Yeah, yesterday Senator Leahy, after consulting with his good buddy Arlen Specter, subpoenaed Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings. From The Hill:

The Judiciary Committee chairman concluded that the investigation has “reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year.”

In a letter to Rove, Leahy gives the White House official a week to appear before the panel and testify under oath.

“I hope that the White House takes this opportunity to reconsider its blanket claim of executive privilege, especially in light of the testimony that the President was not involved in the dismissals of these U.S. Attorneys,” Leahy said in his letter. “I am left to ask what the White House is so intent on hiding that it cannot even identify the documents, the dates, the authors and recipients that they claim are privileged.”

I suspect it is a foregone conclusion that Rove and Jennings will claim privelege, and will not give specific instances of that privelege. We’re prepared for that, I imagine. But I wasn’t prepared for the diversionary subpoena, that’s hardly making anything of the splash they were hoping for. From Hollywood Today:

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced that the Bush Administration has subpoenaed him in the wake of his recent trip to Cuba on the July 26 episode of NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” “I haven’t even told my own family yet.” Moore began, “I was just informed when I was back there with Jay that the Bush administration has now issued a subpoena for me.”

The trip was part of his new film “Sicko” which tackles the question of affordable health care in the United States. Moore, who brought 9/11 rescue workers with him on his excursion, explains the reason for his trip, saying: “I Took them to Guantanamo Bay because I heard the Al Qaeda Terrorists we have in the camps there, detained, are receiving free dental, medical, eye care, the whole deal, and our own 9/11 rescue workers can’t get that in New York City.”

In a letter to Moore from a senior official, apparently one of the famed “loyal Bushies,” the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) informed Moore that it was investigating him for possible violation of the embargo. “This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba,” wrote Dale Thompson, the office’s chief of general investigations. “Ofac enforcement is conducting a civil investigation for possible unlicensed transactions under the regulations surrounding your trip to Cuba.”

We’ve got huge problems in this country, a Judiciary run amok and led by a liar, White House staff resisting subpoenas and risking contempt, and the Justice Department decides to go after Michael Moore? Man, this is just sick. But it’s bound to fill Michael Moore’s pockets, because this is going to make good publicity for that movie, if he works it right. All it will do for the Bush crowd is show how spiteful they are.