CNN just reported that the House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House aide Karl Rove in the ongoing investigation of the firing of U.S. Attorneys and the case of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

More details as they unfold....

Anne Weismann's posted an excellent analysis of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hearing on yesterday the serious email problems at the White House. 

There is also a question about White House staff using private email accounts to conduct business.  For example, Karl Rove used a private email account from the Republican National Committee (RNC) "most of the time."   Those emails used to conduct official government business should be part of the public record. We were led to believe that the RNC was spending vast sums to find Rove's missing emails.  Not anymore.  Yesterday, we learned that the RNC will not even try to find missing White House emails: 

After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.

The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration -- including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove -- will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.

The RNC had previously told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it was attempting to restore e-mails from 2001 to 2003, when the RNC had a policy of purging all e-mails, including those to and from White House officials, after 30 days. But Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed during a hearing yesterday that the RNC has now said it "has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails."

Two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter (PA) and Charles Grassley (IA) joined all the Democrats on that panel to approve contempt citations against top Bush aides, Josh Bolten and Karl Rove:

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted for a contempt citation against presidential confidants Karl Rove and Josh Bolten on Thursday, the latest move in an inquiry into possibly politically motivated firings of federal prosecutors. 

The 12-7 vote sent the citation against the two to the full Senate, but it was not certain to advance further.

Rove, the architect of President Bush's two campaigns for the White House, and Bolten, the president's chief of staff, have refused to comply with subpoenas demanding testimony and documents in the congressional probe.

Rove, who recently left government, and Bolten claim the information Congress demands is off-limits under executive privilege. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate dispute that.

The Senate Judiciary Committee vote means that contempt citations against Bush administration officials await floor action in both chambers of Congress.

A delay in the much anticipated vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee to find White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Bush political guru Karl Rove in contempt.  The Hill reports:

Specter, the panel’s ranking member, indicated he had asked Leahy to put off the vote on behalf of himself and other committee Republicans. “There is considerable concern on my side about the structure of the citation,” Specter said Thursday. “It would be my hope that we could negotiate some intervening language.”

Republicans, he said, believed the resolution’s language goes too far in its assertions about what was uncovered by the Democratic-led investigation into whether politics played a role in the Justice Department firings of several U.S. attorneys late last year.

The Bush administration's missing e-mail woes are now costing the Republican Party.  Mary Ann Akers at the Washington Post reports on the vast sums being spent by the RNC to find Rove's e-mails (and a hat tip to Think Progress):

Nothing comes cheap in Washington, including Karl Rove's missing e-mails. Just ask the Republican National Committee, which seems to be spending a pretty penny looking for them.

Earlier this year, it was discovered that Rove and other White House aides had been using private e-mail accounts at the RNC to send messages about controversial government matters, such as the firings of U.S. attorneys. When investigators came calling, the RNC couldn't find the e-mails but promised to look.

Now, The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.

According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg, a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve the lost electronic data. The report shows the committee also paid $41,217 in October to Covington & Burling, the law firm representing the RNC on the missing e-mail controversy.

According to a report in The Hill, Karl Rove played a key role in the case against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D).  Based on testimony provided to the House Judiciary Committee, it appears Rove may have instigated that prosecution:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) on Wednesday released an interview with GOP lawyer Dana Jill Simpson implicating former White House adviser Karl Rove in the prosecution and conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D) on corruption charges.

In a closed-door interview with committee staff, Simpson recalled how Rob Riley, current Gov. Bob Riley’s (R) son, told her about Rove’s role in a plan to prosecute Siegelman if he did not back down from contesting the 2001 gubernatorial election results that handed the office to Riley. 

According to the transcript, Simpson described a 2005 conversation with Rob Riley, who told her that Rove had contacted the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice to press for further prosecution of Siegelman. She said Rob Riley also recounted how the case would be assigned to a federal judge who “hated” Siegelman and would “hang Don  Siegelman.”

We've never been big fans of Scott Bloch who heads the White House Office of Special Counsel. Last April Bloch was going to investigate the White House political operation:

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), headed up by highly controversial presidential appointee Scott Bloch, is the wrong entity for this investigation. The fact that OSC has been charged with handling these matters suggests the possibility that the White House is orchestrating a cover-up of its illegal and improper activities.

Bloch has come under widespread criticism for his gross mismanagement and politicization of the office. Bloch is currently under investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for his mistreatment of career appointees, who have alleged the exact kind of retaliation that OSC is designed to investigate.

Obviously, uur expectations that Bloch's investigation of Karl Rove were pretty low. Looks like our expectations will be met. ABC's Justin Rood reports that Bloch's investigation is running out of money:

A task force probing allegations of illegal activity by Karl Rove and other former and current White House officials is in jeopardy due to lack of funding, according to its spokesman.

Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical equipment it needs to investigate allegations that White House political operatives may have improperly injected politics into government activities, according to Jim Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

In April, Special Counsel Scott Bloch announced that a new, six-member task force from his office would probe the use of private e-mail accounts by White House aides, the firing of at least one U.S. attorney by administration appointees and presentations of political data by White House aides to other officials in government.

The cost of the task force for 2008 would be $2.89 million, according to OSC estimates. But Bloch started the probe long after he submitted his 2008 budget request. And now he's having a hard time convincing those holding the nation's purse strings to loosen up and give him some last-minute extra funding.

CREW's Melanie Sloan appeared on Hardball last night to talk about Karl Rove:

CREW submitted a post to The Hill's Congress Blog.  Our point is clear -- it's not over for Rove.  Far from it:

We’re sure Congress will still be seeking Karl Rove’s testimony. The White House will probably take the same line as they have with Harriet Miers, which is that executive privilege prevents him from testifying, and they’re not going to waive it. They’ll do everything they can to keep him from testifying. He’s the one they want to testify least, because he knows where all the bodies are buried.

That said, he should offer his testimony to Congress. In an open society, the public deserves to know the truth about what the government is up to. Just because they can claim executive privilege doesn’t mean they have to.

In any event, this claim of executive privilege regarding Rove and Harriet Miers could still lead to a constitutional showdown in the courts. We don’t think Congress will just accept a claim of executive privilege.

In an article noting that Karl Rove has been "one of the favorite targets" of Democrats and bloggers, The Hill provides a synopsis of several of the issues that have made Mr. Rove of interest to CREW.  Basically, they all relate to improper activity by one of the highest ranking officials in the Bush administration:  

Prior to recess, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena for Rove to force him to testify before the panel about his role in the firings of several U.S. attorneys. Bush claimed executive privilege to prevent Rove from appearing.

In addition, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating whether administration officials are using federal resources for political purposes, a probe that also targets Rove.

As part of both investigations, Democrats are trying to determine whether top White House officials are using non-administration accounts, such as those they received from Bush’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, to evade oversight.

Rove also played a prominent role in the Valerie Plame-CIA leak case and was asked to appear before a grand jury several times. This led Bush’s opponents to hope that Rove, who is one of the most polarizing figures in this administration, would be indicted.