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Karl Rove

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Karl Rove

Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950 in Denver, Colorado) is an American political consultant, and (as of 2005) U.S. President George W. Bush's senior advisor, chief political strategist, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff in charge of policy.

Rove's election campaign clients have included George W. Bush (2000 and 2004 U.S. President; 1994 Texas Governor), George H. W. Bush (1992 U.S. President), John Ashcroft (1994 U.S. Senate), Bill Clements (1986 Texas Governor), and Phil Gramm (1982 U.S. House).

Rove has been a frequent target of critics of the Bush administration, and is presently embroiled in controversy as political foes accuse him of revealing the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, including Plame's husband Joe Wilson, to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in retaliation for her husband's criticisms of the administration. Rove has denied the accusation[1]. Although the investigation is ongoing, Rove was not among officials indicted on October 28 2005.

Personal life and early political experiences

Early life and high school

Rove was raised in Colorado and Nevada, the second of five children. His father, Louis Rove, was a mineral geologist, and his mother, Reba Wood, was a gift shop manager.

In 1960, at the age of 9 years old, Rove decided to support Richard Nixon. According to Rove, "There was a little girl across the street who was Catholic and found out I was for Nixon, and she was avidly for Kennedy. She put me down on the pavement and whaled on me and gave me a bloody nose. I lost my first political battle."

His family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1965, when Rove was entering high school. At Olympus High School, he used unorthodox (but legal) tactics to be elected student council president in 1968, even though he says "I was the complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket protector. I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin, scrawny little guy. I was definitely uncool."

Rove also began his involvement in American politics in 1968. In a 2002 Deseret News interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former United States Senator) Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, J.D. Williams." [2] Bennett was reelected to a third six-year term. Through Rove's campaign involvement, Bennett's son, Bob Bennett — a future United States Senator from Utah - would become a friend. Williams would later become a mentor of Rove's.

College years at the University of Utah, and the Dixon campaign incident

In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the University of Utah, majoring in political science. He joined the the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Through the University's Hinkley Institute of Politics, Rove got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped Rove land a job in 1970 in Illinois, helping on the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Ralph Tyler Smith for the U.S. Senate. (Tyler lost to Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.)

In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the Dallas Morning News in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." (The Washington Post, 7/23/99). Dixon was elected despite the fake campaign rally.

Adoption, parents' divorce, and mother's suicide

At Christmas of 1969, Rove's father walked out of the marriage; his parents then divorced. After the divorce, Rove learned from his aunt and uncle that the man who had raised him was not his biological father. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been (New Yorker profile [3]). Rove did not meet his biological father until Rove was in his 40s.

In 1981, Rove's mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada. (New Yorker profile [4]).

Leaves College for position in the College Republicans

In June 1971, Rove dropped out of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee. Joe Abate, who was National Chairman of the College Republicans at the time, became a mentor to Rove.

Rove traveled extensively, participating as instructor at weekend seminars for campus conservatives across the country. He was an active participant in the 1972 Presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. As a protégé of Donald Segretti (later convicted as a Watergate conspirator), he tried to paint Nixon's opponent, World War II B-24 pilot and hero George McGovern, as a left-wing peacenik [5].

Vietnam War and the draft

In December 1969, the Selective Service System held its first lottery drawing. Those born on December 25th, like Rove, received number 84. That number placed him in the middle of those (with numbers 1 [first priority] through 195) who would eventually be drafted. On February 17, 1970, Rove was reclassified as 2-S, a deferment from the draft because of his enrollment at the University of Utah in the fall of 1969. He maintained this deferment until Dec. 14, 1971, despite being only a part-time student in the autumn and spring quarters of 1971 (registered for between six and 12 credit hours) and dropping out of the university in June of 1971. (Rove was a student at the University of Maryland in College Park in the fall of 1971; as such, he would have been eligible for 2-S status, but registrar's records show that he withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester.) In December 1971 he was reclassified as 1-A. On April 27, 1972, he was reclassified as 1-H, or "not currently subject to processing for induction," a classification given to a four million young men between January and August 1972, as the Vietnam War wound down. The draft ended on June 30, 1973.

College Republicans, Watergate, and the Bushes

Rove held the position of Executive Director of the College Republicans until mid-1973, when he became the National Chairman (for the 1973-1975 term), after a race against Robert Edgeworth (the other major candidate, Terry Dolan, dropped out, supporting Edgeworth). Lee Atwater, the group's Southern regional coordinator, two months younger than Rove, managed Rove's campaign. The two spent the spring of 1973 crisscrossing the country in a Ford Pinto, lining up the support of Republican state chairs.

