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The Rove Agreement: What We Still Don't Know
The House Judiciary committee's announcement this afternoon of an agreement on Karl Rove and Hariet Miers' testimony about the US Attorney firings leaves a few key questions still unanswered:
1) The committee says: "It was agreed that invocations of official privileges would be significantly limited." Limited how? Exactly when can Rove and Miers invoke the privilege? The devil could very well be in that detail.
2) Did the committee agree to steer clear of any specific subjects?
3) Why won't Rove and Miers be under oath? It's true that they'll still be under penalty of perjury, and, when you're talking about a congressional investigation, that penalty is no different whether the subject is under oath or not. But in that case, why not just put them under oath to avoid any confusion? Presumably, because the Bush administration objected. And if it objected, then the oath question is meaningful. (Lawyers with relevant experience, feel free to weigh in here!)
We've called the Judiciary committee to put these questions to them, and will keep you posted.
Josh
Zachary
It's always been my understanding that "penalty of perjury" is the functional equivalent of an "oath" for U.S. legal purposes.
They can be sent to prison for perjury, with or without taking an oath. Keep Al Capone in mind: he didn't go to prison for his murders but at least they were able to put him away, even if only for tax evasion. So maybe there's hope?
Besides, since Miers and Rove worked for Bush, why would anyone presume they had learned to respect an oath, wouldn't blithely disregard one, or would give any thought to hesitating to take one out of respect for the "gravity" it represents? Bush never demonstrated such a characteristic.
March 5, 2009 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure what is about to happen. Will they appear before the committee or just answer questions at a deposition? This infuriates me. Rove has shown his disdain for the oversight of congress since he began politicizing and bastardizing the White House. He should be HAULED before the committees in irons. If the committee can't uncover enough wrong doing this cretin has performed they should just disband. Conyers is a toothless tiger. I will be the first to apologize for that remark but at this point and history has shown I won't have to. The deference they have shown to these lemmings is incredible. Our government system is screwed up. We have people who have shredded the constitution, performed torture in our names, raped the treasury and most of all started a war on lies causing over 4200 deaths of our mostly young men and women. Before a judiciary committee? They should be in the dock at the Hague.
March 5, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink