Just in from Conyers' office. Rove and Miers will testify, under oath [see explanation in update below], in "transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury"...

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

House Judiciary Committee Secures Rove and Miers Testimony in U.S. Attorney Firings

In an agreement reached today between the former Bush Administration and Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury. The Committee has also reserved the right to have public testimony from Rove and Miers. It was agreed that invocations of official privileges would be significantly limited.

In addition, if the Committee uncovers information necessitating his testimony, the Committee will also have the right to depose William Kelley, a former White House lawyer who played a role in the U.S. Attorney firings.

The Committee will also receive Bush White House documents relevant to this inquiry. Under the agreement, the landmark ruling by Judge John Bates rejecting key Bush White House claims of executive immunity and privilege will be preserved. If the agreement is breached, the Committee can resume the litigation.

Chairman Conyers issued the following statement:

"I have long said that I would see this matter through to the end and am encouraged that we have finally broken through the Bush Administration's claims of absolute immunity. This is a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight. It is also a vindication of the search for truth. I am determined to have it known whether U.S. Attorneys in the Department of Justice were fired for political reasons, and if so, by whom."

UPDATE 3/5/09: A U.S. House Judiciary source tells The BRAD BLOG that no oath will be given, and none is necessary, as lying to Congress is already a federal crime. Details now posted here...

UPDATE 3/6/09: The complete agreement with Rove and Miers is now posted here...

U.S. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has subpoenaed Karl Rove today, yet again (the third time, for those keeping score at home), to give sworn, public testimony before the committee on February 23rd concerning the politicization of the U.S. Dept. of Justice during the Bush Administration.

Today's subpoena was sent to Rove's attorney Robert D. Luskin. It's accompanied by a brief, two-page letter [PDF] in which the Congressman politely refuses a request by the attorney to delay Rove's appearance, yet again. The previous subpoena required Rove's appearance on Feb. 2nd, but was delayed at his request and rescheduled for the 23rd at that time.

Following the previous subpoena, Rove told Fox "News" that he would refuse to testify, and committee member Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) responded on MSNBC by saying that he would either testify, or go to jail.

At the end of today's letter, refusing Luskin's request for further delay, Conyers, rather amusingly, notes:

RAW STORY's John Byrne reports that request for comment from Luskin was responded to with an auto-reply email stating that Luskin would "be out of the office and unable to check emails or voicemails until February 23, 2009."

UPDATE 2/14/09: "White House counsel Gregory Craig issued a statement late Friday encouraging former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove to cut a deal with Congress, an indication the new administration has begun to put pressure on President George W. Bush's former chief adviser." More details...

UPDATE 2/16/09: "Representatives of the Bush White House are no longer advising former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove that he is protected by executive privilege as regards testimony about the alleged political prosecution of an Alabama governor.

"In an exchange with Raw Story, Rove’s Washington, D.C. attorney, Robert Luskin, also said Rove won’t invoke his Fifth Amendment right to protect himself from self-incrimination, if and when he testifies about the firing of nine US Attorneys and the prosecution of the former governor." More details...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Video: Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) gets nowhere as he attempts to grill Attorney General Michael Mukasey on the investigation into Karl Rove's influence in the federal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

Update (from Brad): Wow. Remarkable exchange. Made either more or less astounding by the reminder that it was Schumer himself who, with Diane Feinstein, sealed the confirmation of Mukasey. Regretting that one yet, Senator?

(P.S. Good catch, Jon! Don't let me stop you from posting an update that includes the answer to Sheldon Whitehouse's question at the end there! )

Got it! See below --- Jon

Guest Blogged by Steve Heller of VelvetRevolution.us

The torment and imprisonment of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, allegedly via the hands of Karl Rove and his political hitmen operatives, has been extensively covered by The BRAD BLOG.

Over the weekend, Velvet Revolution.us (co-founded by The BRAD BLOG) sat down with him for an exclusive video-taped interview in Alabama. The entire interview will be posted soon, but we have posted two excerpts on YouTube. Both are embedded below.

Siegelman wants you to let Congress know that Rove must face the consequences of his actions. So do we.

Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress tomorrow, July 10th, regarding the politicization of the Justice Department. The House Judiciary Committee wants to question Rove about his knowledge of the persecution prosecution of former Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman and the U.S. Attorney firing scandal.

But Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has informed the Judiciary Committee that Rove will not attend the hearing.

Luskin has offered to make Rove available to the committee behind closed doors and not under oath. Luskin also insists that there be no transcript of the questioning and that Rove would not respond to written questions from the panel.

The Judiciary Committee has rejected that so-called "compromise."

We join Siegelman's request, as stated in his interview, in asking you to please contact the House Judiciary Committee and your House Representative to politely but firmly insist that they hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress.

You can call the House Judiciary Committee at 202-225-3951 and you can email them via this page.

