Investigation of Rove Purportedly Underway

Do we shout boo-yah now?

Is it real, or just another poof of magic smoke hiding a lame old vaudeville trick?

This morning the LA Times reported that the Office of Special Counsel (which had already opened an investigation as to the firing of former U.S. Attorney Iglesias of New Mexico), is apparently expanding its inquiry to include Karl Rove. Yes, Karl Rove. (Title bar.)

"...[T]he 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.'

Reading the report this morning provoked great relief & jubliation in the 1st instance, & a vague sense of unease in the 2nd. After all, this is an Administration that has successfully whitewashed every scandal from cooked intelligence to torture gulags to Cheney's secret Energy Task Force to domestic spying & phone-tapping to politicization of prosecutorial powers ~ all to a degree incomprehensible to those of us actually paying attention.

Scandal upon scandal has been evaded by means of out-& out lies, continuing propaganda, artful spin, & when any investigations have taken place, it seems always to be the very branch suspected of wrongdoing that investigates itself --& always reaching the reassuring & inevitable conclusion that whatever it is may look bad, & our judgment may not have been the best, but we assure you, nothing illegal happened.

Nothing to see here, folks, go home.

Apparently the folks at the LA Times were thinking the same thing, & by this evening there was a closer look at Mr. Bloch, who was appointed by Bush.

Here's what they found:

"Even as Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch moved forward with plans for a sweeping probe of the Bush administration, several advocacy groups complained that his ties to the administration and to conservative groups, as well as his record on gay rights and whistle-blowers, made him the wrong man for the job.

'There is a serious question as to whether Bloch will just provide cover for an administration that is covering for him,' said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning group.

"A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel, communications director James Mitchell, waved away the complaints, saying agency staffers have already begun to form an internal task force, led in part by career staff, to probe three broad areas of activity involving the White House and senior advisor Karl Rove.

"The agency will use its subpoena power if necessary, Mitchell said. It will focus on whether White House political concerns improperly intruded on the decision to fire at least one U.S. attorney; whether Rove's office staff or others violated the Hatch Act in briefing Cabinet agency managers on political developments and Republican campaign goals; and whether the White House improperly used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business.

"Many of those e-mails are now missing, and Bloch has said his agency will probably join the effort to find them.

Read on & draw your own conclusions.

I found this tidbit about Bloch's record so far interesting:

..." At Bloch's confirmation hearing, Mitchell said, the incoming director was urged to reduce the large backlog of whistle-blower and other complaints. Bloch disposed of a great many of them — so many that an advocate for environmental whistle-blowers said they had received no satisfaction from the agency.'He just ignored them,' said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Mitchell said office procedures on whistle-blower and other cases were reviewed by a bipartisan congressional staff in 2005 that later provided a positive report.

"While Bloch has alienated advocacy groups on the left, he has also lost support from White House insiders, according to one report. The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, reported last year that Bloch was ostracized by the White House and might even be urged to step down.

"Mitchell said such attacks are expected by investigators like Bloch. 'He is a watchdog,' Mitchell said. 'That's what he likes to do.'"

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-probe25apr25,0,3994301.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Pray he does it thoroughly & well.