Foley Balks at House Bank Records Subpoenas

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said Friday that the Justice Department has issued far-reaching subpoenas for House bank records, including those of members who had no overdrafts.

Foley said in a letter to his colleagues that he “could not in conscience comply with the sweeping and unprecedented scope of his documentary request” and planned to convene the bipartisan leadership of the House next week to respond.

The subpoenas were sought by retired Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey, appointed by the Bush Administration to investigate whether any laws were broken in the operation of the House bank, including penalty-free overdrafts written by 325 current and former members.

Telephone calls to several Justice Department spokesmen elicited no response to the Foley letter.

“When reviewing the operations of a bank which is conceded to have been abused, no request or subpoena for such basic records as checks and bank statements can be dismissed as over-broad,” Wilkey said in a letter to Foley on Tuesday, the day the subpoenas were issued.

Foley said that he and other House leaders had assured Wilkey in meetings earlier this month that they would cooperate with the Justice Department.

But House rules require institutional actions in responding to a subpoena that is not available while Congress is in recess, as it has been the last two weeks.

The subpoenas seek “every single check (whether it caused an overdraft or not), deposit slips and monthly statements of each member or former member of the House, whether he or she had overdrafts or not. The subpoenas also seek every check of every person who used the former bank during that period: employees, members of the press, members’ spouses and even some members of the public,” Foley said.