Federal Judge appointed by Bush 43 denies claims of immunity to subpoenas

Glenn Greenwald discusses the slap-down that Federal District Judge, John D. Bates of the District of Columbia District Court gave to the Bush administration's clearly illegal assertion that Presidential aides have absolute immunity to Congressional subpoenas. That's a rare win for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

In the Judge's 93 page ruling (.pdf) the claims of immunity to subpoena claimed by the Bush administration for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton were declared to be totally without foundation in either law or case law. Apparently King Bush and his court jester Dick Cheney can't reliably control the lawyers they appoint as federal judges.

As Glenn Greenwald writes:

As part of its investigation, the Judiciary Committee issued Subpoenas to Miers and Bolten in an effort to find out, among other things, who actually made the decision for those U.S. attorneys to be fired. The subpoenas ordered Miers to appear before the Committee in order to testify, and ordered both to produce documents to the Committee. Both Miers and Bolten refused to comply with the Subpoenas. Miers simply failed to show up for her hearing, while Bolten refused to produce the demanded documents. They did so in reliance on the Bush administration‘s claim that both of them, as top-level aides to the President, enjoyed absolute immunity from Congressional subpoenas. It was that extremist theory which the court today rejected -- and rejected decisively and unequivocally.

In unusually strong language, the court pointed out that the President's claim that his aides enjoyed absolute immunity from Congressional investigations was "unprecedented" and "without any support in case law" (p. 3).

Karl Rove's refusal to appear before Congress and answer questions about his role in the railroading of Democratic Governor Don Siegelman is an identical situation to that of Miers and Bolton.