Congressional Democrats vowed to press ahead Monday in their investigations into the White House’s role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year and alleged politicization of the Justice Department’s hiring process, saying senior Bush adviser Karl Rove’s departure only increases their demand for information.
“The list of senior White House and Justice Department officials who have resigned during the course of these congressional investigations continues to grow, and today, Mr. Rove added his name to that list,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Monday. “There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelopes Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.”
Rove’s surprise resignation came 11 days after he refused to testify before Leahy’s panel about his role in the dismissals of the federal prosecutors. Citing legal rulings from the Justice Department, White House counsel Fred Fielding early this month told Leahy that President Bush was asserting “absolute immunity” for his advisers in barring Rove from testifying. Bush asserted that executive privilege because he wants to protect “the ability of future Presidents to ensure that the Executive’s decisions reflect and benefit from the candid exchange of informed and diverse viewpoints,” Fielding said. Fielding has offered to allow Rove and other current and former West Wing staff to be interviewed by staffs from the House and Senate Judiciary committees — behind closed doors and not under oath.
Legal experts were divided on whether Rove’s resignation heightens the likelihood that he will eventually testify under oath on Capitol Hill. Louis Fisher, a specialist on the separation of powers at the Congressional Research Service, said the legal claim of privilege will still extend to Rove after he leaves the White House because it is an assertion related to the duties he performed while in office. “I don’t think that the principle changes. What does change is, the White House doesn’t have that person by the neck,” he said.
Unless Rove’s loyalty were to change, which no one expects, Fisher said the Democrats need to uncover sharper examples of criminal wrongdoing in their investigations to bolster their claim that the need for this testimony outweighs the White House’s privilege claim.
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