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The Baltimore Sun

Lest there be any remaining doubt, President Bush's refusal to allow even former aides to testify before Congress about contacts with the Justice Department is a tacit admission that he and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales have plenty to hide.

Yet it serves neither justice nor the dysfunctional Justice Department for Congress to wage a constitutional battle with Mr. Bush over his claim to "executive privilege." The president may well lose such a fight in the courts, but that outcome likely wouldn't come until after the end of his term in January 2009.

Both sides should cool the rhetoric and work out an arrangement by which former Bush aides Harriet E. Miers and Sara M. Taylor and perhaps others submit to questioning by lawmakers in a recorded session. Details of the setting and release of the record could be part of the negotiation. Such a compromise would honor long precedent in similar disputes.

Little wonder, though, that the White House wants to prevent any further glimpses into the behind-the-scenes political machinations of Mr. Gonzales' Justice Department. Each new disclosure further confirms that the nation's top law enforcement officer presided over a nest of partisan operatives driven largely by the desire to serve the president's political interests.

The latest revelation came yesterday in a Washington Post report that Mr. Gonzales had been repeatedly informed about FBI violations of its power to secretly obtain phone, bank and Internet records on American citizens without court approval. Yet he later assured Congress that there had been no such abuses. The attorney general also expressed surprise this year when the FBI's abuse of its Patriot Act power became public through a Justice Department audit.

This apparent attempt to mislead Congress fits a potentially criminal pattern Mr. Gonzales displayed earlier in congressional inquiries into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys when he made statements that were contradicted by former aides.

Sen. Arlen Specter, top-ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he believes information from Ms. Miers and Ms. Taylor might finally result in the attorney general's ouster. Meanwhile, the impasse over their testimony may be prolonging Mr. Gonzales' tenure - and its dangerous erosion of public confidence in the Justice Department as well as the morale of its career employees.

Reason enough for Congress to strike its best deal.

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