Rove has, apparently, just finished up his second interview with the House Judiciary Committee on his role in the US Attorney firings. That apparently frees the WaPo to reveal–and debunk–details of an interview Rove had with the NYT and WaPo earlier this month to spin his role in the firings.

In an hour-long interview with The Post and the New York Times this month, Rove described himself as a "conduit" of grievances from lawmakers and others about the performance of home-state prosecutors. The interview was conducted on the condition that it not be released until Rove’s House testimony concluded. He said he did not recall several events in the timeline because of his busy job and asserted that he had done nothing to influence criminal cases, an allegation by Democrats that has dogged him for years.

Hmm. He was so busy he forgot. Where have I heard that excuse before? Oh yeah: Rove’s co-leaker, Scooter Libby, in the CIA Leak case.

It’s not entirely clear where the emails the WaPo got came from–they may well have come from Rove, too, in an attempt to pre-empt whatever leaks will come out of his HJC interview. The story includes a predictable quote from Robert Luskin, the guy who used this kind of pre-emptive leak to great advantage during the CIA Leak case. And while they do provide new levels of detail, they don’t tell us anything we didn’t already assume.

The emails WaPo received show Scott Jennings passing on Pete Domenici’s request that David Iglesias be fired directly to Rove.

Complaints about Iglesias began at least a year before he was relieved of his job, according to documents reviewed by The Post. Then-Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), his chief of staff, Steve Bell, and GOP lawyers in the state lobbied aggressively to oust the prosecutor. But the activity accelerated in fall 2006.

In an Oct. 10, 2006, e-mail from White House political affairs aide Scott Jennings to Rove, Jennings reported:

"I received a call from Steve Bell tonight. . . . Last week Sen. Domenici reached the chief of staff and asked that we remove the U.S. Atty. Steve wanted to make sure we all understood that they couldn’t be more serious about this request."

The WaPo also describes documents that show–contrary to a withdrawn claim made by DOJ–Rove personally intervening to get Tim Griffin a US Attorney job.

Responding to questions about another little-understood event, Rove told reporters in the interview this month that he had not seen a letter that Justice Department officials prepared and sent to the Senate on Feb. 23, 2007. The letter stated that "the department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint [protege] Mr. Griffin" to a top job in Little Rock.

The Justice Department later retracted the statement, which the inspector general concluded was "misleading." In the interview, Rove said that he had "nothing" to do with the letter. "I’m not even sure I was still there at that point." Rove did not leave the White House for six more months, in late August 2007.

But internal White House correspondence dating to two years earlier suggests that job prospects for Timothy Griffin, who had worked for Rove in the administration, were a hot topic of conversation. In a Feb. 11, 2005, e-mail, Rove wrote to deputy Sara Taylor: "Give him options. Keep pushing for Justice and let him decide. I want him on the team."Then White House counsel Miers e-mailed Taylor a month later, writing, "Sara, Karl asked me to forward you a list of locations where we may consider replacing the USAs…"

Rove himself suggested Little Rock, where Cummins was U.S. attorney, as a post for Griffin, reminding Miers in March 2005 that "that’s where he’s from." The next day, Sara Taylor forwarded some communications about Griffin to RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, who wrote, "let me know his reaction," according to the e-mails.

Of course, that doesn’t prove Rove knew of the letter–only the reasons why DOJ had to withdraw the claim that Rove was not involved: because Rove had long been pushing Griffin for precisley the job he was given, the Little Rock US Attorney job.

None of this, of course, is even remotely surprising.  But it does suggest we’ll have these documents–and Rove’s interview transcript–in the relatively near future.

Update: Yup! Robert Luskin succeeded in getting the NYT and WaPo to do his work for him in spectacular fashion! Here are details from the NYT story.The meeting took place in Luskin’s office.

“I can’t even tell you who brought it up,” Mr. Rove said earlier this month in the office of his lawyer, Robert D. Luskin.

Luskin pretends it was just the cases that caused Rove to clam up.

Mr. Luskin has said Mr. Rove had been willing to answer questions about the firings, but the disputes have meant that until now Mr. Rove’s role remained largely unknown. Some Democrats had speculated that he operated as the behind-the-scenes architect of the firings, a role Mr. Rove has denied.

 Which of course makes no sense–since the Dannehy probe is ongoing.

And Rove managed to deny the most potentially explosive issue–that he supported firing all the US Attorneys. 

Mr. Rove said he opposed one early suggestion to dismiss all of the more than 90 United States attorneys in a single mass dismissal.

No word on whether or not there’s proof to back this up–but remember, three different witnesses in Chicago testified that Rove had promised to get Pat Fitzgerald fired, and Fitz was closing in on Rove’s role in the Plame scandal at about this time.

