Gregory again omitted White House preconditions for Congress to interview aides in U.S. attorney probe

On the March 22 edition of NBC's Today, NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory again omitted White House preconditions for allowing White House senior adviser Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, and other current and former staff to be interviewed by congressional committees investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Gregory reported that President Bush has said that "White House officials will not testify under oath, and if Democrats issue subpoenas, the offer to make adviser Karl Rove and others available for interviews will be withdrawn." Gregory then uncritically aired a clip of White House press secretary Tony Snow saying that the "options that are laid out" are either intended "to get at the truth" or "create a political spectacle." But in addition to insisting that Rove and Miers not testify under oath, White House counsel Fred Fielding laid out further demands in a March 20 letter: that interviews be conducted behind closed doors, that they not be televised or transcribed, that there would be no "subsequent testimony," that no subpoenas be issued following the interviews, and that questions may not concern internal White House communications.

As Media Matters for America noted, on the March 20 broadcast of NBC's Nightly News, Gregory reported that "Fielding announced that key Bush advisers -- Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers -- will agree to be interviewed by congressional committees investigating the firing of the U.S. attorneys, but not under oath, an apparent deal breaker for Democrats," leaving out the other restrictions that the administration has imposed.

Gregory also asserted on March 20, as CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash did in two separate reports (here and here), that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law was "[d]efying the White House" by authorizing subpoenas for Rove, Miers, and three others, rather than characterizing Bush's conditions for congressional interviews of his staff as defiance of Congress' oversight responsibility.

From the March 22 edition of NBC's Today:

GREGORY: The central issue here of whether these eight U.S. attorneys were improperly fired has for now been overshadowed by a constitutional and political fight over testimony from White House officials, with neither side giving in.

[begin video clip]

GREGORY: The president has drawn his line in the sand. White House officials will not testify under oath, and if Democrats issue subpoenas, the offer to make adviser Karl Rove and others available for interviews will be withdrawn.

SNOW Do you want to get at the truth or do you want to create a political spectacle? Those are the options that are laid out.

GREGORY: Defying the White House, the House Judiciary Committee has authorized subpoenas, though none have yet been issued. The Senate Judiciary Committee could do the same today.

—B.J.L.