"Absolutely, 100%, Aye." Such was the enthusiastic vote of Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) today, when the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena. The committee said that Rove broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.

Rove claims that Congress can't force him to testify because of . . . wait for it . . . executive privilege! Taking the Bush administration's already shopworn privilege claim to newly ridiculous extremes, Rove, who no longer works at the White House, is claiming executive privilege for allegedly illegal activity -- a claim that the Supreme Court ripped to shreds in the Nixon case some 30 years ago.

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Bloomberg's James Rowley has the details.

A House panel cited President George W. Bush's chief of staff and former counsel for contempt of Congress over their refusal to cooperate with its investigation of the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

The House Judiciary Committee, on a 22-17 party-line vote, approved the citations against Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff, and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Bolten refused to turn over documents related to the dismissals, and Miers disobeyed a subpoena to appear before the panel and answer questions about her role in the firing.

The issuance of contempt citations, which would also require approval by the full House of Representatives, would escalate the dispute between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the president's assertion of executive privilege to forbid testimony by his aides.

As noted by Rowley, this is only one more step in this constitutional showdown; the full House of Representatives still has to vote on contempt charges before they are either handed to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia or are taken up by the House itself. That said, this is constitutional showdown time, with the Congress demanding accountability and the White House claiming that it is above the law. We are truly in historic times.

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The Bush administration has been fairly clear in recent weeks that if Congressional Democrats cite any administration officials for contempt of Congress as a result of their obfuscation (and clear contept of Congress, in their intentions, at the least, and potentially in a legal sense as well), the Bush Justice Department will not move forward with such charges. In this case, Congress would have no choice but to bring up impeachment hearings, most likely of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales first, right? Well, according to Neil A. Lewis and David Johnston of The New York Times, the legislative branch may have another card up their sleeve.

Congress has another route to enforce its will, an inherent power of contempt. But that has not been used since early in the 20th century. It has long been deemed unwieldy in the modern era as it entails Congress stopping all work to hold its own trial and imprisoning any offenders in the basement of the Capitol.

I'll admit that I was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of inherent contempt by which Congress actually tries and (potentially) incarcerates someone for disrespecting their will. According to Wikipedia,

Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation.)

The last time Congress undertook such an action was during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term in office, when a lawyer in a case involving the United States Postmaster and the airlines was imprisoned for 10 days after having been found to have allowed his clients to destroy documents. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which found that Congress was within its constitutional powers.

Two interesting aspects of such a trial, should Congress opt to undertake one in the face of Bush administration obstruction, are that the defendant can only be kept in jail for the duration of the Congress (i.e. only through January 2009, in this case) and that, should the trial occur in the Senate rather than in the House, none other than Dick Cheney, as Vice President (and thus President of the Senate), would preside.

It still seems to me that impeachment of the Attorney General or possibly defunding political and aide to the Attorney General positions within the Department of Justice would be less risky (though still risky) maneuvers for Congress to use should the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia fail to follow through on a contempt charge brought forward by Congress. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note (and worth noting) that Congress isn't complely out of luck should members of the Bush administration try to weasel out of contempt charges.

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