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On the Congressional oversight of the White House, we have this from the days press briefing
by Dana Perino. To listen to this group you would think that the White House was meant to be able
to lie and steal without having to account for their actions.
What is really sad with these clowns is that they actually believe the shit that they are saying!
The claim is that the Congress doesn't have oversight of the White house since this would
just be an interview. If they GOP wants to play that game, then the Congress should turn
things into a full fledged hearing which will take the excuse away from the GOP.
Office of the Press Secretary
March 26, 2007
Press Briefing by Dana Perino
White House Conference Center Briefing Room
12:38 P.M. EDT
Q Okay, last thing. Where does it stand right now, in terms of the negotiations with Capitol Hill
on moving forward with testimony for White House aides like Karl Rove? And where do you stand
on just the broad issue of executive privilege? Is that something you anticipate the White House
will cite here?
MS. PERINO: We have not cited any particular privilege. There are long-standing constitutional
separation of powers issues that go all the way back to the framers, who thought about this long
and hard and could maybe anticipate things that we were going to be going through as a nation as
three branches have natural tensions amongst each other. So, no, we have not asserted any type
of privilege.
What we have done is, if you step back, the Congress said that they were going to authorize subpoenas
to the Justice Department, and Justice Department said, you don't need to; we'll be willing to come up,
we'll be willing to turn over documents. That said, they went ahead and issued subpoenas.
The White House -- they said they were going to issue subpoenas. We said, there's no need to
authorize subpoenas, because we have -- even though we don't have any responsibility to you, and you
don't have any specific oversight over the White House, we are willing to have our four officials that you've
asked for to go up and have an interview with members of Congress -- all those details to be worked
out -- and that we would release documents from here, from the White House, to outside entities.
That was an extraordinary compromise on our part from the beginning, and so we do feel like we
have compromised. We have made a very reasonable offer. I do know of no ongoing negotiations with
the Hill in regard to the offer that we have. If the Congress wants to choose confrontation over resolution,
that is their choice. But we remain hopeful that they would see the wisdom in working this out with us,
with this offer.
Q When you say that the Congress has no oversight over the White House -- Republican Senator
Chuck Hagel is
saying in Esquire Magazine this month that the President --
MS. PERINO: Quoting Esquire Magazine.
Q Well, a Republican Senator is quoted in there saying that, in fact, the President does not believe that --
Chuck Hagel believes the President doesn't think he needs to be held accountable, and that he drops
the word "impeachment," that perhaps others -- he's not saying himself -- but Hagel says, others may
want to bring up the word, impeachment, but --
MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on something as ridiculous as that.
Q A couple things. Just for the record, are the people who are not negotiating with Congress aware that
it is unprecedented for somebody like Karl Rove, or somebody who's giving even an interview, to have no
transcript kept of their closed-door interview, except in national security instances?
MS. PERINO: I don't know all the issues of precedent that go all the way back. I do know that people have
meetings all the time and they have discussions all the time, and there aren't transcripts produced all the
time. But this isn't --
Q Not according to the committee --
MS. PERINO: Let me finish, Jessica, which is that the White House -- the Congress does not have
oversight
over the White House. We are not -- this is not a hearing, this is not an interrogation --
Q What do you mean, don't have oversight?
Q But there is checks and balances, and that's the way the system has worked --
MS. PERINO: There are checks and balances, but we could have said, we're not going to talk to you at all.
But that's not what we did.
Q But that's a form of -- you don't see this as a form of confrontation, refusing to follow practice?
MS. PERINO: No, the way I see it is that it is a form of accommodation.
Q And so the White House is being accommodating by saying, we won't negotiate, take our offer or leave it?
MS. PERINO: We are being accommodating because we could have said, we're not going to talk to you at all,
and instead we've been quite generous and extraordinarily open about what we're willing to provide.
Sheryl.
Q Dana, you have Republican senators now saying that they need a transcript for this meeting, interview,
as you call it. It seems to be an area where if the White House would give a little bit, you might find some
give at least in your own party on Capitol Hill. Is this the White House's position that the offer for these
interviews without a transcript is final and that there will be no negotiation over the issue of a transcript?
MS. PERINO: I know of no negotiations that are ongoing. I do know that in regards to the transcript, we -- this
is not a hearing or an interrogation, and in order to avoid the appearance of that, we offered the interview. I do
understand that there are some people who would disagree with our position.
Q But I'm asking you --
MS. PERINO: I understand that there are some Republicans who think that we should offer a transcript,
as well. That is just not where we are right now.
Q How concerned are you that the appearances, when you don't have testimony that's on a transcript, and
when you don't have people that are willing to be under oath, that the American people look at that and say,
what are they up to, maybe they're trying to hide something -- how concerned are you about that appearance?
MS. PERINO: Well, I think that it's incumbent upon us to continue to explain what our position is and why it is.
I think the people understand that it is good, not just for this President, but for the presidency as a whole, to
have White House internal deliberations continue to be held within the confidence of the President. And that
is good, not just for this President, but for future presidents, what he or she may do in the future. So it's incumbent
upon us to explain that.
Also, the other thing that we need to remind people is that the President expects every member of his
administration to be truthful when they're talking to anybody; that includes members of Congress. In fact, it's a crime
if you don't tell the truth to a member of Congress.
And so we could have said, we're not going to talk to you at all, and then what sort of a PR position would
we be in? But the President decided that he would allow his aides to go up and testify, that we would turn
over an unprecedented amount of documents from -- unprecedented from our standpoint, from our administration.
And so in terms of concern, I understand where you're coming from, but I think that we have continued to explain
what our position is, and that's what we have -- that's just what we have to do.
Tags: White House Democrats Alberto Gonzales U.S. Constitution
