The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed to testify on July 10, but on July 1 Rove announced he would defy the subpoena. To put this in perspective, let me amplify the word “defy” so that we can appreciate the seriousness and magnitude of Rove’s decision.

By opting to defy a Congressional committee’s subpoena, which is a writ requiring that he appear to give testimony, he is disobeying, challanging, violating and/or refusing to provide a truthful account of many of the questionable activities of the Bush administration.

The immediate response to this by anyone in their right mind is, “how can this be?” How can he flatly refuse to appear and believe that the House Judiciary and the American people will accept his decision, forget the whole affair and move one to investigating “steroids in Baseball” or other such nonsense..

HOW & WHY?  …..because he and others believe that they are above the law and need not adhere to its demands. Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten did it and this is “Bush’s Brain” that we are talking about here!

Could you or I get away with defying a Congressional subpoena? Of course not. So why can Karl Rove? Like George Bush and Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, believes he is simply above the law.

It’s time for Congress to prove them wrong by using its power of “inherent contempt” to send the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Karl Rove (as imagined in photoshop at left) and bring him before the full House to answer to the charge of Contempt of Congress, and to punish him to the maximum extent allowed by law, including prison.

Before Democrats won Congress in 2006, Nancy Pelosi said the most important reason to put Democrats in control of Congress was “subpoena power.” But now Pelosi is quietly blocking the use of inherent contempt.

For those of you that have either chosen a “news fast” or have been in a coma for the past eight years, here is a list of a few of the “questionable activities” that Rove needs to answer for:

Karl Rove is at the center of nearly every Bush Administration scandal:

• 2000: the Stolen Election in Florida, when he was the Campaign Manager
• 2002: the massive Iraq War lies campaign when he chaired the powerful White House Iraq Group (WHIG)
• 2002: the corrupt political prosecution of Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman
• 2003: the appointment of GOP political hacks to lead reconstruction in Iraq, with disastrous consequences
• 2003: helping expose covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to punish her husband Joe Wilson for exposing Bush’s State of the Union lie about uranium from Niger
• 2004: the Stolen Election in Ohio, when he was the “Architect”
• 2005: steering FEMA help after Hurricane Katrina to Mississippi under Republican Governor Haley Barbour while denying FEMA help to Louisiana under Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco
• 2006: the firing of honest U.S. Attorneys to replace them with “loyal Bushies”

Despite having a top policy-making job in the White House, Karl Rove used Republican email accounts for 95% of his communications, in defiance of the Presidential Records Act. Now most of Rove’s emails have been “scrubbed,” in defiance of explicit instructions from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in 2004.

The Senate and House issued subpoenas to compel Karl Rove to testify under oath and turn over his White House and RNC records, but Karl Rove is defying those subpoenas.

It is time for Congress to enforce its subpoenas through “inherent contempt” - sending the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Karl Rove and bring him before Congress to answer to the charge of Contempt of Congress, and to punish him to the maximum extent allowed by law, including prison.

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