Office of Special Counsel to Investigate Rove
WASHINGTON - Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove. 
The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.
First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.
“We will take the evidence where it leads us,” Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. “We will not leave any stone unturned.”
Bloch declined to comment on who his investigators would interview, but he said the probe would be independent and uncoordinated with any other agency or government entity.
The decision by Bloch’s office is the latest evidence that Rove’s once-vaunted operations inside the government, which helped the GOP hold the White House and Congress for six years, now threaten to mire the administration in investigations.
The question of improper political influence over government decision-making is at the heart of the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys and the ongoing congressional investigation of the special e-mail system installed in the White House and other government offices by the Republican National Committee.
All administrations are political, but this White House has systematically brought electoral concerns to Cabinet agencies in a way unseen previously.
For example, Rove and his top aides met each year with presidential appointees throughout the government, using PowerPoint presentations to review polling data and describe high-priority congressional and other campaigns around the country.
Some officials have said they understood that they were expected to seek opportunities to help Republicans in these races, through federal grants, policy decisions or in other ways.
A former Interior Department official, Wayne R. Smith, who sat through briefings from Rove and his then-deputy Ken Mehlman, said that during President Bush’s first term, he and other appointees were frequently briefed on political priorities.
“We were constantly being reminded about how our decisions could affect electoral results,” Smith said.
“This is a big deal,” Paul C. Light, a New York University expert on the executive branch, said of Bloch’s plan. “It is a significant moment for the administration and Karl Rove. It speaks to the growing sense that there is a nexus at the White House that explains what’s going on in these disparate investigations.”
The 106-person Office of Special Counsel has never conducted such a broad and high-profile inquiry in its history. One of its primary missions has been to enforce the Hatch Act, a law enacted in 1939 to preserve the integrity of the civil service.
Bloch said the new investigation grew from two narrower inquiries his staff had begun in recent weeks.
One involved the fired U.S. attorney from New Mexico, David C. Iglesias.
The other centered on a PowerPoint presentation that a Rove aide, J. Scott Jennings, made at the General Services Administration this year.
That presentation listed recent polls and the outlook for battleground House and Senate races in 2008. After the presentation, GSA Administrator Lorita Doan encouraged agency managers to “support our candidates,” according to half a dozen witnesses. Doan said she could not recall making such comments.
The Los Angeles Times has learned that similar presentations were made by other White House staff members, including Rove, to other Cabinet agencies. During such presentations, employees said they got a not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans.
White House spokesman Scott M. Stanzel said the Hatch Act did not prohibit providing informational briefings to government employees.
Responding to a letter of complaint to the White House from 25 Democratic senators, Stanzel said: “It is entirely appropriate for the president’s staff to provide informational briefings to appointees throughout the federal government about the political landscape in which they implement the president’s policies and priorities.”
However, questions have emerged about the PowerPoint presentations, including whether Doan’s comments crossed the line and whether the presentations violated rules limiting political activity on federal property.
Whether legal or not, the multiple presentations revealed how widely and systematically the White House sought to deliver its list of electoral priorities.
In the course of investigating the U.S. attorney matter and the PowerPoint presentations, Democratic congressional investigators discovered e-mails written by White House personnel using accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee.
For example, they discovered that Jennings, a special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs in the White House, was using an e-mail with the domain name of “gwb43.com” that the RNC maintained.
That domain name showed up in e-mail communications from Jennings about how to replace U.S. Atty. H.E. “Bud” Cummins III of Arkansas to make room for Timothy Griffin, a Rove protege, in such a way as to “alleviate pressure/implication that Tim forced Bud out.”
Another Jennings e-mail using the RNC account requested that department officials meet with a former New Mexico campaign advisor who wanted to “discuss the U.S. Atty situation there.”
The growing controversy inspired him to act, Bloch said.
“We are acting with dispatch and trying to deal with this because people are concerned about it … and it is not a subject that should be left to endless speculation,” he said.
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
Forget rove and go for the lying warmongers in the white house.
Impeach Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez and Rice.
They have the blood of millions on their hands.
If we really want peace, we have to fight for justice!
http://www.ImpeachBush.org
Please write and call your senators and congress people regularly - keep the heat on them til it gets done!
