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Did Condi Speak with Bush about Rove’s So-Called Innocence? Or about the NIE?

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I wanted to add one detail to my earlier post about Waxman asking for more materials from Mukasey. They imply that Condi had a conversation with Bush or Cheney about Rove and/or Libby’s so-called innocence.

Waxman’s letter asks for the following:

I am writing now to renew the Committee’s request for the interview reports with President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to request unredacted versions of the interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin. I also request that the Department provide all other responsive documents that were approved for release to the Committee by Mr. Fitzgerald.

[snip]

I therefore urge you to follow Justice Department precedents and provide the records of the FBI interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney to the Committee by June 10. I also ask that you provide to the Committee, at the same time, the unredacted interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin, as well as the other responsive records requested by the Committee.

In other words, his letter written specifically in response to Scottie McC’s revelations asks for unredacted copies of Scottie’s interview, but also Rove’s, Libby’s, Condi’s, and Cathie Martin’s interviews. Mind you, Waxman has seen redacted copies of these, but Scottie’s revelations lead him to demand unredacted interview reports.

Waxman tells us what is redacted in Scottie’s interview report.

In his FBI interview, Mr. McClellan told the FBI about discussions he had with the President and the Vice President. These passages, however, were redacted from the copies made available to the Committee.

And he implies that that’s what was redacted from the other interviews, as well.

Similar passages were also redacted from other interviews.

There are no sound reasons for you to withhold the interviews with the President and the Vice President from the Committee or to redact passages like Mr. McClellan’s discussions with the President and the Vice President.

From which we might conclude that those redacted passages in the Rove, Libby, Cathie Martin, and Condi interview reports are, at the very least, about conversations with Bush or Cheney, and possibly, discussions specifically about the exoneration of Rove and Libby.

We know Rove could have testified about this–Scottie McC’s book tells us that Rove told Bush directly that he was "innocent." Similarly, we know that Libby had such conversations with Cheney–in fact, passages describing those conversations appear, totally unredacted, in the grand jury testimony.

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Why Did Harriet Know of Rove’s Involvement?

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I didn’t finish Scottie McC’s book on the plane. Barely started it, actually. Suffice it to say I had an interesting chat, instead.

But I did manage to scan the thing closely enough to have a lot of questions–and here’s one I’d like to throw out at the lawyerly types in the crowd.

Why would Harriet know–in July 2005–of Rove’s involvement in the leak? Scottie McC describes Harriet warning him (though Scottie already knew a lot of it) that something was going to break just before Rove’s involvement in the leaks to Novak and Cooper became known.

Later that morning [July 10, 2005], Harriet Miers, a longtime Bush loyalist from Texas who had taken over as White House counsel when Al Gonzales was confirmed as attorney general, called me through the White House operator. Like me, Harriet had served in the Bush White House since day one. The West Wing was quiet that day. I had come in to catch up on work, watch some of the Sunday political shows that were taped, and prepare for the week ahead free from interruption.

Harriet was calling from her office and said she needed to come and talk to me about something important. She walked in, closed the door behind her, and said, "There’s some news that’s likely to come out tomorrow about Karl in the leak investigation that may appear to contradict what you said nearly two years ago."

"I heard," I said, thinking about Isikoff’s report but not taking time to let what she had said fully sink in. Harriet reiterated to me that we still could not comment on the investigation publicly. In effect, she was forbidding me from talking and setting the record straight about my previous comments.

Now perhaps the answer is very simple: perhaps Isikoff called for comment before he published his article. Perhaps Isikoff even called Harriet and read her the email from Cooper to his editor, in its entirety, that proved Rove was lying about his claims not to have said anything about Plame to Cooper. He had done the same favor–in guise of getting comment–for Luskin.

But why call Harriet, instead of, say, Rove or Scottie McC? (Well, okay, I’ll assume he may have called Rove, but he did not call Scottie first.) (Come to think of it, maybe Luskin just called Harriet as a courtesy.)

