Waxman issues subpoenas for Bush, Cheney documents
Documents relate to the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's covert status.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., today subpoenaed the Justice Department for FBI reports of interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney and other documents related to the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's covert status.
The demand for the documents, which were created in an investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, is the latest sign of renewed congressional interest in the Plame outing sparked by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book.
McClellan has said Bush and Cheney encouraged him to defend Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who was convicted of perjury last year and later received a commutation of his sentence from Bush, even though Cheney may have known Libby leaked the information at his behest.
"It would be a major breach of trust if the vice president personally directed Mr. McClellan to mislead the public," Waxman said this month.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., has set a Friday hearing at which McClellan has agreed to testify. Conyers has said McClellan's claim that he was told to vouch for Libby, "if true, could amount to obstruction of justice beyond that for which Mr. Libby has already been convicted."
Waxman first sought the Bush and Cheney interviews last summer. The chairman followed up in a June 3 letter, which sought unredacted versions of Fitzgerald's interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former White House political adviser Karl Rove, Libby, McClellan and former Cheney spokeswoman Cathie Martin. The Justice Department redacted references to conversations with Bush and Cheney from versions it gave the committee.
Keith Nelson, the principal deputy assistant attorney general, said in a June 11 letter to Waxman that the agency is withholding the Bush and Cheney interviews due to "serious separation of powers and heightened confidentiality concerns." Department spokesman Peter Carr today said, "We have received the subpoena and are reviewing it."