Larisa is alarmed, and even more alarmed that John Dean is alarmed

i've been alarmed for quite some time, but with the refusal of harriet miers to appear, my alarm has deepened significantly... i'm not alone...

larisa alexandrovna...

The formidable Mr. Dean raises some very disturbing questions in his latest article at FindLaw, I will skip to the disturbing parts, but I suggest you real the whole piece (emphasis mine):

"By not responding to the subpoena, the President and Ms. Miers all but invited the House Judiciary Committee and, in turn, the House of Representatives to vote to deem her in contempt of Congress. It was a defiant, in-your-face insult to Congress. No president would do this unless he was quite confident of the outcome. Clearly, Bush's White House and Justice Department lawyers believe that the solidly conservative federal judiciary will grant them a favorable ruling, and that, in the process, they will greatly weaken congressional oversight powers, to the advantage of the White House.

[...]

The Justice Department, then, must be assuring the White House that it will make this, in effect, the law, by refusing to prosecute such defiant officials under the criminal contempt statute if Congress refers the matter to them.

This is a very aggressive position. While it does not reflect the current state of the law, given the pro-presidential bias among so many of the conservative jurists who now dominate the federal judiciary, and particularly the Supreme Court, Bush may well succeed in defending this position if this matter goes to court

i am at a loss to explain why neither larisa nor john dean touched on the congressional power to declare harriet miers in inherent contempt (see here, here, and here...) it's been bandied about extensively, at least where i hang out in the blogosphere, and seems to me to be about the only option left to congress short of initiating impeachment proceedings...

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