Obama Tested on Executive Privilege as Karl Rove is Subpoenaed (Again) Over Shady Dealings at DOJ

Amy Goodman: The chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, has subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove to testify next week about the Bush administration's firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. This marks the second time Conyers has tried to get Rove to appear in connection with what he calls the Bush administration's politicization of the Justice Department. But it remains unclear if Rove will be compelled to appear before the panel next week.

Rove previously refused to appear before the committee, contending that former presidential advisers cannot be compelled to testify before Congress. For more than a year, former president George W. Bush upheld Rove's legal position. The White House's assertion of executive privilege prompted Rove and other Bush aides to refuse even to show up for a hearing. A federal judge has since rejected that position. Karl Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said he would consult with President Obama's White House counsel to determine the Obama administration's stance.

In a press release announcing the subpoena, Conyers was hopeful, saying, "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."

Scott Horton has been closely following this story. He is a New York attorney specializing in international law and human rights and the legal affairs contributor to Harper's Magazine, where he blogs at No Comment. He joins us in the firehouse studio.

We're also joined by former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, whose case is at the heart of the controversy. He was convicted of corruption and bribery and served nine months in prison before an appeals court ordered his release last year after finding substantial problems with the case. He joins us from Birmingham, Alabama.

Scott, let's begin with you. Talk about the significance of Karl Rove being subpoenaed, to begin with, and then lay out the issues that Chairman Conyers has issued the subpoena around.

Scott Horton: Well, I think it's a test at the beginning of the new administration of its commitment to transparency, and it also presents a challenge to them about what to do with the pervasive claims of privilege that were used by the Bush administration to block congressional probes. And during the campaign and afterwards, President Obama stated that he was going to adopt transparency as a keynote. He criticized the positions the Bush administration took, and I think that will be put to the test right now.

In fact, Bob Luskin has already stated that he will contact Greg Craig, and he will ask for guidance as to what posture should be taken with respect to executive privilege. Now, there's sort of a wrinkle here that's interesting, and that is that Greg Craig, who is Barack Obama's White House counsel, is also a friend of Karl Rove, something he's talked about openly, and his law firm, Williams & Connolly -- his former law firm, I should say -- represented Karl Rove with respect to some publication deals. So that presents a bit of a complication.

AG: Do you think he should recuse himself?

SH: I think it's quite problematic for him to involve himself in this, given that relationship, so probably other lawyers in the President's staff should be addressing this.

But I think the threshold issue is very clear, and that is whether or not the White House is going to say, "No, you don't even have to answer this subpoena." We have a district court judge saying that was an absurd position. Indeed, I'd say that's pretty much the uniform position in the legal community. It was an absurd position. So he will have to respond to the subpoena. He will have to sit in the hearings, and he'll have to respond to questions.

That still leaves open the issue of whether or not he can invoke the privilege with respect to specific questions. And, you know, the implication of the privilege suggests -- it implies very strongly, because the privilege covers his communications with the President -- it suggests that Karl Rove had discussions about these matters, the U.S. attorney firing and also the prosecution of Governor Siegelman, with President Bush directly. And if so, there's no doubt but that these things, all these things, would have been improper, potentially even criminal.

AG: Start with the U.S. attorney firings. Remind people what this is about and what it's believed Karl Rove's role was in this.

SH: On December 6, 2006, a decision was taken to fire a group of U.S. attorneys -- it's either seven, eight or nine, depending on how you count them up -- and it became clear very quickly that this decision was taken by political operatives in the White House for very, very suspicious reasons. The US attorneys involved were all either involved with criminal investigations of prominent Republican political figures, or they had refused to proceed with criminal investigations of Democrats. So it all seems to relate to politically oriented prosecutions.

And we since had investigations both on the House and Senate side, and these investigations concluded that Karl Rove clearly was in the middle of all these decisions, seemed to have been pulling the strings. The Department of Justice conducted its own internal investigation, and Karl Rove, as well as Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, refused to participate with that investigation, refused to testify, withheld documents and so forth. But the investigation itself, very, very detailed report, strongly supports the suspicions that Rove and others in his office were deeply involved and improperly involved in this process, in fact documents their involvement through interviews with people in the Justice Department. And because of that, Attorney General Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to complete the investigation using subpoena power and, if appropriate, bring criminal charges.