WH blocking Fitzgerald cooperation in Plame probe.

From Waxman's website:

White House objections are preventing Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald from providing the Oversight Committee with records from interviews of White House officials taken during his investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity.


Letter to Attorney General Mukasey
July 16, 2007: Letter to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald

From Waxman's letter to Mukasey, this is what he is seeking:

Transcripts, reports, notes, and other documents relating to any interviews outside the presence of the grand jury of any of the following individuals:


• President George W. Bush
• Vice President Dick Cheney
• Andrew Card
• Stephen Hadley
• Karl Rove
• Dan Bartlett
• Scott McClellan

Waxman points out:
The role of the Attorney General is to administer the laws with impartiality. The Justice Department provided the exact same information to Congress during the Clinton Administration. There is no special standard for President Bush that exempts him and his senior advisors from responsible congressional oversight.



Commentary:

This tells you how afraid the White House is of Fitzgerald turning over any documents to Waxman. What the White House forgotten is that both Bush and Cheney had attorneys with them and neither one of them were under oath when questioned by Fitzgerald (Bush gave a 70 minute interview with Fitzgerald on June 24, 2004). Therefore, Cheney and Bush can't be charged by Fitzgerald or Waxman for perjury. Of course, Rove went to the grand jury 5 times. Rove's testimony to the grand jury can be a problem for the White House. However, their testimonies would raise more questions to Waxman for an investigation. In additionally, this will raise questions and actions to Waxman to request a Special Prosecutor in an investigation as Fitzgerald's investigation in the CIA Leak case was about a White House conspiracy to oust a CIA covert officer in order to punish and discredit Joe Wilson. Fitzgerald said in his closing arguments in the Libby trial that "a dark cloud is under Dick Cheney." To recap back to an article that I wrote back in 2006 on Newsinkling.org, Here is an excerpt:

Bush: Center of the Intelligence Leak

Written by Biloxi
Freitag, 07 Juli 2006

We now know what exactly Bush told Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald in a 70 minute interview on June 24, 2004. Murray Waas of the National Journal published an article on July 3, 2006 about the leak case. According to Waas’ article, President Bush told Fitzgerald that he directed Vice-President Cheney “to disclose highly classified intelligence information to discredit Wilson and defend his administration.”

What is interesting is that Jason Leopold from Truthout.org reported similar yet different information in his April 6, 2006 article. Once again, the media and other journalists are asleep at the wheel in information. This is an interesting spin from Jason's article. In his article, four attorneys had read a transcript of Bush's interview with the investigators.
After the attorneys read the transcript, they said that Bush didn't disclose to either investigators or to Pat Fitzgerald that he had authorized Cheney or any other official to leak classified documents to any reporters. Yet, they said that Bush "frowned upon ‘selective leaks'". More on Newsinkling.

On a side note: Waxman stated that "To date, however, Mr. Fitzgerald has been frustrated in his attempts to transmit documents relating to White House officials to the Committee."