Bush Orders Miers Not to Testify

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., listen to former Deputy Assistant to the President Sara Taylor as she testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 11, 2007, before the committee's hearing on the fired federal prosecutors. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) (Dennis Cook - AP)

At the same time, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy held open the possibility of contempt proceedings against Taylor if she does not answer follow-up questions posed during his hearing Wednesday.

"That's a decision yet to be made," Leahy said.

Taylor, eager to exhibit a willingness to answer questions but refusing to do so on many of them, revealed some details behind the firings.

"I did not speak to the president about removing U.S. attorneys," she said under stern questioning by Leahy, D-Vt. "I did not attend any meetings with the president where that matter was discussed."

When asked more broadly whether Bush was involved in any way in the firings, Taylor said, "I don't have any knowledge that he was."

She said she did not recall ordering the addition or deletion of names to the list of prosecutors to be fired. Taylor said she had no knowledge that Bush was involved in the planning of whom to fire, an assertion that echoed previous statements by Attorney General Gonzales, his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

Taylor disputed Sampson's account that she wanted to avoid submitting a new prosecutor, Tim Griffin, through Senate confirmation.

"I expected him to go through Senate confirmation," Taylor said under questioning by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Taylor also issued a stiff defense of her colleagues in the Bush administration.

"I don't believe there was any wrongdoing by anybody," she said.

On almost every question, Taylor hesitated as she considered whether answering would cross Bush's order to not reveal internal White House deliberations.

"I'm trying to be consistent and perhaps have not done a great job of that," Taylor said. "I have tried."

The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, said that may not be enough to protect her from a contempt citation for failing to answer many of the committee's questions.

"There's no way you can come out a winner," said Specter, R-Pa. "You might have been on safer legal ground if you'd said absolutely nothing."

That, in effect, was Bush's order to Miers _ say nothing.

Fielding based his advice to Bush on a Justice Department memo this week that quoted former officials _ from former Attorney General Janet Reno to the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, writing as an assistant attorney general _ as saying the president and his immediate advisers are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas.

The Democrats shot back that those documents referred only to White House advisers currently serving. Miers and Taylor left the White House earlier this year.