The Bush Clock May Never Run Out

Patrick Leahy was on Meet the Press today (Via TPM) and got drawn into projecting a contempt of Congress charge for the Bush White House if they continued stonewalling on the fired prosecutor scandal.

That's would be a criminal charge against the President and his advisers.

Needless to say, a Bush diehard might smugly argue that Bush could run the clock out on a contempt of Congress charge in the same way they're trying to run the clock out on the Hatch Act investigation and other investigations.

But like most things the Bushies have been smug about, that might backfire badly. I'm not a lawyer, but a contempt of Congress charge would require some kind of outside prosecutor and create a slippery slope where an incoming Democratic administration could appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush Justice Department.

Given that the Justice Department was connected to the whole can of worms of indefinite detentions, torture policy, and extraordinary renditions. That's not to mention the Vote Fraud scams and the efforts to suppress minority votes.

Anyway, if the Bush administration keeps playing hardball with executive privilege, they may find that the game keeps going after they no longer have executive privilege.