Copyright © 2026 VPM, all rights reserved.
PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
VPM News Morning Edition
NEXT UP: 9:00 AM

Thanks to our sponsors – Become a Sponsor

Congress, White House Clash on Hearing Rules

President Bush and Sen. Patrick Leahy agree that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers should speak to the Judiciary Committee. But they have differing views of how it should be done.
Win McNamee / Mark Wilson / Getty Images
President Bush and Sen. Patrick Leahy agree that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers should speak to the Judiciary Committee. But they have differing views of how it should be done.

The White House and Congress squared off Tuesday over the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006. The question is whether White House officials will testify voluntarily on their terms or under subpoena on Congress’s terms.

The White House says it will make Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers available to testify — but not under oath — about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

In a brief press appearance Tuesday afternoon, President Bush insisted that no one on his staff had done anything improper, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has taken the blame for what he acknowledged as “mistakes” in the way the events were handled.

“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants,” Mr. Bush said.

But Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said in response to the White House’s offer that testimony from administration officials “should be on the record and under oath. That’s the formula for true accountability.”

Lawmakers say they still have many questions about the firings, despite the release of documents intended to explain what happened. Late Monday, the Justice Department released thousands of pages of documents about the firings.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. utm

Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. During his first two years on the program, listenership to All Things Considered grew at an unprecedented rate, with more people tuning in during a typical quarter-hour than any other program on the radio.

Shapiro has reported from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One. He has covered wars in Iraq, Ukraine, and Israel, and he has filed stories from dozens of countries and most of the 50 states.

Shapiro spent two years as NPR's International Correspondent based in London, traveling the world to cover a wide range of topics for NPR's news programs. His overseas move came after four years as NPR's White House Correspondent during President Barack Obama's first and second terms. Shapiro also embedded with the campaign of Republican Mitt Romney for the duration of the 2012 presidential race. He was NPR's Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush Administration, covering debates over surveillance, detention and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.

Shapiro's reporting has been consistently recognized by his peers. He has won two national Edward R. Murrow awards; one for his reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor, and another for his coverage of the Trump Administration's asylum policies on the US-Mexico border. The Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans. The American Bar Association awarded him the Silver Gavel for exposing the failures of Louisiana's detention system after Hurricane Katrina. He was the first recipient of the American Judges' Association American Gavel Award for his work on U.S. courts and the American justice system. And at age 25, Shapiro won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission.

An occasional singer, Shapiro makes frequent guest appearances with the "little orchestra" Pink Martini, whose recent albums feature several of his contributions, in multiple languages. Since his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009, Shapiro has performed live at many of the world's most storied venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York, The Royal Albert Hall in London and L'Olympia in Paris. In 2019 he created the show "Och and Oy" with Tony Award winner Alan Cumming, and they continue to tour the country with it.

Shapiro was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale. He began his journalism career as an intern for NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg, who has also occasionally been known to sing in public.

Related Stories