The College Republicans convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri in the summer of 1973 was contentious. The Rove forces had a version of the Midwestern College Republicans' constitution which differed significantly from the one that the Edgeworth forces were using. A number of states had sent two competing delegates.

In the end, there were two votes, conducted by two convention chairs, and two winners--Rove and Edgeworth, each of whom delivered an acceptance speech. After the convention, both Edgeworth and Rove appealed to Republican National Committee Chairman George H.W. Bush, each contending that he was the new College Republican chairman.

While resolution was pending, Dolan went (anonymously) to the Washington Post with recordings of several training seminars for young Republicans where Rove discussed campaign techniques that included rooting through opponents' garbage cans and other forms of espionage, and stories of derring-do such as the incident at the Dixon headquarters. On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the Post broke the story in an article titled "Republican Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks."

At Bush's request, Rove was questioned by an FBI agent. As part of the investigation, Lee Atwater signed an affidavit, dated August 13, 1973, stating that he had heard a "20 minute anecdote similar to the one described in the Washington Post" in July 1972, but that "it was a funny story during a coffee break." [6] Watergate veteran John Dean has been quoted as saying that "Based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him." [7]

Bush wrote Edgeworth a letter saying that he had concluded that Rove had fairly won the vote at the convention and was therefore being installed as the new chairman of the College Republicans. Edgeworth wrote back, asking on what basis he had ruled. Not long after that, Edgeworth said that "Bush sent me back the angriest letter I have ever received in my life. I had leaked to the Washington Post, and now I was out of the Party forever."

As National Chairman, Rove met powerful politicians in the Republican party. Rove introduced the senior Bush to Lee Atwater, who would become Bush's main strategist, and would also, like Bush, become RNC chairman. Bush hired Rove as a special assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 to become executive assistant to the co-chair of the RNC, Richard Obenshain.

As special assistant, the 22-year old Rove also performed small personal tasks for Bush, who was becoming one of his mentors. In November 1973, Bush asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow," Rove recalled years later.[8]

Weddings and family

In July 1976, Rove married Houston socialite Valerie Wainright. At the time he was Finance Director of the Virginia Republican Party. In January 1977, Rove moved to Texas. The couple divorced in January 1980.

In January 1986, Rove married Darby Hickson, a graphic designer and former employee of Rove + Co. They have a son, Andrew Madison Rove, born in 1989. [9]

Education and Teaching

In addition to the University of Utah and the University of Maryland, Rove attended George Mason University (1973-1975) and the University of Texas at Austin (1977+). In July 1999, the Washington Post quoted Rove as saying "I lack at this point one math class, which I can take by exam, and my foreign language requirement." In March 2000, Robert Bryce wrote in the Austin Chronicle that Rove, "an avid student of history, ... probably knows more about the American political process than many college professors. Despite that fact, Rove has never had time to finish his college degree. Over the past three decades, he has attended nearly half a dozen colleges, and he's currently within spitting distance of getting his degree in political science at UT. He has been provisionally accepted into the school's doctoral program in government."

From 1981-1999, Rove taught graduate students part-time at the University of Texas at Austin, as an instructor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and in the Department of Journalism.

Residences and voting registration - Texas, DC, and Florida=

Rove left Texas after Bush was elected President in late 2000. He now owns a home in the District of Columbia that is valued at $1.1 million. Rove sold his longtime home in Austin in 2003.

In September 2005, the Washington Post reported that Rove had agreed to reimburse the District for an estimated $3,400 in back taxes. The taxes were owed because since 2002, when the law changed, Rove was not entitled to a homestead exemption for his DC house because he was voting elsewhere (in Texas). [10]

Rove registered to vote in Kerr County, about 80 miles west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country, on May 26, 2004. The residence that Rove claims on Texas voter registration rolls is two tiny rental cottages, the largest being only 814 square feet. The cottages were part of the River Oaks Lodge that Mr. Rove and his wife, Darby, once owned on the Guadalupe River near Ingram. They sold the lodge in 2003, after renovating it [11], but kept the two cottages, which the lodge rents to guests. (Darby T. Rove is listed as a director of the owner, Estadio Partners, LLC.)

In early October 2005, a resident of Kerr County filed a complaint with the District Attorney of the county, requesting an investigation into whether Rove violated Texas state law by illegally registering as a voter in Kerr County, since he had never lived there. [12]. Texas law defines a residence, for voting purposes, as "one's home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence." [13]

In addition to the $1.1 million home he owns in the District, Rove and his wife have built a home in Florida, worth more than $1 million, according to Rove's 2005 financial disclosure form. [14]

The Texas years and notable political campaigns

1977 move to Texas and the early years

Rove's initial job in Texas was as a legislative aide for Fred Agnich, a Texas state representative, in Agnich's Dallas office. Latter in 1977, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by James A. Baker, a Houston lawyer (later President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979-1980.

