Font Size: 
Rove, Miers to Testify in Probe of U.S. Attorney Firings
Legal Times
March 05, 2009
Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in connection with a congressional investigation into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys, according to an agreement announced Wednesday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.
The agreement ends a long-running feud between the House of Representatives and former President George W. Bush over the executive's power to shield current and former aides from congressional subpoenas. It also allows the Obama administration to avoid taking a position in a sensitive separation-of-powers case that would have been cemented as precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Rove and Miers "will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury," according to a statement put out by Conyers' office. The committee also reserves the right to have them testify publicly, and the parties agreed that "invocations of official privileges would be significantly limited," the statement said.
Bush had asserted that his former aides were absolutely immune to congressional subpoenas, meaning they didn't even have to show up to committee hearings to assert executive privilege. Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the claim last year, after the House of Representatives filed a lawsuit against Miers and Bush's former Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for documents and testimony related to the firings. The lawsuit also implicated Rove, who ignored congressional subpoenas to testify about the firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
Bates' ruling will stand, but the Bush administration's appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will die there. The Justice Department and House filed a joint motion Wednesday night to put off the briefing schedule until after the terms of the agreement have been met, at which point the parties will move to dismiss the appeal.
White House Counsel Gregory Craig; Bush's lawyer, Emmet Flood; and House General Counsel Irvin Nathan were at the bargaining table for weeks, as the Justice Department pressed the D.C. Circuit for more time to allow the parties to reach a political solution. The Justice Department's initial brief was originally due on Feb. 18, but the court granted a two-week extension.
As part of the agreement, Bush will also have to turn over White House documents relevant to the probe, and depending on what the committee finds, it may also have the right to depose William Kelley, a former White House lawyer who was involved in the firings.
"This is a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight," Conyers said in the statement. "I am determined to have it known whether U.S. Attorneys in the Department of Justice were fired for political reasons, and if so, by whom.”
White House Counsel Gregory Craig said in a statement that "the President is pleased that the parties have agreed to resolve this matter amicably."
He called the agreement "the product of a tremendous amount of hard work, patience, and flexibility on both sides."
Days before leaving office, Bush had White House Counsel Fred Fielding send letters to Rove, Miers and Bolten, instructing them to continue to ignore congressional demands for information about anything they did while at the White House. Rove has said he was not opposed to testifying, but was bound by Bush's order.
Rove's lawyer, Patton Boggs' Robert Luskin, said the agreement was "good news."
"Mr. Rove has consistently maintained that he would not assert any personal privileges to refuse to appear or testify, but was required to follow the direction of the President on matters of executive privilege," Luskin said in a statement. "Mr. Rove looks forward to addressing the Committee's concerns."
Lawyers for Bush and Miers could not immediately be reached.
This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
