Bush says he won't air memos from Miers

WASHINGTON -- President Bush vowed yesterday not to release any White House memos by his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet E. Miers, provoking a standoff with senators from both parties who have demanded more information about her work in the White House.

Senate leaders, who have asked that they be given a complete list of Miers's memos by tomorrow, vowed to continue their efforts to obtain at least some of Miers's White House work, arguing that such documents are especially important because Miers lacks a record as a judge or law professor.

The emerging confrontation developed as criticism of the Miers nomination expanded with the launching of two new conservative websites aimed at forcing her withdrawal and raising money for ads against her.

One group, which includes a former Bush speechwriter, David Frum, announced that it would start running anti-Miers ads tomorrow on Fox News and on conservative radio shows.

Bush, speaking after his morning Cabinet meeting, said he would not release Miers's memos, to preserve the confidentiality of the presidential decision-making process. Miers has served Bush as his staff secretary, as deputy chief of staff, and as White House counsel over the past five years.

''It's a red line I'm not willing to cross," Bush said. ''People can learn about Harriet Miers through hearings, but we are not going to destroy this business about people being able to walk into the Oval Office and say, 'Mr. President, here's my advice to you, here's what I think is important.' And that's not only important for this president, it's important for future presidents."

Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers have maintained that some of Miers's memos do not include legal advice, and thus that their release would not infringe upon the attorney-client privilege. Releasing even some of her paperwork, they said, would help provide insight into her capabilities and her thinking.

Many on the political right have attacked Miers as unqualified and ideologically unreliable because they say she lacks a record on social issues. Some conservative judicial activists seized yesterday on the potential impasse over Miers's White House papers as a possible reason for Bush to withdraw her nomination. ''Bush can turn around and say, 'This is an insurmountable obstacle, and therefore I'm going to withdraw the nomination because I didn't foresee this issue,' " said Manuel Miranda of the conservative Third Branch Conference, who opposes Miers's confirmation. ''It's a perfect face-saving option."

But White House press secretary Scott McClellan declined to say whether Miers's nomination would be withdrawn if the Judiciary Committee were to declare that her confirmation hearing could not go forward without access to White House documents.

''I wouldn't want to speculate on it," McClellan said, noting that the Senate has not yet made a formal request for Miers's memos. ''The president is confident that Harriet Miers is going to be confirmed."

But the Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to request at least some White House documents. Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, and the ranking Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, have demanded that Miers provide by tomorrow a list of ''all reports, memoranda, or policy statements prepared, produced with your participation, or produced under your guidance during . . . any of your positions in the White House."

Specter said yesterday: ''We are very mindful of executive privilege." But he insisted that Miers must provide more information about her White House work, including a full accounting of which subjects she had worked on in the administration, and which subjects she would therefore have to recuse herself from voting on, should she be confirmed to the bench.

''These hearings pose a difficulty for the nominee on how much she is going to be able to say because she does not have a paper trail," Specter said. ''If you have a nominee who appears and declines or is precluded from answering many, many questions, that makes it hard on the nominee and makes it hard on the ability of the Senate to evaluate."

Senate Democrats, too, expressed disappointment at Bush's refusal to release Miers's White House papers. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said Bush's stand would present ''a real constitutional challenge" because Congress is supposed to be coequal to the president in carrying out its confirmation duties.

The conflict raised the possibility that the Senate Judiciary Committee could try to subpoena documents, forcing Bush to assert executive privilege and setting up a legal standoff between the two branches of government, legal specialists said. There is some precedent for threats of a congressional subpoena against the White House in a Supreme Court fight.

In 1986, President Reagan elevated then-associate justice William Rehnquist to be chief justice, and the Senate demanded access to memos he wrote while in the Nixon administration. The White House initially rejected the demand, but worked out a compromise after it was clear that there was enough support in the Senate to issue a subpoena.

The Miers nomination has attracted skepticism from across the political spectrum, including from many Republicans who could potentially vote for a subpoena. Judiciary Committee Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas, a likely 2008 presidential candidate, have both spoken of the need to see Miers's White House memos.

''We're going to have to see more information -- not attorney-client privilege type information, but more information of the work product that she was involved in, in the White House, that's not of a legal nature, but that's of a policy nature," Brownback said on Fox News Sunday.

Meanwhile, the campaign against Miers by some conservative activists escalated yesterday with two new websites containing petitions calling for Bush to withdraw Miers's nomination and soliciting donations to run ads against her.

Frum, the former Bush speechwriter who is helping run the Americans for Better Justice website, said his group has bought more than $100,000 in airtime to run ads against Miers. Frum said he wants Bush to replace Miers with an appeals court judge with a long history of conservative legal decisions. ''At the moment we have a conservative president and Republican Congress," Frum said. ''Who knows when that moment will come again? Not to use that moment to put in place the very best judge who shares the legal philosophy that elected this president and this Congress is a wasted opportunity."