Today's New York Times lays out the case for former Bush staffers, Rove, Miers and Bolten, to provide answers to Congress.  The Bush administration prevented that testimony under the ruse of executive privilege.  The Obama administration needs to end that charade.  CREW filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit against Miers and Bolten brought by the House Judiciary Committee.  Under the House rules, that lawsuit has been continued.  The subpoenas are still valid -- and must be enforced:

There is no doubt that laws were broken, but the extent of the illegality is not known. It is still not clear who ordered nine United States attorneys fired to advance a partisan agenda. And a whistle-blower has charged that Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor who was convicted on dubious corruption charges, was railroaded, and that Mr. Rove was behind the prosecution.

Mr. Rove argues that he is protected by executive privilege. Such privilege is narrow. It applies mainly to communications closely tied to the president and must yield when prosecutors have a strong need for information about a possible crime. His claim is particularly weak because many of the communications he would be asked about do not involve the president. There is also evidence that crimes were committed at the highest ranks of government. He is no longer a presidential aide.

Mr. Rove is not the only Bush aide defying Congress. Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the former White House chief of staff, are also refusing to answer valid subpoenas.

Mr. Bush encouraged their resistance. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama was skeptical of sweeping claims of executive privilege. We hope that he will show the same skepticism now that he is in the White House. The scandals of the Bush Justice Department will not be put to rest until all of Mr. Bush’s aides who have been subpoenaed provide Congress with the information it needs, in public and under oath.

The new session of Congress convenes today.  Via Glenn Thrush at Politico, we learn that new rules being enacted today insure the continuation of the lawsuits brought to compel testimony of top Bush administration officials, Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten.  CREW filed an amicus brief in support of the House Judiciary Committee's effort to compel that testimony: 

Republicans are up in arms about the Democrats' scrapping of committee term limits and rules changes that will weaken the minority's ability to block bills.

But our Patrick O'Connor points out that they ain't complaining (yet) about a lower-profile provision calling for the continuation of lawsuits against Bush administration officials Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten.

In May, the House Judiciary Committee, joined by a coalition of former U.S. attorneys, sued to enforce subpoenas requiring Miers and Bolten to testify about their actions in the hiring and firing of federal prosecutors. President Bush had instructed both to defy the call to appear.

The Bush administration is requesting a stay of the decision in the case of Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers.   Last week, a federal district court judge determined that the claim of executive privilege did not prevent high level staffers from testifying before Congress.  The Bush team is appealing -- as they try to run out the clock:

Despite a court ruling last week rejecting its claim of executive privilege, the White House still rebuffs congressional subpoenas for chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers.

The two on Thursday requested that federal District Judge John Bates stay the ruling until the case is appealed. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), White House counsel Fred Fielding said the administration would await the outcome of its appeal before “entertaining any requests for Mr. Bolten’s compliance with the Senate Judiciary subpoena.”

Fielding also noted that any request for testimony from former White House adviser Karl Rove would produce the same response.

As mentioned in the post below, a Federal District Court Judge heard arguments today in the case, Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers.  The first reports from the hearing are coming out:

House counsel Irvin Nathan said Democrats were forced to file suit because the White House was stonewalling and obfuscating.

“Not only doesn’t [the Judiciary Committee] have the facts from the White House, it has false and misleading facts from members of the Department of Justice,” Nathan said during hearing.

But Carl Nichols, the principal deputy associate attorney general, who argued the case for the White House, said Democrats in Congress failed to negotiate in a reasonable way. He also said they had alternatives to filing suit. They could have arrested Bolten and Miers and jailed them in a cell in the Capitol complex built for holding people in contempt of Congress.

He also said Congress could have decided to withhold Justice Department appropriations or refused to pass judicial nominations.

“They could have said, ‘We’re not going to exercise these powers,’ ” Nichols asserted.