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Now This IS Interesting Scottie McClellan News

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Back in November, when Scottie McClellan’s publisher first started to pitch Scottie’s book, he made a stir when he posted the following blurb about the book.

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.

That set off a minor firestorm, as people misread the plain language of the blurb to mean that Bush had knowingly asked Scottie McC to lie about Libby’s and Rove’s involvement in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity. As I pointed out then, the firestorm probably contributed to making little Scottie rich.

Scottie McC’s publisher has pulled off quite the coup–taken a detail that was, largely, already known, and used it to cause a stir about a book that will not yet be published for another 6 months. Already, Dodd is calling for an investigation, folks are calling for HJC or Waxman to hold a hearing. What the left has done is read one publishing blurb designed to generate this kind of buzz, and played right into the plan. Congratulations. You’re all making Scottie McC rich.

And while I still don’t advocate that you all go out and buy Scottie’s book (tell you what–I’ll buy it and tell you the interesting bits), this little revelation is interesting news.

McClellan also suggests that Libby and Rove secretly colluded to get their stories straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame case.

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Rove Once Again Saying Things on Teevee He Claims He Can’t Say to Congress

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Thanks to TPM’s reader GB for watching Rove on Stephanopoulos so I don’t have to. Rove claims he shouldn’t have to appear before Congress because–in a different subpoena–the White House invoked executive privilege.

Rove: Congress–the House Judiciary Committee wants to be able to call Presidential Aides on its whim up to testify, violating the separation of powers. Executive Privilege has been asserted by the White House in a similar instance in the Senate. It’ll be, probably be asserted very shortly in the House. Third, the White House has agreed–I’m not asserting any personal privilege, the White House has offered and my lawyer has offered several different ways, if the House wants to find out information about this, they can find out information about this and they’ve refused to avail themselves of those opportunities.

Two things here.

First, the circumstances between this and the Senate subpoena are actually somewhat different. Rove’s documented involvement in the USA firings is actually much more minor than that in the USA purge. In the USA purge, he briefly attended on meeting at the White House strategizing how they would respond to Congress’ investigation and instructed the DOJ folks to come up with one story about what they said had happened. And some Republicans have said they asked Rove to fire Iglesias and later–in December 2007–that Rove told them Iglesias was gone. The discussions of what Rove did subsequent to those requests is based on anonymous sources claiming that Rove intervened directly. Those same anonymous sources, though, say that Rove had to get Bush involved personally, which would implicate the President and then–except insofar as someone was arguing that the firing constituted obstruction–executive privilege.

Here, though, we’ve got a sworn source saying she heard references to Rove directly contacting DOJ, bypassing the President and therefore bypassing executive privilege.

Also, given Rove’s involvement in Alabama politics, it’s hard to say whether his activities were those of a presidential aide or a powerful GOP operative.

In any case, the White House has not yet invoked executive privilege here. And a few things are going to make that harder to do. First, who will provide the legal review to justify it? Paul Clement did the heavy lifting the last time the White House invoked executive privilege here–but it pertained solely to the hiring and firing of USAs. Read more →

Rove’s Subpoena

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Apparently, Chairman Conyers received yet another letter from Robert Luskin claiming that Rove can spout off all he wants about his involvement (or not) in Governor Siegelman’s prosecution, but he can’t or won’t do so before the House Judiciary.

Conyers isn’t going to wait around for more of the same.

We were disappointed to receive your May 21 letter, which fails to explain why Mr. Rove is willing to answer questions in writing for the House Judiciary Committee, and has spoken on the record to the media, but continues to refuse to testify voluntarily before the Committee on the politicization of the Department of Justice, including allegations regarding the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman. Because of that continuing refusal, we enclose with this letter a subpoena for Mr. Rove’s appearance before the Committee’s Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee at 10:00 a.m. on July 10, 2008.

(Nice touch, Chairman Conyers, having the Subcommittee vote on it without, as far as I’ve heard, the news getting word.)

