Bush embraces Rove as he resigned under a dark cloud of suspician last August…

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat, and Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez of California, criticized former Bush political adviser Karl Rove this week for failing to appear before a Judiciary subcommittee in violation of a committee subpoena.

Mr. Rove’s privilege claim was rejected by a 7-1 subcommittee vote.

“Mr. Rove’s absence today is an insult to the American people and to the system of checks and balances that are the basis of our constitution and our democracy,” Conyers said in a statement. “I applaud Chairwoman Sánchez’s ruling rejecting his overreaching claim of immunity.”

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he said, “I will seriously consider all available options to obtain Mr. Rove’s testimony as required by the subpoena. Whatever path we take, the end result must be the same: the full restoration of our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no one – not the president and certainly not Karl Rove – is above the law.”

Sánchez said Mr. Rove is not above the law and Congress will assert its constitutional role to serve as a check on the power of the executive branch.

“By failing to appear in defiance of a subpoena, Mr. Rove, his attorney and the White House are trying to run away from an investigation that’s about one thing: ensuring justice is dispensed free of fear or favor,” she said.

Mr. Conyers and Ms. Sánchez also wrote to Mr. Rove’s attorney urging him to reconsider his refusal to testify as required by the subpoena. That letter calls for a response by July 15, 2008.

In response to Rove’s failure to show up, former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman issued the following statement:

“Karl Rove did not show up on July 10 and choose to defy a subpoena from the U.S House Judiciary Committee. He chose the possibility of being put in jail for Contempt of Congress rather than testify under oath about my case,” Siegelman said. “Tell me … how clear does it have to be?”

Rep. Hank Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, later joined Conyers and Sanchez in denouncing Karl Rove’s refusal to appear in violation of a congressional subpoena.

“Mr. Rove’s refusal to cooperate is an affront to Congress, this nation, and the citizens he pledged to serve,” Rep. Johnson said. “He is obliged to appear and testify, under Oath, just as any other citizen or public servant would be compelled to do; that is the process that he must respect as well.”

Attorney Robert Luskin advised the committee by letter that his client would not appear citing Executive Privilege. Luskin did offer to make Rove available however, under specific constraints.

“I voted today to deny Mr. Rove’s claim of executive privilege and his failure to appear may very well lead to contempt proceedings,” Johnson said. “He is not above the law.”

All the Democrats on the committee voted yes and 1 Republican voted no, but several of the Republican members did not show up to vote at all.

Making light of Rove’s no show, a so-called blog on the Birmingham News Website, written by the Newhouse Washington correspondent, called the proceedings “the empty chair hearing,” and attempted to explain why our very own Rep. Artur Davis, D-B’ham., didn’t bother to show up at all.

By way of explaining why Siegelman advocate Rep. Artur Davis didn’t attend the hearing, it was before the House Judiciary Committee’s commercial and administrative law subcommittee, of which he is not a member. Previous hearings related to selective prosecution (and Siegelman in particular) had been joint affairs along with the subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security, where Davis is a member.

I asked Davis about the change Thursday.

The Birmingham Democrat said he was unclear why the crime panel wasn’t handling the issue, but had they believed Rove was going to actually show up, it probably would have been a hearing before the full commiteee.

“I think because it was felt this was simply an exercise today there was no reason to have two subcommittees,” Davis said.

Hmmm … we still don’t know where Davis really stands on Bush’s spying bill, telecom immunity or impeachment, since his press office has absolutely nothing to say about it to us. He voted for the FISA bill, along with the candidate he supports for president, Barack Obama. But he will talk to a Birmingham News reporter and get away with making an excuse that there was no reason to show up? And he wants to be the next governor of Alabama?

Meanwhile, no one seems to know where Karl Rove traveled overseas to avoid his appearance, but this is part of an e-mail message received from Jill Simpson Saturday morning.

I arrived in St. Petersburg this morning after a wonderful couple days in Moscow and a beautiful week on the river and lakes from Moscow to St. Petersburg. I have seen more churches than ya’ll can imagine, but the one that was my favorite was the Church of Transfiguration. It was beautiful and the bells were out of this world. They were heavenly.

The news of Rove not appearing arrived in the morning news yesterday on the boat. Today is my first day in over a week to get to use e-mail as the signal was not strong enough from the boat.

I have noticed that a local paper the (Florence) Times-Journal has been somewhat ugly about my story suggesting it has grown more outlandish, which I find interesting considering I have only told my story to y’all and Abrams and “60 Minutes” and Brett Blackledge, and they suggest I have not told it locally, which is just not true.

It absolutely amazes me that Rove can refuse to testify and they don’t get on him, but attack me.

Oh well, I am headed to the ballet. Just wanted y’all to know I knew Karl would never testify and I am disappointed Conyers gave him another chance in five days. That is completely ridiculous.

Oh, and by the way I love Russia and have learned much…

For the life of my computer I can’t find the article she is talking about, perhaps because that Northrop-Grumman “new tanker” video ad and the Verizon ad make the newspaper’s Website almost impossible to load on a Macintosh computer. It even gave me trouble on the PC.

If anyone wants to go here and find it and send it along, be my guest: Alabama News.

What some newspapers do with their Websites is a mystery to me, unless they just expect people to actually continue buying and reading the print edition. It’s also a mystery why in the world Verizon would advertise in an Alabama newspaper since they have no market share in this area, ATandT’s territory.

Oh well, it’s Saturday and there are many mysteries in the world to explore further. For Sunday’s column, I’m thinking about trying to explain one more time why the Senate’s passage of Bush’s spying bill with telecom immunity was not just about lawsuits. It’s about who is going to control and profit from the Net and the Web into the future.

As you can see from the Times-Daily Website, no wonder people read the Locust Fork News and Journal and use cragslist.org for classified ads. The site even managed to force a pop up ad on my screen, even though Firefox is set to block them, that will no doubt lead to phishing e-mails from a company claiming to save people from their home mortgage mess.

If the newspapers in this country don’t grow an imagination and start overseeing these damn programmers there is very little hope for the survival of the First Amendment online and Democracy itself.

And apparently, Karl Rove could care less – as long as he stays out of jail and gets those mammoth speaking fees from right-wing, corporate groups he spent his time in the White House protecting…

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Alabama Politics, Don Siegelman on Trial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.