Key Bush aides risk contempt, House Democrats say
House Democrats threatened Monday to hold President Bush’s key confidants in contempt of Congress unless they comply with subpoenas for information on the Justice Department’s purge of nine federal prosecutors last winter.
The White House shrugged off the ultimatum, saying the information is off-limits under executive privilege and the aides in question - White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former presidential counselor Harriet Miers - are immune from prosecution.
“It won’t go anywhere,” predicted White House press secretary Dana Perino.
Congressional Democrats nonetheless submitted their 102-page report, and a Republican rebuttal, to the House clerk Monday. The report accused Miers of contempt for failing to appear and testify as subpoenaed. She and Bolten were charged with failing to produce documents on whether the prosecutors - including John McKay of Seattle - were fired at the White House’s behest.
If the report is passed, the House would forward the citation to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution.
Farm-package veto threatened
The Bush administration threatened to veto a multibillion-dollar farm package Monday, saying the Senate bill doesn’t cut farm subsidies enough and would threaten World Trade Organization negotiations.
The veto threat came as the Senate started debate on the $288 billion bill, which administration officials said was too expensive.
The bill has generated opposition from a broad coalition of taxpayer advocates, medical organizations, environmentalists and religious groups because it would continue expensive subsidies for crops such as corn, cotton, soybeans and rice.
Acting Agriculture Secretary Charles Conner criticized as “budget gimmicks” a delay in some payments to farmers until after the five-year life of the bill. He also said the legislation would “paint a bull’s-eye on the back of American farmers” by raising some thresholds that trigger payments to farmers. That could threaten World Trade Organization talks, he said.
The 2007 farm bill would add $80 million over five years for organic farming and marketing, as well as offer support for farmers markets and rural development. It also would include money for malnutrition programs overseas and require the creation of a congressional commission on food safety.
Online pitch helps Paul rake in $4.2M
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $4.2 million in nearly 24 hours.
Paul, the Texas congressman with a Libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day.
Fawkes was a British mercenary who failed in his attempt to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. He also was the model for the protagonist in the movie “V for Vendetta.” Paul backers motivated donors on the Internet with mashed-up clips of the film on the online video site YouTube as well as the Guy Fawkes Day refrain: “Remember, remember the 5th of November.”
Paul’s total deposed Mitt Romney as the single-day fundraising record holder in the Republican presidential field. When it comes to sums amassed in one day, Paul now ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30, and Barack Obama. The $4.2 million represented online contributions from more than 37,000 donors, fundraising director Jonathan Bydlak said.
Report: 21,000 entered U.S. illegally
Some 21,000 people who should not have been allowed to enter the United States came through official border crossing points between Oct. 1, 2005, and Sept. 30, 2006, according to a government report released Monday.
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the government reorganized its border-security operations to prevent people from using deceptive methods to enter the country.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Customs and Border Protection officers turned away 200,000 people who tried to enter the country through the 326 legal air, sea and land entry points during the 2006 fiscal year. The numbers do not include people who unlawfully entered the country through other routes.
Staffing shortages and poor management at legal border crossings are among the reasons that people got through improperly, GAO found.
Bush nominates new Vatican envoy
President Bush plans to nominate Harvard University law professor Mary Ann Glendon to be his new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Glendon, 69, is an anti-abortion scholar and an opponent of gay marriage who also has written on the effects of divorce and increased litigation on society. Her 1987 book “Abortion and Divorce in Western Law” was critical of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion.
The White House announced Monday that Bush will nominate Glendon to the post, which requires Senate confirmation.
Seattle Times news services