Because I am.

I find myself writing long weedy posts about Cheney’s role in the CIA Leak Case. And Karl Rove spent a long day answering questions about his role in a crime. (h/t fatster)

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was deposed Tuesday by attorneys for the House Judiciary Committee, according to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman.

Rove’s deposition began at 10 a.m. and ended around 6:30 p.m, with several breaks, Conyers said.

Conyers would not comment on what Rove told congressional investigators, what the next step in the long-running Judiciary Committee investigation would be or whether Rove would face additional questioning.

“He was deposed today,” Conyers said in an interview. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Eight and a half hours? That’s a lot of questions.

Supposedly, there will be transcripts produced, Harriet and Karl will review them, and then we’ll all get our greedy little hands on them. Given that it’s summertime in our nation’s capital, it’ll take at least a few weeks for all that to transpire.

But we might get a Karl transcript before we get a Cheney interview.

In an important new article from Murray Waas, writing at The Hill, we have at long last fresh news on the Rick Renzi corruption case in Arizona, and it turns out that officials in the Bush Administration improperly leaked out information compromising the investigation of Renzi, and did so for sheer political gain immediately prior to the 2006 elections.

In the fall of 2006, one day after the Justice Department granted permission to a U.S. attorney to place a wiretap on a Republican congressman suspected of corruption, existence of the investigation was leaked to the press — not only compromising the sensitive criminal probe but tipping the lawmaker off to the wiretap.

Career federal law enforcement officials who worked directly on a probe of former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) said they believe that word of the investigation was leaked by senior Bush administration political appointees in the Justice Department in an improper and perhaps illegal effort to affect the outcome of an election.

At the time of the leak, Renzi was locked in a razor-thin bid for reelection and unconfirmed reports of a criminal probe could have become politically damaging. The leaked stories — appearing 10 days before the election — falsely suggested that the investigation of Renzi was in its initial stages and unlikely to lead to criminal charges.

As you will recall, Renzi’s indictment (or lack thereof at the time) was a critical prong in the greater US Attorney firing scandal, specifically as to Arizona US Attorney Paul Charlton.

Murray is right, the import of this is not merely the implications on Arizona and the loss of a really good US Attorney (and as a practitioner in Arizona I can tell you that Paul Charlton had universal respect from both sides of the political aisle, prosecutors, the defense bar and the judiciary). The really notable point here is that it permitted Renzi to circle his wagons, and falsely inferred right before the 2006 election that Renzi was clean enough to be reelected.

Despite the fervent claims of the Bush crowd to the contrary, this was gross politicization of the Justice process, and it worked.

This previously unreported episode, however, directly contradicts that claim and constitutes the first evidence that a political-corruption investigation was stymied for political reasons during the Bush administration.

As part of an apparent damage-control effort to assist Renzi’s reelection bid, information was leaked on the same day to three major news organizations: The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press. The articles reported that although there was an ongoing probe of Renzi, it was only in an early stage, no evidence of serious wrongdoing had been uncovered, and it might end up being much ado about nothing.

Yet Gonzales had already approved a request by the then-U.S. attorney leading the investigation, Paul Charlton, to seek an application from a federal judge to wiretap Renzi’s telephone.

Now the question is whether or not Eric Holder and the not quite revamped Department of Justice will investigate this obstruction of justice for the crime that it appears to be. As Paul Charlton, who undoubtedly lost his job in large part because he was going after Renzi, said “Any career federal law enforcement person knows that if you leak the existence of an investigation right as you have a wiretap go up, you are going to do great harm to what you are doing.”

That is obstruction of justice, pure and clear.

But who will watch the watchers? As you may have seen, the section of the DOJ responsible for investigating and prosecuting public official and election crimes, the Public Integrity Section (PIN), is in complete disarray, is being investigated by one Federal Court for malfeasance, and is being lambasted by several other courts. PIN would also, of course, have been central to the Renzi investigation. So who is going to investigate whom here without a special prosecutor? Waas describes the the OPR and DOJ-IG being involved:

Sources close to the investigation say that investigators working for the inspector general and OPR — mirroring the beliefs of prosecutors and FBI agents who worked the case — concluded that it was most likely that political appointees leaked the existence of the Renzi probe and had a political motivation in doing so. A spokesman for Justice’s inspector general declined to comment, and OPR similarly did not respond to inquiries for this article.

No mention of PIN there. One would think that they should either be involved in the investigation or be a subject of the investigation. But no mention. Former DOJ spokesman Brian Roehrkasse and former Criminal Division chief Alice Fisher are also central to the fact set. That is a lot of DOJ leadership; even though some of it is "former" you wonder how the DOJ will effectively investigate itself.