His work for Bill Clements during the Texas gubernatorial race of 1978 helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Clements was elected to a four-year term, succeeding scandal-plagued Democrat Dolph Briscoe. Rove was deputy director of the Governor William P. Clements Junior Committee, 1979—1980; and deputy executive assistant Governor of Texas (roughly, deputy chief of staff) in 1980—1981. [15]

In 1981, Rove founded direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove + Company, in Austin, Texas. The firm's first clients included Republican Governor Bill Clements and Democratic Congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican Congressman and United States Senator. Rove operated his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's campaign for the Presidency.

Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of races. Most were in a supporting role (doing direct mail fundraising). A November 2004 Atlantic Monthly article [16] estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 races that were statewide or Congressional (in Texas and Alabama), or for a national office, and that his candidates won in 34 of those.

1978 George W. Bush Congressional campaign

Rove advised the younger Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978.

A 2003 bestseller, Bush's Brain: one view of Rove's role in Bush's rise to power.

1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign

In 1979, Rove was the first person hired by George H. W. Bush for his official (and unsuccessful) 1980 presidential campaign, which ended with Bush being selected as the Vice Presidential nominee by Ronald Reagan in the summer of 1980. In November 1980, Bush was elected Vice President.

1982 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign

In 1982, Clements ran for reelection, but was defeated by Democrat Mark White. (In 1982, every Republican running for a statewide office lost.)

1982 Phil Gramm Congressional campaign

In 1982, Phil Gramm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as an old-style conservative Texas Democrat.

1984 Phil Gramm Senatorial campaign

In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, who had become a Republican in 1983, defeat Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate.

1984 Ronald Reagan Presidential campaign

Rove handled direct-mail for the Reagan-Bush campaign.

1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign

In 1986, Rove helped Bill Clements become governor a second time. In a strategy memo Rove wrote for his client prior to the race, now among Clements's papers in the Texas A&M University library, Rove quoted Napoleon: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack."

In 1986, just before a crucial debate in campaign, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by the Democrats. [17]. The police and FBI investigated and discovered that bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. [18] Critics suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.[19]

1988 Texas Supreme Court races

In 1988, Rove helped Tom Phillips become the first Republican elected as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Phillips had been appointed to the position in November 1987 by Governor Clements; he would be re-elected in November 1990, November 1996 and November 2002.

Phillips' election in 1988 was part of an aggressive grassroots campaign called "Clean Slate '88", a bi-partisan (and conservative) effort that was successful in getting five of its six candidates elected. (Ordinarily there were three justices on the ballot each year, on a nine-justice court, but, because of resignations, there were six races for the Supreme Court on the ballot in November 1988.)

By 1998, Republicans held all nine seats on the Court.

1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign

In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, bringing in experts to tutor him on policy and introducing him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided to not to run. Rove backed another Republican for governor; his candidate lost in the primaries.

Other 1990 Texas statewide races

In 1990, two other Rove candidates won: Rick Perry, the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison became treasurer. The November 1990 election was notable because the FBI, earlier that year, had investigated every Democratic officeholder in the state. The FBI investigation nailed then-agricultural commissioner Mike Moeller and senior administrator Pete McRae for soliciting contributions for Jim Hightower, the Democratic candidate to replace Moeller.

1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign

"Sources close to the former president George H.W. Bush say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted" (Esquire Magazine, January 2003). Robert Novak provided some evidence of motive in his column describing the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator Phil Gramm: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove deny that Rove was the leaker, but Mosbacher maintains that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it." [20] (Sources: "Karl and Bob: a leaky history," Houston Chronicle, Nov. 7, 2003; "Genius," Texas Monthly, March 2003, p. 82; "Why Are These Men Laughing," Esquire, January 2003.)

1993 Kay Bailey Hutchinson Senatorial campaign

Rove helped Kay Bailey Hutchison win a special Senate election in June 1993, defeating Democrat Bob Krueger for the right to complete the last two years of the term of Lloyd Bentsen. Bentsen had resigned to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration.

1994 Alabama Supreme Court races

In 1994, a group called the Business Council of Alabama hired Rove to help run a slate of Republican candidates for the state supreme court. No Republican had been elected to that court in more than a century. The campaign by the Republicans was unprecedented in the state, which had previously only seen low-key contests. After the election, a court battle over absentee and other ballots followed that lasted more than 11 months. It ended when a federal appeals-court judge ruled that disputed absentee ballots could not be counted, and ordered the secretary of state to certify the Republican candidate for Chief Justice, Perry Hooper, as the winner. An appeal to the Supreme Court by the Democratic candidate was turned down within a few days, making the ruling final; Hooper had won by 262 votes.

