Harriet Miers did not show up today. What now Rule of Law conservatives?

How many times were administration officials out for the previous president? Remember that one? The Republicans were screaming Rule of Law. Harriet Miers does NOT have executive privilege. Do not even try to argue that one.

Guess what you can't have it both ways. Miers is now capable of being in inherent contempt. Fred Fielding said his client would show up and now she's terrified to show up.

Now I defy you to start chanting rule of law when this administration is lawlessness in so many ways. Smell the coffee you picked a loser of an administration who has corrupted govt beyond belief. You can't run govt if you don't believe in it.

www.tpmmuckraker.com...

Miers Again Refuses to Comply with Congressional Subpoena By Paul Kiel - July 17, 2007, 5:30 PM Former White House counsel Harriet Miers again refused to comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena today, citing executive privilege. The committee had set today as the final deadline for Miers to comply, or else face contempt proceedings. Miers' attorney George Manning sent the letter to Conyers today reiterating her refusal to testify, writing that the committee was asking that "Ms. Miers do precisely what the President has prohibiting her from doing." Manning added that it wasn't Miers' decision: "The Committtee's dispute is not with Ms. Miers, but with the Executive Branch." Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) had this to say: "The subcommittee has overruled Ms. Miers' claims of immunity and privilege. Her failure to comply with our subpoena is a serious affront to this committee and our constitutional system of checks and balances. We are carefully planning our next steps."

[edit on 17-7-2007 by MRGERBIK]

This shouldn't surprise anyone, it is status quo for Bush and Co.. It is getting to be high time that Americans start ooking at the founding fathers and what they said about such Governments.

T. Jefferson suggested a little revolution every once ina while was good for freedom. But as long as we the people let The Government, The Media, and The Law run roughshod over us they will not change.

STAND UP AND TAKE BACK YOUR COUNTRY AMERICANS!!!

Good find OP

Originally posted by theindependentjournal
This shouldn't surprise anyone, it is status quo for Bush and Co.. It is getting to be high time that Americans start ooking at the founding fathers and what they said about such Governments.

T. Jefferson suggested a little revolution every once ina while was good for freedom. But as long as we the people let The Government, The Media, and The Law run roughshod over us they will not change.

STAND UP AND TAKE BACK YOUR COUNTRY AMERICANS!!!

Good find OP

Where to start though? That's the question. When do we know a revolution starts in the days of a docile country? This call your senator and congressmen over and over isn't working. These people are anchored to Lobbyists for every single corporation on the map.

This is all about legally fired attorneys. Attorneys that serve at the pleasure of the President. One attorney was so bad, Diane Fienstein complained about her.

Total fired attorneys in the last 14 years = 104
Clinton 96
Bush 8

All the Democrats want to do is put another Bush official in a position to mistakenly liable himself in a case where no crime was ever committed. Just like the Valerie Plame case.

No crime was committed. Why all these hearings?

Since when do lawyers get so much sympathy anyways? They are lawyers!

This could set the stage for a SCOTUS ruling that could undermine the unitary executive theory.

Mier's is standing on the grounds that her office derives its power from the president who is vested with the powers of the executive branch. The theory goes that Mier's office is technically a manifestation of the office of the POTUS, and thus to attempt to compel her to testify on the grounds of her office is one in the same with attempting to compel the office of the president to testify, which while not explicitly unconstitutional, would violate a very old convention.

The SCOTUS could not convincingly hold that she was being compelled to testify on any basis other than her office, because that would open the door to subpeona the president, not in the context of his office but as an individual, which would be seen as a loophole to separation of powers if executive privilege were held to be a manifestation thereof.

That means that the most obvious grounds on which the SCOTUS could hold that she had to appear would be to hold that her office and power within the executive branch are not linked to that of the president. This would implicitly challenge the popular stance that executive branches cannot sue eachother because it would constitute "the president suing himself" and thus undermine the whole unitary executive theory. This could prove untennable for those with those who take the intent path to the living constitution theory because the whole idea of adopting a "unitary executive" (in the sense of the Virginia Plan) was to render the executive accountable by giving him no other decision makers to hide behind.

A pragmatist on the other hand could rationalize the above with the argument that the originally intended meaning has failed and the president isn't directly accountable anymore, and has to be made accountable through exceptions to the unitary executive principle.

Yet another option is to simply find that the congress is carrying out its constitutional duties and there is no separation of powers issue and therefore there is no textualist or originalist justification for executive privlege in these circumstances. That would render the unitary executive irrelevant and be an easy way to force Miers into the subpeona without rocking the boat too much- they could always come back and find that executive privilege does exist in a thousand other circumstances if need be.

If they found themselves headed in that direction though, they'd consider it a political question and deny certiorari. They probably don't have the votes to kill the unitary executive theory, so they'll probably deny cert.

But still, it would be very interesting for the Bush administration if the case was heard.