Are Gonzales and Rove Untouchable?

Hopefully, the Senate Judiciary Committee has other means of getting their mits on incriminating e-mails, because the White House clearly has no intention of handing them over and neither does the DOJ as long as Gonzales is the AG.

As we have said before, this White House is prepared to do whatever it takes to run out the clock. That should be patently obvious to anyone who has been playing the slightest bit of attention.

Our question is: What can be done about these people, even after they leave office? Impeachment and trial by the senate is the only device the founders gave to the people to deal with a criminal executive, but it is a device for removal from office. If crimes have been committed, and we know they have, what recourse do we have with which to bring BushCo to justice if they manage to rope-a-dope their way 'til the end of the administration?

Bloomberg.com: Politics:

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Democrats, spurred by revelations that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales pressured hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 to approve a secret spying program, are stepping up a probe of the Justice Department.

Lawmakers today moved to challenge Gonzales on several fronts, including demanding the Justice Department turn over e- mails from White House political adviser Karl Rove. Also, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska joined about half a dozen Republicans in urging Gonzales to step down as attorney general.

"Alberto Gonzales puts his blind loyalty to the president above the rule of law,'' said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York. "The Justice Department seems to reek of politicization'' beyond the firing of eight U.S. attorneys."