John Dean's take Congress-Rove lawsuit..

John Dean said:

Committee will have to find Rove in contempt for claiming absolute immunity; the entire House will have to vote on it; and the committee will have file a lawsuit.

In turn, the lawsuit will go from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to the U.S Circuit Court of Appeals for the District, to the U.S. Supreme Court – where Rove will likely lose, and thus be forced to appear before the committee. However, when Rove appears, he will invoke “executive privilege.”

This issue, in turn, will have to be litigated all the way to the Supreme Court – where Rove will likely lose again. When called before the committee after that, he will no doubt take the Firth Amendment, an assertion that will also have to be litigated. In short, this could go on for years.

Who will pay for all this? The House Judiciary Committee and the House will use its appropriated funds – taxpayer money.

It is also possible that the Justice Department would be required to pay for the Rove/Bush effort to test the extent of presidential privilege, although it would be outrageous if that were the case. Nixon was forced to pay for all of his own legal expenses after leaving office, and litigating the rights to his tapes and papers.

But times have changed, so it is not completely clear whether that precedent might cover Rove too – especially retrospectively, if Rove were found to have lied all along in claiming his lack of involvement in the U.S. Attorney firings, or if his legal claims were deemed specious.

The bottom line, however, is this: Unless the Obama Justice Department says the criminal code sections regarding contempt of Congress will be honored and applied, no one should expect to hear anything publicly from Rove under oath anytime soon, if ever.