Subpoenas in Fired U.S. Attorney Probe

Linda Sanchez's subcommittee of House Judiciary has issued subpoenas for four of the eight U.S. Attorneys fired by the Bush Administration, including Carol Lam, whose office nailed Duke Cunningham and has now indicted the former #3 at the CIA in what seems to be a huge national-security corruption scandal. It looks as if the four are willing to tell their stories, but only if they are compelled to do so. (It might be interesting to ask them who asked them to keep silent.)

The Republicans on Sanchez's subcommittee boycotted the meeting where the subpoenas were voted on. Nice of them to help make this a partisan issue, isn't it?

The Deputy AG is already on record before Congress as saying the firings weren't for political reasons. Sounds as if the victims are going to say otherwise, with documents to back them up.

I've heard two lines of analysis about this case:

1. The Administration's need to tamp down the enthusiasm among the U.S. Attorneys for corruption cases, and to disrupt the specific cases the fired U.S. Attorneys were working, must have been overwhelming. The coming firestorm was predictable; they must have thought the alternative was even worse.

2. Naaahhh, they're just such a bunch of arrogant jerks it never occurred to them there was some stuff they couldn't get away with anymore.

On current evidence, I can't judge the plausibility of either one. I also can't think of a third.

I haven't seen the earlier hearing transcripts. Has anyone asked the folks at DoJ, and specifically Gonzales and McNulty, what if any communication they had with the White House about the firings? (It's not hard to guess that Karl Rove knew that someone was being fired to make a U.S. Attorney spot for one of Rove's aides, but what about the rest?)

If the DoJ folks start muttering about "executive privilege," the folks on the Hill ought to start muttering about "conspiracy to obstruct justice." I've seen this flick before, I believe, and it has a happy ending, with the bad guys resigning in disgrace or going to jail.

Update Looks as if David Iglesias, the fired U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, will testify that Rep. Heather Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenici put pressure on him to issue indictments before last fall's elections in an investigation of local Democratic corruption; Domenici apparently hung up on Iglesias when Iglesias told him that no indictments would be forthcoming until December.

Can you say "grossly inappropriate"? I was sure you could. Wouldn't it be nice to know who in the White House or DoJ Wilson or Domenici talked to about this?