Another of the slate, Harold See, ran against Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice and the son-in-law of George Wallace. The race included charges that Kennedy was mingling campaign funds with those of a nonprofit children's foundation he was involved with. A former Rove staffer has also reported that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. Kennedy won by less than one percentage point.

1994 John Ashcroft Senatorial campaign

In 1993, according to the New York Times, Karl Rove & Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by John Ashcroft's successful campaign to be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994. Ashcroft was a satisfied customer; he paid Rove's company more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns.

1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign

In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his (successful) campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards, with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm.

Rove has been accused of using supposed pollsters to call voters to ask such things as whether people would be "more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if [they] knew her staff is dominated by lesbians." During the race, a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed himself to be quoted criticizing Richards for "appointing avowed homosexual activists" to state jobs. But only circumstantial evidence links Rove to the push-polling.

1996 Harold See campaign for Associate Chief Justice, Alabama Supreme Court

According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up — absent any trace of who was behind them — viciously attacking Harold See and his family. See won the race. [21]

1998 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign

Rove was an adviser for the successful re-election campaign of Governor George W. Bush in 1998.

2000 Harold See campaign for Chief Justice

For the race to succeed Perry Hooper, who was retiring as Alabama's chief justice, Rove lined up support from a majority of the state's important Republicans behind his candidate, an associate justice named Harold See. The See campaign significantly outspent the opposition, but See was badly beaten by Roy Moore, the "Ten Commandments" judge, who succeeded in making the race about religion.

2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign

In 1999, Karl Rove & Company was paid $2.5 million in fees by the successful George W. Bush presidential campaign. According to Rove, "[a]bout 30 percent of that is postage."

During the bitterly-contested 2000 Republican primary, allegations were made that Rove was responsible for a "push poll" conducted in South Carolina, that used racist innuendo intended to undermine the support of Bush rival John McCain: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"[22]. Although McCain campaign manager Richard Davis said he "had no idea who had made those calls, who paid for them, or how many were made," the authors of the 2003 book and subsequent film Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential allege that Rove was involved. In the movie, John Weaver, political director for McCain's 2000 campaign bid, says "I believe I know where that decision was made; it was at the top of the [Bush] campaign." Rove has denied any such involvement.

After the presidential elections in November 2000, Karl Rove organized an emergency response of Republican politicians and supporters to go to Florida to assist the Bush campaign's position during the Florida recount.

George W. Bush Administration

George W. Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001, and Rove accepted a position in the Bush administration as Senior Advisor to the President. The President's confidence in Rove has been so strong that during a meeting with South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun on 14 May 2003, President George W. Bush brought only Rove and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

White House Iraq Group

In 2002 and 2003 Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a secretive internal White House working group established by August 2002, eight months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to CNN and Newsweek, WHIG was “charged with developing a strategy for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.”[23] WHIG's existence and membership was first identified in a Washington Post article by Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus on August 10 2003; members of WHIG included George W. Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Rice's deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio, and communication strategists Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes, and James R. Wilkinson. Quoting one of WHIG's members without identifying him or her by name, the Washington Post explained that the task force's mission was to “educate the public” about the threat posed by Hussein and (in the reporters' words) “to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad.” Rove's "strategic communications" task force within WHIG helped write and coordinate speeches by senior Bush administration officials, emphasizing in September 2002 the theme of Iraq's purported nuclear threat.[24]

The White House Iraq Group was “little known” until a subpoena for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by CIA leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald in January 2004, a legal move first reported in the press and acknowledged by the White House on March 5, 2004.[25][26]

Allegations of conflict of interest

In March 2001, Rove met with executives from Intel, successfully advocating a merger between a Dutch company and an Intel company supplier. Rove owned $100,000 in Intel stock at the time but had been advised by Fred Fielding, the White House's transition counsel, to defer selling the stock in January to obtain ethics panel approval. Rove offered no advice on the merger which needed to be approved by a joint Pentagon-Treasury Department panel since it would give a foreign company access to military sensitive technology. [27] In June 2001, Rove met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. At the time, Rove held almost $250,000 in drug industry stocks. On 30 June 2001, Rove divested his stocks in 23 companies, which included more than $100,000 in each of Enron, Boeing, General Electric, and Pfizer. On 30 June 2001, the White House admitted that Rove was involved in administration energy policy meetings, while at the same time holding stock in energy companies including Enron.

