Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement advised President Bush yesterday that there was no need for him to comply with subpoenas from the House and Senate seeking documents and testimony from current and former White House staff over the U.S. Attorney firings scandal.

“It is my considered legal judgment that you may assert executive privilege over the subpoenaed documents and testimony,” he advised.

Clement’s rejection of the subpoenas match’s White House Counsel Fred Fielding’s rejection of the subpoenas today (Click here to read Fielding’s letter).

Here are the 8-pages of legal advice and reasoning from Clement to Pres. Bush:

White House Counsel Fred Fielding rejected the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas served yesterday demanding information about the legal rationale and justifications behind the White House’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, or what President Bush calls the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

As anticipated, Fielding is claiming that Executive Privilege exempts the White House from having to comply with the subpoenas, including subpoenas previously served on former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Political Director Sarah Taylor.

Here is the full text of Fielding’s letter and its legal rationale:

Unfortunately, the response was predictable.

The subpoenas that the Senate Judiciary Committee served on the White House, Dick Cheney, National Security Council, and Dept. of Justice were rejected by the White House within less than twenty-four hours.

The Committee’s latest subpoenas were preceded by similar subpoenas that it served on former White House and Justice Department officials:

* A subpoena was issued by the Committee on June 13, 2007 to former White House Counsel Harriet Miers over the U.S. Attorney firings debacle. Miers was givien a July 12, 2007 deadline to comply with the subpoena.

* The Committee served a subpoena on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on May 2, 2007 when he failed to comply with its repeated requests for turning over correspondence (e-mail, etc.) involving White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and his use of non-White House e-mail to conduct goverment business.

The latest legal battle stems from the revelation by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey that Gonzales tried (unsuccessfully) to ram-rod a very ill Attorney General John Ashcroft into extending warrantless domestic surveillance just after Justice Department officials had concluded that it was unconstitutional.

Youc an re-examine Comey’s testimony here: