Rove to testify.*
Karl Rove--the man who set precedent by ignoring a subpoena not once, not twice, but three times with complete impunity; the man who had to go back and revise his grand jury testimony during the Valerie Plame/CIA leak investigation five times; the man who, long reported to be an agnostic, announced his resignation from the White House by tearing up in front of the cameras and asking the almighty to continue to bless Bush and our great country--has faithfully* agreed to testify under oath about the controversial firings of federal prosecutors.
Nancy Pelosi has called this a victory* for the constitution. Let's look more closely at this triumphant display of separation of powers and oversight.
Rove won't be testifying before congress at an open hearing. He will be deposed behind closed doors. The Judiciary committee does, however, reserve the right to seek public testimony. (Did they really need to bargain for a right already afforded them by the constitution?) So the parties agreed they could seek public testimony but compliance is optional?
Rove won't be testifying under oath. He will submit transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury. There's no difference it seems. But Rove could say "Ill get back to you on that question in the form of a statement which narrows its scope to the periphery of the truth, the whole periphery and nothing but the periphery so help me god-a deity, I remind you whose existence is inherently impossible to prove or disprove."
Everything will be documented and read into the Committee's confidential record. Everything but key pieces of evidence. Take for example, the Scudder Memo--a document that may connect all the dots in this matter up to and including the role of the White House. It was agreed that the members of the committee can touch the memo during the proceeding, but they cannot copy memorize analyze or effectively deliberate about it.
Rove has agreed to assert privilege (personal, executive) less frequently.* In other words, he will invoke privilege only when asked questions he refuses to answer--not when asked questions he does answer. Clearly, this is the big win for Conyers.
*not really
