July 11, 2007
Committee Weighs Options After Miers Snub
UPDATED.
Former White House counsel Harriet Miers plans to ignore a House Judiciary Committee subpoena calling for her testimony on the Hill tomorrow. Miers' attorney informed committee chairman John Conyers and Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law head Linda Sánchez last night that Miers would not appear, one day after informing Conyers that she would appear.
Miers' attorney, George Manning, confirmed that Miers would not be appearing before the committee after all in a telephone interview this afternoon. Manning would not answer any questions on why Miers had changed her mind.
About 10 minutes later, at around 3:22, the House Judiciary Committee released Conyers' and Sanchez's reactions to the turnabout. "I am extremely disappointed in the White House's direction to Ms. Miers that she not even show up to assert the privilege before the Committee," Conyers said. "We understand that the White House has asserted privilege over both her testimony and documents, and we are prepared to consider those claims at tomorrow's hearing."
Subcommittee members are expected to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow, as scheduled. Miers' absence will be recorded, but it is unclear where the panel goes from there. A congressional aide with knowledge of the proceedings said that a discussion of how to move forward following her failure to appear is ongoing. But there is no indication the Judiciary Committee plans to drop its pursuit of her testimony, the aide added.
As reported yesterday, there was some confusion over whether Miers would actually appear before the committee. Earlier this week, counsel for both the committee and Miers verbally agreed she would testify in person, but President Bush's executive order threw that agreement into question. As of yesterday, committee members were confident Miers would testify, if only to say she could not really testify. Former White House political director Sara Taylor did so earlier today, before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a letter sent yesterday, Manning asked Miers' successor in the White House, Fred Fielding, for clarification on the matter. Fielding repeated his earlier assertion that Miers has "absolute immunity" from testifying on the attorney firings, and added that the president "has directed [Miers] not to appear" at tomorrow's hearing.
One congressional aide characterized the decision as a slap in the face, pointing out that Taylor was able to provide a useful account of the firings even though most questions thrown at her were not answered.
Miers at this point has no legal obligation to cooperate with Congress, nor, probably, the inclination. Miers' friendship with Bush dates back to their days in Texas, when she at one point was his personal attorney. From the committee's viewpoint, however, Miers may hold the key to unraveling the White House's decision to ceremoniously dump eight U.S. attorneys late last year, most of whom were highly respected within DOJ. Evidence already obtained by lawmakers indicates Miers may have been central in that decision-making process.
Miers is back in Texas, practicing law at her old firm of Locke Liddle and Sapp. Conyers has previously hinted that he would pursue "enforcement action" against the White House if it defied congressional subpoenas. One option would be to pursue contempt charges against Miers. Bringing its standoff with the White House to a judicial tiebreaker would be a drastic, history-making step to take.
(White House photo by Eric Draper)
Posted at 5:25 PM
Posted to:
Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Harriet Miers, President Bush
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