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Friday, December 14, 2001 in the Boston Globe
Bush Halts Inquiry of FBI and Stirs Up a Firestorm
by Glen Johnson
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1214-01.htm>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1214-01.<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1214-01.htm>htm
WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday invoked executive privilege to block
a congressional subpoena exploring abuses in the Boston FBI office,
prompting the chairman of a House committee to lambaste his fellow
Republicans and triggering what one congressman said is the start of ''a
constitutional confrontation.''
''You tell the president there's going to be war between the president and
this committee,'' Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who heads the House
Government Reform Committee, told a Justice Department official during what
was supposed to be a routine prehearing handshake.
''His dad was at a 90 percent approval rating and he lost, and the same
thing can happen to him,'' Burton added, jabbing his finger and glaring at
Carl Thorsen, a deputy assistant attorney general who was attempting to
introduce a superior who was testifying.
''We've got a dictatorial president and a Justice Department that does not
want Congress involved. ... Your guy's acting like he's king.''
The searing tone continued for more than four hours from Republicans and
Democrats, liberals and conservatives. All objected to the order Bush
signed Wednesday and made public yesterday. It claimed executive privilege
in refusing to hand over prosecutors' memos in criminal cases, including an
investigation of campaign-finance abuses, saying doing so ''would be
contrary to the national interest.''
Committee members said the order's sweeping language created a shift in
presidential policy and practices dating back to the Harding
administration. They complained also that it followed a pattern in which
the Bush administration has limited access to presidential historical
records, refused to give Congress documents about the vice president's
energy task force, and unilaterally announced plans for military
commissions that would try suspected terrorists in secret.
Representative William D. Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat and former district
attorney, said: ''This is the beginning of a constitutional confrontation.
In a short period of time, this Department of Justice has manifested
tendencies that were of concern to Senate members during the confirmation
hearings for John Ashcroft as attorney general.''
The Government Reform Committee is investigating the FBI's use of
confidential informants while the bureau investigated New England organized
crime activities.
The committee seeks information on deals FBI officials struck with
suspected murderers Stephen ''the Rifleman'' Flemmi and James ''Whitey''
Bulger.
It is also exploring what FBI officials, including former director J. Edgar
Hoover, knew about the innocence of Joseph Salvati of Massachusetts.
Salvati spent 30 years in prison for the 1965 murder of Edward ''Teddy''
Deegan in Chelsea, but the Governor's Council commuted his sentence in
1997. His conviction was overturned in January after a judge concluded that
FBI agents hid testimony that would have cleared Salvati because they
wanted to protect an informant.
''The federal government wanted Joe Salvati to die in jail because dead men
don't tell tales,'' said Salvati's lawyer, Victor J. Garo, at the hearing
yesterday.
In buttressing the executive order, Michael E. Horowitz, chief of staff for
the Justice Department's criminal division, told the committee that
providing documents about prosecutorial decision-making could have a
''chilling effect'' on the advice that lower-level attorneys may be willing
to provide to top prosecutors.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Ronald Reagan invoked such a
privilege three times, while Bill Clinton did so on four occasions. Forms
of privilege were also claimed in the Nixon administration during the
Watergate investigation. Fleischer said the Justice Department has already
turned over 3,500 pages to Burton's committee, although members complained
that many were heavily redacted.
The Justice Department offered to provide summaries of 20 documents it
believes would be covered by the subpoena.
Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat from Newton, said he and Burton, a
conservative, had sometimes disagreed on the committee's inquiries into the
Clinton administration. He said the chairman's strong words for his fellow
Republicans showed he had not merely been partisan.
Turning to Horowitz, Frank asked why the Bush administration might cover up
mistakes made in a previous administration. ''I don't know what
bureaucratic reflex drives people to do this,'' the congressman said.
� Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
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