House panel votes to cite Rove for contempt

By LAURIE KELLMAN – 46 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel Wednesday voted to cite former top
White House aide Karl Rove for contempt of Congress as its Senate
counterpart publicly pursued possible punishments for an array of
alleged past and present Bush administration misdeeds.
Voting
along party lines, the House Judiciary Committee said that Rove had
broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations
of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether
Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.
The committee
decision is only a recommendation, and it was unclear whether Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would allow a final vote. Rove has denied any
involvement with Justice decisions, and the White House has said
Congress has no authority to compel testimony from current and former
advisers.
The vote occurred as members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee held a hearing on allegations of administration wrongdoing
ranging from discriminating against liberals at Justice to ignoring
subpoenas and lying to Congress.
Rove has denied any involvement
with Justice decisions, and the White House has said Congress has no
authority to compel testimony from current and former advisers.
The
Senate proceedings were the latest congressional review of the White
House, a constitutionally mandated power that majority Democrats are
eager to use. But three months from Election Day, a lame-duck Congress
conducting oversight of a lame-duck White House produces mostly talk.
There's little time and less willingness to spend the remaining five
weeks of the congressional session doing more than holding televised
hearings to try to convince voters that President Bush has abused the
powers of his office.
The allegations certainly are serious.
Justice
Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, who reported this week that
former department officials broke the law by letting Bush
administration politics dictate the hiring of prosecutors, immigration
judges and career government lawyers, was among the witnesses to appear
Wednesday before the Senate panel.
Fine said his office and
Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility are investigating the
prosecutor firings and whether Bradley Schlozman, former head of the
department's Civil Rights Division, used political or ideological
criteria to make hiring decisions.
Under questioning by Sen.
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's senior Republican, Fine said
he uncovered no evidence that any Justice officials involved made false
statements to Congress or violated criminal law. Politicization of the
hiring process for career positions is a violation of civil law and
department policy, he said.
The Senate probe sprang from
Justice's firings of nine federal prosecutors that sparked
congressional investigations last year and led to the resignation of
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
House and Senate Democrats
said the findings affirmed their contention that career Justice
employees were hired and fired based on whether they were deemed
sufficiently conservative, a violation of law. House Judiciary
Committee Chairman John Conyers said he was considering bringing
criminal charges against some of the former officials named in Fine's
report who may have lied to his committee. Lying to Congress is a
crime, but there's little agreement among Democrats on whether a
perjury referral against some of the officials is warranted.
But
one Republican acknowledged there's reason to look more closely. And
everyone wants more answers by the Department of Justice. The question
is what will be done now in the twilight of the 110th Congress and the
Bush presidency.
"I'm glad to see Attorney General (Michael)
Mukasey asking to change these practices," Specter said earlier. "I'd
like to see frankly a very forceful statement out of the Department of
Justice as to what they intend to do."
Committee Chairman Patrick
Leahy called the report's findings that "cronyism was valued over
competence" and "affirmative action of the worst kind."
"The
question is what Attorney General Mukasey and the president do about it
to provide accountability?" the Vermont Democrat said.
Some
Democrats skipped right to thinking what can be done starting in
January, after a new president and Congress are installed, probably
with more Democrats in their ranks.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,
who led the investigation into the prosecutor firings, is pressing Fine
to say whether making such a disregard of civil service rules a crime
would deter the kind of conduct his investigation uncovered.
Similar legislation will be considered in the House.
"I
will be asking Chairman Conyers to consider legislation to ensure that
the politicization of hiring of career employees at the Justice
Department never happens again," Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said
in a statement.