BrainGlutton, there is more than one important question here. Ashcroft’s refusal to answer questions could eventually be seen as a balance of power issue and have repercussions well beyond the present. Also, isn’t there the possibility that the Attorney General of the United States is obstructing justice?
I remember another AG that fell from grace. Did John Mitchell do prison time because of Watergate?
Does this mean it’s okay to feed the droll?
Drag her out and shoot her. I’ll swear out the warrant later.
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I remember another AG that fell from grace. Did John Mitchell do prison time because of Watergate?
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Mitchell served 19 months of a 2.5 year sentence. He was also married to Martha Mitchell, which some may have considered a prison sentence in and of itself.
On the contrary: the burden of proof rests with the proponent of the assertion. To claim that Mr. Ashcroft is violating the law, it is necessary to point to the law being violated. I cannot refute the claim, except by linking to the enite United States Code and saying, in essence, “There’s nothing in here that was violated.”
In a legal sense? No. Not on the facts as presented thus far.
In a generic sort of sense of preventing ultimate justice from occurring? Mebbe. You tell me.
Posted too soon. Just wanted to note John Mitchell was not the AG when the Watergate arrests happened. Richard Kleindiest was. Mitchell had moved over to become the chairman of the campaign. In fact, the “cover-up” arguably began when Liddy was told to call Kleindiest and get the Watergate burglars released, saying that “It was a personal request from John [Mitchell].”
Mitchell was the AG during some of the earlier break-ins, as well as during Liddy’s presentation of various plans and schemes. It’s unclear whether he ever personally approved any illegal activities in that capacity.
I saw the video last night and Ashcroft was told point blank (I believe by Joe Biden) that he did not have the right to refuse to answer questions. The memo itself may not have been subpoenaed yet but does Ashcroft indeed have an obligation to at least answer the Senators’ questions while he is in the chair?
If not, then why would the Senators not know what the laws are?
You need new material, dude. I’ve seen you use that one before.
Rick-
I think it’s somewhat disingenuous to end your argument with ‘all you people are going to hate him anyway’. If you believe in your argument just make it. Screw what everyone else thinks.
As for me I find Ashcroft’s refusal to be the first step in an involved process. He has to KNOW that either the committee WON’T subpeona him and it’ll tarnish the re-election campaign if it’s perceived as doing it for political gain or they WILL subpeona it and he’ll have to refuse or get chewed up on Contempt of Congress issues. Tough call, politically. I’m glad it’s him and not me.
Senator Biden is a lawyer by training and practice. He should, indeed, know what the law is.
But he is also not Mr. Ashcroft’s attorney, and is not interpreting the law in Mr. Ashcroft’s interests, but in his own. He appears to have said, in response to Mr. Ashcroft’s refusal, “…Thank you very much. Well, General, that means you may be in contempt of Congress then.”
This is hardly a definitive statement of the law. He may be in contempt of Congress? He either is, or he isn’t.
In this case, he isn’t – unless he was appearing pursuant to Congressional subpoena, and I welcome correction on this point. Mr. Ashcroft is free to get up out of that chair and walk away, unless he is summoned by the authority of Congress.
In a very loose sense, Mr. Biden’s comment is true: Congress has the power to subpoena Mr. Ashcroft and the memo(s) in question, and, if they do so, he has no right to refuse to provide them. But that has not happened yet. Characterizing the situation as it stands as “may be in contempt of Congress” is meaningful only in that sense: that IF Congress insists via subpoena, and Ashcroft continues to refuse, THEN he will be in contempt.
Even if Ashcroft did receive a subpoena duces tecum from the Senate, couldn’t he just take the Fifth Amendment?
I don’t often have the energy to argue points that come down to opinion. When someone says, “Hey, look! The AG is breaking the law,” I step up, because that’s a proposition that’s objectively verifiable. (And, in this case, untrue.) But when the debate shifts to, “Well, who cares about the law – politically, Ashcroft is a jerk!” then there’s very little ground to cover.
He said more than that, Bricker. He went on to say:
The bolded part sounds pretty definitive to me.
Well good! Got that cleared up. Mr. Ashcroft’s refusal to turn over evidence of the Bushiviks planning an end run around the Geneva Convention is not illegal. Perhaps we might even concur with the Pentagon lawyer’s conclusion, that the President is empowered to ignore international treaties and standards of decent behavior. That we can, indeed, if we take out our magnifying glasses and our nit-picking tweezers, tease out an interpretation that will permit us, legally, to indulge in brutal, savage, and reprehensible behavior. Legally.