Criticised "liberal response" to 9/11

At a fund-raiser in New York City for the Conservative Party of New York State on June 23, 2005, Rove said, "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Democrats angered by this comment demanded Rove's resignation or an apology, and pointed out that every Democratic Senator voted for military force against Al-Qaeda in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.[28][29]

Families Of September 11, an organization founded in October, 2001 by families of some of those who died in the terrorist attack, requested Rove "stop trying to reap political gain in the tragic misfortune of others."[30] In contrast, the Bush administration characterized Rove's comments as "very accurate" and stated that the calls for an apology were "somewhat puzzling", since he was "simply pointing out the different philosophies when it comes to winning the war on terrorism."[31][32]

2004 George W. Bush presidential campaign

President George W. Bush publicly thanked Rove, calling him "the architect" in Bush's 3 November 2004 victory speech, after defeating John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.[33]

During the campaign, critics alleged that Rove had professional ties to the producers of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television ads that criticized John F. Kerry's Vietnam-era military service and public testimony against American soldiers, although no evidence of Rove's direct involvement was ever produced.[34]

A few months after the election, Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) publicly alleged that Rove engineered the Killian documents controversy during the 2004 campaign, by planting fake anti-Bush documents with CBS News to deflect attention from Bush's service record during the Vietnam War, but other than Rove's supposed motive, no evidence supporting this speculation has ever been publicized. Rove himself has denied any involvement, and Hinchey himself admitted he had no evidence to support this claim.[35],[36],[37]

Administration response to Hurricane Katrina

In August 2005, Rove was assigned by the President to oversee the administration's political 'damage control' effort following Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. After Rove's appointment, the administration was criticized for attempting to shift blame away from the federal government for the failures by falsely claiming that state and local officials had not declared a state of emergency at the time [38].

Plame affair

Main article: Plame affair

On 29 August 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative (timeline), in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush Administration's citation of the yellowcake documents among the justifications for the War in Iraq enumerated in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address. Such a leak would potentially be a violation of federal law.

Initial public statements by Rove and the White House

During the 2004 Republican National Convention (August 30-September 2, 2003), Rove told CNN, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name...I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation."[39] One month later, on September 29, 2003, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "[t]he President knows" that Rove was not involved: "and I said it is simply not true [that Rove was involved]. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He [President Bush]'s aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."[40]

On September 30, 2003, President Bush said "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."[41] White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan added that Karl Rove had specifically assured McClellan that he was not involved, and that "the President expects his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct and the highest ethics."

On 10 October 2003, after the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor two other officials whom he had personally questioned – Elliot Abrams, a national security aide, and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – were involved.[42]

2005 testimony about meeting with Matt Cooper

On 2 July 2005, Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that his client spoke to Time reporter Matt Cooper "three or four days" before Plame's identity was first revealed in print by commentator Robert Novak — Cooper's article in Time, citing unnamed and anonymous "government officials," confirmed Plame to be a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," and appeared three days after Novak's column was published. Rove's lawyer, however, asserted that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA."

However, in an email sent by Rove to top White House security official Stephen Hadley immediately after his discussion with Matt Cooper (obtained by the Associated Press and published on 15 July 2005), Rove claimed that he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations Wilson was making about faulty Iraq intelligence. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming...When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this." Rove made no mention to Hadley in the e-mail of having leaked Plame's CIA identity, nor of having revealed classified information to a reporter, nor of having told the reporter that certain sensitive information would soon be declassified.[43] Cooper disputed some of this statement: "I can't find any record of talking about [welfare reform] with him on July 11 [2003], and I don't recall doing so," Cooper said. [44][45]

Newsweek (10 July 2005), quoted one of the e-mails written by Time reporter Matt Cooper in the days following the publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece: Writing to Time bureau chief Michael Duffy on 11 July 2003, three days before Novak's column was published, Cooper recounted a two-minute conversation with Karl Rove "on double super secret background" in which Rove said that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee: "it was, KR [Karl Rove] said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." In a Time article released 17 July 2005, Cooper says Rove ended his conversation by saying "I've already said too much."[46]

If true, this could indicate that Rove identified Wilson's wife as a CIA employee prior to Novak's column being published. Some believe that statements by Rove claiming he did not reveal her name would still be strictly accurate if he mentioned her only as 'Wilson's wife', although this distinction would likely have no bearing on the alleged illegality of the disclosure. The White House repeatedly denied that Rove had any involvement in the leaks. Whether Rove's statement to Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in fact violated any laws has not been resolved.

