July 09, 2007 10:40 PM UTC

Bush Invokes Executive Privilege

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• by: Condor

In an MSNBC story today, they report that “President Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides about the firings of federal prosecutors.

http://www.msnbc.msn…

The White House, however, did offer again to make former counsel Harriet Miers and one-time political director Sara Taylor available for private, off-the-record interviews.

In a letter to the heads of the House and Senate Judiciary panels, White House counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith and refused lawmakers’ demand that the president explain the basis for invoking the privilege….

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers offered a stinging response. “Contrary what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the courts that will decide whether an invocation of executive privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally,” the Michigan Democrat said in a statement…

The probe into the U.S. attorney firings was only one of several Democratic-led investigations of the White House and its use of executive power spanning the war in Iraq, Bush’s secretive wiretapping program and his commutation last week of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence.”

Are the House and Senate Judiciary Committee’s apparent move toward contempt of Congress charges playing into the hands of the Bush Administration?  Contempt proceedings could be stalled in Federal courts until at least 2009 and, therefore, represent only a veiled threat. Why not move to impeach Bush and Cheney now?