The Daily Background

Subpoena here, Subpoena there
The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote today to decide whether or not to subpoena Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and other key White House employees embroiled in the US Attorney firings scandal. The House Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to subpoena Rove and Miers, defying the White House.

Not coincidentally, Gonzales met with four prominent members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to beg them not to defect to the Democrats’ side when voting on the subpoenas or not. If the vote is conducted on bare party lines however, Democrats will win with a one vote majority.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding– a Nixon era relic who replaced Miers after she resigned in January– has threatened that if the Senate issues subpoenas for Rove and Miers, all bets are off and that the limited private interviews the WH had so generously offered would not be possible any longer. House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) has joked that such a weak “private interview” without a transcript as the Fielding has proposed might as well happen in a local pub.

Note that just because a Committee votes to subpoena a person, it does not actually mean that they are served with a subpoena: rather that the Committee Chair may send Capitol Hill police to serve them with a subpoena at any time.

Edwards’ Announcement
John Edwards’ and his wife (who successfully recovered from cancer recently) are making some sort of announcement in North Carolina today, around noon EST. Although it may or may not be related to Elizabeth Edwards’ health, that is certainly what speculation indicates.

Gonzales a Gone-r?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had planned to appear on Capitol Hill today to testify about a budget request from the Department of Justice, but cancelled his pre-scheduled appearance because he did not want to be questioned about the current US Attorney scandal, as well as recent admissions that the FBI has abused its powers in using NSLs (National Security Letters) to spy on Americans illegally and without warrants.

As has been pointed out in numerous places by numerous people, the fact that more Republicans aren’t calling for Gonzales’ resignation is less important than the fact that more Republicans aren’t vocally supporting him. Consensus in Washington seems to be that there will be a new Attorney General within a couple of months, if not sooner.

Iraq
3,225 (3,221 yesterday). And seven times as many wounded.

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