The White House threatened Wednesday to withdraw its offer to let Congress question West Wing officials if Democrats issue subpoenas they authorized in the prosecutor purge flap.
“If they issue subpoenas, yes, the offer is withdrawn,” White House Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters.
“This is the final offer?” a reporter asked. “This is it?”
“Yes,” Snow replied.
Earlier in the day, a House subcommittee voted to authorize subpoenas for White House political adviser Karl Rove and other presidential aides. A Senate panel was scheduled to hold a similar vote today, although neither chamber has actually issued subpoenas.
“There is an important distinction between authorizing subpoenas and issuing them,” Snow said. “And we hope members of Congress, as they have an opportunity to think this through, are going to realize that they’ve got a deal before then that enables them to find out what the truth is.”
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Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, summarized Snow’s position as “take it or leave it.”
“That’s basically the attitude they have taken for six years because they had a rubber-stamp Congress,” the Vermont Democrat told MSNBC. “The Republicans controlled the House and they controlled the Senate and nobody dared say anything about it. They haven’t caught up to the fact that that has changed.”
Democrats, who took control of Congress in January, want to question Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and their deputies about the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department. President Bush has emphasized he has the right to hire and fire appointees, but Democrats said the prosecutors were terminated for overly political reasons.
The administration has offered to make Justice Department officials available for public testimony before Congress. They have also turned over 3,000 pages of Justice e-mails and offered to let lawmakers question Rove and Miers privately, with no recordings or transcripts of the sessions. If no agreement can be reached. it could provoke a constitutional crisis.
If the Democrats defy the White House by issuing the subpoenas, Bush is expected to assert executive privilege, which could eventually send the dispute to the Supreme Court.
