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Leahy blasts White House’s ‘abusive policy of secrecy’ |
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By Klaus Marre
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Posted: 07/11/07 12:19 PM [ET] |
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) blasted the White House for being “contemptuous of the Congress” and said President Bush’s team “has instituted an abusive policy of secrecy aimed at protecting themselves from embarrassment and accountability.” At the onset of a Wednesday hearing on the firing of several U.S. attorneys, Leahy strongly criticized the White House for resorting to the “unprecedented blanket assertion of executive privilege” to keep congressional investigators away from documents and witnesses. At the hearing, former White House political director Sara Taylor was slated to testify about the role political operatives played in the firing of the U.S. attorneys. Leahy accused the White House of “seeking to interfere with the obligations of Ms. Taylor to testify.” Leahy believes that the administration improperly influenced the justice system and “[manipulated] the Justice Department into its own political arm.” “It’s about high-ranking officials misleading Congress and the American people about the political manipulation of justice,” Leahy said. “And along the way, the subversion of the justice system has included lying, misleading and stonewalling the Congress in our attempts to find out what happened.” |
