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Posted on Tuesday 3 February 2009

Attorney: Rove Will Cooperate With DOJ Probes
By Murray Waas
February 2, 2009

Karl Rove will cooperate with a federal criminal inquiry underway into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and has already spoken to investigators in a separate, internal DOJ investigation into the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, his attorney said in an interview.

Rove previously refused to cooperate with an earlier Justice Department inquiry into the firings. The Justice Department’s Inspector General and its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) said in a report released last September detailing their earlier probe of the firings of the U.S. attorneys that their investigation was severely "hindered" by the refusal by Rove and other senior Bush administration officials to cooperate with the probe.

Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, said that Rove, however, will cooperate with a federal criminal probe of the firings being led by Nora Dannehy, the Acting U.S. Attorney for Connecticut who was selected by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey to lead the investigation. Dannehy has recently empaneled a federal grand jury to hear evidence in the matter.

Luskin told me that Rove had earlier not cooperated with the Inspector General and OPR probe into the firings because "it was not his [Karl’s] call… it was not up to us decide." Luskin said that Rove was directed by the Bush White House counsel’s office not to cooperate with the Inspector General and OPR. Regarding the more recent probe by Dannehy, Luskin said: "I can say that he would cooperate with the Dannehy investigation if asked."

In recent days, according to legal sources, two former Bush White House officials, including one former aide to Rove, have been contacted by investigators working for Dannehy and asked for interviews. One of the two has agreed to be interviewed…

In a related matter, Luskin disclosed that Rove has already been cooperating with a probe by Justice’s OPR into the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. At the request of Congress, the Justice Department watchdogs are probing whether prosecutors acted ethically in their prosecution of Siegelman as well as allegations that Rove might have encouraged the federal investigation in the first place. Siegelman, who was governor of Alabama, from 1999-2003, was convicted in 2006 of federal charges of bribery and mail fraud.

Regarding Siegelman, Luskin said: "At no time has he or will he assert personal privilege in that matter." While declining to discuss specifics of what Rove has told investigators regarding Siegelman, Luskin said: "What Karl has said [to investigators] is entirely consistent with what he has said publicly–that he absolutely nothing to do with this." The conclusions of that OPR investigation are expected sometime soon.

Well, everybody suspects that Rove is up to something. Maybe he is. But maybe with Bush out of office, his lawyewr recognizes that this Immunity in perpetuity is not going to fly. Were I to guess, I think he’d rather take his chances in a Grand Jury where his testimony remains private and where he can go back and revise what he says [like he did in the Plame investigation] than go before Congress. His innocence in this case would be the remotest of possibilities. Getting U.S. Attorneys to shut down voter registration in these key states was at the top of his list. Recall that in April 2006, Karl Rove gave a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired.

State	District	Old	New

Florida	Southern	Marcos D. Jiminez [resigned 04/21/2005]	R. Alexander Acosta [confirmed by Senate]
Colorado		John Suthers [elected State Attorney]	Troy Eid [confirmed by Senate]
Wisconsin	Western	J.B. Van Hollen [elected State Attorney]	Erik C. Peterson [confirmed by Senate]
Minnesota		Tom Heffelfinger [resigned 02/2006]	Rachel K. Paulose [confirmed by Senate]
Iowa	Northern	Charles W. Larson, Sr [retired 12/31/2006]	Matt M. Dummermuth [interim appointment]
Arkansas	Eastern	H. E. (Bud) Cummins, III	Tim Griffin [interim ippointment]
Michigan	Western	Margaret Chiara	Charles R. Gross [interim appointment]
Nevada		Daniel Bogden	Steven Myhre [interim appointment]
New Mexico		David Iglesias	Larry Gomez [interim appointment]
Arizona		Paul K. Charlton	Daniel G. Knauss [interim appointment]
California	Central	Deborah Wong Yang [resigned 11/2006]	George S. Cardona [interim appointment]
	Northern	Kevin V. Ryan	Scott N. Schools [interim appointment]
	Southern	Carol Lam	Karen P. Hewitt [interim appointment]
Washington	Western	John McKay	Jeffrey C. Sullivan [interim appointment]

Marked by Karl Rove.
Fired last December.
Not Senate Reviewed.

It was a long term plan. It didn’t work. Largely because of Josh Marshall and TPM who were on it like flies as soon as it happened. The only reason it wasn’t Bush’s Watergate was that the whole DoJ was controlled by the White House. While it resulted in a cleaning out of the DoJ and the resignations of Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and Sara Taylor from the White House, the case remains an open wound on the DoJ. And, by the way, Rove’s targeted States are marked in Yellow on the 2008 Vote Map below. He only missed one:

This was always the case to pursue. Lying about the prewar intelligence, outing Valerie Plame, the Torture Memo and the NSA domestic Spying Program were all egregious. But trying to disenfranchise voters using the Department of Justice is a real Blagojevich level crime – obvious from the first minute you hear about it. And it’s a crime somebody knows about. There were just way too many people involved for this to happen without it being discussed. Recall also that they were suprised when they lost the Congress and put it on hold, but then decided to go ahead. Big stakes, big mistake, hopefully big consequences…

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