House Panel Weighs Subpoenas

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) sought yesterday to pressure the Bush administration into divulging sensitive policy information, scheduling a committee vote for Wednesday on his plan to issue four subpoenas for the information.

In letters to officials at the White House, the Republican National Committee and the State Department, Waxman wrote that he scheduled the vote because he has not received documents and testimony needed for the committee's wide-ranging investigations. Although Waxman is empowered to issue the subpoenas himself, aides said the vote is designed to make clear that his effort has broad support.

"I never found it necessary to issue subpoenas to either President Bush's father's Administration or the Reagan Administration," Waxman said in a statement. "We were always able to reach an accommodation that respected our legitimate interests. I hope that will continue to be the case with this White House" and the information will be provided voluntarily.

One letter reiterated Waxman's request for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to appear before his committee. He said Rice has repeatedly failed to explain what she knew about Iraq's alleged interest in buying uranium from Niger before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Waxman said he wants to examine how White House officials such as Rice, then national security adviser, used intelligence on Iraq, given what he described as Rice's erroneous statement in June 2003 that "no one . . . in our circles" was aware that the Niger evidence was based on forged foreign documents.

Rice has so far rebuffed his request.

In a separate letter to White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, Waxman complained that the White House has not set a timetable for responding to his request for information about a 2002 White House contract with a company called MZM, whose president at the time, Mitchell Wade, pleaded guilty last year to bribery and election contribution fraud.

And Waxman reiterated to former White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. that he expects him to appear at a hearing about the leak of information about Valerie Plame's employment at the CIA.

Fielding told Waxman early this month that Card was unavailable, citing what Fielding said was long-standing policy that such senior White House officials do not testify about their official activities. But Waxman replied that White House chiefs of staff testified or were deposed by the committee in 1997, 1998 and 2001. He also said Card discussed the leak of Plame's name April 16 on the "Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

Finally, Waxman wrote Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan that the House committee plans to subpoena "a limited set of e-mails related to whether Bush Administration officials have used federal resources to help Republican political candidates."