If Rove were aware that this was classified information at the time then both disclaimers by his lawyer would be untrue. Furthermore, Luskin said that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" (three times, according to the Los Angeles Times of 3 July 2005 [47] in addition to two interviews by the FBI) and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. Luskin stated that Rove "has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else." Rove's lawyer declined to share with Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff the nature or contents of his client's conversations with Cooper. [48] [49] [50][51] [52]

On 6 July 2005, Cooper agreed to testify, thus avoiding being held in contempt of court and sent to jail. Cooper said "I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions for not testifying," but told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance at court he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" an indication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep his source's identity secret. For some observers this called into question the allegations against Rove, who had signed a waiver months before permitting reporters to testify about their conversations with him (see above paragraph). [53]

Cooper, however, stated in court that he did not previously accept a general waiver to journalists signed by his source (whom he did not identify by name), because he had made a personal pledge of confidentiality to his source. The 'dramatic change' which allowed Cooper to testify was later revealed to be a phone conversation between lawyers for Cooper and his source confirming that the waiver signed two years earlier included conversations with Cooper. Citing a "person who has been officially briefed on the case," The New York Times identified Rove as the individual in question,[54] a fact later confirmed by Rove's own lawyer.[55] According to one of Cooper's lawyers, Cooper has previously testified in August 2004 before the grand jury regarding conversations with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, after having received Libby's specific permission to testify.[56][57]

On 1 July 2005 Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, on the McLaughlin Group stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time Magazine's going to do with the grand jury." The document dump has since occurred.[58]

In addition, Rove told Cooper that CIA Director George Tenet did not authorize Wilson's trip to Niger, and that "not only the genesis of the trip [to Niger] is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report" which Wilson made upon his return from Africa. Rove "implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger," and in an apparent effort to discourage Cooper from taking the former ambassador's assertions seriously, gave Cooper a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Cooper recommended that his bureau chief assign a reporter to contact the CIA for further confirmation, and indicated that the tip should not be sourced to Rove or even to the White House. The Washington Post reported that the CIA, contradicting Rove, "maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999"[59], though she is reported to have suggested him for the 1999 trip[60].

Cooper testified before a grand jury on 13 July 2005, confirming that Rove was the source who told him Wilson's wife was an employee of the CIA.[61] In the 17 July 2005 Time magazine article detailing his grand jury testimony, Cooper wrote that Rove never used Plame's name nor indicated that she had covert status, although Rove did apparently convey that certain information relating to her was classified: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me."[62] Cooper also explained to the grand jury that the "double super secret background" under which Rove spoke to him was not an official White House or Time magazine security designation, but an allusion to the 1978 film Animal House, in which a college fraternity is placed under "double secret probation."[63]

On 13 August 2005 journalist Murray Waas reported that Justice Department and FBI officials had recommended appointing a special prosecutor to the case because they felt that Rove had not been truthful in early interviews, withholding from FBI investigators his conversation with Cooper about Plame and maintaining that he had first learned of Plame's CIA identity from a journalist whose name Rove could not recall. In addition, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, from whose prior campaigns Rove had been paid $746,000 in consulting fees, had been briefed on the contents of at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI - raising concerns of a conflict of interest with the not-yet-recused Attorney General. [64]

Subsequent White House and Republican reaction

The White House continued to publicly assert that no Bush administration officials were involved in the leak until after the Supreme Court decision of 2005, the subsequent release of internal Time Magazine email, and Time reporter Matt Cooper's decision to testify to the grand jury. The White House subsequently adopted "we do not comment on ongoing investigations" as their official position. Other Republicans have been more public on what they consider an unfair smearing of Karl Rove.

July 11, 2005 onward

At a press conference on 11 July 2005, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who had since become a grand jury witness himself, refused at a press conference to answer dozens of questions, repeatedly stating that the Bush Administration had made a decision not to comment on an "ongoing criminal investigation" involving White House staff.[65] McClellan declined to answer whether Rove had committed a crime. McClellan also declined to repeat prior categorical denials of Rove's involvement in the leak,[66] nor would he state whether Bush would honor his prior promise to fire individuals involved in the leak.[67][68][69]

Democratic critics called for Rove's dismissal, or at the very least immediate suspension of Rove's security clearances and access to meetings in which classified material was under discussion. Ninety-one members of Congress from the Democratic Party signed a letter on July 15, 2005 calling for Rove to explain his role in the Plame affair, or to resign. Thirteen members of the House Judiciary Committee, all Democrats, have called for hearings on the matter. [70]

