Rove Ignores Subpoena, Refuses To Testify

Former Bush Adviser A No-Show At Hearing On Alleged Political Pressure At Justice Dept.

(CBS/ AP)  Former White House adviser Karl Rove defied a congressional subpoena and refused to testify Thursday about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department, including whether he influenced the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of Alabama.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, chairman of a House subcommittee, ruled with backing from fellow Democrats on the panel that Rove was breaking the law by refusing to cooperate - perhaps the first step toward holding him in contempt of Congress.

Lawmakers subpoenaed Rove in May in an effort to force him to talk about whether he played a role in prosecutors' decisions to pursue cases against Democrats, such as former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, or in firing federal prosecutors considered disloyal to the Bush administration.

Rove had been scheduled to appear at the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. A placard with his name sat in front of an empty chair at the witness table, with a handful of protesters behind it calling for Rove to be arrested.

A decision on whether to pursue contempt charges now goes to the full Judiciary Committee and ultimately to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

House Republicans called Thursday's proceedings a political stunt and said if Democrats truly wanted information they would take Rove up on an offer he made to discuss the matter informally.

Rove offered to appear in private, with no oath or transcript, but Democrats said no, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss.

The House already has voted to hold two of President Bush's confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with its inquiry into whether the administration fired nine federal prosecutors in 2006 for political reasons.

The case, involving White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, is in federal court and may not be resolved before Bush's term ends in January.

The White House has cited executive privilege, arguing that internal administration communications are confidential and that Congress cannot compel officials to testify.

Rove says he is bound to follow the White House's guidance, although he has offered to answer questions specifically on the Siegelman case - but only with no transcript taken and not under oath.

Democrats have rejected the offer because the testimony would not be sworn and, they say, could create a confusing record.

Rove has insisted publicly that he never tried to influence Justice Department decisions and was not even aware of the Siegelman prosecution until it landed in the news.

Siegelman - an unusually successful Democrat in a heavily Republican state - was charged with accepting and concealing a contribution to his campaign to start a state education lottery, in exchange for appointing a hospital executive to a regulatory board.

He was sentenced last year to more than seven years in prison but was released in March when a federal appeals court ruled Siegelman had raised "substantial questions of fact and law" in his appeal.

Siegelman and others have alleged the prosecution was pushed by GOP operatives - including Rove, a longtime Texas strategist who was heavily involved in Alabama politics before working at the White House. A former Republican campaign volunteer from Alabama told congressional attorneys last year that she overheard conversations suggesting that Rove pressed Justice officials in Washington to prosecute Siegelman.

The career prosecutors who handled Siegelman's case have insisted that Rove had nothing to do with it, emphasizing that the former governor was convicted by a jury.

[taotxzen]

International Committee of Red Cross Says Bush Administration Guilty of War Crimes

By: Nicole Belle @ 5:00 PM - PDT


It%u2019s something that has certainly been spoken of within the liberal blogosphere. I%u2019ve seen the random bumpersticker or freeway blogger suggest it as well, but it is no longer something that can be written off as a partisan or extremist view. As Countdown guest host Rachel Maddow and George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley discuss on Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross sent a report last year to the CIA saying that the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo was unquestionably torture and the Bush administration officials that approved the treatment are war criminals.

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency%u2019s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.[..]

The book, %u201CThe Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,%u201D by Jane Mayer, who writes about counterterrorism for The New Yorker, offers new details of the agency%u2019s secret detention program, as well as the bitter debates in the administration over interrogation methods and other tactics in the campaign against Al Qaeda.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Citing unnamed %u201Csources familiar with the report,%u201D Ms. Mayer wrote that the Red Cross document %u201Cwarned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.%u201D Red Cross representatives were not permitted access to the secret prisons where the C.I.A. conducted interrogations, but were permitted to interview Abu Zubaydah and other high-level detainees in late 2006, after they were moved to the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The book says the C.I.A. shared the report, which Ms. Mayer first described last year in less detail in The New Yorker, with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

[eroosevelt08]

The receipt of a congressonal subpoena is not an invitation to negotiate the terms of subsequent testimony. Karl Rove''s answers to the subpoena are arrogant and clearly in contempt of Congress. Where are the teeth in this Congress?

[eroosevelt08]

The receipt of a congressonal subpoena is not an invitation to negotiate the terms of subsequent testimony. Karl Rove''s answers to the subpoena are arrogant and clearly in contempt of Congress. Where are the teeth in this Congress?

[eroosevelt08]

Karl Rove should face the full consequences for ignoring the congressional subpoena.

[jntlw-2009]

I heard that Rove is out of the Country. How about not letting him back in ever!! Make him give up his citizenship and never be allowed to set foot on American soil or its territories ever again. I like that idea!

[actornaught]

History will look at the w administration as the American Dictatorship, with the freedoms and rights that they took away, and have so far gotten away with it, shameless...

[ajayvee]

I find it so humiliating for Americans in general that a piece of pond-scum like Karl Rove can thumb his nose at Congress and there is nothing American Justice can do to him because being a friend of Mr. Bush makes him above the law. How absolutely shameful!

[rafterman1]

===the demclowns give it to him? By the way, what "business" are you even talking about? When did their approval rating start to fall so low,....hmmmmm?===
Posted by cfin5

The business of the people. But we have no choice but to give in. The Dems don''t have a big enough advantage in Congress. We either do it Bush''s way or do nothing.

[rafterman1]

===OOOOOOO the denial is so thick I can smell it. The LIBS have had control of congress since 2006, you remember, when gas was $2.12/gal. That 9% is all yours buddy. Read it and weap.===
Posted by mbcsmith

Remember when gas was $1.75 in 2003 and then the moron-in-chief invaded Iraq and gas prices skyrocketed?

Dems keep bringing bills (more in two years than Repubs did the previous 6) and Repubs keep stalling. That 9% is motly yours.