Congress Threatens U.S. Attorney General With Contempt Over Leak Investigation

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:13:08 +0000
Kris Alingod - AHN News Writer

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee threatened Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday with contempt for failing to respond to a subpoena and provide records of FBI interviews about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA operative.

In a letter to Mukasey, Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) warned, "You have neither complied with this subpoena by its returnable date nor asserted any privilege to justify withholding documents from the Committee."

Waxman issued Mukasey a subpoena on June 16 for records in the Plame investigation, specifically reports of interviews with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as unedited versions of interviews with former Vice President chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Keith Nelson responded on June 24, a day after the subpoena's deadline, with a letter to Waxman saying, "It is settled as a matter of constitutional law... that the communications of the President and the Vice President with their staffs relating to official Executive Branch activities lie at the absolute core of executive privilege.... Moreover, the Committee's request... raises a very serious additional separation of powers concern relating to the integrity and effectiveness of future law enforcement investigations by the Department."

Waxman said in his letter on Tuesday that he was no longer requesting interview reports of President Bush in deference to Mukasey's concerns, but that records of Cheney's interviews were vital to his inquiry.

"Vice President Cheney's attorneys have consistently maintained that he is not an 'entity within the executive branch.' Whether this unusual claim is accurate or not, I am aware of no freestanding vice presidential communications privilege," he wrote.

Discussions between Libby, Rove and two other former administration officials with reporters in 2003 regarding Plame's CIA employment caused a criminal investigation that involved questioning the President.

Plame's role as CIA operative was revealed about a week after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of manipulating prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. The federal probe found Libby guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in March 2007; his 30-month prison sentence was commuted by President Bush.