THE US:President George W. Bush is heading towards a constitutional showdown with Congress over the limits of presidential power after he refused to hand over documents demanded by congressional committees investigating last year's dismissal of nine federal prosecutors, Denis Staunton writes from Washington.
The White House yesterday also rejected a move by Congress to subpoena documents from the offices of the president and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, about a programme to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.
In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees, White House counsel Fred Fielding said that the White House would not hand over documents about the prosecutors and that Mr Bush was prepared to assert executive privilege to prevent two former senior White House aides from testifying on the matter.
"For the presidency to operate consistent with the constitution's design, presidents must be able to depend upon their advisers and other executive branch officials speaking candidly and without inhibition while deliberating and working to advise the president," Mr Fielding wrote.
Tensions between presidents and Congress over the confidentiality of executive branch information have been common throughout US history, but they have usually been resolved through negotiation and without court intervention.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy condemned the White House response to the subpoenas as "Nixonian stonewalling".
"Increasingly, the president and vice-president feel they are above the law," Mr Leahy said.
Earlier, Mr Leahy signed subpoenas demanding information from Mr Bush, Mr Cheney, the Justice Department and the National Security Council about the eavesdropping programme, which a court found to be illegal because it lacked congressional approval. The programme, which had been secret until a newspaper revealed its existence, was subsequently authorised by the Republican-controlled Congress last year.
"Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection. There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this committee," Mr Leahy said.
White House spokesman Tony Snow dismissed the subpoenas as "an outrageous request" and made clear that the administration had no intention of complying.
"At this juncture, we don't have a formal reply, but on the other hand it is pretty clear that, again, members of Congress here are engaged in an attempt - apparently since they have been unsuccessful in passing key legislation - to try to do what they can to make life difficult for the White House," he said.
House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers complained that, in rejecting the subpoenas relating to the dismissal of the prosecutors, the White House was even refusing to hand over documents it had earlier agreed to send to Congress.
"The president's response to our subpoena shows an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government," Mr Conyers said.