WASHINGTON, July 11 — President Bush has told his former White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, not to even appear on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firings of United States attorneys, the committee chairman said today.
Sara Taylor, President Bush's former political director, testifying in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today.
Representative John D. Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who heads the panel, said he was told in a letter dated Tuesday from Ms. Miers’s lawyer that she would not appear. Mr. Conyers said the lawyer was reacting to a letter from Fred F. Fielding, the current White House counsel, asserting that “Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled Congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president.”
Mr. Conyers said he was “extremely disappointed” at the White House’s stance, and he hoped that Ms. Miers might appear despite Mr. Bush’s assertion of executive privilege to keep her away from the hearing. It had been expected that Ms. Miers would appear and would decline to answer certain questions.
The White House’s defiance of a subpoena from Mr. Conyers’s panel intensified a showdown between the executive and legislative branches and could portend a court battle, unless a political compromise can be reached.
The disclosure that the White House wants to keep Ms. Miers from appearing came hours after the former White House political director declined to answer senators’ questions about the firings of the United States attorneys last year and expressed personal remorse about one dismissal.
The former political director, Sara M. Taylor, honored President Bush’s invocation of executive privilege, as she had been expected to do, in a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Who decided which U.S. attorneys to fire, and why were they fired?” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, asked in an exchange with Ms. Taylor that was typical of the questioning.
When Ms. Taylor offered a somewhat rambling reply, saying she was doing her best to follow the president’s assertion of privilege and “determine what is a deliberation and what is a fact-based question,” Ms. Feinstein cut her off.
“You decline to answer,” the senator said.
“Yeah,” the witness replied.
United States attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. But the dismissals of the eight federal prosecutors last year ignited a controversy because of accusations that at least some of them may have been let go because, in the eyes of some Bush administration loyalists, they were too aggressive in going after Republicans or not aggressive enough in pursuing Democrats.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the committee, said at the outset that the White House had declined to answer questions about the dismissals because it was “contemptuous of the Congress.”
Ms. Taylor, 32, expressed contrition when Ms. Feinstein brought up an e-mail message that Ms. Taylor sent in February to D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, in which Ms. Taylor said H. E. Cummins III was being removed as United States attorney in Arkansas because he was “lazy.”
“What led you to conclude that Mr. Cummins was lazy?” Ms. Feinstein asked.
“That was an unnecessary comment,” Ms. Taylor replied, “and I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Cummins. It was unkind, and it was unnecessary.” She added that she had heard that Mr. Cummins was lazy. “That may not be fair,” she went on, apologizing again for any embarrassment she had caused.
The dismissal of Mr. Cummins has been of considerable interest to senators, since he was replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a former aide to Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political adviser. Ms. Taylor described Mr. Griffin as a lawyer of impeccable credentials and integrity.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Republican, pressed Ms. Taylor on whether, in fact, Mr. Cummins was forced out to make room for Mr. Griffin. The witness said she was not certain.
In any event, she said, the dismissal of Mr. Cummins was particularly unfortunate, she said, because he had been planning to leave his post anyhow. “Obviously, we’re sitting here today because this whole situation has been awkwardly handled,” she said.
Ms. Taylor said she had never discussed the firings with President Bush himself. “I know the president to be a good and decent man,” she said in her opening remarks. “I am privileged to have had the opportunity to serve him, and I admire his unflinching devotion to always do what he believes is right for the country.”
When Mr. Specter asked her if Mr. Rove or Ms. Miers had personally intervened in the replacement of Mr. Cummins, Ms. Taylor said, “I don’t specifically know. I don’t, I don’t know for sure if one or both or either did.”
Despite their occasional annoyance over questions that went unanswered, the senators seemed to sympathize with Ms. Taylor on a personal level. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said he thought that “Karl Rove should be sitting at this table, not Sara Taylor.”
Committee members were exasperated, but not surprised, as Ms. Taylor honored Mr. Bush’s invocation of executive privilege. She pledged in a written statement to be silent about “White House consideration, deliberations, or communications, whether internal or external, relating to the possible dismissal or appointment of United States attorneys.” Those parameters were set forth in a letter to Ms. Taylor’s lawyer, W. Neil Eggleston, from the White House counsel, Mr. Fielding.
Ms. Taylor acknowledged in the statement that differences may emerge about what falls under Mr. Fielding’s parameters and that “this may be frustrating to you and me.”
In her statement, Ms. Taylor portrays herself as caught in the middle of a Constitutional clash between Congressional committees seeking answers in the attorney firings and the president, who is accusing them of interfering with his right to private counsel.
In her written testimony, Ms. Taylor said she would not take it upon herself to disobey the president’s request during today’s hearing but said she would defer to the courts if it came to that in the future.
“While I may be unable to answer certain questions today,” Ms. Taylor’s opening statement read, “I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee’s need for the information outweighs the president’s assertion of executive privilege.”
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