I do hope Conyers has a Sternly Worded Letter ready to go for when Rove ignores the subpoena.

I just wish that Congressional hearings were more about fact-finding and less about congresspeople deciding they are intended to bloviate because a camera's in the room.

If they do it, designate one Democrat to question him. Have a plan and have someone who knows the facts and the law question rigorously.

Fat chance of that.

Fitzgerald is very good and it took him 3 or 4 times to catch Rove in an apparent lie. 20 congresscritters, even with benefits of history that Fitzgerald didn't have, will do way worse.

After Bush & Co. used "executive privilege" to keep everything including the menu in the White House cantina a secret, I can't wait to hear what Republicans say the first time Obama invokes it.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, argued that former presidents still retain executive privilege on matters relating to their time in office

This argument strikes me as absurd, especially in the case of Rove and US Attorney firings. Bush no longer needs to "get candid advice" from his White House advisors. Now Obama is the caretaker of presidential rights. If this case goes to court, I don't see how Bush would have standing to assert or defend executive privilege. The analogy now would be an impeached Blagojevich refusing to let his former aides testify in his criminal trial.

As long as Eric Holder's nomination for AG is being held up, the DoJ does not seem likely to have the chops to enforce the subpoena on Rove. Obama's open policy concerning the FOIA however, should provide access to whatever documents still exist, if any have survived the purge/shred efforts of Rove/Bush/Cheney. But that, of course, will take tenacity and time. Rove has to have the goal of running out the clock on the statute of limitations.

Rove has to have the goal of running out the clock on the statute of limitations.

Which is why I am heartened by this story.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has proposed extending to 10 years the statute of limitations on war crimes, torture, and domestic surveillance in the event an investigation into the Bush administration’s controversial policies turns up prosecutable evidence against former officials after statute of limitations laws currently on the books expire.

Heh.

I think Danp has it right. Certainly in the case of attorney-client privilege in the corporate setting, the privilege is retained by the corporation, not individual officers. If a new CEO chooses to waive privilege as to the acts of his predecessors, he's free to do so. While I'm no expert in executive privilege I can't see why it would be any different.

What better day for another go-round in this farce than Ground Hog Day?

I do hope Conyers has a Sternly Worded Letter ready to go for when Rove ignores the subpoena.

I hope Conyers has the Sergeant At Arms ready to go for when Rove ignores the subpoena.

*

mhr - you ARE joking, right? Aside from the fact that we only have assertion of the notoriously incompetent and truth-challenged Bush administration that the "terrorists" in question are in fact terrorists, I see nothing wrong with treating them in accordance with our Constitution. And I fail to see any parallel with subpoenas for Republicans; nobody is denying them their constitutional rights in the process. We can't investigate Republicans who appear guilty of crimes? Or is this just another example of IOKIYAR?

From another SB post:

...[Thiessen], among other things, declared the International Criminal Court "the the most dangerous threat to sovereignty since the League of Nations."

Fixed

...declared Executive Privilege "the the most dangerous threat to sovereignty since the League of Nations."

Conyers's committee subpoenaed Rove on May 22, calling on him to testify about his contacts with department officials in the Bush era. But Rove rebuffed the summons, saying he was barred from testifying because of executive privilege.

What surprises me is that no one has ever gotten to the heart of the logical and legal inconsistency of Rove's claims. At the time of the firings, the White House insisted that Bush had no hand in the attorney firings, as for example when Dana Perino said in March 2007 that "[T]here is no indication that the President knew about any of the ongoing discussions [about firing U.S. attorneys] over the two years, nor did he see a list or a plan before it was carried out." Similarly, DOJ attorney Carl Nichols told a federal judge in June 2007 that: "The record does reflect at this stage that the president was not involved in decisions about who would be asked to resign from the department."

However, a claim of executive privilege can only shield conversations between a president and his advisers. If, as the White House claimed, Bush did not have any conversations about this, then logically he cannot ever have discussed this with Rove -- and since there were no conversations with the executive, then Rove has no valid claim of executive privilege.

This doesn't even get into the fact while a valid claim of executive privilege may excuse you from testifying, it does not excuse you from showing up in response to a subpoena. You have to show up and actively assert the privilege under oath --- or, at least, that's the way the law applies to non-high ranking Republicans.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has proposed extending to 10 years the statute of limitations on war crimes, torture, and domestic surveillance in the event an investigation into the Bush administration’s controversial policies turns up prosecutable evidence against former officials after statute of limitations laws currently on the books expire.

War crimes and torture, as offenses subject to peremptory norms under international law, should have no statute of limitations, anyway. But its worth noting that, in US federal criminal law:

Capital offenses have no statute of limitations.

War crimes (including torture) in which death results to any victim are capital offenses.

Torture performed outside the United States (independently of its prohibition as a war crime) in which death results is, likewise, a capital offense.

Those who procure, counsel, command, or wilfully cause another to perform a federal crime are punishable as principals, so a person in the US commanding, counseling, etc., torture outside the US which results in death would have committed a capital offense, as would a person who commands, counsels, etc. any war crime which results in death to any person.

So I'm not all that certain that the statute of limitations is much help to the Bush Administration to start with.

shouldn't the statute of limitations on crimes committed by government employees start ticking from the day the crime was discovered? Not committed?

give constitutional rights to terrorists and subpoena Republicans

In other words, treat 'em both like criminals.

Works for me.

What surprises me is that no one has ever gotten to the heart of the logical and legal inconsistency of Rove's claims.

Well, the inconsistency between Bush's alleged non-knowledge and claims of executive privilege has been discussed at length here and on other blogs. But it does seem never to have occurred to any Democratic spokesperson or major media outlet.

shouldn't the statute of limitations on crimes committed by government employees start ticking from the day the crime was discovered?

I wouldn't generally agree with that, but I would say that when the government employees committing the crimes or their conspirators are entrusted with the enforcement of the laws that are violated by the crime, the statute of limitations should be suspended so long as that is the case.

And I think (as a corollary) the statute of limitations for crimes committed by a sitting President (and those of any co-conspirators) should not run so long as the President is in office.

But what the law should say and what the law does say are often different things.

Well, the inconsistency between Bush's alleged non-knowledge and claims of executive privilege has been discussed at length here and on other blogs. But it does seem never to have occurred to any Democratic spokesperson or major media outlet.

Yes, that's what I was getting at. It's appalling that no one in the media seems to be able to make this basic one plus one equals two computation.

When's the vote on Holder? We need any confrontation to occur after that vote so the Republicans have no reason to stall his nomination. Also, who's the DC federal prosecutor? Who's orders will he be taking at this point?

Crazy liberals- give constitutional rights to terrorists and subpoena Republicans. What is wrong with you people?! Other than your mental problems that is.
Posted by: mhr on January 27, 2009

We ARE NOT subpoenaing terrorists, we're finally going after them in places other than Iraq.

We ARE protecting the constitutional rights of Republicans.

And more than that, we're protecting the American people (and the world) from rogue administrations which destroy everything in sight.

If the rogue administration were led by a Dem President, then you'd be in favor of investigations. Remember Clinton? He was investigated to within an inch of his life. Do you regret that?

Dems are upholding the Constitution. If this seems strange and unfamiliar it's only because Republicans haven't seen it for some time.