You can call your House Rep. at 202-224-3121. More contact info for your specific Representative can be found here.
As Siegelman notes about Rove during the VR interview, in the first posted excerpt (seen at right)...

In the second excerpt (video at right, below), Siegelman goes on to point out that only Congress currently holds the power to reveal the truth about what went on in this sordid affair...

Is the photo at left beginning to seem less and less absurd?

Looks like we're headed for an interesting game of chicken next month in the House Judiciary Committee surrounding Rove's subpoena to appear before it to answer questions in the Don Siegelman affair (and perhaps others) on July 10. RAW has the story worth putting on your radar, with no less than two House Judiciary members hinting that they may be willing to take extra steps (e.g., use of "inherent contempt" to have Rove arrested by the House Sergeant at Arms if need be) should he refuse to testify.

If Rove refuses to appear, says Rep. Wasserman-Schultz, "then we have to take the next step." And Rep. Sanchez notes, "We really need to set our foot down and show there are consequences to people who laugh in the face of Congressional subpoenas."

Tea leaves sure, but interesting ones, worth watching. The point is also made that the Committee may continue with this particular investigation, even as a new President takes office. Would be a whole different ballgame under those conditions. Presuming that new President isn't McCain, in any case. Hmmm...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Last Thursday Keith Olbermann began an excellent conversation with George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley on the Karl Rove subpoena matter by stating, "Joe Wilson's dream of watching Karl Rove frog marched out of the White House in handcuffs is long since gone. But a new dream has been born tonight. What about a Turdblossom perp walk out of the front door of Fix News."

Later that night The BRAD BLOG asked Ambassador Joe Wilson to comment on Olbermann's statement and the Karl Rove subpoena.

As seen in the video at right, the freshly shorn former Ambassador responds to the news and our question at a small gathering where he was speaking in Los Angeles. He said he was unsure whether or not Congress will be able to "get to" Rove, though he was certainly behind the effort.

"Whether they will actually be able to get to Karl I don't know," Wilson told us. "But it's great to keep the pressure on him. It forces him back on defense." He then added: "It's amazing to me the extent to which these guys have operated with absolute impunity, absolute disregard for American law and American jurisprudence."

Following below is the entire 40 minutes or so of Wilson's talk to the small gathering last week in Los Angeles, covering all aspects of his ordeal with the Bush administration...

Just sent to The BRAD BLOG by John Conyers' office...

For Immediate Release: May 22, 2008

Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

(Washington, DC)-Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's case. Yesterday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee's previous requests.

"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers said.

"Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters."

Separately, Chairman Conyers recently received a letter from DOJ's Office of Professional Responibility (OPR) indicating that the office has opened an investigation into allegations of selective prosecution of Siegelman and others.

Included below and attached are the relevant documents:

• Full text of the cover letter sent to Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney (attached and below); [Download here]
• Full text of the subpoena (attached); [Download here]
• Full text of the letter received yesterday from Luskin, declining to provide voluntary testimony (attached); [Download here]
• Letter from OPR regarding new investigation into selective prosecution allegations (attached). [Download here]

Still paging Dan Abrams...

The following email comes from Mark Crispin Miller, NYU media professor, and author of the landmark election integrity book, FOOLED AGAIN.

It includes an email exchange from yesterday with the finally-free-on-bond former Democratic Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman, concerning his allegations that his 2002 election was electronically flipped. (A rarely seen video interview, featuring Siegelman in 2004 discussing details of what he believes happened, is at posted at end of this article.)

Paging Dan Abrams! Working on several detailed stories for the moment, so not much time for background on this, but we'll try to quickly connect a few dots for you.

Much of it the first part here is so amusing and/or ironical on its own, that I suspect it speaks for itself. At least for anybody who is cursorily familiar with the John "Minorities Die First" Tanner story, as originally broken by The BRAD BLOG's Alan Breslauer, who video-taped the remarks which led, fairly directly, to Tanner's embarassing downfall, sad Congressional testimony and eventual resignation as the head of the DoJ's Civil Rights voting unit. (Our extensive coverage of the entire mess can be perused here.)

This now from AP [emphasis ours]...

Expert on that, indeed.

The article goes on to note that the DoJ is "paying Tanner's salary and benefits to work in Alabama through next spring." About which Bob McCurley, director of the Alabama Law Institute, said, "It's not costing me anything."

And well worth the price at that!

But that's not all that should be taken note of here. There are at least two very important dots that need connecting here between Tanner, Alabama, the Siegelman case and an unprecedented order by the DoJ in 2006 taking away control of elections from the AL Secretary of State and handing it to the Republican Governor who ousted him under, um, less than crystal-clean circumstances...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Part 1 (9:40), Part 2 (9:06)...

Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, at the center of an alleged conspiracy to take him down --- a conspiracy with an extraordinary body of bi-partisan evidence to support it, and Karl Rove's direct involvement in it --- has finally been released from jail pending appeal.