As of 22 August 2005, none of the 306 Republican members of Congress had expressed public concern about Rove's continued role in the Bush Administration, and Rove has been vociferously defended by Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman and by many conservative news outlets and commentators, some of whom followed cues laid out in a "talking points" memo, circulated among Republicans on Capitol Hill, which questioned Joseph Wilson's credibility.[71] Among others, David Brooks, conservative New York Times editorialist and NPR commentator, attacked Wilson on 14 July 2005 by falsely alleging that Wilson had claimed Cheney sent him on the Niger mission, and that in speaking to Cooper, Rove was merely correcting a misconception about the Vice President's possible involvement.[72] The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal praised Rove on 13 July 2005 for leaking Plame's identity, referring to him as a "whistleblower."[73] Fox News's John Gibson said that even if Rove is not being truthful, he deserves a medal for leaking Plame's CIA identity because Joseph Wilson opposed the war and "Valerie Plame should have been outed by somebody."[74][75]

October 2005

On October 13 2005, Rove returned for a fourth time to testify before the Grand Jury charged with investigating the Plame CIA leak. It was reported that, according to several unnamed officials, "talk of imminent indictments — of Rove alone or with others as part of a conspiracy — was overheard in the corridors of the FBI, Justice Department and White House". The Grand Jury's term is due to end October 28.[76][77][78]

Rove was not indicted on any charges stemming from the Plame matter or any other, though the investigation is not over and there is still a chance for more indictments, Fitzgerald also stated "very rarely do you bring a charge in a case that's going to be tried in which you ever end a grand jury investigation. I can tell you that the substantial bulk of the work of this investigation is concluded." [79] The Associated Press has reported prosecutors have also stated they "likely would not need further testimony or cooperation from him [Rove]." [80]


Public opinion

Rove's association with the Plame inquiry has raised his negative ratings in public opinion polls: a CNN poll dated 22 July - 24 July found that 49% of respondents say Rove should resign, 31% said he should not, and 20% had no opinion. USAToday A poll commissioned by Newsweek and published 8 August 2005 indicated that 45% believed Rove "guilty of a serious offence," 15% "not guilty of a serious offence," and 37% who "don't know."[81]

The unusual circumstances of this case led a number of media organizations to file a friend-of-the-court (amicus curiae) brief on behalf of the journalists who were subpoenaed (Matthew Cooper, Judith Miller, and Time Inc.). In this brief, lawyers representing 36 media organizations, including ABC News, AP, CNN, CBS News, WSJ, Fox News, USA Today, NBC News, Newsweek, and Reuters, argued to the court that "there exists ample evidence in the public record to cast serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed under the Intelligence Protection Act in the investigation underlying the attempts to secure testimony from Miller and Cooper." [82] Victoria Toensing, the principal author of the amicus brief, also contended that Ms. Plame didn't have a cover to blow, citing a July 23, 2004 article in the Washington Times which argued that Valerie Plame's status as an undercover CIA agent may have been known to Russian and Cuban intelligence operations prior to the Novak article.

Perhaps because Toensing's brief did not address issues relating to (possible) perjury[83] and obstruction of justice charges, nor many other possible violations associated with the disclosure of classified information, many of these same news outlets continue to suggest the possibility that Rove may have violated the law. (The amicus brief predated the publication of internal Time email, as well as Cooper's own testimony and published account of Rove's role.) Although some reporters speculate that Rove's (future) legal defense might be built upon testimony that he was ignorant of Plame's protected status at the time he outed her as a CIA employee, most agree that if it could be proven that he had heard of her CIA covert status or knew material was classified when he spoke to journalists, Rove could face far more serious charges.

Although some legal pundits felt that Rove was unlikely to have been in violation of the narrowly-worded Intelligence Identities And Protection Act — in fact, the CIA's original "crimes report" submitted to Fitzgerald apparently did not mention the Act[84]— many others argue that by compromising Valerie Plame's position, Rove may have broken one or more federal laws. According to John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist and former presidential counsel, Rove is likely to have violated Title 18, Section 641 of the United States Code, which prohibits the theft or conversion of government records for non-governmental use. [85] In 2003, this law was successfully used to convict John Randel, a Drug Enforcement Agency analyst, for leaking to the London media a name of someone that he believed the DEA was not paying enough attention to in a money laundering investigation (Lord Ashcroft) . In a statement to Randel, United States District Court Judge Richard Story wrote, "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country." Having pled guilty, Randel's sentence was reduced from 500 years in a federal prison, to a year of imprisonment and three years of probation.

This may be seen by Bush's political opponents as setting precedent for the prosecution of similar leaks, and Karl Rove is likely to face greater consequences than Randel if indicted for violating Section 641. Whereas Randel leaked sensitive information about an individual whose name could be found in the DEA files, unlikely to affect the national security of the United States, it is argued that Rove may have leaked the identity of a CIA agent, an expert on weapons of mass destruction, at a time when the United States had gone to war based on the perceived threat from such weapons.

