July 9 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush ordered two former aides not to answer questions from Congress about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
The White House conveyed the directive in letters to lawyers for former Counsel Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, the ex-White House political director. Taylor is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in two days. White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Miers's successor, also sent letters to House and Senate lawmakers leading the congressional inquiry informing them of Bush's decision.
``The president feels compelled to assert executive privilege with respect to the testimony sought,'' said Fielding's letter to the lawmakers. He said he was informing attorneys for the two former aides ``of his direction to Ms. Taylor and Mrs. Miers not to provide this testimony.''
Lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives are trying to determine whether the Bush administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year was carried out for improper political motives, such as to stymie probes of Republicans or prompt investigations of Democrats.
The letters were sent to Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate panel, and Michigan Democrat John Conyers, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Conyers said in a statement today he is ``extremely disappointed'' by Bush's decision. ``Contrary to 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,'' he said.
Contempt Citations
Leahy has previously threatened to seek a congressional vote on contempt citations if the White House refused to comply with the requests for documents.
Should lawmakers seek to hold the Bush administration in contempt, it could move the dispute to the courts and spur a constitutional showdown between Bush and the Democratic-led Congress.
``I haven't heard anything from Mr. Fielding or anybody else at the White House that would justify a claim of executive privilege,'' Leahy said yesterday on CNN. He said Taylor ``sent something like 60,000 e-mails on the Republican National Committee account, not e-mails to the president, but political e- mails while she was there.''
In a July 7 letter to Leahy and Fielding, Taylor's lawyer, W. Neil Eggleston, said his client was caught in an ``unseemly tug of war'' between Congress and the president.
`Without Hesitation'
``Absent direction from the White House,'' Taylor, 32, would testify ``without hesitation'' about the firings, her lawyer wrote.
She faces ``two untenable choices,'' Eggleston wrote. ``She can follow the president's direction and face the possibility of a contempt sanction by the Senate'' or put herself ``at odds with the president'' by cooperating with the congressional inquiry, her lawyer wrote.
He urged the Senate to ``direct its sanction'' for any refusal to testify ``against the White House, not against a former staffer.''
George Manning, a partner in the Atlanta office of the Jones Day law firm who represents Miers, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
Fielding also informed the lawmakers of Bush's refusal to provide a detailed list of documents the president considers covered by his assertion of executive privilege. The two lawmakers had demanded the log of documents by today.
``This demand is unreasonable because it represents a substantial incursion into presidential prerogatives'' and ``would impose a burden of very significant proportions,'' Fielding wrote.
Bush has offered to let his aides be questioned behind closed doors without a transcript and with a promise that lawmakers wouldn't issue a subpoena for a follow-up. The congressional panels have rejected those conditions.
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