It took two years, but it finally happened - thanks to an agreement with the White House that deposing Rove would not infringe on executive privilege. Now everyone wants to know: What did Karl say? And don't you wish you were the fly on the wall?

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was deposed Tuesday by attorneys for the House Judiciary Committee, according to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman.

Rove’s deposition began at 10 a.m. and ended around 6:30 p.m, with several breaks, Conyers said.

Conyers would not comment on what Rove told congressional investigators, what the next step in the long-running Judiciary Committee investigation would be or whether Rove would face additional questioning.

“He was deposed today,” Conyers said in an interview. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to confirm or deny that his client had appeared before the committee. Luskin said there was an agreement that the depositions would remain confidential until they were completed. However, in a court filing Monday, the Justice Department indicated that the deposition set for this week would be the committee's last.

Conyers’ panel had first subpoenaed Rove in 2007 as part of its probe into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. But the Bush White House, citing executive privilege, refused to make Rove or White House Counsel Harriet Miers available for any deposition.

David Sirota on yesterday's hearing about Bernie Madoff:

At a contentious Financial Services Committee hearing today about the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission to prevent the Bernie Madoff scandal, the SEC's General Counsel cited executive privilege as reason that he and the SEC's enforcement branch were refusing to answer congressional inquiries. You can watch the video here - the executive privilege issue comes at about 5 minutes and 15 seconds into the clip.

As you'll see, SEC officials refuse to answer the committee's basic questions about the Madoff scandal, and the agency's acting general counsel, Andy Vollmer (a Bush holdover and maxed-out donor to John McCain's presidential campaign) explicitly cites executive privilege as his legal rationale for refusing to provide basic information to federal lawmakers.

Congress has a constitutional obligation to engage in basic fact finding, both in order to legislate reforms at the SEC and to publicly expose how our economy was destroyed by sharks like Madoff. Now, Bush holdovers at the SEC are using executive powers - powers that are now President Obama's - to prevent Democratic lawmakers from doing their job.

American presidents and their staff work for the American people, they are not monarchs with an inner court of priviliged nobles. President Obama has reminded all his predecessors of that simple fact, living up to a campaign promise to "nullify attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult."

President Barack Obama, in his first full day in office, revoked a controversial executive order signed by President Bush in 2001 that limited release of former presidents’ records.

The new order could expand public access to records of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the years to come as well as other past leaders, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. …

Under Bush’s order, former presidents had broad ability to claim executive privilege and could designate others including family members who survive them to exercise executive privilege on their behalf.

Obama’s new order gives ex-presidents less leeway to withhold records, Aftergood said, and takes away the ability of presidents’ survivors to designate that privilege.

Separately, an Obama memorandum issued Wednesday also appears to effectively rescind a 2001 memo by President Bush’s then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft giving agencies broad legal cover to reject public disclosure requests.

Over at MoJo blog, they quote CREW chief counsel Anne Weismann as explaining:

"[Obama]'s putting former presidents on notice that if you want to continue a claim of executive privilege that [Obama] doesn't think is well-placed, you're going to have to go to court."

Even Ed Morrissey at Hot Air is impressed, writing "On Inauguration Day, I promised to offer praise for Barack Obama when he pursued good policy, and it didn’t take long." At least one other conservative thinks this executive order is "nothing more than him throwing a meaty bone to his constituency who hopes to be able to find out “The Truth” about the Bush administration’s alleged plans to turn this nation into a dictatorial theocracy." That's simply mean-spirited hyperbole, hiding an implied argument. Who would really want to argue, out there in plain words, that stopping Bush's bosses (the American people) from finding out what's in millions of his administration's emails is a good thing?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

OurFuture: Everything about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been nationalized - except the profits and the pay scales of their executives.

The Washington Note: Israel deals with reality in the region. Exchanging prisoners is better than exchanging rockets.

earthfamilyalpha: The Stupid Economy

Washington Monthly: How black Baltimore drug dealers are using white supremacist legal theories to confound the Feds.

Angry Bear: Did Jonah Goldberg learn about the economics of oil from Dr. Newt Gingrich?

The Washington Independent: The Bush Crime Family's latest latest consigliere, Michael Mukasey, claimed executive privilege, in CIA leak matter. Unsurprisingly, Don Dubya sees nothing wrong with treason.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

You knew it was going to happen. For all his big talk about being happy to talk to the House Judiciary Committee looking into the conviction and incarceration of Don Siegelman, when push came to shove, you had to know that Karl Rove would never, ever freely respond to the HJC subpoena. CQPolitics:

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, cited executive privilege as the reason that the former White House adviser would not appear before the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee on July 10.[..]

"Mr. Rove will respectfully decline to appear before the Subcommittee on July 10 on the grounds that Executive Privilege confers upon him immunity from process to respond to a subpoena directed to this subject," Luskin wrote.

Luskin renewed an offer that would have Rove submit to an off-the-record, untranscribed interview or answer written questions about the Siegelman case, but not the broader issue of the politicization of the Justice Department.

Not even man enough to stand up for his actions. Hear that, Karl? Not even man enough. Dan Abrams brings NYU Law School Professor Michael Waldman and former HJC counsel Julian Epstein to discuss the latest in Bush League (In)Justice:

Abrams: Okay, Michael, let me start with you: it is clear, Karl Rove is not coming. I mean, the House Judiciary Committee can say as much as they want, we're still hoping, we're still encouraging him to come, we're still insisting that he come, he's not coming. So what do they do now?