The other subject still not featured is the matter of the "Ft. Huachuca" story in regard to Renzi. As Marcy put it almost a year and a half ago:

More interesting than what got added to the indictment since last April is what got left out of the indictment: all mention of Renzi’s and his father’s ties to Fort Huachuca. In April of last year, Wilke explained:

Mr. Renzi told Resolution in 2005 that his support for the land swap would hinge in part on whether it helped fulfill a goal to cut water consumption along the San Pedro River, which slices through the desert far from the mining area, in southern Arizona, participants in the deal say. Fort Huachuca, a big U.S. Army base nearby, was under court order to cut water consumption, and it had been seeking help to retire farmland near the river. Mr. Renzi has longstanding ties to the base, the economic engine of the area. He grew up near it, and his father, retired U.S. Army Gen. Eugene Renzi, is its former commandant, now employed by one of its largest contractors, ManTech Corp.

[snip]

The FBI is also looking into the congressman’s dealings with Fort Huachuca, these people say.

The same question still holds now, as it did then. In fact, it is even more strident, because prior to the last election, and with a Republican led DOJ, it was easy to figure that nothing that could taint John McCain would be pursued. As John Dougherty reported last year:

If prosecutors had focused on Renzi’s submission of what might be false congressional financial disclosure statements, then McCain might have been drawn deeper into the Renzi case. The FBI has already interviewed at least one member of McCain’s Senate staff and requested that his Senate office turn over documents possibly related to the case.

Public records show that Renzi might have filed false congressional financial disclosure statements from 2001 through 2003, because he did not disclose his 50-percent ownership in Fountain Realty & Development, Inc. While submitting false congressional financial disclosure statements in this time period is not one of the counts against Renzi, the indictment states that Fountain Realty had more than $1 million in transactions with Renzi’s former business partner, and co-defendant, James W. Sandlin.

In contrast, the Justice Dept.’s seven-count felony indictment against Sen. Ted Stevens accuses the Alaska Republican senator of submitting false financial disclosure statements to Congress by concealing $250,000 in gifts from an oil industry supply company.

Did prosecutors avoid filing similar charges against Renzi to shield McCain from questions about his ties to the congressman? Or did they decide to focus on the more serious charges of wire and insurance fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and extortion?

Is the DOJ still giving McCain a wide berth? Are they staying away from this part of the story because of the key place in the domestic surveillance program of ManTech, Inc. the database and datamining goliath run by Renzi’s late father, General Eugene Renzi and that Rick Renzi was engaged in land fraud to benefit? We do not know; the better question is whether anybody at DOJ is trying to find out.

Stay tuned.

As I noted earlier, Fox reported yesterday that Miers had testified before HJC, but there was not yet an agreement to have Rove testify.

But that’s not right. According to a status report filed in the HJC suit against the White House over ten days ago, Rove has a date to appear.

Pursuant to the Court’s order dated March 5, 2009, the parties respectfully submit this joint status report.

Since the last status report, the parties have made substantial progress towards fulfilling their obligations under the Agreement Concerning Accommodation. The Committee has now been provided access to all of the documents covered by the Agreement, and the parties have agreed to a schedule for interviews with Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, to take place under the agreed terms and conditions.

Miers, Rove, and the documents!?!?! What a novelty. Oversight–just two years in the making.

Fox is reporting that Harriet Miers snuck into HJC for a deposition yesterday. It’s all very nice that–two years after she was subpoenaed, Harriet is just now getting around to showing up before Congress. (h/t fatster)

But I’m more troubled by Fox’s report that there still isn’t an agreement for Rove to testify.

In March, Miers and former Bush adviser Karl Rove agreed to testify under oath.

Miers testified today behind closed doors. It remains unclear when Bolten could be deposed. But a senior House Democrat familiar with the inquiry described Bolten as “a tasty little morsel.” The senior lawmaker indicated to FOX that Rove ”is really the big catch.” But there is still no agreement for Rove to appear.

It has been, by my count, 114 days since Greg Craig and HJC finalized the plan to have Turdblossom (and Miers) testify. Yet he still–according to Fox, which ought to know–hasn’t shown his face for his deposition.

Now perhaps Rove’s interim engagement with Nora Dennehy, in May, explains the delay. After all, HJC might be willing to postpone their chat with Rove to allow a federal prosecutor to grill him first.

But otherwise, what’s the delay? Is it that he’s just more scared of Congress than Harriet Miers?

This time, with Nora Dennehy, who is investigating the US Attorney firing (particularly that of David Iglesias):

Former top White House official Karl Rove will be interviewed tomorrow as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, according to two sources familiar with the appointment.