I don’t see any difference between Nixon’s missing 18 minutes and Rove’s missing 4 million emails. Both are smoking guns.
4 years of emails - whoops! But 4 million might be the right number!
This Administration’s criminality makes the Enron fraud seem like a kindergarten picnic….
What took ‘em so long?
this sounds too good to be true that an investigation of karl rove is finally going happen. in spite of all that has happened these past six years i doubt very seriously that they will pin anything on karl rove. big money and influence turned the election in 2000 and bush has given cooporate america exactly what it paid for. this is much too little, and much too late. this impending sideshow, like the gonzalez fiasco, is being done to satisfy a slowly awakening public who has been blind for the past half dozen years. it took several thousand lives in iraq for the people to understand that this has truly been the most corrupt and immoral administration in u.s. history. what will probably result from all of this is that karl rove will continue to be investigated until 2008 when a corporate puppet (republican or democrat)will be appointed to continue pretty much of the same only this time with a friendlier spend. rove will not indicted of any “crime” and if he is, it will be in a “timely” fashion so that he is conveniently pardoned in a presidential way. bush will be talked about contemptuously by the public, but he will be deemed an effective and successful president in the boardrooms in america.
no spell check, spend should be “spin”.
Come on folks we all know that Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez and Rice were taking there orders from Rove . . . Will anything come of this? I doubt it very much. After all with what has been going on he would have to go to jail. Now you tell me . . . do you really think that will happen?
Rove is an integral part of everything that the BUsh Crime Cartel have done.
America’s Traitors:
Bush, Ashcroft, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Gonazales
… did I miss anybody?
Oh yeah … ROVE!
Having worked and lived under the Hatch Act for 21 years, I can state that Scott M. Stanzel is either stupid or a liar.
I should add that I am talking about the type of briefings described in this article.
If only it could lead where we all know it should. BUT. Mr. Bloch is a Bush appointee, can we expect him to be impartial? Given the history of this administration, I have my doubts.
Yes but is his planned investigation a feint or is he a good man who’s just fed up?
Seriously, when impeachment is off the table, then we are down to just this. We need to get it back on the table so we can talk about the real-issues. Where is a special prosecutor on pre-war intelligence? This administration conspired to hide the evidence that this war was known to not be self-defense. They pressured countless people to sell their war. They even went so far as to take punitive actions against one who revealed that they knew there was no threat.
This is absurd. The Democrats are just absurd. This is what we get for voting them in? If Kucinich doesn’t take it, I’m voting green.
Dennis J Kucinich would be a good president if we can get in the White House, and he probably could win if the mainstream press would stop ignoring him the way Jeff Cohen, his one time communication director this gang did repeatedly in 2004. But don’t we know deep down that W’s momma will stage a fake gay marriage between W and the “Terminator” in the White House, if things really begin to look all that bad for the neo con dominated GOP, and Jerry Foulwell will show up as the “lovely flower girl.” That could really be the problem, W’s momma, that old master political strategist that she is, looking at fooling the gays, a solid Democratic base constituency into seeing W and the GOP as pro gay, which is completely wrong. That woman, the “don’t both my pretty little head” delusional is really scary! Keep away from the mirrors, as W’d dad would say.
Dennis J Kucinich would be a good president if we can get in the White House, and he probably could win if the mainstream press would stop ignoring him the way Jeff Cohen, his one time communication director this gang did repeatedly in 2004. But don’t we know deep down that W’s momma will stage a fake gay marriage between W and the “Terminator” in the White House, if things really begin to look all that bad for the neo con dominated GOP, and Jerry Foulwell will show up as the “lovely flower girl.” That could really be the problem, W’s momma, that old master political strategist that she is, looking at fooling the gays, a solid Democratic base constituency into seeing W and the GOP as pro gay, which is completely wrong.
CLARIFICATION– the first sentence above should have “him” in between “get” and “in.”
Also “said” should come right between “director” and “this.”
Looks like this is a fake investigation:
From:
Jason Leopold | Rove Investigator Himself Under Investigation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042407U.shtml
A federal investigation into the political activities of Karl Rove, was
announced late Tuesday, is being headed by a Bush appointee who is currently the target of an internal White House probe - calling into question the integrity of the administration’s efforts to conduct an independent review of Rove’s work as White House political adviser.