We're on a few other beats for the moment, so for the latest, we'll refer you to RAW STORY's coverage, where Larisa Alexandrovna has done a great deal of heavy lifting on this story over the past several months.

Our own numerous stories on this woeful tale, including an occasional exclusive or two --- and some still grossly-undercovered aspects of Siegelman's story, such as the electronic election fraud he alleges was employed by state Republicans to unseat him --- can be read here.

UPDATE: Dan Abrams' coverage of Siegelman's pending release below...

(Hat-tip for the heads up to The BRAD BLOG's Alan Breslauer, with balls the size of Alabama, as seen in the photo at top-left.)

MSNBC's Dan Abrams continued, for the third day in a row, on the Don Siegelman beat today. The former Democratic Alabama Governor, who still sits in jail pending an appeal for his non-violent crime, is alleged to have been railroaded by Karl Rove and political operatives in the state while running for re-election in 2006.

In 2002 he had won his election, according to the announced results on Election Night, only to wake up the next morning to find that a Republican election director claimed to have discovered a "glitch" (sound familiar, regular BRAD BLOG readers?) in the electronic vote counts overnight, resulting in Siegelman's loss. He was never allowed a recount after the vote tallies somehow changed on the electronic voting machines due to the "glitch," as it was described officially, by court probate officers.

In this rarely seen, 2004 video interview with Siegelman (see approx. half-way through that linked article), he alleges: "Somebody electronically manipulated the election results…This election was stolen…There is no other kind, or sugar-coated way to say it."

Neither the 60 Minutes report on Siegelman from Sunday, nor any of Abrams' reports so far this week (here's Tuesday's and Wednesday's) including today's, as posted at the end of this article, have yet delved, with any depth, into that aspect of what seems clearly to have been a well-run political frame-up --- or, yes, a conspiracy --- to do away with the one Democrat who had been able to win statewide elections in an otherwise very Republican-leaning state.

We hope to have more on that aspect of the case soon.

On today's MSNBC "Bush League Justice" report, Abrams spoke with both Siegelman's attorney, Vince Kilborn, as well as Grant Woods, the former Republican Attorney General from Arizona who has been among the most outspoken of the 52 former Republican and Democratic Attorneys General who have called on Congress for an investigation and a special prosecutor to be named in the case.

Abrams repeated his call, from yesterday, for the immediate release of Siegelman from prison, pending appeal of his case, as would be customary in other similar, non-violent cases. Abrams enumerated his chief concerns about the prosecution and the trial as run by federal judge Mark Fuller, as follows...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Dan Abrams once again tackles the Don Siegelman case in his stellar "Bush League Justice" series on MSNBC. Tonight's guests included Scott Horton of Harper's, former Alabama GOP operative Dana Jill Simpson, and Governor Siegelman's daughter, Dana Siegelman.

Abrams and Horton opened the segment discussing the remarkable 60 Minutes blackout of the Siegelman story in Alabama on Sunday. According to the local CBS station the blackout occurred because of a faulty receiver. An incredulous Abrams then proceeded to make a mockery out of the laughable excuse:

After playing more of his interview with Karl Rove accuser Simpson from yesterday's show, Abrams made his first of many calls for Governor Siegelman's release from prison:

Amazingly, Siegelman is unable to appeal his case because the government has failed to produce a transcript of the trial which was completed over 18 months ago.

Later Dana Siegelman tries to answer some of the many unanswerable questions regarding her father's case before flat out telling Abrams that the judge is "trying to keep her dad hushed as long as he possibly can" and that her father "knows Karl Rove is behind this."

Part 1 (9:49), Part 2 (2:08)

RELATED: Note that part of The BRAD BLOG's encounter with Karl Rove on Monday appears at the beginning of the segment. You can also catch two former "Bush League Justice" installments about the Siegelman case here at The BRAD BLOG: In the most recent, posted Tuesday Abrams called on AG Mukasey to open an investigation into the case and in the other, back in December, Abrams was the first in the mainstream corporate media to cover the Siegelman case.

As you'll recall, a local Alabama affiliate blacked out last Sunday's 60 Minutes report on the railroading of former AL Gov. Don Siegelman, who still sits in jail today (even if The BRAD BLOG has proof that Karl Rove, who evidence suggests helped put him there, now wants him "Free"!) The only segment of the show that didn't make it to the AL viewers, when 60 Minutes originally aired Sunday, was the Siegelman segment. The local station then lied about the reasons for the blackout, initially claiming a "transmission problem" from CBS. The network has denied it, and the local station has recanted that explanation and come up with something equally thin. (We covered it all in detail, along with the full video of the 60M report, back here.)

The following interesting point comes from a New York Times editorial today covering the boondoggle...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

I got a chance to meet Karl Rove before he spoke at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles last night. Here's the awkward video (33 seconds, below left) of my brief encounter, which was followed by a Q&A with Rove, in which he denied recent charges made against him by a Republican operative in Alabama concerning the prosecution of Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman...