Contempt for Karl Rove?

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:



Contempt for Karl Rove?

As Karl Rove is subpoenaed to testify before Congress, the White House fights a congressional law suit aimed at forcing the testimony of administration officials.

Brian Beutler | May 28, 2008 | web only



After trying for more than a year to secure Karl Rove's testimony as part of an ongoing investigation into the 2006 firings of nine US attorneys, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the former White House political adviser on Thursday, opening another front in its battle over executive power with the Bush administration.

The White House has claimed broad executive privilege over much of the information the committee has sought from Rove and other officials. Last July the administration blocked former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten from complying with congressional subpoenas for testimony and internal documents. In February, the House voted to hold Miers and Bolten in contempt of Congress. After the Justice Department, acting on orders from the White House, refused to enforce the contempt citations, the House Judiciary Committee turned to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for redress. Rove, for his part, made his position on testifying clear last August, when he refused to comply with a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee related to the attorney firings. The Senate panel stopped short of pursuing a contempt citation, but the House counterpart has been far less timid in this regard. If Rove refuses the House committee's subpoena, it's quite possible that he may wind up in court along with Miers and Bolten, according to a House Judiciary Committee aide.

The White House, meanwhile, is working to derail the House Judiciary Committee's current case. Earlier this month, Bush administration lawyers filed a motion in the case arguing that the complaint against Miers and Bolten should be dismissed outright. Oral arguments from both sides are still forthcoming, and the first ruling, if there is one, isn't expected until the summer. But the White House may have a friend in the judge presiding over the case, a Bush appointee named John Bates.

A former deputy independent counsel in Ken Starr's Whitewater investigation, Bates is the same judge who threw out a Government Accountability Office complaint against Vice President Dick Cheney in December 2002. Back then, the GAO's comptroller general, David Walker, was seeking access to internal documents from Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force, using arguments similar to those the judiciary committee is making today--namely that the White House's refusal to provide information to congressional investigators is damaging Congress' oversight mandate.

In its current legal standoff with the judiciary committee, the Bush administration is citing Bates' decision in Walker v. Cheney as one reason the case should be dismissed. In its motion, White House attorneys note that "this Court already has rejected an effort to turn a congressional interest in information . In Walker v. Cheney, this Court held that the Comptroller General lacked standing to compel the release of documents concerning the composition and conduct of the National Energy Policy Development Group chaired by the Vice President." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=contempt_for_karl_rove

[Sundoggy]

1. Oh, absolutely

Oh, I thought you were asking.

[AndyTiedye]

2. Bushbot Judge

The judge is a total Bushbot who will rule on the basis of Divine Right of Kings if he has to.

[mitchtv]

3. I don't expect him to get more than an apology

I expect nothing from the weaklings in congress