For the record, it was Tom DeLay who had similar idea in mind for CREW's Melanie Sloan:

It wasn't long before Tom DeLay got to know Sloan by name, at one point asking the House Rules Committee to hold crew in contempt of Congress for its role in helping draft an ethics complaint against him in 2004. "I thought, 'This will be great—they can lock me in the basement of the Capitol,'" Sloan recalls.

Last month, CREW, with three other organizations, filed a friend of the Court brief in the executive privilege case, Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers.  The lawsuit, brought by the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, seeks to "compel Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers to comply with subpoenas issued by the Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys."

As reported last night, yesterday CREW, along with three other groups (Rutherford Institute, Judicial Watch and the Brennan Center) filed a friend of the court brief supporting the House Judiciary Committee’s efforts to compel former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to comply with congressional subpoenas. Our amicus brief can be found here. Also, the Associated Press reported that a bi-partisan group of 20 former U.S. Attorneys also filed an amicus brief in this case.

The Judiciary Committee is investigating whether the White House and top Justice Department officials fired U.S. Attorneys because of their refusal to give in to partisan political considerations in their decisions on who to prosecute. The White House has taken the extreme and unprecedented position that Miers and Bolten are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas, meaning that according to the White House they are free to ignore the subpoenas at the unilateral and unreviewable decision of the president. In the lawsuit, the White House has argued that the Court cannot and should not even hear the matter.

CREW joined with the other groups, who represent a broad spectrum of interests, in arguing that the checks and balances that are so fundamental to our democracy require that the court hear and resolve the case. The President’s actions have prevented Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibility to investigate very serious allegations of executive wrong-doing and to consider a possible legislative fix. Dismissing the case will only reward the White House for its intransigence and create a perverse incentive to never comply with a congressional request for information, secure in the knowledge that the courts will not intervene to protect Congress’ legitimate constitutional interests.

As a watchdog group that frequently relies on the courts to act as a check on unlawful executive branch conduct, CREW is especially interested in ensuring that courts remain available to resolve these kinds of disputes. As CREW explained in the brief, it has experienced a disturbing trend away from government openness that includes an effort by the White House to thwart groups like CREW from using the courts to resolve claims of executive misconduct.

From Think Progress, via AP, comes this latest development in the US Attorneys scandal:

The House Judiciary Committee has filed suit to force former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten to provide information about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

The lawsuit filed in federal court Monday says Miers is not immune from the obligation to testify and both she and Bolten must identify all documents that are being withheld from Congress. […]

The U.S. House of Representatives upped the ante today in its on-going investigation of the scandal surrounding the fired U.S. Attorneys. Contempt resolutions against top Bush aides Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers passed:

The House voted Thursday to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys.

Ahead of the vote, Republicans had walked out in an effort to show that they want to work on a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rather than be part of a “partisan fishing expedition,” as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) put it.

The contempt vote raises the stakes between the White House and Congress in the battle over the fired U.S. attorneys and could set up a constitutional showdown between the legislative and executive branches.

The matter will now be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

The House Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against top Bush administration officials, Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers, for refusing to testify in about the firings of the U.S. Attorneys. While a vote was expected early this year, that vote has been delayed in the spirit of bi-partisanship:

House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.

Two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter (PA) and Charles Grassley (IA) joined all the Democrats on that panel to approve contempt citations against top Bush aides, Josh Bolten and Karl Rove:

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted for a contempt citation against presidential confidants Karl Rove and Josh Bolten on Thursday, the latest move in an inquiry into possibly politically motivated firings of federal prosecutors. 

The 12-7 vote sent the citation against the two to the full Senate, but it was not certain to advance further.

Rove, the architect of President Bush's two campaigns for the White House, and Bolten, the president's chief of staff, have refused to comply with subpoenas demanding testimony and documents in the congressional probe.

Rove, who recently left government, and Bolten claim the information Congress demands is off-limits under executive privilege. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate dispute that.

The Senate Judiciary Committee vote means that contempt citations against Bush administration officials await floor action in both chambers of Congress.