 |
|
May
21, 2002 11:25 a.m.
Lieberman
v. Bush
A
Democratic presidential contender launches a new campaign against
the White House.
|
|
 nless
some sort of last-minute compromise is reached, tomorrow morning Sen.
Joseph Lieberman's Governmental Affairs Committee will vote to send a
wide-ranging subpoena to the Bush White House for information about the
administration's contacts with Enron. It will be the second time in a
week that Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2000
and a possible presidential contender in 2004, has issued a direct challenge
to George W. Bush. (On Monday, Lieberman became the first potential candidate
to call for a delay in the president's tax cuts.)
The subpoena — which
will have the support of every Democrat on the committee, and most likely
a Republican or two as well — represents a significant escalation
in Lieberman's conflict with the president. That battle began on March
27, when Lieberman sent a letter to the White House asking for information
about Enron contacts. The White House at first questioned Lieberman's
request, saying it was "overbroad," and then complied in part
by distributing a questionnaire to employees in the Executive Office of
the President who might have had contacts with Enron. That was not enough
for Lieberman, who criticized the White House's efforts as inadequate
and coming too late to provide information for hearings planned for this
summer.
On May 3, Lieberman sent a
sharply worded letter to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, saying
the administration's response had been "unacceptable." (See
"The
Enron Showdown," NRO, May 7) "I am deeply disappointed that
you have chosen to employ an overly complicated and unduly long process
that seems destined to produce an inadequate response to the committee's
reasonable request," Lieberman wrote. The letter included a veiled
but unmistakable threat that if the White House did not respond quickly,
Lieberman would issue a subpoena.
Last Thursday, Gonzales sent
Lieberman a letter saying the White House has undertaken several new measures
to find information for him, and that the information would be sent to
him shortly. "We should be able to provide relevant information to
the committee in a time frame consistent with that identified by your
staff in the April 11 meeting — namely, during the month of May,"
Gonzales wrote. "In my judgment, we have taken reasonable steps in
response to the committee's request."
But Gonzales did not guarantee
that Lieberman would be given everything he requested, and the next day,
Friday, Lieberman announced that he was still not satisfied. "Your
most recent communication has forced me to conclude that...the committee
cannot reasonably expect to receive the information sought in its March
27 request at any time in the near future," Lieberman wrote to Gonzales.
"Having reached that conclusion, I regret that I have no choice but
to seek authority from the committee to issue a subpoena to the Executive
Office of the President."
A Lieberman aide says the
senator is unhappy with the White House for several reasons. One, the
aide says the White House still has not offered to look into communications
between Enron and the president and the vice president. Two, the White
House has not queried former administration employees who were involved
in energy matters. And three, the aide says, even though the White House
has agreed to search for Enron-related information, it has not agreed
to turn it over to the committee. "Gonzales said they were doing
all they can to provide relevant information," says the aide.
"The senator feels like it's not up to the White House to determine
relevant information. He asked for responsive information."
Finally, the aide says the White House has simply been too slow to respond:
"It's clear that their entire method was to drag this out as long
as possible. It's been eight weeks and there's been zero information."
The move left some in the
White House taken aback. After all, eight weeks, in this kind of investigation,
is not a terribly long time. And Gonzales promised to give Lieberman information
during May, which still has ten more days to go. Why would Lieberman go
nuclear so quickly, not even waiting until the end of the month? "We
were pretty surprised," says a White House source. "We have
worked with his staff, we have been doing a tremendous amount of work
to gather information, we were expecting to give it to them this week,
and then boom! — there's this subpoena threat."
Lieberman's aggressiveness
has led some to speculate that he wants a confrontation with the White
House. "They clearly want the issue," says a White House source.
"They seem to want the issue more than they actually want to get
the information." Adds a Capitol Hill Republican: "He's looking
for a confrontation. The White House has genuinely been interested in
trying to reach some kind of accommodation."
It's an accusation that Lieberman
aides deny — "Anybody who knows Senator Lieberman knows that
he is not confrontational," says one — but there is no denying
that a confrontation has indeed come. And there is no way to know how
it will be resolved. The Lieberman subpoena is in some ways a more serious
challenge to the White House than the current lawsuit over the General
Accounting Office's demand for information relating to Vice President
Dick Cheney's energy task force. In that case, the White House has argued
that the GAO simply does not have the legal authority to force the White
House to give up such information. But the administration appears to be
on less solid ground in an argument with a Senate committee. In the end,
the White House might have to either give up the information or claim
that it is covered by executive privilege, which could lead to an even
bigger legal fight with no sure outcome.
Either way, the story has
become Joe Lieberman versus the White House. And it is perhaps telling
that it has come to a turning point now. All this week, Senate Democrats
are celebrating the one-year anniversary of Sen. James Jeffords's party
switch that gave them control of the Senate. Jeffords's defection has
profoundly affected the Bush administration in a variety of areas, from
the president's legislative agenda to his ability to have his judicial
nominations confirmed by the Senate. But Lieberman's showdown with the
White House is yet another effect of Jeffords's move. The party switch
gave a committee chairmanship — and the subpoena power that goes
with it — to one of the president's potential rivals in 2004. And
no matter what the White House does, Lieberman appears to be in a hurry
to use it.
|
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
