in their own words
 |
|
|
 Subscribe to the WHPC RSS Feed
|
Press Briefing by Dan Bartlett, Counselor to the President 3/14/07 (Topic: US Attorneys)
— Thursday, March 15, 2007 — Q The Congress is upset that they were not properly informed of how the White House did play a role. But the Attorney General knew that the White House was involved, people at the White House -- Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, the President, himself -- knew the White House had played a role. Isn't the White House, then, responsible for not informing Congress properly? MR. BARTLETT: I think it's very important, Kelly, to make a distinction between what we knew and what role we played. And right there, I think is where this can be very complicated, because there's a clear distinction between having approved of a list, and playing a role in the compilation of the seven U.S. attorneys. The White House did not play a specific role in the list of the seven U.S. attorneys. The decision in which it was not given all the information in its totality and context by the Justice Department to members of Congress was because the information that Kyle Sampson had wasn't adequately shared with other members of main Justice who were going up to testify before Congress. It's very important that if they go before Congress that they give a complete and accurate picture of the decisions that were made and why they were made. It's not to say the decisions were wrong -- in fact, we had very good reasons for the very reason why the seven U.S. attorneys were removed. But it is very important that when they go up and testify, and they go to their oversight committees, that those members of Congress have confidence that the information they're receiving is in complete and full context. And in this case, it wasn't. That's why he's accepted the resignation of chief of staff. And he's going to redouble his efforts to regain the confidence of those who are questioning that. And that's something the Attorney General spoke directly to today. Q But wasn't their knowledge beyond Kyle Sampson? People in the White House Counsel's Office understood that they had participated in this process, and Congress was not properly informed of that. MR. BARTLETT: Again, "participated in the process" is inaccurate because -- Q I understand what you're saying about they didn't do the names, but they were aware of -- and that's the whole reason we're here. You were aware of this beforehand -- MR. BARTLETT: Well, I think it's important to understand what this is, Kelly, because they did -- the Deputy Attorney General and other members of the Department of Justice went up there and talked about why these people were not -- were let go. The context they wanted to give is from 22 months prior, when there was a conversation between Harriet Miers and Kyle Sampson had talked about after the start of the second term, in 2004, would it make sense to maybe have a clean slate and start with a full range of new U.S. attorneys across-the-board. That was quickly rejected not only by Kyle Sampson at the Department of Justice, but also not viewed as a good idea within the White House. Twenty-two months later, there is a very specific managerial decision made about seven U.S. attorneys. That's in context that the Congress should have known, but it doesn't change the underlying facts of this case. White House Press Corps | Press Briefing | Dan Bartlett | News Media | Bush Administration | US Attorneys
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 1:06 AM
|
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
< whpc home