Bush says 'interviews' OK but not subpoenas

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Tuesday he is willing to go to court to protect his closest aides from testifying before Congress and urged Democrats to accept his offer, made in the investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The White House told Congress that Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers will be available for private congressional interviews and that it will turn over all relevant documents, steps that Bush said "demonstrate a reasonable solution to the issue."

"We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants," Bush said. "I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials."

Bush said he would take his opposition to subpoenas to court if necessary because he wants to protect the president's ability to get advice from his aides without the looming threat of a congressional inquiry.

"I'm worried about precedents that would make it difficult for somebody to walk into the Oval Office and say, 'Mr. President, here's what's on my mind,"' Bush said. "And if you haul somebody up in front of Congress and put them in oath and all the klieg lights and all the questioning, to me, it makes it very difficult for a president to get good advice."

White House counsel Fred Fielding made the offer to Senate and House Judiciary Committee members — including Rep. Chris Cannon , R-Utah — at a meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Cannon called the offer "appropriate."

"I, for one, am tired of wasting taxpayer time and money on 'investigations' that continue to go nowhere," Cannon said. "The Democrats keep yelling about smoking guns, but their promises have gone up in smoke. The American people are entitled to information; they don't need red herrings or political posturing."

Democrats said they were disappointed in what they see as an inadequate plan.

"It is sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It is a pretty clever proposal, but it doesn't do the job of figuring out what happened, as best we can tell."

The Democrats did not like that the White House would not agree to on-the-record testimony but instead only offered informal conservations with the White House officials behind closed doors, without a transcript. Schumer emphasized that while the White House and the Justice Department agreed to release e-mails, no internal White House e-mails will be made public.

"This is a unique offer," Schumer said. "It has a lot of pitfalls in it."