The more and more I think about this set of facts, the more I am convinced that the entire upper echelon of the president's legal team (running from Bush through Fielding and Miers, to Rove, Taylor and Gonzalez, etc.) are all guilty of a Criminal Conspiracy. As I posted yesterday in the comments (here), the criminal conspiracy statute, 18 USC 371 provides:
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
For criminal liability to attach under this statute, all that must occur is that two or more persons make an agreement that they will attempt to commit a crime against the United States, and that one of the two or more persons in the agreement takes an overt action to cause the act which is itself a crime.
Here, the crime (outside of possible violations of the Hatch Act) is a violation of 18 USC 1505, which defines the following as felony obstruction of justice:
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—
I think this represents criminal activity on behalf of the President, Fielding, Miers, et al. (assuming the Chief Justice (It's OK for Anne Gorsuch to defy a Congressional subpoena and not show up) and Alito (The President is all and all are the President) don't convince Kennedy that this is a proper invocation of Executive Privilege). Obviously, there has been an "agreement" between two or more persons. The evidence, at a minimum, is that President said "Don't testify"; Miers didn't show up (the impeding part required by the statute); Fielding wrote a letter to Congress invoking a privilege that is legally indefensible (under current law). Thus, these three, to name the key players in my mind, though the Solicitor General provided that garbage legal opinion justifying the exercise of executive privilege in this most dubious of cases, and Gonzalez is not quite bright enough to come up with the "I don't recall" defense by himself...
Not only are contempt of congress and inherent contempt possible avenues of recourse for the Legislative branch, so to is clamoring for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate whether the President, his attorneys and political advisors have conspired to obstruct a lawful Congressional investigation. A criminal inquiry, one that compels the testimony of persons like Miers and Taylor, is perhaps even stronger than the compulsion attempted by Congress at the current juncture. The reason for the streghtened compulsion is that the matter is already in the judicial forum and there is no risk of a ruling by a court that the matter is not justiciable because it is a political question. Instead, US v. Nixon commands that the evidence be turned over to the prosecutor to assist in the investigation.
We must redouble our efforts. Contempt is not the only avenue on which to push. A special prosecutor should be appointed, one who will not bow to the dictates of the White House, as the Justice Department would undoubtedly do if presented with a request from the Congress to initiate a Grand Jury investigation for contempt of Congress. Perhaps it is from here that the endgame that so many desire will begin.