Senate,House Press Rove,DOJ for E-mails and Testimony

May 25 (LPAC)--The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee have written to Karl Rove's attorney, challenging him to turn over e-mails from Rove's RNC account related to the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. In a letter released by Leahy's office this afternoon, Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter point out that after Rove's e-mails were turned over to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, they were returned to Rove's lawyer by Fitzgerald.

"Do you retain possession of this electronic media," they ask, "and will you provide the Committee with Mr. Rove's e-mails related to our investigation voluntarily?" Their clear implication is that the Committee will subpoena the e-mails if Rove's lawyers doesn't provide them, just as the Committee issued a subpoena to the Justice Department earlier this month, in response to which they were told that the DOJ had returned them to Rove's lawyer.

Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. John Conyers sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today, asking him to make two senior Justice Department officials available for testimony, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and William Moschella, the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. Conyers states that "the testimony of Monica Goodling has made it even more imperative that we hear from Mr. McNulty and Mr. Moschella about concerns that they testified falsely about the 2006 dismissal of U.S. Attorneys."

The noose is tightening.