Waxman focuses on Cheney in CIA leak probe

The chairman of the House's main oversight panel has dropped a demand for an FBI report on its interview with President Bush about the disclosure of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.

But he escalated a push to obtain the FBI's interview of Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said he would convene his panel for a July 16 vote to hold Mukasey in contempt of Congress if he fails to turn over the FBI's report on the Cheney interview.

Citing executive branch "confidentiality interests," the Justice Department has refused to comply with subpoenas from the Oversight and House Judiciary committees for the Bush and Cheney interviews.

Waxman and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., have based recent demands for material from former Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's probe into the matter partly on former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's claims that Bush and Cheney told him to deny that Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, leaked Plame's identity.

Libby is one of three administration officials known to have disclosed Plame's CIA work to reporters. He was convicted of perjury and other offenses for lying to investigators.

Dropping the demand for the Bush interview reflects Waxman's apparent focus on Cheney. Evidence suggests the vice president might have known Libby had disclosed Plame's status to a journalist at the time he urged McClellan to defend Libby, Waxman wrote in June. McClellan told the Judiciary Committee he did not think Bush knew who disclosed Plame's identity.

Waxman's letter says the vice president has little basis withholding information from Congress.

"I am aware of no free-standing vice presidential communications privilege, let alone one that covers voluntary and unrestricted conversations with a special counsel investigating wrongdoing," Waxman wrote to Mukasey.

The threat to hold Mukasey in contempt is part of a trend. Both Waxman and House Global Warming Committee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., have scheduled and then canceled votes to hold EPA Administrator Johnson in contempt for failing to comply with subpoenas for information on environmental rule-making.

Conyers, who oversaw votes to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers in contempt, is threatening Karl Rove, the former White House political adviser, with similar action if he ignores a committee subpoena demanding he appear at a hearing Thursday on suspected politicization of the Justice Department. Conyers could also schedule a contempt vote to enforce a wide-ranging subpoena sent last month to Mukasey.

House aides attributed the flurry of contempt threats in part to efforts by the Democratic chairmen to wrap up long-standing investigations before Bush leaves office. But Republicans including Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana have accused Democrats of attempting to keep White House-related controversies in the news ahead of November's election.