Report: Rove coached Justice staff before key hearing
 Top White House political adviser Karl Rove coached a Justice Department staff member before he testified to a Congressional commitee in March, according to a report in Newsweek. Some investigators reportedly believe that Kove may have tried to mislead Congress.
"Although the existence of the White House meeting had been previously disclosed by the Justice Department, Rove's attendance at the strategy session was not—until both [Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William] Moscella and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty talked about it in confidential testimony with congressional investigators last week," according to a Democratic aide who spoke with Newsweek's Michael Isikoff.
The aide argued that Rove withheld information from Moscella, who had not been aware of White House involvement in the firings, effectively amounting to an effort to mislead Congress.
"Rove and Kelley never told Moscella about the White House's own role in pushing to have some U.S. Attorneys fired in the first place. Moscella followed the coaching by Rove and others—and made no mention of White House involvement in the firings during his March 6, 2007 testimony to House Judiciary," Isikoff explained.
The Newsweek reporter said the White House was defending any attendance of Rove at the meeting.
"A White House spokesman dismissed the significance of the March meeting, saying it was not surprising that a Deputy White House Chief of Staff like Rove would participate in internal discussions about the firings of presidential appointees," he wrote.
But, he noted, the White House spokesman would not comment on whether or not Rove had acted as accused of by the Congressional staffer.
Isikoff suggested there would be more to come as a consequence of the disclosure.
"The new disclosure about his participation in the March 5 strategy session is likely to fuel the committee's determination to keep the heat on," he concluded.
Isikoff's full article can be found at this link.
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