House GOP stages walkout over surveillance, contempt resolution

House Republicans just staged a walkout on Capitol Hill as Democrats considered a resolution that would hold some of President Bush's aides in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions before the Judiciary Committee.

"They're more interested in a political witch hunt than in keeping America more secure before they leave Washington for a week," Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., says on the steps outside the Capitol. "America's national security it too important to be passed on an installment plan. We demand that Congress stay in session and take up the Senate bill" reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The bill at issue would find Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Josh Bolten, the president's former chief of staff, in contempt of Congress because they didn't comply with subpoenas issued as part of the committee's probe into the firings of federal prosecutors.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., says that when it comes to the surveillance bill, Republicans are engaged in the "politics of fear, unfounded fear."

"It is somewhat ironic that on the one hand they say we ought to be doing something, on the other hand they walk out to preclude us from doing our business," Hoyer says.

The White House has cited executive privilege as grounds for not complying with the subpoenas. As for the contentious surveillance bill, President Bush announced earlier this afternoon that he would be willing to postpone a trip to Africa in order to pressure the House to adopt a version of the legislation that the Senate approved earlier this week.

Update at 2:09 p.m. ET: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the Republicans are exaggerating the need to pass a bill before the current version of the Protect America Act expires at midnight on Saturday. She quoted a Justice Department official who told The New York Times that the expiration of the law will not effect any of the intelligence community's existing wiretaps, just new applications.

(Top photo by Mark Wilson, Getty Images; Bottom photo of Nancy Pelosi by Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images.)

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