[snip]

He will be questioned tomorrow by Connecticut prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy, who was named last year to examine whether any former senior Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006.

Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for Rove, declined comment this afternoon on the imminent interview. So did Tom Carson, a spokesman for Dannehy.

Dannehy mostly has operated in the shadows, quietly issuing subpoenas for documents through a federal grand jury in the District. But in recent weeks she has interviewed other former government aides, including White House political deputies Scott Jennings and Sarah Taylor. She also has reached out to representatives for former  Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and his chief of staff, Steve Bell, in an effort to determine whether New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias was removed for improper political reasons. 

Any bets on whether it’ll take Rove five tries before he gets his story straight this time around?

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this (written by Dana Jill Simpson’s lawyer to White House Counsel Greg Craig)–besides that this is what you get when you hire an uber-insider like Greg Craig to be your White House Counsel. And that if we can tie Richard Shelby to the Siegelman mess (remember, Jeff Sessions is already in deep), then I’d be okay with that.

I represent Dana Jill Simpson, an attorney in Rainsville, Alabama, who testified before Congress in September 2007, regarding Karl Rove’s involvement in the U.S. Justice Department prosecution of Gov. Don Siegelman.

She is very concerned that you have violated the Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6 , 1.7 and 1.10, while citing 1.9 to decline representation. She is equally concerned about the person or persons to whom you have divulged her confidential information. Your recent efforts on the part of negotiating a settlement between Congress and Karl Rove have been noted, as well as your efforts to delay matters before the D.C. Court of Appeals, regarding Rove and other Bush administration officers claiming executive privilege.

For this reason, she is asking that you step down from your position as White House Counsel, at least in all matters dealing with the Bush administration. Further, she is asking that you furnish her with a list of each and every person with whom you have communicated regarding this matter; that is, Miss Simpson’s affidavit, testimony, knowledge, research and any other matters touching or information furnished by Miss Simpson. In recapping the events linking you and
Miss Simpson:

1.) Upon information and belief, Gov. Don Siegelman or his agent made the direct call to you at your law firm, Williams & Connolly, soliciting your pro bono representation of Ms. Simpson, with regard to her affidavit about Karl Rove’s involvement in Siegelman’s prosecution.

2.) According to Ms. Simpson, you called her up to four times on or about March 16-17, 2007, and you faxed her your resume.

3.) She initially asked, “Before we really start this, do you have any contacts with George Bush, Karl Rove, Don Siegelman or Bob Riley?”

4.) You indicated you did not and said, “Tell me who this is about.”

5.) Your initial conversation with Ms. Simpson lasted about 10 to 15 minutes.

6.) In three conversations of nearly two hours, you extracted particular details of her involvement, and you asked her specifically about the length of time and character of her contact with Karl Rove, the extent of her work with the GOP and her knowledge of U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller’s owner-interest in Doss Aviation, a major federal contractor, and matters dealing with lobbyist G. Stewart Hall’s then-Federalist Group and the steering of contracts to Fuller’s company and companies related to Gov. Bob Riley’s son, Rob Riley.

7.) After this extensive questioning, which included another session for the questions you had formulated, you announced that you couldn’t represent her because you had represented Sen. Richard Shelby during the 2004-2005 investigations of his alleged national security leaks.

8.) Ms. Simpson says that you related to her that Sen. Shelby had told you “ in confidence” that he “owned and controlled Doss Aviation out of the federal courthouse in Montgomery,” and that Doss Aviation’s, 1 Church Street, mail was delivered to Shelby’s Senate office, even before Fuller was appointed judge. You told her that you “didn’t really like” Shelby, that the Doss connection had not been discovered during the previous hearing, but that, “It will come up, if you really go into it.”

9.) You failed to mention to Miss Simpson, however, that you were a friend of Karl Rove, had shared drinks with Karl Rove, that your law firm, Williams & Connolly, was representing Vice President Cheney on Scooter Libby’s role in the Valerie Plame case in which Rove was involved; that your firm has advised the White House not to turn over GOP emails regarding the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys. Nor did you disclose your firm’s involvement in defending Iran-Contra figures, which you knew or should have known play a key role in the current military contracts routed to Doss Aviation.

I’m wondering if Richard Shelby’s extensive lectures about how American corporations run their businesses includes using a Federal Judge as a front for your spooked up aviation firm?

Just before I disappeared for a week, John Conyers sent Karl Rove a sternly-worded letter insisting Rove show up for his deposition today.

