If you or I refused to be served with a supoena, or blocked law enforcement

[panader0]

officers from entering my property, they would surround me, bring in the SWAT team and shoot me. Where's the fucking SWAT team now? How can our "leader" be above the law? How can spying on private citizens be OK when honesty (under oath) by public officials not be OK? Answer up bushco-- you guys get the fuck out of our country!!

[Jacobin]

1. That's not quite the way it works

When you are served with a subpoena, it requires you to appear at a certain time and place to testify. In routine civil cases, sometimes a motion to quash is filed on behalf of the person who was subpoenaed seeking to have a judge either postpone or withdraw the subpoena based on various grounds.

I do not think that the Bush administration is suggesting that they will not allow administration officials to be served with a subpoena. What they are saying is that if they are served with a subpoena, the administration will go to court to seek to have the requirement of appearance by the person subpoena excused on some legal basis, in this case, probably, 'executive privilege'. If the final court hearing the matter requires the person to testify, then they must. If the final court hearing the matter decides there is a privilege, then they do not have to appear and testify.

In this case, congress needs to make plain that it is seeking to obtain evidence regarding a crime, viz: obstruction of justice by Rove, a couple of congresscritters, et al, who were seeking to have prosecutors back off of criminal investigations involving Duke Cunningham. If the subpoenas are issued in furtherance of investigating that crime, then executive privilege does not apply and the person subpoenaed must appear and testify, although they may refuse to answer questions based on their Fifth Amendment privilege.