Privilege and Prerogative

I took this picture of 666 Folsom Street, San Francisco, in 1997, when I worked there.

Later on, the building became notorious for housing, in an entire secure floor cheerfully furnished by your friends at AT&T, a National Security Administration computer network which to this second is robo-analyzing Americans' phone and internet traffic. I don't know which floor we're talking about, but I prefer to assume it's the ninth. Since that's where I worked.

My great regret: that I wasn't able to squeeze the huge sign reading 666 into the photo frame.

Post-Scriptum: A flag flown upside-down is the international signal for distress.


Hey Lauryl,

So Bush's Administration did two pretty amazing things this week. First the better-known one: on Friday afternoon he issued a proclamation stating his Justice Department will not pursue contempt-of-congress charges filed against anybody in his administration he chooses to cover with an executive privilege claim.

To explain what that means. As you know, Harriet Miers (Bush's old lawyer) and Joshua Bolten (his current chief of staff) were subpoenaed to testify before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to explain the White House's role in dismissing 7 US Attorneys for what clearly seemed to be political reasons. (ie, they wouldn't prosecute prominent Democrats on dubious bases in the month or two before the November elections when Repubs like Pete Domenici told them to. So they got fired.)

Neither Miers nor Bolten showed up for their testimony. Because Bush told 'em not to.

Now, Congress can actually go one of two ways in holding these two in contempt. They can go the vanilla route, which means filing charges with the US Attorney in DC (you will note that by definition this will be somebody not fired for Bush-Admin. disloyalty. Ironic, yes?). And this is where Bush weighed in on Friday - he said, go ahead and file your contempt charges with my boy in DC if you want; I'm telling him to blow you off just like I told Miers and Bolten to blow you off.

So in addition to being a shameless breach of the constitutional separation of powers, this also implies a pretty doctrinaire, "unitary-executive" attitude toward the Justice Department, which has traditionally been regarded as maintaining some independence from the office of the President. Rather than being regarded as, you know, a gang of paid lackeys.

But be that as it may, it leaves us with Congress' second recourse, which is to make use of a constitutional provision called inherent contempt. This means they don't need to dither around with the executive branch (Justice Department); they can just send out their sergeant at arms to grab the contemptibles and detain them in Capitol Hill.

This would be quite dramatic. Apparently it hasn't been done since the Postmaster General was so-detained in the '30s.

But I have my doubts that Conyers and Leahy will follow through.

***

Allright, here's the less-known (and potentially more disturbing) thing. Tuesday Bush issued an executive order saying that any "US persons" who "undermin(e) efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq" can have all their assets seized.

What the hell does that mean? Who the hell knows? It could mean just about anything. I posted a picture of a roll of George W. Bush toilet paper last week - does that count? I guess it could, if you wanted it to. Undermining is in the eye of the seizer.

Now pair this with Bush's earlier executive order of May (NSPD 51) - in which he claims broad powers over all aspects and assets of the Federal government in the case of a disaster or emergency - and your head starts to spin. Because these executive orders could be followed out in a way altogether salutary to the American public and exemplificative of a measured response to exigency in a time of war. Or they could be used to annihilate the conventions of American democracy in favor of perpetual despotism.

You know. It's one of those things that could go either way.

Russ Feingold is about to introduce a censure resolution in the Senate (he already tried this once, and it went nowhere). And that's great, but as I was saying week before last, what we unequivocally need is an impeachment here. These sorts of abuses of power cannot be allowed to sediment into precedent. Because if they do, for God's sake - whatever will become of us when another Clinton is in the White House?

I refer to Chelsea, of course. She's a real constitutional hellion.