Progressive World Review

As I’ve written here , former Bush advisor Karl Rove has been issued a subpoena by the House Judiciary Committee.  They want to find out if Rove had any involvement in the politicization of the Justice Department, the same scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  Specifically, they want to know if Rove has any information concerning the recent conviction of Donald Siegelman, former Democratic governor of Alabama.  Siegelman’s prosecution appears to have been politically motivated as he was poised to possibly retake the governorship of Alabama from the Republicans.  From an editorial in The New York Times,

Mr. Siegelman – who began serving his sentence before being freed on appeal – was convicted on corruption charges that appear to be flimsy, and his supporters have long insisted that he was prosecuted for partisan reasons. Until his indictment, he was the Democrats’ best chance of taking back the Alabama governorship.

After Mr. Siegelman’s conviction, Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer, swore in an affidavit that she had heard another G.O.P. political operative, Bill Canary, boast in a phone call that his wife would “take care” of Mr. Siegelman and that Mr. Rove was involved in the planning. Mr. Canary’s wife is Leura Canary, the United States attorney for Montgomery, and her office prosecuted Mr. Siegelman.

While most consider Washington politics as nothing more than either partisan bickering or shameless power mongering with little or no regard for what is in this Country’s best interest, the Justice department has traditionally been free of political games.  That is until the Bush administration came along.  In an effort to garner a permanent Republican majority, former Bush operative Karl Rove had led the effort to politicize the department by firing federal prosecutors and replacing them, in many cases, with partisan hacks who’s only qualifications were loyalty to the Republican party.  And now we’re beginning to see some of the results of that process with not only Siegelman’s prosecution but possibly others as well,

The House Judiciary Committee has prepared a report on the Siegelman case, and several other questionable prosecutions.

The question now is whether Rove will obey the subpoena, an event that doesn’t seem likely as he’s refused to comply with a previous subpoena citing executive privilege.  As the Times points out, disobeying this subpoena would be legally dubious and ethically repugnant,

Mr. Rove has already defied a Senate subpoena on the issue of politicized prosecutions, claiming executive privilege, and he seems intent on defying the House’s subpoena. His claim of executive privilege is not only weak; it is shamefully cynical.

If he was drumming up political prosecutions in the Justice Department, and talking about it with operatives in Alabama, those conversations are not privileged. And if there is any privilege to be protected – such as a conversation with the president that did not involve illegality – he would still need to show up in Congress and plead the privilege to specific questions.

Will Attorney General Michael Mukasey do his job, perform his constitutional duty and enforce this subpoena?  When Mukasey’s name was offered to the Senate to replace Gonzales as Attorney General, it was hoped that even though he’s a staunch conservative, he would possess the independence and integrity to act in a non-partisan manner as the nation’s leading law enforcement officer.  His equivocations regarding the legality of “waterboarding” during his Senate confirmation hearings didn’t inspire much confidence but here he has the opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the rule of law by compelling Rove’s sworn testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.

–Paul Wilden

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