Waldman: Well, it's really quite remarkable, as you say, you can just say no to a lawful subpoena from Congress. Congress has a bunch of tools they can use. They can, of course, throw him in jail. There's a jail in the basement of the Capitol. That's probably the extreme remedy. There's all kinds of other things. They can cut off funding, they can hold up nominations, they can bring a lawsuit as has been the case in the Miers...the Harriet Miers contempt case. But what Congress has to have when it looks in its toolbox is not any of these tools but some backbone. Congress is a co-equal branch of government and it needs to stand up for its rights in this.

Backbone in Congress? What's that? I'll believe it when I see the perp walk.

Scarce caught this little tidbit and the name of Republican "strategist" rang a little bell. Do you remember Sara "I took an oath to the President" Taylor testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year and basically invoking executive privilege to keep from actually saying anything? Well, it looks like her tongue has loosened up considerably as she advises how to best take advantage of the Obama/Pastor scandal.

C'mon, MSNBC, the best expert you could come up with is someone who flaunted her complete disregard for the rule of law and the Congressional mandate of oversight and who worked directly under Turd Blossom? Really?

Good Old Strafford teaches us about impeachment and its valuable role in preserving our democracy against Cheney's push for executive privilege.

The Earl of Strafford’s case provides a perfect example. His conduct subverted the constitutional prerogatives of parliament in the name of the king. This was the paradigm case for impeachment. And it was recognized by the earliest American commentators, such as Justice Story, who said that impeachment “is not so much designed to punish as to secure the state against gross official misdemeanors.” It is prophylactic, designed to remove an unfit officer from office, rather than punitive. But most important, it is designed to protect the constitutional order from efforts to transform it...read on

Scott Horton does a wonderful job of dissecting BushCo's reign of power grabbing:

It can and should be used to draw a line in the sand about the arbitrary use of executive power, making clear that Bush’s abuses cannot be taken as precedent by future presidents. Indeed, failure to use impeachment has its consequences: it means acceptance of Bush’s transformation of the constitutional order. It means that the careful balance between legislature, executive and judiciary created by the Framers has been undone, and the executive has triumphed as the paramount power. Impeachment may be a painful process, of course, but Americans should consider whether their Constitution is worth saving.

I wrote about how the EPA denied a waiver to the state of California so that they could enforce stricter emission controls, so the state sued. Now Sen. Barbara Boxer wants the EPA to explain why they've denied the waiver for the first time in 32 years. And just like every other department in the federal government, they've effectively decided that the legislative branch has no right to oversight and claimed executive privilege in refusing to release the information to Boxer.

Invoking executive privilege, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency refused to provide lawmakers Friday with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations.

The EPA informed Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications that would not be shared with Congress.

"EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting," EPA Associate Administrator Christopher Bliley wrote.

More than a week after a deadline set by Boxer, the agency gave the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chairs, a box of papers with large portions of the relevant documents deleted, Boxer said. The documents omitted key details, including a presentation that, according to Senate aides, predicted EPA would lose a lawsuit if it was taken to court for denying California's waiver.

The refusal to provide a full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into why the EPA denied California permission to impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Update: Guess who met with automakers just before the EPA denied the waiver. Coincidence, non?

FDL:

The FISA bill (S. 2248) mark-up is set for tomorrow morning in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The business meeting is set for 10 am ET - am waiting to hear whether C-Span will be covering it, but I've put in a request. Here's hoping...

In the meantime, I thought we could spend the day constructively nudging on two very important issues: (1) no telecom immunity and (2) no basket warrants.

The ACLU has a lot of information on FISA, including a section-by-section analysis of the bill and a one page summary sheet. Useful stuff.

We put together quite a list of ways to phrase opposition to the current FISA legislation's most odious provisions - you can find the full compendium here. (My personal favorite was Prairie Sunshine's "Democracy = Rule of Law, not Lawless Rule.") Please call and FAX the offices of the Senate Judiciary Committee members regarding their obligation to uphold the rule of law, the Constitution, and the will of the people not just the rule of George. Via OldCoastie, here is a link to efax, which allows you to FAX them for free.

Christy has compiled names and numbers at FDL.

Things aren't going well, thanks to our LieberDems Schumer, Feinstein (what a surprise!) and Whitehouse. We need to get loud, people.

From an email from an ACLU rep.:

The Democratic Judiciary Committee staff is floating substitution language that would make the government responsible for illegal activity committed by the telecom companies.

Congress must reject any attempts to provide immunity to those that broke the law. If the government assumes legal responsibility for lawbreaking for the telecoms, the companies will be let-off the hook for their illegal actions. It also means the taxpayers will be responsible for any damages. The ACLU strongly and firmly opposes the substitution, which is, in essence, telecom immunity.

If this substitution language gets enacted, we know that the government will stop the lawsuits by arguing: states secrets, executive privilege, and sovereign immunity in order to stop the people from having their day in court against the telecom giants.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark up the domestic surveillance legislation tomorrow morning.

And the House is expected to vote tomorrow too, although it is not yet clear exactly what they are voting on yet.

Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Rove aide Scott Jennings waxes poetic, claims executive privilege and says Hatch Act violations are just Karl's way of saying thanks.

Leslie Southwick, uber-conservative Bush choice for the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals, can thank Diane Feinstein for getting his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

President Bush uses the Minneapolis bridge disaster to bludgeon Congressional Democrats over spending bills. But along the Gulf Coast, the courts and the Bush administration let Katrina victims down - again.

The right-wing blond brigade is back in the news. CNN may try out Laura Ingraham, the famed Bush adviser and GOP phone jammer, while Ann Coulter may still be in a jam over her vote fraud in Florida.

Back in DC, Alberto Gonzales plays "I Have a Secret."

And President Bush - and America - celebrate an unhappy 7^th anniversary.

Guest blogging the Round Up this week is Jon Perr from Perrspectives. Send your links, recommendations, comments and angst to mbr AT perrs.ectives DOT com.