Karl Rove tells the NYT that he didn't play that big a role in the great prosecutor purge of 2006. Or so he says in an interview he gave earlier this month, on condition it not be published until after he testified before the House Judiciary Committee. However, I find that hard to believe--and I think he may have perjured himself.
It's not just because of the conditions he imposed for the interview. He claims he can't tell anyone who came up with the idea.
Mr. Rove, who on Thursday completed two days of testimony in a closed session with investigators from the House Judiciary Committee, said he could not answer one of the lingering questions that the panel had hoped to resolve: whether it was the White House that came up with the idea of firing the prosecutors.
"I can’t even tell you who brought it up," Mr. Rove said earlier this month in the office of his lawyer, Robert D. Luskin.
The NYT has also dug up more evidence that shows Darth Karl's involvement in this was greater than he's letting on.
The obvious implication--either Darth Rove is protecting someone, or he played a bigger role than he's letting on.
Back in 2005, Rove asked Harriet Miers to get a list of U.S. attorneys who should be replaced. And in 2006, Rove asked his deputy, Scott Jennings, to give him a list of attorney slots that were either vacant or expected to be vacant in the near future. And as early as February 2005, he was championing the hiring of Tim Griffin as U.S. attorney in eastern Arkansas (the story erroneously says it was western Arkansas).
More troubling, Rove passed on several complaints from Pete Domenici and others about David Iglesias, one of the other attorneys that got the ax.
It's hard not to think that Rove probably knew he was teetering on the edge of perjury when he granted this interview. But did he go over the edge? I think he did.
Update: WaPo has more quotes from Rove emails during this time (hat tips to 1BQ and TPM.
In an Oct. 10, 2006, e-mail from White House political affairs aide Scott Jennings to Rove, Jennings reported:
"I received a call from Steve Bell tonight. . . . Last week Sen. Domenici reached the chief of staff and asked that we remove the U.S. Atty. Steve wanted to make sure we all understood that they couldn't be more serious about this request."
[snip]
In a Feb. 11, 2005, e-mail, Rove wrote to deputy Sara Taylor: "Give [Griffin] options. Keep pushing for Justice and let him decide. I want him on the team." Then White House counsel Miers e-mailed Taylor a month later, writing, "Sara, Karl asked me to forward you a list of locations where we may consider replacing the USAs..."
Rove himself suggested Little Rock, where Cummins was U.S. attorney, as a post for Griffin, reminding Miers in March 2005 that "that's where he's from." The next day, Sara Taylor forwarded some communications about Griffin to RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, who wrote, "let me know his reaction," according to the e-mails.