Now, as Conyers points out, this subpoena is a bit different than the subpoena that Harriet Miers blew off. For starters, Rove has been completely willing to answer questions in writing–and at least until now, he hasn’t asked Bush whether Bush wanted to protect the alleged conversations between Rob Riley and Rove and the Public Integrity Division of DOJ. And, as Conyers reiterates, Rove has been blabbing and blabbing and blabbing about this to the press, so it’ll be tough to argue that he can’t continue to blab under oath.

One more difference. I wonder how the Courts will feel about enforcing a subpoena issued by someone who said "Someone’s got to kick his ass"?

Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two other people: “We’re closing in on Rove. Someone’s got to kick his ass.”

Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn’t, said Conyers, “We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.”

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Conyers to Rove: No, It’s Not an Open Book Test…

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(Updated with Conyers video–did I mention he seems cranky of late?) 

…And, besides, we want to see you sweat.

Karl Rove, still trying to back out of Robert Luskin’s taunt that Rove would be happy to testify, tried to get John Conyers to settle on written responses to questions. Conyers, who’s finally beginning to lose his temper, said no.

Our position remains, however, that since your client has made a number of on-the-record comments on these subjects to the media, and in light of your (now modified) statement that Mr. Rove would be willing to testify, we can see no justification for his refusal to speak on the record to the Committee. Please contact Committee counsel or respond in writing no later than May 21 as to whether your client will make himself available to the Committee for questioning.

[snip]

Your letter also suggests that we address written questions to Mr. Rove, which may reflect a misunderstanding of Committee procedure. Although we do often address written questions to witnesses, that occurs after live testimony, which is critical in order to allow the follow up and give-and-take that is necessary to inquiries of this nature. Since you indicate Mr. Rove is now willing to submit written answers to questions, which by definition would be recorded in a manner similar to a transcript, we do not understand why he would not submit to providing transcribed answers to live questions, as he has done in media interviews. [my emphasis]

Actually, Conyers would even agree to an almost-open-book test, providing Rove the questions before he testified.

We are willing to consider other possible accommodations, such as providing a list of initial questions that may be asked.

I thought Turdblossom was smarter than this–why does he need so much help to pass a simple little test?

One answer may have to do with scope. Rove is on the hook, of course, for all his blabbing about the Siegelman affair. But he appears to want to limit all questions to that narrow subject, something Conyers is unwilling to let him do.

We are writing in response to your May 9 letter with respect to the invitation to Karl Rove to testify before the House Judiciary Committee concerning the politicization of the Department of Justice, including allegations regarding the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman. Because your letter appears to reflect several misunderstandings concerning the subjects we wish to question Mr. Rove about…

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Fitz on Firing

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In their Questions for the Record submitted after he testified, HJC managed to ask Patrick Fitzgerald one obvious question they didn’t manage to ask when he testified at their hearing on Special Counsels (h/t MadDog). What would have happened–or would happen to John Durham, investigating the torture tapes destruction–if a Special Counsel got fired during the course of the investigation? Actually, in the QFRs Fitzgerald got asked about 5 different versions of the question, only one of which elicited a really useful answer (at least as it might reflect on John Durham’s investigation):

13. If you had been fired as a U.S. Attorney, what impact would that have had on the CIA leak investigation? What impact would that have had on your appointment as Special Counsel?

During my tenure, this question did not present itself. It is not clear to me what the legal implications would have been had I been relieved of command as United States Attorney while serving as Special Counsel. (This might be an issue that should be specifically addressed if there is a delegation of power to a sitting United States Attorney in the future as it is entirely possible that a United States Attorney could be asked to resign after a change in administration.) It would appear that unless the United States Attorney were specifically retained in some other capacit (such as a Special Assistant United States Attorney), he or she could no longer serve as a Special Counsel who was employed by the Department of Justice and whose authority had been delegated by the Attorney General. It would be possible that a new appointment could be made for such a former United States Attorney which would provide that he or she would serve as a Special Counsel from outside the Department of Justice pursuant to the appropriate regulations.

