Democrats seek perjury investigation of Gonzales, subpoena Rove
Statesman
By Ken Herman
WASHINGTON BUREAU
July 27, 2007

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Thursday called for a special prosecutor to launch a perjury investigation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and subpoenaed White House political adviser Karl Rove.

The moves against two of President Bush's longest-tenured confidantes raised the temperature in what already was a heated political battle between the Democratic-led Congress and the Republican administration.

The call for an investigation of Gonzales came from Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

The Rove subpoena was sought by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is frustrated by White House claims of executive privilege in refusing to release information concerning last year's firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

The four senators seeking a Gonzales investigation said in their letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement that "it has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements" in congressional testimony.

The requested perjury investigation would center on what the Democrats see as conflicts in Gonzales' testimony on whether administration officials disagreed over Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

Gonzales repeatedly denied Tuesday that the government's terrorist surveillance program was the subject of a confrontation among senior officials when they visited then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in his hospital room in 2004.

However, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday in response to a question by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, that it was.

The National Security Agency had operated the program without court approval until it was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court last January.

But late Thursday, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that Gonzales was referring in his testimony to a separate, "highly classified" operation that hasn't yet been revealed.

"The disagreement that occurred in March 2004 concerned the legal basis for intelligence activities that have not been publicly disclosed and that remain highly classified," Roehrkasse said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow also denied that Mueller had contradicted Gonzales, saying Mueller can make only limited comments in public about the classified program.

"This is the latest in a long line of artful distortions by people who have spent the last six months hurling allegations at the attorney general," Snow said, adding that Mueller's answers referred to "an NSA program" and "not necessarily the program that has been the subject of so much interest."

"There are attempts in Congress to create a public discussion of classified programs. That's inappropriate," he said, adding Bush maintains full confidence in Gonzales.

Jackson Lee had asked Mueller if the heated conversation with Ashcroft had been on a terrorist surveillance program, specifying that she was referring to the NSA warrantless wiretapping. Mueller responded: "The discussion was on a national NSA program that has been much discussed, yes."

Leahy gave Gonzales a week to clear up any contradictions in his testimony.

"I advised him very strongly, as did at least one other member of the committee, that he wants to look at the transcript of what he said and let us know if that is really the answers he wants to stand by," Leahy said on MSNBC.

The Democrats also think Gonzales has lied under oath in response to questions about whether he and other witnesses discussed their testimony about the firing of the federal prosecutors.

"His inability to answer simple and straightforward questions was just stunning," Schumer said, adding, "His instinct is not to tell the truth but to dissemble and deceive."

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the top GOP member of the Judiciary Committee and a Gonzales critic, said he disagreed with the calls for a special prosecutor.

"Senator Schumer's not interested in looking at the record; he's interested in throwing down the gauntlet and making a story in tomorrow's newspapers," Specter said.

In announcing the Rove subpoena, Leahy said, "We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year," Leahy said.

The White House has maintained that there was nothing improper in the way it ousted the prosecutors, who are political appointees.

Leahy's announcement came a day after the House Judiciary Committee voted to ask the House to hold White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress.

The administration cited executive privilege in prohibiting Bolten and Miers from testifying about the prosecutor firings. Leahy also plans to subpoena Bush political aide J. Scott Jennings.

Though the White House insists it has worked to provide Congress with as much information as possible, Leahy said the Bush administration has "stonewalled every request."

Additional material from The Associated Press.

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