Could it be? Accountability for Rove in the US Attorney and Don Siegelman cases? Possibly, if John Conyers has anything to say about it, which, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he sort of does:

On Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) issued a subpoena to Karl Rove, requiring him to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration's politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. The subpoena calls for Rove to appear at deposition on Monday, February 2, 2009.

Behold the subpoena HERE (h/t emptywheel.) It's a thing of beauty. It's not Rove's first, of course. The last time he was subpoenaed he simply made a spurious immunity claim to get out of having to appear.

From TPM:

Rove had claimed immunity from an earlier Conyers-issued subpoena, citing executive privilege. (The case is currently on appeal.) As a press release accompanying today's subpoena points out, "[t]hat "absolute immunity" position was supported by then-President Bush, but it has been rejected by U.S. District Judge John Bates and President Obama has previously dismissed the claim as 'completely misguided.'"

Will Rove be able to wriggle his way out of this one? To listen to Conyers, it's hard to see how:

"I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and today's action is an important step along the way," said Rep. Conyers.

In his own "elections have consequences" moment, Conyers added:

"Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."

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Good news: Pressure from Rep. Waxman to enforce Dr. Kaye Whitley's subpoena to testify on how the DOD is preventing and responding to incidents of sexual assault in the military have paid off: after first blocking her from attending a House committee's hearing, the Pentagon is allowing Whitley to testify. Bad news: the DOD continues to ignore a very specific responsibility they have been tasked with in order to fully address this issue.

I expect that people find it hard to deal with emotionally sensitive issues. I may even expect that many people would want to shield themselves from it.

But I won't tolerate elected and appointed officials who run and hide when they not only have the power to do something about it, they have the explicit responsibility of doing something about it.

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Even if prosecutors and judges refuse to uphold Congressional subpoenas sent to the White House, Congress can still put White House staffers in jail if they refuse to testify under oath before the House and Senate. I see no need to elaborate on this, as I believe the references I cite below tell the whole story:

The New Republic

House Arrest
by Jeffrey Rosen  
Post date 11.13.06 | Issue date 11.20.06

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061120& amp;s=rosen112006

Even if the Supreme Court eventually ruled against Congress in Conyers v. Gonzales, Congress could always enforce contempt citations on its own. In a little-used procedure, Congress has the power to punish recalcitrant witnesses for "inherent contempt." As Morton Rosenberg of the Congressional Research Service points out in an invaluable 1995 report on investigative oversight that House Democrats are now heavily consulting, the defiant witness can be brought before the House or Senate by the sergeant at arms, tried, and locked up in the capitol jail. (In 2004, a citizen-activist was sentenced to a six-month term there for "disrupting Congress" by demanding to testify at a judicial confirmation hearing.) This inherent contempt procedure hasn't been invoked by Congress for more than 70 years, because a cumbersome trial for contempt has the potential to grind Congress to a halt. But, if the White House is obdurate and the courts are unsympathetic, congressional Democrats might decide that a contempt trial--unlike a presidential impeachment--would be good politics as well as good theater. And, of course, the House is always free to impeach Gonzales for his refusal to cooperate, which might be less politically risky than an impeachment of Bush.

Venable LLP

Point of Order:
An Insider's Guide to Surviving Congressional
Investigations
By: Raymond Shepherd 1 and Don R. Berthiaume 2

http://www.venable.com/docs/pubs/1631.pd f

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It seems that the Bush administration has promised to fight any subpoena of White House advisors all the way to the Supreme Court. The inherent problem with this is that by the time it gets before the courts, it will be too late: Bush will have left office or his term will be so close to over that accountability will only come in the form of criminal charges in the normal sense. I was infuriated at this attempt to utterly obstruct justice and throw it upon the courts, which they hope they have biased in their favor. How unfair is that? Are we just going to sit here and take that kind of abuse of power used merely to firewall themselves from Justice? So I started to make some phone calls and at one point got reach of a staffer at the House Judiciary Committee to ask him about what I had heard about using the sergeat-at-arms to enforce the law if the DOJ refused. What I was told was that the committee was considering this option. This leads me to believe that they've beaten all of us to the punch on this idea. I'm pretty optimistic that this is the route that will be taken.

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One of the upsides to the relative lack of coverage of Democratic hearings and the lack of progressive voices in the mainstream media is that when there is a showdown by Democrats, it has the capacity to actually change the brand of the Democratic Party.  The 2006 election brought in 42 freshmen, all of them Democrats and most of them elected on a very anti-Bush and very partisan wave on Iraq [correction - there are also 13 Republican freshmen].  That's a big infusion of non-DC blood into a political party used to nonpartisan media politics and David Broder domination.  The new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is incredibly skilled, and various chairmen are showing their experience in oversight.

This sea change has not been communicated to the activist core of the Democratic Party yet.  There's a great deal of anguish and tension over whether the Democratic Party is serious about stopping Bush, and it's cluttered by a ferocious debate over Iraq and an imperial President.  The situation we're in today - a criminal President, a deeply authoritarian political party, and a media that cannot distinguish between genuine scandal and what looks bad on TV - is unusual and very difficult to handle.  To competently handle the media and political environment, one must adopt several attitudinal shifts each one of which is tough to adopt on its own.  Democratic leaders must stop trusting a DC-based press to be fair or useful, they must begin to realize that there is a large underground network 'out there' where the public is getting its news.  This includes youtube and blogs, but really, it's just people talking to other people, and it's really hard to measure at this point.  They have to stop trusting their DLC pollsters and establishment messaging advisors, which is almost impossible to do since there are dense networks of friendships and marriages among this politician / consultant / lobbyist / activist borg.

Similarly, Democrats must recognize that the Republican Party apparatus has lost its fundamental legitimacy as a political institution.  Bush is a criminal, and there is no sense in treating anything any Republican official says as anything but expedient for the acquisition of more power for Republicans.  A genuine truth and reconciliation operation, involving a real removal of the cockroaches from the defense industry, AIPAC, K-Street and the Republican Party, is necessary.  There is no reason not to say this, as the public will not grant you credibility unless you share the perspective that they have been taken for a ride by some very bad people.

For someone who has been in politics and in DC for thirty years, it is tough making these adjustments.  That's why there's an electoral system, to bring in new blood every two years.  And it's working.

For those who are surprised that the House is serving subpoenas to Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, don't be.  This is going to get a lot worse for the GOP, and it's not because, as the cable dittoheads say, the Democrats are out for blood.  It's because the public is fed up at the Republican Party's consistently criminal behavior.  They are demanding a new media system that is slowly evolving around tracking this scandal wherever it will go (and my guess is that this is going to get bigger, a lot bigger), and in 2006, the public put 42 new Democrats in the House and 10 new Democrats in the Senate.

The real story arc of the Republican Party is simple.  The Republicans are trying to institutionalize absolute power for themselves by turning the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the CIA, and the Defense Department into enforcement arms for the GOP.  Key to this is seizing the election machinery through a mix of intimidation, gerrymandering, and overt politicization of the Justice Department.  They wanted a dictatorship, hence all that 'decider' talk.  And the Democratic Party, fresh with new and aggressive members more in touch with the public, aren't going to lay down for this anymore.

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