“However, the Los Angeles Times failed to inform its readers that Bloch had been accused of retaliating against employees who disagreed with his policies, and intimidating them before they were questioned about a whistle-blower investigation inside the Office of the Special Counsel. The whistle-blower probe was launched by the White House’s Office of Personnel Management inspector general nearly two years ago, according to a February 16, 2007 story in the Washington Post.”
“Having transformed [the Office of the Special Counsel] into a virtual black hole for legitimate complaints of retaliation, Bloch is decidedly not the right person to tackle the issues of misconduct and illegality that surround top White House officials,” Sloan said, “There is a serious question as to whether Bloch will just provide cover for an administration that has been covering for him.”
I have said sooooo many times, “this time they got the bastard,” and soooo many times I have been disappointed. Maybe this will be the straw. I am wondering if Repugnicans are perhaps starting to jump ship, recognizing that if they don’t disassociate themselves from the Bush Reich, they don’t stand a chance.
Rove’s long-term goal has been to create a one-party state in order to bring about just the kind of disastrous policies we have sat and helplessly watched play out for the past 6 years. I just hope this investigation goes the distance and puts these thieves away for a long time. Let impeachment be only the beginning, to be followed by jail time in one of those secret detention centers Haliburton has been building here in the US.
Whitewash.
It does seem too good to be true. There must be a catch somewhere. The evidence floats around for everyone to see, but the media tip-toe around it and mention it with great diffidence. Bush has installed a power-hungry force that is willing to do almost anything to expand Republican (read Bush-Cheney and Big Business) power and entrench it in office. Then the voters spoke in November, and now the smell of what they have done is attracting attention. Maybe they will start using actual hit men or assassins!
May the winds of change blow down this wicked house of cards that is BushCo.
Check this out on Dennis Kucinich’s website if you want to see the impeachment documents: http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm. We may finally get Dickie. He’s the brains, along with Rove. Kucinich is the ONLY Dem candidate who cares at all about this country and its people. Until we can convince him to run as an independent, let’s all support his candidacy. I will not vote for the lesser of 2 evils ever again. Have been doing it since 1968, but no more…
It’s just more political theater…read the truthout link cited above
Scott J. Bloch is NOT the man to conduct an impartial investigation. The Democrats should be outraged by his involvement. Are we living in a fascist state or what? (from Marblehead)
The fox and the hen house again.
Thank you, Jason Leopold, for your excellent and timely article on Scott Bloch. Anyone appointed by the current administration is suspect, and, thanks to your good work, we now know that suspicions of Mr. Bloch and his ability to be impartial are well-founded.
“One of its (Office of Special Counsel) primary missions has been to enforce the Hatch Act, a law enacted in 1939 to preserve the integrity of the civil service.”
Preserve the integrity of civil service? That’s hilarious! Have they been in a coma for the last 65 years?
I have a dream: The Congress of the United States of America, in joint session, has voted to deliver to an international tribunal George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, to be tried for war crimes committed during their unprovoked aggression against Iraq. We feel this action is required to be consistent with the principles articulated by the Allied governments at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi regime at the conclusion of World War II.
Marblehead mentions that Bloch shouldn’t be the one to do the investigating. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Rove and Bush probably OK’d the investigation so that in two years the democratic president can’t do the same thing.
I can already guess the result of the investigation:
“Freedom fighter Scott Bloch has uncovered the existence of a plot, deep within the White House, of some Karl Rove employees who are secret Democrat communist Muslim atheistic homosexual subversive environmental terrorists, and he has also found that Mr. Rove has successfully foiled this plot and saved America from their plan to destroy Americanism, freedom, free enterprise, Christianity, the flag, and the American way of life.”
I have heard it said that the animal behaviour of some members of the human race is due to the fact that their previous incarnations were as animals.
Ever notice that certain people do resemble some kind of animal?
Karl Rove, for example, has the face of a swine, and behaviour to match, though of course his behaviour is worse than any poor swine’s, because now he has human capabilities framed by a porcine physiological setup.