I, for one, feel so much better now.
Only with respect to testimony that might tend to incriminate John Ashcroft – him personally, not just subordinates in the Defense Department; you have a privilege against self-incrimination but not against incriminating anybody else (except, under some circumstances, your wife or husband). When a witness in a criminal trial takes the Fifth, a court of law is not allowed to draw any inference of his or her guilt in any crime based on the invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination. But Ashcroft has not been charged with any crime (yet) and he is not testifying in a court of law, but before Congress. The court he needs to worry about is the court of public opinion, which may reason by whatever rules of evidence seem good to it. If Ashcroft takes the Fifth, that’s as much as admitting publicly that he might be guilty of a crime – and he can’t do that, not this year.
It may sound definitive, but it’s meaningless. The Constitution doesn’t address the point, unless Senator Biden was talking about something like Fifth Amendment privilege. Any law Congress makes is pursuant to the powers granted to it by the Constitution - but Mr. Ashcroft’s conduct does not violate those laws. Unless he is subpoenaed. Which, as yet, he hasn’t been. I suspect Senator Biden’s comment was made more for public consumption than as a former law professor’s definitive comment on the law.
But again - the proponent of the argument is the one bearing the burden of proof. What specific law, or Constitutional provision, do you contend is being violated by Mr. Ashcroft?
Oh, I agree. And I’m much more interested in the legal issues than the hand-waving, just like you.
‘A government of laws and not of men’, eh?
FWIW I think my analysis above (that this is a suck-ass position for Ashcroft to be in politically) stands and we’ve only begun to see the first act of a multi-act play.
I haven’t contended anything. If you read my posts again you’ll see that all I’ve done is ask questions. I haven’t even been particularly contentious about anything. I’m sincerely asking for information. I just wanted to know why Senator Biden would tell Ashccroft, “You do not have the right not to answer our questions” if that statement isn’t true.
I can’t seem to find anything about the exact circumstances compelling Ashcroft’s testimony so I don’t know if he was subpoenaed or not. If he was under subpoena then obviously he couldn’t refuse to answer questions without invoking some sort of right or privelege. If he wasn’t under subpoena then I don’t know what the rules. There are some rules even for voluntary testimony aren’t there. He still can’t lie, for instance.
If Ashcroft’s appearance was “voluntary” in the sense that it was a courtesy of Congress not to embarrass him with a subpoena then i would say that at the veryleast, ashcroft has insulted the intent of that courtesy and has all but forced the Senate to subpoena both the memo and Ashcroft’s testimony. Maybe Ashcroft isn’t technically in contempt of Congress yet, but at the least, he behaved like an asshole and made himself and the White House look shifty, evasive and guilty.
Very well - here’s my answer: because Senator Biden knew he was speaking to the public, and because his statement was almost true – that is, it would take only the short step of issuing a subpoena to make it true.
True.
Which may be true, or it may not. What it certainly is is a move from the sure, objectively verifiable claim of lawbreaking to the more ephemeral arena of political impression. There are undoubtedly people who read this story as Mr. Ashcroft’s heroic stand against the terrorist-loving Democratic senators intent on dismantling the country’s best chances to obtain information from cold-blooded killers in an effort to save American lives.
I do not endorse that view, either.
But discussion of this type can go on for pages, with neither side able to present anything concrete, and both reduced to talking past each other. On this board, with Ashcroft-haters outnumbering other viewpoints by a considerabel margin, I really don’t see the point.
Thank you, Rick. that’s what I wanted to know.
your gratitude is premature. ric’s informationi is not accurate.
IALA,and
the contempt beef turns not upon the presence or absence of compulsion of process in producing the appearance of the witness.
Once your ass is in that chair, you must answer responsively or assert a privelege.
that said, contempt is a crime that is susceptible of purging. In other words, although (in theory) the presiding officer (in this case the chairman of the committee ) could order the searjeant at arms of the senate (and they do pack) to take the contumacious witness into that little room that they have in the back of all courts (I know…) he would get a last chance to answer the question first.
that’s where the equivalent of a subpoena enters the equation, but it is a compulsory ougrowth of the act of testifying, not the process pursuant to which the presence of the witness was produced.