Attorney and Watergate whistleblower John W. Dean observed that even if Rove didn't technically break the specific law barring the exposure of a covert agent, the administration has almost certainly run afoul of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641[86].

Rove's White House security clearance, governed by Executive Order 12958, apparently required both a criminal background check as well as training in the protection of classified information. To receive security clearance, Rove agreed, in writing (SF-312 Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement), not to divulge or confirm classified information to individuals (including reporters) not authorized to have it. According to Rove's attorney's public statements, Rove has admitted to violating his SF-312 agreement.[87]

Trivia

Wikiquote has quotations related to Karl Rove.
  • Karl Rove is known for careful management of the press, including the use of humor to put reporters at ease.
  • Karl Rove is a Norwegian-American. According to Bob Woodward's recent book, Rove is obsessed with the "historical duplicity" of the Swedes, who seized Norway back in 1814. According to Woodward, this nationalism manifested itself as hatred for Swedish weapons inspector Hans Blix. [90]
  • Karl Rove's reputation for alleged political dirty tricks is such that, among both his supporters and critics the phrase "Rovian" has come to be used as a synonym for "Machiavellian". The documentary Bush's Brain “…depicts Rove as the most powerful political consultant in American history and, in essence, a co-president” according to USA Today. [91]
  • The television show American Dad depicted Rove as a shadowy figure clad in a red robe and cowl. Whenever his name is said a wolf howls, and when he tried to enter a church, he began to burn. He later departed the scene by transforming into a swarm of bats.
  • On The Dead Zone the character of Malcolm Janus, a shadowy figure who guides the career of Congressman Greg Stillson, seems to be a fictionalized take on Rove.

Further reading

  • Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains Behind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush, Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl Cannon, 2003, Paperback, 256 pages, ISBN 1586481924.
Wikinews has related news:

Biographical data

  • An amicus brief filed by 36 news organizations asserting that "there exists ample evidence on the public record to cast serious doubt that a crime has been committed."

Editorials

Media accounts

  • New York Times - 'Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove,' Lorne Manly and David Johnston (July 18, 2005)
  • BBC.co.uk - 'Drawing up Blueprints for Bush Victory', Rachel Clarke, BBC (November 6, 2004)
  • BNFP.org - 'The Controller: Karl Rove is working to get George Bush reelected, but he has bigger plans' (profile), Nicholas Lemann New Yorker (May 12, 2003)
  • EditorAndPublisher.com - 'MSNBC Analyst and a Newsweek Reporter Say Karl Rove Named in Matt Cooper Documents', Greg Mitchell (July 2, 2005)
  • FoxNews.com - 'White House 'Puzzled' Over Rove Flap', Fox News (June 24, 2005)
  • PBS.org - 'Karl Rove The Architect' (documentary), PBS Frontline (April 12, 2005)
  • WashingtonTimes.com - 'Rove rejects charges he was CBS source', Stephen Dinan, Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times (July 2, 2005)
  • National Review - 'Lawyer: Cooper "Burned" Karl Rove' - Byron York.
  • Transcript from CNN interview with Joseph Wilson, where he states that "my wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," causing much speculation about his intended meaning from both sides.
  • Washington Times - 'Rove Fight Escalates,' includes quotes from a former CIA agent who claims that Plame's 'nonofficial cover' did not qualify her as 'a covert agent'. This claim is based on a gross misquote of USA Today.
  • Star Tribune - 'The Plame blame: What do we know so far?' contains a recap of what is known to date (July 17, 2005)
  • National Review - 'Andrew C. McCarthy on Valerie Plame' - Links to an amicus brief and details Plame's name being outed by the CIA prior to Novak's article.
  • National Review - Mark R. Levin - 'Valerie's No Victim.'
  • Wall Street Journal - Staff - 'Memo Underscored Issue of Shielding Plame's Identity' - CIA memo at the center of the leak scandal was marked 'sensitive'
  • Washington Post - "Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer: Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement"

News compilations

Satire and blogs

Photos

Search compilations

  • LookSmart.com - 'Karl Rove' (search engine category)
  • Newsmeat.com - 'Campaign Contribution Search' (Karl Rove's individual political campaign donations of $200 or more, since 1977)
  • Yahoo.com - 'Karl Rove' (search engine category)
  • Karl Rove Sampler - 'What we know and when we knew it'

Senator Harry Reid's "Rove Clock" shows number of days, hours, minutes, seconds without Republicans investigating CIA leak

White House media

Preceded by Deputy White House Chief of Staff
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