500 of Karl Rove's emails ended up with Greg Palast. In a new interview Palast announces he's given the emails to John Conyers. And he talks about the secret agenda they reveal for the attorney firings.
Palast got the emails because -- well, because Karl Rove is stupid.
There's a parody web site called GeorgeWBush.org. Karl Rove was so pre-occupied with evading the archiving of White House emails that he didn't anticipate any problems. So he started using the RNC-supplied email addresses at....GeorgeWBush.com. And that's when his karma caught up with him.
The people at GeorgeWBush.org knew what to do with the emails: they forwarded them to Greg Palast. Because these emails were talking about purging minority voters from voter rolls. Palast quickly took Rove's emails to an appropriate law professor -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- and made sure copies got to Conyers office before the Monica Goodling testimony.
The next move may not come right away. For example, Representative Conyers didn't mention the emails during Monica Goodling's testimony this week. This is because "He’s keeping his powder dry," Palast said Thursday. His interviewer was naturally curious, but it's sensitive information lurking until the right moment. "We talk," Palast said emphastically.
"‘Nuff said."
It's like a burning fuse. Having read Rove's email, Palast describes watching Monica Goodling's testimony. The emails he'd read outlined a plan to disenfranchise 4.5 million minority voters. They'd be targetted for intense scrutiny by Rove's plants in the Department of Justice, in a practice called... "caging."
"Hundreds of thousands of Black and Hispanic voters were sent letters — do not forward. Letters returned as undeliverable ('caged') were used as evidence the voter didn’t live at their registered address. The GOP goons challenged these voters’ right to cast ballots — and their votes were lost... Here’s where the game turns to deep evil. They targeted Black students on vacation, homeless men — and you’ll love this — Black soldiers sent overseas.
"They weren’t living at their home voting address because they were shivering under a Humvee in Falluja."
And then the day of reckoning came, and Monica Goodling took the stand. "She began by accusing her bosses of perjury," Palast noted. "The issue was her allegation that they knew all about 'caging.' And no one asked her one damn question about it. What is 'caging' and why would they commit perjury to cover it up?"
"The lady was trying to tell us something important, but the dim bulbs of the U.S. press and the committee dolts wouldn’t listen!"
His interviewer was watching too, and notes that there was one question -- from Representative Linda Sanchez. What is caging, she'd asked simply? And Goodling's answer? A non-chalant, off-hand remark that it was "about direct mail."
"And that was it!" Palast marvelled. "It's not about 'direct mail.' Direct mail has to do with Victoria's Secret... This was all about stealing the 2004 — and 2008 — elections. That's why she wanted immunity. She was afraid it would all unravel, the caging game...!"
The firings are only the tail-end of the story, says Palast. The real conspiracy was the hirings! Palast describes the new incoming Attorney Generals as "Rove-bots, a sleeper cell of anti-Constitutional saboteurs who will explode in 2008, led by the new prosecutor for Arkansas, Tim Griffin."
But there's always one problem with a conspiracy. It has too many moving parts. Karl Rove and the RNC tried to bypass the White House email system while coordinating with their Department of Justice. They thought they'd be safe from public scrutiny, but instead they stumbled into their worst nightmare.
They sent 500 of Karl Rove's emails to Greg Palast.