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Rove deposed — over eight hour period — in US Attorney firings

By John Byrne

Published: July 7, 2009
Updated 4 months ago




Update: Congress mum on testimony; Judiciary Chairman won’t comment on what was asked, said

Former Bush White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was deposed by lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) said in an interview Tuesday.

Rove’s deposition took place over a period of some eight and a half hours, beginning at 10 a.m. and ending around 6:30 p.m, ET — and the lawyers took several breaks, Conyers said.

Conyers wouldn’t say what Rove told investigators or whether Rove would appear before his committee again.

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

In an exchange with Raw Story in February, Rove’s Washington, D.C. attorney, Robert Luskin, said Rove won’t invoke his Fifth Amendment right to protect himself from self-incrimination, when he testified about the firing of nine US Attorneys and the prosecution of the former governor.

There’s “been speculation that he would decline to answer questions on Fifth Amendment grounds,” Luskin said. “That’s a personal privilege; he will not assert it.”

Last year, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Rove to testify about his knowledge concerning the prosecution of former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, which they alleged was carried out on political grounds after a whistleblower said Rove had a hand in seeking the prosecution. In 2007, Rove was subpoenaed by the Senate about the firing of nine US Attorneys.

Both times, the Bush Administration asserted that Rove was protected by executive privilege; both times, Rove did not appear. Now, with a newly-installed Democratic president, the ice under Rove appears to have thinned.

Rove was subpoenaed in January and again in February by Chairman Conyers.

Politico’s Josh Gerstein and John Bresnahan added Tuesday that Conyers filed “a civil lawsuit against the [Bush] White House and prevailed in district court last year but the appeals court has yet to address the issue.

“With an agreement between the Obama White House, the Bush White House and House Judiciary Committee, the current Justice Department avoided having to choose sides in court and risk an appeals court precedent which could undercut executive privilege or Congress’s right to investigate alleged government malfeasance,” they added.

Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, has vehemently denied Rove had any malicious role in the US Attorney firings or the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, another case the Judiciary Committee is investigating.

NBC: Congress mum on Rove testimony

Lips are sealed, so it would seem.

NBC News’ Mike Viqueira reports that Congress is keeping mum the day after Rove gave testimony.

Viqueira writes, “House side sources are being very tight lipped about the Karl Rove testimony. Under the agreement reached earlier this year, none of the participants are allowed to speak publicly until all interviews have been concluded and transcripts have been released.”

Luskin released the following statement to NBC News:

The agreement setting up the interviews contemplated that they would remain entirely confidential until all the interviews were complete. Out of respect for that term of the agreement, Mr. Rove is not commenting.

Blogger Emptywheel, noted for her reporting on all things related to Plamegate, remarks, “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,” Wheeler adds.





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