Karl Rove: New Rampart, Old Battles

By Michael Abramowitz
Monday, June 23, 2008

He's been gone from the White House for nearly a year, but Karl Rove continues to provoke liberal ire and present a big bull's-eye on his back for congressional Democrats.

Rove has moved from full-time politics to punditry, with high-profile perches as a commentator and opinion writer at Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek magazine. He's writing a book about his experiences in the White House. He's also said to be involved in trying to line up conservative money for independent expenditures in this fall's presidential campaign.

But old controversies have followed him along the way: The House Judiciary Committee is still trying to get him to testify under oath about his role in the firings of U.S. attorneys and about allegations from Don Siegelman, Alabama's former Democratic governor, that Rove conspired to oust him from office.

Then there's the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case, which got new legs thanks to the book by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, which seems motivated as much as anything by animus toward Rove for, in McClellan's view, misleading him about his role in the disclosure of Wilson's identity as a CIA operative.

At a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, McClellan was asked by Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) whether he would "trust Mr. Rove if he were not under oath to tell the truth."

"Well, based on my own experience," McClellan replied, "I could not say that I would."

The answer is likely to fuel Democrats' determination to put Rove under oath. Rove's attorney has indicated a willingness on the part of his client to meet informally with committee staff to discuss the Siegelman case, but he says the White House won't permit him to testify on the grounds of executive privilege.

"Mr. Rove is not a free agent," lawyer Robert D. Luskin wrote to the committee last month, though he has indicated to committee staff that Rove would agree to an interview "without prejudice." That means the committee could still seek to compel his formal testimony in the courts.

Rove and Luskin, however, want to confine the informal interview to the Siegelman case -- which is not good enough for the panel, which wants to question him more broadly about the U.S. attorney firings.

In a brief e-mail exchange Friday, Rove would not comment. He has been more voluble about his feelings about McClellan in his comments on Fox News, where he has maintained that he did not leak Wilson's name and ridiculed the former press secretary's suggestion that there might have been something sinister about a 2005 meeting with

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

He's also blasted the suggestion that he had anything to do with Siegelman's prosecution on bribery and corruption charges, as the former governor has contended. "I certainly didn't meet with anyone at the Justice Department or either of the two U.S. attorneys in Alabama about investigating or indicting Siegelman," Rove said in a letter to MSNBC anchor Dan Abrams, complaining about the network's coverage of the case.

One thing that may be more difficult for Rove is recovering his reputation as a master political strategist: While friends and admirers argue that Rove has received a bad rap for President Bush's political troubles, others in the party, especially on Capitol Hill, are pointing their fingers at Rove.

"Republicans say Rove is the architect," said one GOP insider on the Hill. "He's the architect of our demise."

Privilege Dispute Moves to Court

Another chapter of the feuding between the White House and the Democrats in Congress will unfold today, as the so-far-unsuccessful House Democratic effort to get White House chief of staff Joshua B. Bolten and former counsel Harriet E. Miers to testify on the U.S. attorney firings is moving to the federal courthouse.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates will hear arguments from lawyers for the House and for the Justice Department in the dispute over whether the two officials can be forced to testify before the Judiciary Committee.

At issue is the scope of executive privilege, the proposition that the president can resist providing certain information to Congress or the courts on the theory that he would otherwise not receive candid advice from his senior advisers.

In court papers in the case, the Justice Department argues that the president's senior advisers are immune from being compelled to testify before Congress. The president, agency lawyers contend, is "constitutionally entitled to autonomy and confidentiality in the performance of his 'responsibilities' and his 'office.' . . . That autonomy, it is clear, must be safeguarded from intrusion by the other Branches."

Lawyers for the Judiciary Committee question that claim, saying the White House has only a "generalized interest" in confidentiality. They argue that the need for testimony from Bolten and Miers outweighs the president's claim of privilege.

The case is being closely watched by students of the presidency, in large measure because such disputes are usually settled before they get to court. But Bush has been fierce in his defense of his powers, and so this case could have broad ramifications.

It also likely won't be settled anytime soon. Bates's opinion "is just going to be the first step, then it will be the Court of Appeals and then maybe even the Supreme Court," American University law professor Daniel Marcus tells my colleague Del Quentin Wilber.

A Promising Relationship Falters

The White House made little secret of its delight with the election late last year of Lee Myung-bak as president of South Korea after tense relations with his predecessor Roh Moo- hyun.

Lee made clear his desire to improve relations with Washington, get tough with North Korea and reach agreement on a new free trade deal. He was rewarded with a visit to Camp David in April, when Lee said Bush would be returning to South Korea later this year.

But oh what a difference two months make: Lee's decision to allow the importation of U.S. beef, coupled with a general feeling that he has been too accommodating of the Bush administration, has helped send his approval ratings plummeting and provoked protests in Seoul. Last week, Lee fired eight of his top aides and publicly apologized for failing to grasp his people's fears about mad cow disease.

The South Koreans have been renegotiating the beef deal with the United States.

Left up in the air is the fate of Bush's visit to South Korea. The White House has never formally announced when and if it would take place, but it was widely assumed that Bush would stop there after the Group of Eight summit in Japan next month.

Word is the South Koreans suggested that Bush might meet their president at scenic Jeju Island instead of Seoul, where the likelihood of mass protests is great. That idea reportedly did not go over well at the White House, which is not thrilled with Lee these days.

Another possibility is for Bush to visit after he goes to the Olympics in Beijing in August. Or not to go at all.

The Anti-Bush Tour

Tomorrow, Americans United for Change, the union-funded liberal advocacy group, will unveil its signature project: the 45-foot-long "Bush Legacy Bus," a museum on wheels featuring exhibits on Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and other examples of what it considers the troubled legacy of the administration.

The group wants to try to keep Bush's approval ratings in the cellar for as long as it can and will take the bus around the country this summer. The first stop will be for a cookout in front of AFL-CIO headquarters, two blocks north of the White House.

Quote of the Week

"Wishful thinking is no way to fight a war and to protect the American people."

-- President Bush on the Democrats and Iraq, at the President's Dinner, June 18