I Wish I Were Karl Rove...Then I Could Ignore Subpoenas, Too

Aimee Sobhani
Politics

Karl Rove was supposed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee today, but he and his lawyer believe that Rove has the power to ignore the Committee's request for him to testify. Rove's lawyer claims that Rove is protected by "executive privilege," meaning that Rove can ignore the subpoena and avoid questions dealing with him and his cronies dismissing U.S. attorneys who they saw as threats to Rove's well-oiled political machine.

Rove is not the first member of the Bush administration to claim that he is protected from answering to Congress or the courts. Bush himself has used the excuse multiple times to avoid answering awkward questions and to protect his faithful followers from answering them, too.

Executive privilege is to the executive branch what "pleading the fifth" is to private citizens. They are both meant to protect individuals from giving up self-incriminating information. While this power is a Constitutional right for individuals, the Constitution doesn't exactly give the same power to a public entity such as the government. Citizens have a right to know what elected officials are saying behind closed doors; we have the right to know if something suspicious is going on, right?

Citing executive privilege usually means that an executive has something to hide. Nixon claimed the privilege during the Watergate scandal, and Clinton too used the power as a way to bypass answering questions about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Given the secrecy and lying done by the present administration, it's not surprising that it too hides itself under the curtain of executive privilege.

I'm sure executive privilege has its place in the American government, but it seems kind of unnecessary in Rove's case. It is undeniable that he is responsible for several rather illegal actions, and he needs to be punished.