bush Administration. It resulted in the resignations of the White House Counsel Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Sarah Taylor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and everyone below him at the D.O.J. who was involved. Yet no one has been prosecuted for wrong-doing. It was a diabolical scheme – firing the U.S. Attorneys who refused to press "voter fraud suits" to intimidate minority voters and organizations like ACORN determined to register them. The Senate Committee calls on the case being referred to a Special Prosecutor.

While I think that this may be a hard case to prosecute [because it’s hard to prove motive], the Committee must think that there’s sufficient evidence to go after Rove, Miers, and/or Bolten for interfering in the internal workings of the Justice Department, whether they can prove the motive or not. This case certainly crosses many of the boundaries violated by the Administration: Executive Priviledge, politicization of the DoJ, interfering with the voting process, obstruction of justice, etc.

The Allegation: U.S. Attorneys were tasked to bring widespread suits accusing minority voters and groups registering minority voters of voter fraud. The purpose was to decrease the minority vote directly and by intimidation. At the direction of the White House [trough the President’s Counsel and the Political Advisor’s Office, U.S. Attorneys who didn’t comply were fired, slated to be replaced by people who would file these suits. There is no evidence that the voter fraud being prosecuted exists. The President is evoking Executive Priviledge to prevent his former Counsel, his Chief of Staff, and his Political director from testifying – all of whom are directly implicated in the case.