I also cannot agree to your request for a delay to accommodate Mr. Rove’s schedule. As you know, the deposition was originally scheduled for February 2. On January 29 I in good faith acceded to your request for a delay since you were scheduled to be out of town at the time and requested more time to prepare. I also notified your office of the new February 23 date at that time. Thus, absent an actual commitment by Mr. Rove to comply with the subpoena, I am not in a position to agree to yet a further delay. In essence, given Mr. Rove’s public statements that he does not intend to comply with the subpoena, I am puzzled as to why Mr. Rove needs a mutually convenient date to appear.

Well, the blogger formerly known as Kagro X reports that Rove indeed blew off the House Judiciary Committee (for what must be the third or fourth time) today (h/t Petrocelli).

I find that interesting for several reasons. First, remember that Conyers sent that sternly-worded letter at a point when HJC was already negotiating with the Obama White House about what to do with the Miers/Bolten suit.  

Next, consider some of the other language Conyers used in his sternly-worded letter.

Finally, conducting a voluntary deposition under these circumstances [limiting testimony to the Siegelman witch hunt and excluding the US Attorney firings and other politicization issues] could simply serve to further delay matters beyond the nearly two years I have been waiting, since the Committee could not then be in a position to utilize contempt or other enforcement mechanisms in response to any improper refusal to answer questions. [my emphasis]

Conyers was clearly thinking about contempt when he wrote that letter–at a time when he was in negotiations on the Miers/Bolten suit.

Finally, as I reported earlier, Obama got the second week of his requested two week delay for his brief on the Miers/Bolten suit. HJC agreed to go along with that delay.

Now, I have no reason (besides noting the coincident dates) to believe that there’s a connection between the additional week extension on the Appeals Court brief and any response to Rove’s latest contempt for an HJC subpoena.

But I do note that if Rove were immediately held in contempt by HJC and if the House were to act with any dispatch to vote on contempt, Rove might well be in contempt by the time Obama briefs the Appeals Court a week from Wednesday. Mind you, things like that don’t usually happen so quickly in the House. But it would make the discussion about the Appeal more interesting. 

Just a quick follow-up on this post, which noted that the Appeals Court had only given Obama one week of the two week extension he had asked for to broker a deal between the House Judiciary Committee and Harriet Miers and John Bolten regarding testimony.

DOJ asked again for their additional week on February 19. And today, the Appeals Court gave DOJ that second week. The Obama DOJ brief is now due on March 4.

This is weird. The DC Appeals Court apparently doesn’t want to give Obama time to make a deal between Bush’s minions and the House Judiciary Committee.

After specifically invoking the benefit of "permitting the new President"… "to express [his] views on the merits of the lawsuit" between the House Judiciary Committee and Harriet Miers and John Bolten last fall when it stayed Judge Bates’ ruling knocking down Absolute Immunity, and in spite of the fact that said new President asked for two additional weeks to submit his brief on the debate over Harriet Miers’ testimony, and in spite of the fact that HJC agreed to that two week delay, the DC Appeals panel has ordered DOJ to submit its brief by February 25, half the time the Obama Administration requested. 

That’s weird for several reasons. Normally, when the legislature and the executive get into a squabble, the courts like to have them try to resolve the squabble on their own. One of the reasons Obama had wanted two weeks was to try to broker a deal himself. Given reports that such a deal is taking some time, the order to submit briefs this Wednesday makes it much less likely that HJC and Bush’s minions will make a deal before the Appeals Court gets involved again.

The one-week extension also guarantees that Obama will submit his brief before Dawn Johnsen takes over at OLC; her confirmation hearing is scheduled for the same day as the new deadline for the brief. One way Obama could have responded to this suit would be to simply withdraw Steven Bradbury’s audacious memo expanding Absolute Immunity, but that won’t happen before Johnsen takes over.

Now, I have no idea why the Appeals Court is so antsy to get involved here, but there are several possibilities.

It’s possible that they’ve seen Greg Craig’s statement explaining that Obama will not "do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency" and they worry that Obama will craft a deal that preserves Absolute Immunity, and they want to prevent that from happening (though why they think John Conyers would agree to such a deal, I have no clue).

It’s possible they’ve read Obama’s Executive Order on Presidential Records–asserting that incumbent Presidents get to decide the Executive Privilege claims of their predecessor–and they believe that that claim puts Bush and his minions in too weak a position, so they’ve decided to press the issue in order to give Bush’s minions a stronger bargaining position.

Or it’s possible that the squabble between two administrations of the executive branch and the legislative branch just looked like so much fun that the Courts wanted to get involved.

In any case, with the Obama Administration brief due on Wednesday, we’ll have a better sense then of what Greg Craig’s statement on Presidential power really means.