Guest Column
by Rep. John Conyers

In the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove says that I — and others — owe him an apology for allegations that have been made about him during the course of the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the dismissal of United States Attorneys and related issues about the politicization of the Department of Justice.

Mr. Rove’s self-serving assertions on this subject are simply inconsistent with the documents that the Judiciary Committee recently released and his claims have been discredited by the analysis of the documents and reporting on these matters by credible news outlets across the country. Anyone interested in the truth can read the documents for themselves (here) or the reporting on these matters from the top papers in the U.S. — The Washington Post (here) and The New York Times (here) — as well as alternative, independent news sites such as The Locust Fork News-Journal (here).

Mr. Rove’s points are largely a repeat of his prior discredited statements, and the purpose of this post is not to rehash Mr. Rove’s rehash.

What may be of broader interest is the apparent editorial decision of the Wall Street Journal to prominently feature Mr. Rove’s self-serving assertions in its editorial pages, while burying and redacting the original story documenting the facts contained in these documents in the news pages.

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New Evidence in Prosecution of Governor Don Siegelman

by Glynn Wilson

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers once again made it clear that he and his committee are not going to allow the corruption of the Justice Department on Bush’s watch to be swept under the proverbial “let’s just move forward” rug.

There is still some serious business to attend to, and at the top of the list, in the lead of Conyers’ press release, is a brand spanking new subpoena for Mr. Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove, demanding that he appear in person before the committee and “testify regarding his role in the Bush administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice, including the U.S. attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.”

The subpoena calls for Mr. Rove to appear for a deposition on Monday, February 2, 2009.

Mr. Rove has previously refused to appear in response to a Judiciary Committee subpoena, claiming that even former presidential advisers cannot be compelled to testify before Congress. That “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.”

“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,” Mr. Conyers said. Noting that the change in administration may impact the legal arguments available to Mr. Rove in this long-running dispute, Mr. 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.”

Click here for the page with the link to a copy of the subpoena.

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman reacted quickly from his iPhone via a Google Gmail account: “Chairman Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena of Karl Rove gives hope to those who want to know the extent of Karl Rove’s abuse of power and his misuse of the Department of Justice as a way to win elections.

“Chairman Conyers’ action gives meaning to the change that has been ushered in by the election of President Obama,” he said. “I am sure that I speak for millions of U.S. Citizens when I say that I am grateful for Mr. Conyers’ determination to seek the truth.”

“Those who abused their power must be held accountable, otherwise their misuse of power will be more likely to happen again,” he wrote. “Our democracy has been threatened by the use of the Department of Justice as a political weapon. Chairman Conyers’ action will serve to protect our democracy and restore people’s faith that no man is above the law.”

North Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, who came forward as a whistle-blower last summer and provided the key evidence for starting an investigation showing Siegelman’s case was political, said she was happy to hear about the subpoena.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. released a 500-page report on Tuesday documenting numerous abuses and excesses of the Bush administration and calling on a continuation of the investigations of administration officials, including criminal prosecutions.

The report, titled “Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the presidency of George W. Bush,” contains 47 separate recommendations designed to restore the traditional checks and balances of our constitutional system. Recommendations include calls for continued committee investigation, a blue ribbon commission to fully investigate administration activities, and independent criminal probes.

“Even after scores of hearings, investigations, and reports, we still do not have answers to some of the most fundamental questions left in the wake of Bush’s Imperial Presidency,” Conyers said. Pointing to allegations of torture and inhumane treatment, extraordinary rendition, warrantless domestic surveillance, the Valerie Plame Wilson-leak, and the U.S. attorney scandal, Conyers continued, “Investigations are not a matter of payback or political revenge – it is our responsibility to examine what has occurred and to set an appropriate baseline of conduct for future administrations.”

In addition to the set of recommendations, the report contains a foreword by Chairman Conyers and detailed discussions of: the administration’s legal approach to presidential power; the politicization of the Department of Justice; the administration’s far-reaching assaults on individual liberty (including torture, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless domestic surveillance); the misuse of Executive Branch authority; the administration’s retribution against its critics; and the administration’s excessive secrecy, noncompliance with congressional oversight, and manipulation of pre-Iraq War intelligence.