Had I been relieved of command as United States Attorney while conducting the CIA leak investigation, even if a legal basis were established for me to continue as Special Counsel or in some other proper capacity, I would nevertheless have had to determine whether it would be appropriate for me to continue representing the government under all of the circumstances. Read more →

Bloch: Making Some Sense

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I’m going to revise what I said yesterday when I suggested there was no method to Scott Bloch’s madness. After reading the longer document summarizing the Office of Special Counsel’s Task Force investigations, several key patterns stick out:

  • For investigations pertaining to DOJ, the Task Force’s investigations got caught up in the turnover between Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey
  • For the investigations pertaining to the politicization of federal agencies, the Task Force was presented with real jurisdictional issues that presented challenges for the inevstigation

This doesn’t mean Bloch is a particularly good manager or investigator. It appears, rather, that he got in over his head when he attempted to take on this high level investigation in May 2007 and, certainly by November 2007, had made these investigations personal.

Timing

The timing reflected in the document reveals some of the problems with the Task Force itself. It was formed in May 2007 to conduct larger investigations–primarily the politicization of government agencies (arising out of Henry Waxman’s own investigation of Lurita Doan), and the politicization of DOJ. Thus, it was started after both those events had significantly played out and (in the case of DOJ) many of the players had quit. The Task Force also inherited a couple of investigations started earlier–primarily an investigation into Rove’s travel started in March 2006.

That means the Task Force didn’t really get started until June 2007. On August 27, 2007, Alberto Gonzales resigned. Michael Mukasey was nominated on September 17, 2007, and approved by the Senate on November 8, 2007. Then this document was drafted on January 18, 2008. So what we’re seeing in the document–particularly as it relates to anything pertaining to DOJ–are the activities taking place after the trauma resulting from the USA Purge and through the period of transition between Gonzales and Mukasey. This explains at least some of the issues surrounding the investigations into DOJ.

For example, OSC had already begun an investigation into the Iglesias firing on May 4, 2007. Remember–that investigation was originally started because the Administration stated publicly that they fired Iglesias because he was an "absentee landlord" because he traveled so much in connection with his service in the Naval Reserve. Firing Iglesias for such a reason would violate the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which prohibits firing a service member for absences due to military service. Somehow, by May 17, the newly-created Task Force was also investigating his firing as a possible Hatch Act violation, and by May 22, it was investigating the firing of all the USAs. So the OSC took an investigation over which OSC had clear jurisdiction and broadened it into one in which it didn’t.

As early as May 4 (that is, even before the Task Force was created), this investigation conflicted with DOJ’s joint Inspector General (OIG)/Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation into the firings. On May 4 and May 29, DOJ complained about jurisdictional issues, even involving unnamed people in Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

Now, at this point, I don’t necessarily fault Bloch for pursuing this investigation. Alberto Gonzales was attempting to bury the investigation by giving OPR sole jurisdiction, meaning the investigators would report directly to him and not produce a public report. And given the crap that has come out of the Bush OLC, who knows what OLC was saying to Bloch to justify their argument that he should drop his investigation?

The problem, though, is that OSC only would have jurisdiction if Bloch could prove that an executive branch employee–as distinct from a legislative branch employee or a local politico–pressured the USAs to conduct politicized investigations. In other words, if it was clear that Monica Goodling was pressuring Iglesias et al to prosecute Democrats, then Bloch would have jurisdiction; but if Senator Domenici and Heather Wilson did so, Bloch wouldn’t have jurisdiction. And the only way Bloch might get evidence that executive branch employees were involved would be to get the kind of information that DOJ and–especially–the White House refused to turn over to Congress.

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Bloch: Stop Making Sense

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I am still catching up on events of the last week and so I don’t have a really good sense of WTF is going on with the FBI raid of Scott Bloch’s house and–according to NPR, via Sara–body cavities. But I wanted to point you to this analysis of a document drafted by a bunch of Office of Special Counsel investigators, listing their complaints about Bloch’s intervention into their investigations. I hoped that, by reading the analysis, I could figure out whether Bloch was in the bag for the Administration or opposed to the Administration. And, for the life of me, I can’t really discern any logic to Bloch’s action.

