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"The president and the vice president are not above the law any more than you and I are"
That was Patrick Leahy, speaking this morning on Meet The Press about how President Bush has refused to comply with two subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee for documents relating to the President's illegal wiretapping program and his firing of eight US attorneys, citing executive privilege (which, I was interested to find out, hasn't been around forever: it's actually the product of the Nixon administration).
The case for handing over the documents is overwhelming: the program in question is illegal, the President had a direct hand in authorizing it, and whatever state secrets may be revealed in process have almost certainly been uncovered already by the press. Last week Senator Leahy, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, said he would take the administration to court if it continued to stonewall over the issue.
- Brendan Ballou's blog
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Mass Resignations at the Justice Deparment?
Newsweek has a story this week revealing that up to 30 high-ranking members of the Department of Justice threatened to resign after then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to coerce a gravely ill John Ashcroft to authorize their domestic wiretapping program. You can read commentary here and here.
From the article:
- Brendan Ballou's blog
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Conservative Extremists Undermine Judiciary for Political Gain
Yesterday, a judge in Detroit ruled that the administration's wiretapping and eavesdropping programs that allow government officials to spy on Americans without a warrant violates the constitution.
Well, it's about time. I am surprised that it took this long for someone to step in and point out that George Bush and his administration must abide by the U.S. Constitution. This decision should not be groundbreaking, just common sense.
What is groundbreaking, and dangerous, is the extremist conservative assault on the judicial system and the separation of powers. People should be worried about the hit job this administration has done on the judiciary.
As soon as the opinion was handed down yesterday, conservatives quickly began their attempt to slander Judge Anna Diggs Taylor and the judiciary system as a whole. A former Reagan and first Bush administration official quickly came out in attack mode and was quoted as saying the opinion manifested "strong bias."
more after the fold