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Rove’s Subpoena

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Apparently, Chairman Conyers received yet another letter from Robert Luskin claiming that Rove can spout off all he wants about his involvement (or not) in Governor Siegelman’s prosecution, but he can’t or won’t do so before the House Judiciary.

Conyers isn’t going to wait around for more of the same.

We were disappointed to receive your May 21 letter, which fails to explain why Mr. Rove is willing to answer questions in writing for the House Judiciary Committee, and has spoken on the record to the media, but continues to refuse to testify voluntarily before the Committee on the politicization of the Department of Justice, including allegations regarding the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman. Because of that continuing refusal, we enclose with this letter a subpoena for Mr. Rove’s appearance before the Committee’s Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee at 10:00 a.m. on July 10, 2008.

(Nice touch, Chairman Conyers, having the Subcommittee vote on it without, as far as I’ve heard, the news getting word.)

Now, as Conyers points out, this subpoena is a bit different than the subpoena that Harriet Miers blew off. For starters, Rove has been completely willing to answer questions in writing–and at least until now, he hasn’t asked Bush whether Bush wanted to protect the alleged conversations between Rob Riley and Rove and the Public Integrity Division of DOJ. And, as Conyers reiterates, Rove has been blabbing and blabbing and blabbing about this to the press, so it’ll be tough to argue that he can’t continue to blab under oath.

One more difference. I wonder how the Courts will feel about enforcing a subpoena issued by someone who said "Someone’s got to kick his ass"?

Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two other people: “We’re closing in on Rove. Someone’s got to kick his ass.”

Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn’t, said Conyers, “We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.”

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A Tough Job Market for Discredited Bush Lawyers

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As many of you have pointed out, Alberto Gonzales is having a tough time on the job market. I’ll get to that, but first I want to remind you of two other experiences former Bush lawyers have had after they left. First, there’s Harriet Miers, who after a four month job search, ended up where she started, at her old firm of Locke Liddell. She found a job, sure, but it didn’t look like any other big firms were eager to snap up the former White House Counsel.

Then there’s William Haynes. He found something right away–as Corporate Counsel for Chevron. But Chevron doesn’t want you to know they’ve hired Haynes.

When a company recruits a prominent government official, it’s usually eager to put the word out immediately. But Chevron Corp. took more than a month to publicly confirm that it had hired William "Jim" Haynes II, the controversial former general counsel of the Pentagon. Chevron officials say that they didn’t make a big deal of Haynes’ hiring because they didn’t think it was newsworthy.

[snip]

The U.S. Department of Defense announced Haynes’ resignation as general counsel Feb. 25. Two days later Chevron general counsel Charles James sent a memo to the company’s management committee stating that Haynes would be coming aboard as chief corporate counsel. Haynes, who will report to James, will manage the 45-attorney legal department.

Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson says that the company did not make an external announcement about Haynes’ hiring. "I don’t think we thought it was newsworthy," Robertson says. Word of Haynes’ employment by Chevron began appearing in blogs last week, and was reported on Newsweek‘s Web site April 5.

Mr. Robertson, you may not want the general public to know where Haynes ended up, but particularly with the news that Dick Cheney has leant his personal lawyer to Haynes to represent him in matters pertaining to torture, it is certainly newsworthy that Haynes ended up at one of the oil companies Dick and Bush have been making rich of late.

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Lawyering the Torture Tapes

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I speculated, a week ago, that the Directorate of Operations lawyers who gave Jose Rodriguez the green light to destroy the torture tapes did not know of the outstanding court orders that would have covered the tapes.

Most importantly, it sounds like the Directorate of Operations lawyer who purportedly authorized the destruction of the tapes only said there was no legal reason not to do so.

Included in the paper trail is an opinion from a CIA lawyer assigned to the Clandestine Service that advises that there is no explicit legal reason why the Clandestine Service had to preserve the tapes, according to both former and current officials. The document does not, however, directly authorize the tapes’ destruction or offer advice on the wisdom or folly of such a course of action, according to a source familiar with its contents, who declined to be identified discussing the controversial topic.

Which suggests this lawyer had no fucking clue that Judge Leonie Brinkema had asked the government about such tapes explicitly, within weeks of the time when the tapes were destroyed. I’m guessing that was by design–the only way they could figure out how to get a legal opinion defending the indefensible, the destruction of evidence.

Which is why I think the description in today’s NYT story on the torture tapes is so important.

The officials said that before [Jose Rodriguez] issued a secret cable directing that the tapes be destroyed, Mr. Rodriguez received legal guidance from two C.I.A. lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger. The officials said that those lawyers gave written guidance to Mr. Rodriguez that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that the destruction would violate no laws.

The agency did not make either Mr. Hermes or Mr. Eatinger available for comment.

Current and former officials said the two lawyers informed the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, about the legal advice they had provided. But officials said Mr. Rodriguez did not inform either Mr. Rizzo or Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director, before he sent the cable to destroy the tapes.

“There was an expectation on the part of those providing legal guidance that additional bases would be touched,” said one government official with knowledge of the matter. “That didn’t happen.”

Look at the language of these two versions, taken together. Read more →