For the full report, go to this page on the House Judiciary Committee Website.

by Glynn Wilson

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and the House of Representatives took concrete steps in the first days of the 111th Congress to ensure a continuation of ongoing investigations of the Bush administration, specifically torture of detainees, warrantless wiretapping, and for politicizing the Department of Justice by firing independent prosecutors and wrongly prosecuting Democrats.

The details are just beginning to emerge on the House Judiciary Committee Website, but stories in the Las Vegas Sun, the TPMMuckraker, and Consortium News show that at least some members of Congress are not ready to move on and let bygones by bygones when it comes to potential crimes by Bush administration officials.

Conyers introduced a bill calling for a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties that will establish a “blue ribbon commission” comprised of experts outside government service to investigate the broad range of policies of the Bush years, “undertaken by the Bush administration under claims of unreviewable war powers,” according to the press release.

Also, as part of a routine package of rules governing the opening of the new Congress, the House agreed to continue the lawsuit it brought last year after President George W. Bush’s former officials ignored subpoenas to produce documents and appear before the House Judiciary Committee. The action shows that the coming of a new Congress won’t stop House leaders from continuing their long-running effort to obtain documents and testimony about the U.S. attorney firings from White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, and especially former Bush political aide Karl Rove.

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley of Las Vegas, primarily interested in the case of the firing of Nevada’s former U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden in the U.S. attorneys scandal, said the move by the Democratic-controlled House is an assertion of congressional authority after several years of what scholars see as executive branch overreach by the Bush administration.

“A very fine U.S. attorney from the state of Nevada was unceremoniously removed for no reason –- I would like to know why, I would like it to be made public and I would like those responsible punished,” Berkley said. “By passing this rule we have assured this will be done.”

There is no word from Birmingham Rep. Artur Davis on where he stands on the investigation of the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, although he told me for a story last month: “I’ll let John Conyers decide what to do about that.”

It looks like Montgomery Independent editor and publisher Bob Martin is finally catching up on his post-holiday reading, since an editorial published online today shows that he is now echoing our reporting from last month on a potential Davis candidacy for governor.

Siegelman said in an e-mail response he’s heard nothing from the House Judiciary Committee on the investigation of his case. But he said, “I trust John Conyers. He has been in Congress longer than most.”

Democratic Party activists have feared for the past few months that the new Obama administration might “turn the other cheek,” so to speak, and not take the time and effort to look back at the Bush administration’s legal failures. A wide array of groups, including the “aggressive progressives” at Democrats.com, have kept up the pressure on Conyers and others to hold the administration accountable, especially Karl Rove, who is still in defiance of a Congressional subpoena to testify in Siegelman’s case.

With a New Day Dawning in D.C., Will Rove Escape Justice?

We have messages in to the House Judiciary Committee press office and Davis’s press office. We’ll add more to this story if and when we hear back.

The mainstream, corporate news media in Alabama still shows a serious deficiency in covering this story, although one Associated Press reporter in D.C. has weighed in a few times. Most other political blogs in Alabama also seem to completely ignore this story and its implications, with the exception of Roger Shuler at the Legal Schnauzer blog.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat, decided to defer the vote scheduled for Wednesday on a resolution finding Attorney General Mukasey in contempt after receiving a letter from the Bush Justice Department.

Mukasey was on the verge of being charged with contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena calling for the release of hundreds of pages of documents in a number of ongoing investigations, including military spying on U.S. citizens domestically and the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

Mukasey and Conyers exchanged letters on the subject today. You can download them from the committee’s Website from this page.

Meanwhile Harriet Miers, the former White House Counsel who has so far avoided testifying under a broad claim of executive privilege, is the sole witness listed on the committee’s site for Thursday’s scheduled noon hearing of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, where the subject will be, the “continuing investigation into the U.S. attorneys controversy and related matters.”

We’ll report more when we know it…