Waiting for Rove

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the ruling gave Congress a 'road map' by which committees could gain testimony from former West Wing officials, including ex-deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

"'It was a victory for all who believe in checks and balances. . . . It certainly strengthens our hand,' Pelosi told reporters. . . . "

David Stout writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush's chief spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said that the White House was studying the decision. . . . [She] noted that Judge Bates had not ruled on the merits of any specific executive privilege claim and had in fact said that some considerations, like national security, might justify such a claim."

Paul Singer writes for Roll Call (subscription required): "[L]egal experts warned that there are still a number of procedural steps that could prevent any witnesses from appearing prior to the Bush administration's conclusion in January."

But "Democrats said that even with an appeal, it would be possible to force Miers to appear before the election. To prevent her from testifying in September, the Justice Department would have to seek a stay while the appeal moves forward, and the Judiciary Committee could oppose the stay on the ground that other former White House officials have already testified, so Miers' testimony would not harm the White House case.

"Even if this legal process continues through the end of September, when Congress is expected to go on recess, one Judiciary Committee staffer said, 'it is not unprecedented that we could come back for an October session.'"

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy announced in a statement yesterday that he was reasserting his demand for testimony from Rove and Bolten in connection with Senate subpoenas issued in June and July of last year.

Acording to his office: "On Thursday, Leahy sent letters to Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, and White House Counsel Fred Fielding, instructing them to advise the Committee by August 7 when Rove and Bolten would appear to provide documents and testimony related to the mass firing of U.S. Attorneys. Leahy also sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking when the Department would withdraw memoranda and opinions justifying the White House's non-compliance with the subpoenas."

Leahy also telegraphed that he's interested in hearing testimony about more than the Justice Department. In his letter to Mukasey, he wrote: "[P]lease inform me whether the court's decision will cause you to revaluate your memos and those from [the Office of Legal Counsel] in support of overbroad and unsubstantiated executive privilege claims not only in the U.S. Attorneys investigation, but also in other matters, like the claims used to block Congress from investigating warrantless wiretapping, the leak of the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame for political retribution, and White House interference in the Environmental Protection Agency's decision-making. Which of these do you now intend to withdraw?"

The Washington Post editorial board writes: "Obsessed with stretching the limits of executive power, the administration has time and again engaged in legal battles or unilateral action in defense of warped interpretations of the law. Time and again, it has been rebuffed by conservative and liberal judges alike. The result: The administration has trampled on the rule of law, and the backlash against its actions has whittled away at the foundations of legitimate executive power."

Law professor Marty Lederman blogs: "It bears mentioning that the judge who so ruled is a Republican jurist who worked on the Starr Whitewater team, and who was appointed to the bench by the sitting President Bush. . . .

"When the history of the Bush Administration's executive aggrandizement campaign is finally written, a very large and important part of that story -- a central theme in Jane Mayer's new book, for instance -- is just how many very strongly conservative Republicans resisted the Cheney/Addington/Gonzales/Rove agenda. That includes not only officials within the Executive branch who are very strong defenders of executive prerogatives, such as Jim Comey, Jack Goldsmith, Pat Philbin, Peter Keisler, numerous JAG lawyers, including Alberto Mora and Tom Romig, various Republican U.S. Attorneys who resisted Karl Rove (and paid the price), Will Taft, John Bellinger, etc., but also Republican jurists such as Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, Michael Luttig, and in recent days Judges Sentelle, Wilkinson, Williams and Bates. Many of these executive and judicial officials did not, of course, hesitate to defend or uphold strong assertions of executive power or statutory construction in many instances -- suffice it to say that I've strongly disagreed with many of them on some such questions. But they -- and apparently many more like them, some of whom remain anonymous -- also all took quite extraordinary steps to reject some of the most extreme views of the Bush/Cheney Administration, to stand in the way of some of the more outrageous things that the Administration has tried to do, and, as in today's decision by Judge Bates, to treat the rule of law with rigor and respect."