Go read the analysis. But here’s a scorecard of what the analysis seems to suggest:

Office of Political Affairs (Karl Rove’s shop at the White House)

Bloch consistently forced the task force conducting the omnibus investigation into whether the White House illegally used agency resources to help Republicans to expand its scope, even beyond the mandate of OSC.

Score: Anti-Bush

US Attorney Firing

Bloch refused repeated DOJ Inspector General demands that he drop his investigation into whether the Administration fired David Iglesias for political reasons, even while he insisted that the Iglesias firing was not a Hatch Act violation. Bloch seems to have insisted on keeping the case either because it was so high profile or to stymie DOJ IG’s investigation.

Score: Pro-Bush if done to stymie DOJ IG’s investigation

Monica Goodling’s Use of Political Tests in DOJ’s Hiring Practices

Bloch repeatedly refused to allow investigators to open an investigation into Goodling’s admitted Hatch Act violations. When he finally allowed investigators to open such an investigation, he allocated no resources to that investigation.

Score: Pro-Bush

Don Siegelman Prosecution

Bloch ordered investigators to close their investigation into the politicized prosecution of Don Siegelman.

Score: Pro-Bush

Politicized Prosecution of ACORN for Voting Fraud

Bloch refused to allow investigators to open an investigation into whether the timing of Missouri US Attorney Office indictments of ACORN voter registration employees was politically motivated.

Score: Pro-Bush

Lurita Doan

After completing an investigation into Lurita Doan which concluded that she had violated the Hatch Act, Bloch ordered investigators to open a second investigation into Doan, from a time before she worked in the Administration involving her husband. This second investigation sounds like a personal witch hunt against Doan.

Score: Anti-Bush

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Is Isikoff Laundering Information for Karl Rove Again?

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As you’ll recall from the Plame case, Michael Isikoff helped Karl Rove stay out of jail in at least three ways:

  • After the WaPo published the damaging 1X2X6 article, Isikoff published an article appearing to–but not entirely–refuting it (Isikoff tried again in Hubris, claiming that the 1X2X6 story only got printed due to an editorial error, an attempt that Swopa quickly shredded).
  • When he called Luskin for comment on the fact that Rove was Matt Cooper’s source for Plame’s identity, Isikoff (by his own admission) read Luskin the entire email from Cooper to his editor, alerting Rove’s lawyer to everything that appeared in one of the main pieces of documentary evidence that incriminated Rove.
  • Just before the inquiry, Rove someone at the White House prodded Isikoff to ask Woodward about his "bombshell," probably forcing Woodward to come clean that Armitage had leaked Plame’s identity to him in June 2003, thereby ruining what little value Armitage would have had in a perjury case against Rove.

Laundering information through journalists is a common Rove tactic. For example, someone conveniently launched a false campaign insinuating Ari Fleischer was one of the Novak’s for Plame’s identity; by coincidence (ha!) that campaign was launched the day that Luskin attempted to manage the revelation that Rove was one of Novak’s sources. Even going way back to his days in Texas Rove laundered leaks through the press to attack Jim Hightower and Ronnie Earle.

But in recent years–certainly during the CIA Leak case–Isikoff has been one of Rove’s key information conduits.

In the last couple of months, Rove seems to have been attempting–with no apparent success–to goad reporters covering the Siegelman case to serve as similar information conduits. His surrogates in the AL GOP tried to demand information from CBS and MSNBC about what evidence there is implicating Karl, all while refusing to give up their own information. More recently, Rove has launched a pissing contest with Dan Abrams, attacking Abrams’ journalism, apparently in an attempt to force him to reveal information about evidence against him. Yet with Rove out of the White House, his ability to use journalists to his own ends seems to have diminished.

Except, perhaps, with Isikoff.

The other day, I noted that the news that the revelation of Bob Kjellander’s discussions about firing Patrick Fitzgerald with Rove was an unsurprising move from Fitzgerald. Read more →