A March 22 Washington Post editorial on the Bush administration's controversial firings of eight U.S. attorneys called the scandal and the possibility of congressional subpoenas of White House officials “an unnecessary constitutional crisis” and claimed that the “many emails that the administration has released for the most part suggest nothing nefarious in the dismissal process.” But while the editorial referred to the “e-mails that the administration has released,” it made no mention of the entire category of communications that the White House has said will not be released. As Media Matters for America previously documented, White House counsel Fred Fielding indicated in a March 20 letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees that the White House would provide copies of only those communications between the White House and either Justice Department officials or “third parties.” The Post itself reported on March 21 that the 3,000 pages of email communications recently released by the Justice Department do not include “internal White House records.”

Moreover, as The New York Times reported, there is a significant gap between the dates of the released emails: “Democrats on Capitol Hill were privately urging reporters on Wednesday to press the Bush administration to explain why in the thousands of pages of e-mail messages and documents turned over to investigators, there is almost nothing from Nov. 16 to Dec. 7, the day seven of the firings occurred.” This gap was originally noted by The Politico and on the weblog Talking Points Memo.

Similarly, during the “All-Star Panel” segment on the March 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Roll Call executive editor Morton M. Kondracke claimed: "[T]here's not a shred of evidence, and there should be. I mean, if the White House and the Justice Department are discussing back and forth whether these people are going to be fired or not, you would think that if there was a nefarious reason involved, you would think that a hint of it would appear in one of these emails. There's nothing." Like the Post, Kondracke's assertion assumes that all the relevant documents have been turned over. Fellow panelist and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes added: “I'm still waiting to see some evidence of illegality or wrongdoing.”

From the Post editorial:

The White House and congressional Democrats have drawn deep lines in the sand over who will testify, and how, as Congress investigates the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. The stubbornness and overheated rhetoric on both sides threaten an unnecessary constitutional crisis that would only bog down the inquiry in a distracting fight over process.

It's worth stepping back and putting the supposed scandal in perspective. President Bush is entitled to replace his U.S. attorneys; he'd be entitled to do so if he thought they weren't pursuing his prosecutorial priorities with sufficient vigor, or even if he just wanted to give other lawyers a shot at the jobs. The many e-mails that the administration has released for the most part suggest nothing nefarious in the dismissal process.

[...]

As we suggested last week, a two-step process could pull both sides back from the brink. First, Mr. Gonzales and other Justice Department officials should testify about their decisions to remove the ousted eight. If questions remain, Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers should be interviewed. They don't have to testify under oath, since lying to Congress is a crime. But their testimony must be as open as possible and should without question be transcribed. If Mr. Bush is serious about wanting the truth to come out, he will relent on this issue.

From the March 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

BRIT HUME (host): But if it should be, aren't you arguing, in effect, for a cover-up by running out the clock?

BARNES: A cover-up. Well, it's running out the clock. I don't know about a cover-up. I'm still waiting to see some evidence of illegality or wrongdoing. I haven't seen any yet.

HUME: That's right. We had, what, 1,300 pages of emails? What did they -- what evidence --

BARNES: Three-thousand pages.

HUME: How many pages?

BARNES: Three-thousand.

HUME: Three-thousand pages. Was there any evidence in there that pointed to --

KONDRACKE: No, there was not -- there's not a shred of evidence, and there should be. I mean, if the White House and the Justice Department are discussing back and forth whether these people are going to be fired or not, you would think that if there was a nefarious reason involved, you would think that a hint of it would appear in one of these emails. There's nothing.

BARNES: It's still -- as I've said all along, it's a scandal without any scandalous behavior.

HUME: All right, so what happens? Do you think it'll go to court?

BARNES: Yeah.

HUME: And who wins? Let's assume we get an adjudication of it in the -- in time to have it happen before all of us are dead.

KONDRACKE: My guess is that the administration will win.