WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to hold two of President Bush’s confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether a purge of federal prosecutors was politically motivated.
Angry Republicans boycotted the vote and staged a walkout.
The vote was 223-32 to hold White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt.
The citations charge Miers with failing to testify and accuse her and Bolten of refusing Congress’ demands for documents related to the 2006-07 firings.
Republicans said Democrats should instead be working on extending a law — set to expire Saturday — allowing the government to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails in the United States in cases of suspected terrorist activity.
“We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition but no space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us,” said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
“Let’s just get up and leave,” he told his colleagues before storming out of the House chamber with scores of Republicans in tow.
The vote, which Democrats had been threatening for months, was the latest wrinkle in a more than year-long constitutional clash between Congress and the White House.
The administration says the information being sought is off-limits under executive privilege and argues that Bolten and Miers are immune from prosecution.
Democrats said they were acting to protect Congress’ constitutional prerogatives.
The White House said the Justice Department would not ask the U.S. attorney to pursue the House contempt charges. However, the measure would allow the House to bring its own lawsuit on the matter.
It is the first time in 25 years that a full chamber of Congress has voted on a contempt-of- Congress citation, and the White House quickly pointed out that it was the first time that such action had been taken against top White House officials who had been instructed by the president to remain silent to preserve executive privilege.
“This action is unprecedented, and it is outrageous,” Dana Perino, Bush’s spokeswoman, said in a lengthy and harshly worded statement after the vote.
President Bush, meanwhile, pressured the House to finish a bill giving the government more leeway to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists.
Bush argued that the House has plenty of time to pass a bill before the current Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires at midnight Saturday.
The president plans to leave on a five-nation trip to Africa this afternoon but said he’d delay his departure and stay in Washington “if it will help them complete their work on this critical bill.”
A short time after her Republican colleagues stormed out, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had instructed Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers to meet with their Senate counterparts by today to start reconciling the House and Senate eavesdropping legislation — something she predicted could be done within 21 days.
