Apparently, I’m not the only one who noticed that, since the time when Henry Waxman first asked Michael Mukasey to hand over the White House-related materials from the CIA Leak Case investigation, he has proven to mighty responsive to requests from Congress when it involves covering up for the White House. Compare these two response times to requests from Congress:
Torture Tapes: 6 Days Response
December 8: Congress begins to call for its own investigation of the destruction of the torture tapes
December 14: Mukasey sends a letter telling Congress to butt out
CIA Leak Investigation: 15 days and counting
December 3: Waxman requests White House investigation materials from Mukasey
December 18: Waxman asks again
Given the disparity in time–and the apparent logic that the disparity seems to stifle oversight in both cases–I can see why Waxman is getting impatient. He sets up his very own confrontation with Mukasey, too, giving him a deadline of January 3:
Thus, I request that you provide the Committee by January 3,2008, with the documents requested in the Committee’s July 16 letter
to Mr. Fitzgerald, including the reports of interviews with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other White House officials.
And if a deadline isn’t enough, Waxman throws Mukasey’s logic back at him.
You resisted providing information to the committees because of your concern that providing information could undermine the Justice Department’s on-going investigation. In the Plame matter, there is no pending Justice Department investigation and no pending Justice Department litigation. Whatever the merits of the position you are taking in the CIA tapes inquiry, those considerations do not apply here.
I’m not holding my breath. But seeing Dick and Bush’s interview transcripts sure would be an interesting way to start the New Year.