SIDEBAR: A Stalling Scorecard

By Matthew Blake 3/10/08 4:36 PM

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Charles Tiefer, former deputy counsel of the House of Representatives, says that when the Democrats took over Congress in January 2007, it "woke up after falling asleep" on its duty of administration oversight. Tiefer served between 1984 to 1995, advising a Democratic House during investigations into Presidents Ronald Reagan’s and George H.W. Bush’s involvement in Iran-Contra, as well as the start of the investigation into President Bill Clinton’s Whitewater land deal.

Teifer noted that the GOP-controlled Congress had worked hand-in-glove with a Republican White House for the Bush administration’s first six years. "It was a characteristic of the unified Republican Party under President Bush," said Tiefer, who is now a law professor at the University of Baltimore. "When the Democrats won, there was a pent-up expectation that Congress would turn up some big rocks."

More than a year later, the rocks have barely budged. The connecting thread in the overwhelming number of congressional investigations is the administration’s response.

"What’s going on now is a deliberate policy decision as opposed to a case-by-case refusal," said Stephen Hess, an aide for Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon and Reagan, who is now senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The past week provides a window in the administration’s arguably strategic response to oversight.

Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, reiterated his request for what the State Dept. knows about <a title="corruption inside the Iraqi government" href="http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=228339" id="jywi">corruption inside the Iraqi government</a> of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. Waxman separately asked Rice about the construction <a title="problems" href="../../../view/hearing-u-s" id="p6d2">problems</a> plaguing the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, including alleged slave labor conditions inflicted by State Dept. contractor First Kuwaiti.

The oversight committee <a title="first requested" href="http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1779" id="z3wf">first requested</a> the Maliki documents in October and it has been asking for information on the First Kuwaiti contract since July. The committee also continues at loggerheads with the State Dept. on <a title="multiple probes" href="http://oversight.house.gov/investigations.asp?id=203" id="zhx1">multiple probes</a> involving private contractors in Iraq — including their investigation into the security company Blackwater.

While Rice deals or doesn’t deal with Iraq, Stephen Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is responding at his own pace to scrutiny over the Bush Administration’s environmental decisions.

The Senate Environment and Public Works committee has run into a wall ascertaining why Johnson is not following through on the Supreme Court’s decision last may, <a title="Massachusetts v. E.P.A." href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040200487.html" id="lwjt">Massachusetts v. E.P.A.</a>, that said the agency must regulate greenhouse gases.

Johnson also has been <a title="largely mum" href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/01/todays_must_read_261.php" id="hvjs">largely mum</a> about whether the White House pressured him not to grant a waiver to California so they could do their own regulation of greenhouse gases. Waxman’s committee is <a title="still waiting" href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071116163703.pdf" id="z0tp">still waiting</a> for documents from the EPA, White House and the Dept. of Transportation on the reasons behind Johnson not granting the waiver.

Much attention has also focused on the White House’s refusal to disclose its level of involvement in the <a title="Justice Department’s dismissal of several U.S. Attorneys" href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/usa-timeline.php" id="kl-q">Justice Dept.’s dismissal of several U.S. attorneys</a>. Claiming executive privilege, Bush has <a title="repeatedly implored" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/01/AR2008030100528.html?nav=hcmodule" id="tcvu">repeatedly implored</a> his Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers not to cooperate with subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary Committee. Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey said he will not seek contempt charges against Miers and Bolten, because they were merely cooperating with the president’s directives.

Mukasey is also <a title="refusing to hand over legal memorandums" href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/usa-timeline.php" id="fb::">refusing to hand over legal memorandums</a> on what interrogation techniques the C.I.A. used on suspected terrorists. The House and Senate Judiciary Committee’s are trying to determine the extent to which the C.I.A used waterboarding and other methods considered torture under the Geneva Conventions. They are also inquiring into the <a title="destruction of videotapes" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17021550" id="kpmf">destruction of videotapes</a> that showed the CIA’s harsh interrogation tactics used on Al Qaeda operatives.

Another story — actually a multivolume book — can provide a complete rundown of all this administration’s stalled investigations. Others that at least bear mention include <a title="missing White House e-mails" href="../../../view/white-house-frozen" id="cqyg">missing White House e-mails</a>, Bush’s <a title="refusal to turn over interviews" href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1207/Waxman_asks_Mukasey_to_help_secure_CIA_leak_records.html" id="g0rd">refusal to turn over interviews</a> related to the Valerie Plame investigation and <a title="FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina" href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080214113806.pdf" id="lg5g">FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina</a>. Even the <a title="probe" href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071031105022.pdf" id="ukae">probe</a> into what ties the president had with disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff is still missing key documents.

"They’ve taken such a cavalier attitude to cooperating with Congress," said Robert McElvaine, a presidential historian at Milsapps College who has written books about Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt. "It would take a lot to get the Bush administration attention.

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