Clash over firings grows

WASHINGTON – Inviting a showdown with congressional leaders over the firing of U.S. attorneys, President Bush on Tuesday refused to make White House political strategist Karl Rove available for public questioning under oath.

The president did agree to allow lawmakers to interview Rove and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers in private, but the concessions failed to placate Democrats, who have accused the White House and Justice Department of dismissing eight federal prosecutors for political reasons.

The House and Senate Judiciary Committees readied plans to authorize the issuance of subpoenas for Rove and other officials. The House Judiciary Committee was expected to authorize subpoenas today; the Senate Judiciary Committee was to follow suit on Thursday.

Bush said his staff would oppose the subpoenas, setting the stage for a possible constitutional confrontation in which past and current members of the White House staff could be held in contempt of Congress.

Bush, speaking to reporters in the early evening after returning from a trip to Missouri, criticized Democrats for trying to “score political points.” He urged them to accept his offer of private interviews with Rove and Miers, and he pledged to release all White House documents related to the firings.

“These extraordinary steps demonstrate a reasonable solution to the issue,” Bush said. “However, we will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.

“It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key officials and White House documents available,” he said.

Bush also firmed up his support for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, amid rising calls for his resignation. “I’ve got confidence in him,” Bush said.

The Senate, meanwhile, voted 94-2 to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation. Democrats contend that after a change in the Patriot Act gave Gonzalez new authority the Justice Department and White House purged eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations.

Several Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Edwards, as well as a handful of Republican lawmakers have called for Gonzales’ ouster or resignation.

Bush denied that the firings were politically motivated or attempts to shut down corruption investigations of Republicans or to speed up probes into Democratic wrongdoing.

“The Justice Department, with the approval of the White House, believed new leadership in these positions would better serve our country,” Bush said, describing the moves as “normal and appropriate.”

The administration strategy appeared to set both sides on a collision course unlike any in recent years. Openly defying a subpoena has little precedent.

Congress could vote to find whomever refused to comply in contempt, but the case normally would be prosecuted by the Justice Department, according to Beth Nolan, a White House counsel during the Clinton administration.

Nolan said Congress also could choose to use other powers if an official refused to cooperate. These include withholding funding for an agency or refusing to approve administration nominees for executive positions that require Senate confirmation.

Although it would give Democrats a rare opportunity to question Rove, who’s become a lightning rod for administration critics, Bush’s proposal drew complaints from many in the party.

“We will move forward to authorize subpoenas for current and former White House and Justice officials, as well as documents,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich. The committee “will take whatever steps are necessary and within our congressional authority to get to the bottom of what has become a horrible mess that is undermining American trust in our federal criminal justice system.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said: “It is not constructive and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation or to prejudge its outcome.

“Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That’s the formula for true accountability.”

Moderate Republicans said they wanted to give the president’s proposal a chance in the hope of avoiding a lengthy battle.

“I would prefer to have the interviews in public, but it is more important to get the information promptly than to have months or years of litigation,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. “If we are dissatisfied with the information provided in the manner offered by the president, we can always issue subpoenas.”

The roles of Rove and Miers in the removal of U.S. attorneys have drawn attention in recent days as the White House and Justice Department offered shifting explanations of how and why the prosecutors were replaced. Last week, the White House said the idea originated with a proposal by Miers two years ago to replace all 93 U.S. attorneys as part of a post-election housecleaning. Officials said Rove vaguely recalled knowing about the proposal and thinking it was a bad idea.

E-mails made public last week indicated that Rove also had raised the issue of replacing some or all of the prosecutors. The White House later backtracked on whether the idea originated with Miers and said it wasn’t sure who first proposed it.

Besides Rove and Miers, who resigned in January, the White House offered to arrange interviews with deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy White House political director.

White House counsel Fred Fielding said the White House was prepared to offer Hill investigators communications between the White House and the Department of Justice, and communications between White House staff and third parties, including members of Congress or their staffs, on the subject.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said the offer of documents excluded some of the most relevant information, including communications solely among White House personnel.

“This is giving us the opportunity to talk to them but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here,” Schumer said. “We obviously will present a counteroffer to them that will be far more complete and far more extensive.”