all hail king bush

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December 14, 2001

 

Bush Makes Justice Papers Secret

 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Filed at 8:48 a.m. ET

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Since taking office, President Bush has sent a clear message

to Congress: Some sensitive information Capitol Hill lawmakers have been used to

getting will be off limits.

 

Bush sent the most powerful part of the message Thursday when he invoked

executive privilege to protect the confidentiality of prosecutorial documents

Congress has often received in the past.

 

Kept out of lawmakers' hands are documents pertaining to the FBI's handling of

mob informants in Boston in the 1960s and the Clinton-era fund-raising probe of

the 1990s.

 

" This is the beginning of a real constitutional confrontation, " said Rep.

William Delahunt, D-Mass. " I think they ran into the wrong chairman, the wrong

committee and maybe the wrong Congress. "

 

The House Government Reform Committee chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., had

subpoenaed the Boston material.

 

" I think it's just a power grab " and " a clever maneuver politically, " Catholic

University political science professor Mark Rozell said of the president

rebuffing congressional demands.

 

After a prolonged battle, Attorney General Janet Reno turned over much material

to the Republican-led Congress from the fund-raising investigation of the

Clinton campaign of 1996.

 

The Bush White House's strategy is " to make a sharp turn to get them back " to

where the Republicans think the privilege should properly be, said St. John's

University law professor John Barrett.

 

Rozell said it is disturbing that the White House takes the position that a

dispute involving a prosecutorial matter is automatically resolved in the

executive's favor.

 

The Justice Department almost always withholds materials from Congress in

ongoing investigations, but in closed probes the need for secrecy is greatly

reduced.

 

Withholding information from Congress has become a White House habit.

 

The president didn't bother to consult the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman

before disclosing his plan for military tribunals. Since last spring, Vice

President Dick Cheney has been refusing to disclose his secret energy meetings

with power industry executives and lobbyists.

 

Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Grassley questions Bush's position

that access to the Justice Department documents would be contrary to the

national interest.

 

" Anything that limits legitimate congressional oversight is very worrisome, "

Grassley said. " This move needs to be carefully scrutinized, particularly in an

atmosphere where Congress is giving the Justice Department additional powers and

authority. "

 

At a hearing before Burton's committee, Justice Department criminal division

chief of staff Michael Horowitz argued keeping deliberative documents away from

Congress would " insulate career line prosecutors and their internal

deliberations from political pressure. "

 

" What you have said is extraordinarily insulting, " responded Rep. Christopher

Shays, R-Conn.

 

" We all think this is stonewalling. It's a terrible, terrible precedent to set, "

Burton said. " We might be able to go to the (House) floor and take this thing to

court. "

 

The full House, controlled by Republicans, would have to vote to find Bush in

contempt to start such a court battle.

 

" The point is if you have corruption in the Justice Department and you let an

executive decision stand, you can't root out corruption, " Burton said. " This is

not a monarchy. "

 

In the Boston case being examined by the committee, Joseph Salvati spent 30

years in prison for a murder he did not commit, even though the FBI had evidence

of his innocence.

 

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Reporter Melissa Robinson in Washington contributed to this

report.

 

(In accordance