Contempt!: No stay on order, judge tells Bolten and Miers

CQ Politics reports that a Judge Refuses to Stay Order on Subpoenas:

A federal judge Tuesday denied a request to stay his order that White House chief of staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers must respond to House Judiciary Committee subpoenas.

U. S. District Judge John D. Bates denied the request for a stay pending an appeal of his original ruling on the grounds that “it is difficult to see how the executive can demonstrate that it has a substantial likelihood of success on appeal, or even that a serious legal question is presented.”

At issue is Bates’ July 31 order to Bolten and Miers to comply with committee subpoenas as part of its probe into the 2006 firings of the federal prosecutors. Bolten and Miers had refused to comply after President Bush asserted a blanket claim of executive privilege. The committee went to court after Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey  refused to refer a contempt of Congress citation to a grand jury. . . .

As we posted last January, Congressman Walz was one of a group of freshman legislators who pressed for the contempt of congress citation when Miers and Bolten refused to testify about the firing of federal prosecutors. The Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy has a Minnesota element in the tenure of Rachel Paulose.

Maybe Senator Day should be honored that he's not invited to the Republican National Convention, given this fresh reminder of the Bush Administration's lack of respect for the rule of law.

Photoshopped image: Harriet Miers.