Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

White House Counsel Fred Fielding rejected subpoenas from Congress seeking documents and testimony from former White House aides to President Bush in the Justice Department’s U.S. Attorney firings scandal .

The full text of Fielding’s letter can be read below.

On June 13th, the Senate and House subpoenaed former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Political Director Sarah Taylor.

The subpoena for ex-White House Counsel Harriet Miers sought “[c]omplete and unredacted versions, including paper and electronic versions, of any and all documents in your possession, custody or control related to the Committee’s investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial independence and the Department of Justice’s politicization of the hiring and firing of United States Attorneys.”

Fielding tells Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (Dem. - Vt.) and House Committee on the Judiciary Chairman John Conyears (Dem. - Mich.) that Executive Privilege protects Pres. Bush from having to respond to the subpoenas: “where the President’s authority to appoint and remove U.S. Attorneys is at stake, the institutional interest of the Executive Branch is very strong.”

Using litigator’s language, Fielding stressed that “the President’s assertion of [Executive Privilege] here comports with prior practices in similar contests, and that it has been appropriately documented.” (emphasis added).

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:

The Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena this morning (See below) for ex-White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

The subponea directs her, in part, to give the Committee by July 12, 2007 “[c]omplete and unredacted versions, including paper and electronic versions, of any and all documents in your possession, custody or control related to the Committee’s investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial independence and the Department of Justice’s politicization of the hiring and firing of United States Attorneys.”

You can read Harriet Mier’s subpoena here:

Rep. John Conyers, Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary said: “Let me be clear: this subpoena is not a request, it is a demand on behalf of the American people for the White House to make available the documents and individuals we are requesting to help us answer the questions that remain. The breadcrumbs in this investigation have always led to 1600 Pennsylvania. This investigation will not end until the White House complies with the demands of this subpoena in a timely and reasonable manner so that we may get to the bottom of this.”

After yesterday’s demand by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Specter that the U.S. Attorney General comply with the May 2, 2007 subpoena that he did not respond to by the Monday’s May 15th deadline, the Justice Department replied late yesterday with a carrot-on-a-stick response. What did they claim to have?

Only one e-mail cc’ing White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove that concerning the firing, hiring, or political issues behind the massive U.S. Attorney terminations.

In practical terms, what did the Justice Department’s response contribute to the ongoing investigation by Congress into alleged politically-motivated White House control of Justice Department prosecutions?

Most would conclude nothing. Nada. Rien. Niente. Zilch. ничего. אפס .لا شي. Nichts. 何も.

In the reply (inset, below) from Principal Deputy Attorney General Richard A. Hertling, he alleged that the DOJ’s Office of Information and Privacy found only “two identical e-mail chains, one in Kyle Sampson’s e-mail account and the other in Courtney Elwood’s account, that are responsive to the subpoena.”

One e-mail addresses a McClatchy newspaper article on the firing of David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, and communications with Sen. Pete Domenici’s office. The e-mail is from the President’s Special Assistant and White House Deputy Political Director Jeffrey Jennings to Karl Rove, White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Kevin Sullivan, Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, andGonzales’ ex-Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson. White House Political Director Sarah Taylor is cc’d on the e-mail:

A second e-mail in the chain is, again, from Jennings:

These e-mails, however, do reveal one important detail: they contain Karl Rove’s non-White House “back-channel” e-mail in connection that he used for White House correspondence. That’s a violation of federal law, specifically, the Presidential Records Act whose purpose is to mandate the preservation of all work-related correspondence e-mails.

They also reveal that newly appointed White House Counsel Fred Fielding knew Rove was using his RNC e-mail (kr@georgewbush.com) for White House business. Fielding was cc’d on the e-mail turned over to the Committee. More on that later.

Incredibly, Hertlin notes that it returned Rove’s e-mail and “electronic media” (i.e., his hard drive) that remain the subject of the subpoena “to Mr. Rove’s counsel, Mr. Robert Luskin, in a sealed condition.” The only way for the Judiciary Committee to take another shot at a forensic analysis and review of Rove’s e-mail appears to be litigating this out in court.

Here is the Justice Department’s carrot-on-a-stick response, suggesting there may be more Rove e-mails to come. In fact, Hertling hints that there could be more: “We are continuing to search for documents responsive to the Committee’s subpoena.”