Back on January 6th, the House snuck a little present into the rules package that I mentioned over at Congress Matters:
There's one more juicy nugget in the rules package that just passed. Regarding the Judiciary Committe's power to continue its suit against Miers and Bolten.
From Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's fact sheet (PDF):
In addition, it authorizes the Judiciary Committee and General Counsel to add as a party to the lawsuit any individual subpoenaed by the Committee in the 110th Congress who failed to comply.
Who else was subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee in the 110th Congress and failed to comply?
Karl Rove.
And Michael Mukasey.
Nice going, Chairman Conyers and Speaker Pelosi.
So here it is. The House Rules package included authorization for the Judiciary Committee to continue its investigations into the US Attorney firings, Don Siegelman's prosecution, and all related issues, as well as continuing its lawsuit to force subpoenaed individuals to comply, and add parties to that suit from among the individuals who were subpoenaed in the 110th Congress and refused to comply.
So here's Karl's latest invitation (PDF).
What comes next isn't entirely clear. Rove's obviously open to service of the subpoena, as evidenced by the notes on the cover sheet (page 2). One theory says that Bush can continue to claim executive privilege even once out of office. Another possibility: Rove's lawyers go to court to ask that the subpoena be quashed pending the outcome of the final appeals of the Judiciary Committee's lawsuit. Also possible: Rove shows up but refuses to tell the committee anything of value, or anything at all, either pleading the 5th, attempting to invoke some kind of claim of privilege, or just taking his chances and conducting a PR campaign to paint the investigation as a "partisan witch hunt" that's out of keeping with President Obama's promise to practice a forward-looking bipartisanship.
We'll see how it goes. Game on.
(Discussion about the subpoena is also going on in Setrak's recommended diary.)
UPDATE: I'm reminded by emptywheel that part of this needs clarification. While it's true that one of the theories circulating is that Bush can continue to claim executive privilege even after leaving office, it's also true that he has never, to date anyway, claimed executive privilege with regard to Rove's proposed testimony. Rather, Rove's been making claims of some sort of "absolute immunity" from subpoena -- a concept which nobody but he and his protectors (if that's what they were) in the Bush "administration" recognizes. Bush may yet change his mind when and if Rove runs out of options, but unless Rove ultimately changes his strategy (which is entirely possible), it will be this "absolute immunity" he claims against this subpoena, and not executive privilege.