Leftblogs are boiling mad at James Comey's dramatic testimony about the 2004 trip by Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card to then-AG John Ashcroft's hospital bed to pressure Ashcroft to approve the illegal NSA wiretapping program.

("Loyal Bushie" David Johnston of the NY Times featured Bush's role in ending the conflict by siding with Comey, but failed to report that Bush started the conflict by approving the blatantly illegal program and then personally calling Mrs. Ashcroft to arrange the shocking visit.)

Bush, Gonzales, and Card would have gotten their way if Comey hadn't raced over to the hospital and arrived before Gonzales and Card. Even more shockingly, Comey had to persuade FBI director Mueller to order the FBI agents outside the hospital room to ignore any order from Gonzales and Card to eject Comey. Ultimately, Comey and Ashcroft had to threaten to quit in order to get Bush to reluctantly agree to something resembling the rule of law - although the "legality" of the final action remains a deep dark secret.

So it's no wonder that leftblogs are now calling Gonzales and Card "thugs." But there's infinitely more at stake than namecalling.

First, it looks like Gonzales committed perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as looseheadprop details:

When asked about Gonzales' statement about that he was not involved in the firings — Comey not only said that he (Comey) was more well versed in that subject than most, but also stated an assumption that Gonzales had since "corrected" his testimony.  I immediately thought were did he get an idea like that? Did I miss a news item?

Specter had to tell the world that AGAG had NOT corrected his testimony and then Specter puts out a plea for Gonzales to "recant".  What's that all about? It sounded like a last ditch  effort to get Gonzales to avoid Scooter Libby's fate.

Second, Gonzales also perjured himself on February 26, 2006 when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee about internal disputes over the NSA wiretapping program:

There has not been any serious disagreement, including – and I think this is accurate – there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the President has confirmed.

But Comey testified the dispute was so bad he had to race to Ashcroft's bedside, arrange FBI protection, confront Gonzales and Card, demand a witness at a later meeting with Card, and threaten to resign with Ashcroft. Senators Feingold, Schumer, Kennedy, and Durbin just wrote Gonzales giving him one last chance to stay out of the slammer:

In light of Mr. Comey’s testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?

Third, Gonzales also perjured himself during his April appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee when

he claimed that he'd always rejected the idea of using a Patriot Act provision to appoint handpicked U.S. attorneys and keep them in place indefinitely without Senate confirmation as "interim" U.S. attorneys.  

But Kyle Sampson told congressional investigators that Karl Rove's senior aide Sara Taylor "was upset when the Attorney General finally “rejected” this use of the interim authority" in January after Senators Leahy and Feinstein began asking questions about the U.S. Attorney scandal.

Finally, Tuesday's hearings coincided with a 2 pm Senate Judiciary Committee deadline for a subpoena to Gonzales to turn over

any of Karl Rove's emails in the [Justice] Department's possession that might be relevant to the U.S. attorney firings. The deadline came and went. And now Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) are angry.

“You ignored the subpoena, did not come forward today, did not produce the documents and did not even offer an explanation for your noncompliance,” the senators wrote in a lettter to Alberto Gonzales today. “Your action today is in defiance of the Committee’s subpoena without explanation of any legal basis for doing so.” You can read the letter here.

The senators set a new deadline, this Friday at May 18, 10 AM. If the Justice Department does not respond to the subpoena, the senators ask that they at least explain why they're not responding "so that the Chairman and the Committee can assess any objections to the subpoena or privileges claimed by the Department."

"The Committee intends to get to the truth," they conclude.

Leahy and Specter can beg Gonzales as much as they want, but everyone knows what will happen - Gonzales will "gum it to death," making fools out of the Senators (1).

If the Senators don't want to be made into fools, they have two choices: either ask the House to impeach Gonzales and then vote to remove him in the Senate, or go directly to a Senate trial under penalty of jail. As Kagro X has patiently explained, this is the forgotten power of "inherent contempt:"

Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court as inextricably related to Congress’s constitutionally-based power to investigate.

Senators, pre-season is over. As Cheney would say, "it's game time."

(1) Late Wednesday the Justice Department gave the Senate Judiciary Committee all of its emails to Karl Rove about the U.S. Attorney firings. How many exactly? One. Looks like someone's been doing some serious scrubbing...