DOJ refuses to hand over docs to Congress

Hold onto your hats. Preview of coming attractions. The Justice Department is refusing to turn documents over to Congress. Congress is almost certainly going to issue subpoenas for them. Then, the proverbial s#@t is going to hit the proverbial fan. This is all going to blow up around April 17, when Gonzales is due to testify on the purgegate scandal.

The Justice Department is refusing to release hundreds of pages of additional documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, setting up a fresh clash with Capitol Hill in a controversy that continues to threaten Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's hold on his position.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, whose investigators have been allowed to view, but not obtain copies of, the records in question, is preparing subpoenas for those papers as well as for all e-mails or documents from the Justice Department and the White House connected to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

The new sparring comes as Senate Democrats postponed a long-planned budgetary appearance by Gonzales that had been scheduled for next week. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee panel overseeing the Justice Department budget, blamed Gonzales's "leadership failures" yesterday for the postponement and demanded that the prosecutor controversy be settled before he makes his plea for a budget increase.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) reiterated yesterday his call for Gonzales to resign and questioned whether the controversy had made it impossible for the attorney general to handle his day-to-day duties. "He cannot talk about the funding and functioning of the Justice Department until he clears the air on U.S. attorneys," Schumer said.