merican Atheists today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action with the White House to force disclosure of materials linked to the unwinding "Dobsongate" scandal and possible leak of confidential information by Bush senior advisor Karl Rove.

   This comes as the story about how key religious right leaders were provided with potentially sensitive information about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is gaining "traction" in mainstream news media and even on Capitol Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee has faced obstacles in obtaining information about President Bush's prospective appointees to the high court, including current Chief Justice John Roberts and Ms. Miers who has served as White House counsel.

   Dobson, a key religious right figure who has generally supported the Bush cultural and political agenda, was originally cool to the Miers nomination. Last week he told reporters that he was made "privy" to "confidential" information following contact with the White House, however, and quickly came out in support of the 60-year old lawyer who has had no judicial experience. Many conservatives are questioning the selection of Harrier Miers for the high court, and some feel that Bush should have named a more ideologically strident and reliable candidate.

   Questions are being raised about the "confidential" information provided to James Dobson and other religious leaders including Rev. Tim Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals. It is known that when Miers' name was first proposed as a replacement for outgoing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, White House strategists began phoning key religious right leaders including Dobson. According to an MSNBC television piece, at least one meeting may have been held at the White House.

   Dobson says that he was provided with information from senior Bush advisor Karl Rove, who has already been questioned by a federal grand jury in connection with charges that he leaked the identity of a former CIA agent.

   Today's action by American Atheists relies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a 1966 statute enacted to make information held by the government more accessible to news media and the people. "The law is based on the presumption that individuals have a right to know what their government is up to," says the main FOIA web site, "and that government agencies have a duty to provide full disclosure of all records that are not specifically and reasonably exempt."

   Generally, though, FOIA does not apply to the President, Congress or the courts. The White House is exempt under "Executive Privilege," which protects a long list of administration documents, memoranda, E-mails, phone logs and other records.

   But according to attorney Edwin Kagin who filed today's FOIA request, the White House lost its cloak of "Executive Privilege" over the information when it was allegedly provided to Dobson, a private citizen.

   In his filing with the White House Office of Administration, Kagin said that exemptions to the Executive Branch FOIA privilege "do not apply."

   "By providing 'confidential' information to someone like Dobson, the White House has surrendered its executive privilege, and cannot hide behind a FOIA exemption to conceal this information from Congress and the American people."

   Kagin added that this FOIA filing is the first of its kind of which he is aware that seeks to piece the veil of Executive Privilege on the basis that it has been suspended. "They can't argue national security or any other sort of exemption here," opined Kagin. "The White House shared information with a private citizen who happens to be a powerful Religious Right supporter of the Bush administration. This is all about politics, not the war on terror or national security, and the American people have every right to know what is in these documents."

   The FOIA request asks for "any and all records, of any nature whatsoever, relevant to information provided to one James Dobson ... touching on any aspect of the qualifications of Harriet Miers for the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United State ... including, but not limited to, copies of all pertinent memoranda, e-mails, phone logs, transcripts, and notes, together with any other written, printed, or electronically stored (records) of any communiqué s made by Karl Rove..."

   Through this past weekend, calls for a probe into what Dr. Dobson may have been told by the White House intensified, and there were indications that the Senate Judiciary Committee may end up issuing a subpoena for the influential Religious Right leader to testify under oath about what he had learned concerning the Harriet Miers nomination.

    ¶       Appearing on the ABC News program "This Week," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) who is chairman of the SJC revealed that committee members were considering calling Dobson to testify.

   "If Dr. Dobson knows something that he shouldn't know or something that I ought to know, I'm going to find out," Specter told host George Stephanopoulos.

   When queried if he would call Dobson and White House operative Karl Rove to testify, Specter said: "I haven't made up a witness list, but I have done something unprecedented. I have divided the 30 witnesses equally between Democrats and Republicans. Maybe there's a witness that Pat Leahy will want to call."

   Later, Specter responded to another question, adding: "If there are back-room assurances and if there are back-room deals, and if there is something which bears upon a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote, I think that's a matter that ought to be known by the Judiciary Committee and the American people."

    ¶       On the same program, Sen. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that he, too, would consider calling Dobson to testify

    ¶       New York Democrat Charles Schumer told the CBS News program "Face the Nation" that he, too, wanted Dobson to testify. "This is not a game of wink and whisper," Schumer said. "This is serious business."

    Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-ILL) told CNN's "Late Edition" described any move by the White to furnish Dobson with insider information about Miers position on specific issues was "reprehensible."

   Political observers are sounding off as well, raising concerns of impropriety over the prospect that Rove and other White House staffers may have illegally or unethically leaked information to private individuals as part of a coordinated effort to shore-up the Miers nomination.

   Columnist Max Blumenthal asked:

"Could Rove have told Dobson that Harriet Miers supports the teaching of intelligent design and the Bible in public schools, as Dobson does? Or could he have offered his assurance that Miers advocates banning gay teachers from public schools, as Dobson does? Perhaps Dobson was informed Miers agrees with him that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is 'the most dangerous man in America' and should be impeached, along with all insufficiently right-wing judges, including Sandra Day O'Connor and the entire 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. Or maybe Rove told Dobson that Miers shares his belief that gay marriage will lead to 'men marrying donkies' and 'the destruction of this nation and many others.'"

   Blumenthal added, "Dobson has spent over 25 years working to transform America into a clerical authoritarian state more informed by biblical law than the Constitution, and he will settle for nothing less."

   Why would Dobson be the object of special attention from the White House?

   His public image as head of the Focus on the Family is often one of an important, even avuncular values guru who "counsels" his followers on morality, raising families, disciplining and indoctrinating youngsters, and conveying stern Christian values into the family unit, communities and the entire nation.

   Why Dobson?

   For decades, he has been the premier "values" and "family" guru for the Religious Right, and a valued political ally for George W. Bush. Dobson endorsed the president for his 2004 re-election campaign, but only after Bush publicly declared his support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage. According to Blumenthal and other sources, Dobson's 501(c)(4) political committee, "Focus on the Family Action" raised nearly $9 million in the weeks leading up the election mobilizing Bush's religious voter base. Later, when Democrats turned to the filibuster in a last ditch effort to stop the appointment of rightwing extremist judges, Dobson's group spent $1.2 million in ads and lobbying.

   Dobson's loyalty to the GOP is highly conditional, unlike many of the conservative and religious groups who have been integrated into the Republican Party structure. He has threatened to "walk" with his estimated 500,000 supporters and consider third-party efforts if the evangelical social agenda is not given priority at the White House or on Capitol Hill. Republicans even formed a semi-secret "Values Action Team" to "coordinate" legislation with Dobson and other religious right operatives.

   So valuable is Dobson's support in the fight to confirm Harriet Miers -- especially with conservative "renegades' furious at Mr. Bush's selection of his personal counsel over hard-shell members of the Federalist Society or other groups -- that it makes sense for Rove to leak any information that keeps the Focus on the Family head in the administration's camp. But did Rove cross the line?

   We won't know until someone asks James Dobson, or documents are forced from the clutches of White House staffers. Until now, the administration has had the luxury of hiding behind its Executive Privilege. That veil may well have dropped, however, when Rove picked up the phone and talked to Dobson. What does he know that the White House won't tell Congress, and the American people?

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