White House Aide Won’t Answer Questions of a Senate Panel
WASHINGTON,
Aug. 2 — J. Scott Jennings, a 29-year-old White House aide,
refused repeatedly on Thursday to answer questions before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, saying he was under orders from President Bush not
to respond.
Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times
J. Scott Jennings, a White House aide, at Thursday’s hearing.
“I must respectfully
decline to respond at this time,” Mr. Jennings said about a dozen
times to questions about the White House’s role in the dismissals
of federal prosecutors. Each time Mr. Jennings was asked about the
removals, he looked at a sheet of paper and said in a rote manner that
he could not reply, “pursuant to President Bush’s directive
invoking executive privilege.”
His appearance before the
committee was the latest act in the ripening showdown between the White
House and Congressional Democrats over the issue of executive privilege.
Mr.
Jennings’s explanation was treated scornfully by the
committee’s Democrats, who said they did not accept Mr.
Bush’s assertion that he has the authority to prevent former and
present officials from testifying to Congress.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee chairman, called the assertion “a bogus claim.”
Mr.
Leahy was especially withering in his criticism of an earlier claim by
Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, that Mr. Jennings’s
boss, Karl Rove,
had an even greater claim to the privilege. Mr. Fielding wrote that as
a senior official who has regular access to the president, Mr. Rove had
complete immunity from questioning by Congress.
Mr. Rove had been
subpoenaed to answer questions at Thursday’s session, but did not
appear. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, suggested that
Mr. Rove had left it to Mr. Jennings to take the committee’s
heat.
“Why is he hiding?” Mr. Durbin asked.
“Why does he throw a young staffer like you into the line of fire
while he hides behind the White House curtains?”
Committees
in both the House and the Senate are investigating whether there was
any improper political influence in the dismissals last year of several
federal prosecutors and have sought to determine Mr. Rove’s role
in the deliberations.
Although the issue has split Congress largely along party lines, Senator Arlen Specter
of Pennsylvania, the committee’s ranking Republican, has
criticized the White House approach. Mr. Specter said at the Thursday
hearing that it was important to move ahead with the investigation
because he believed it would end with the resignation of Attorney
General Alberto R. Gonzales, in whom he expressed a lack of confidence.
White House Aide Won’t Answer Questions of a Senate Panel – New York Times
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