White House Admits Karl Rove's Involvement in Firing US Attorneys

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Rove relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. She said Rove, the chief White House political operative, specifically recalled passing along complaints about former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and may have mentioned the grumblings about Iglesias to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Iglesias says he lost his job as the top federal prosecutor in New Mexico after rebuffing Republican pressure to speed his investigation of Democratic officials in the state.

Rove said he did not suggest that any of the U.S. attorneys be forced to resign, Perino said.

The new details about Rove's involvement in the firings emerged as the top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee declared their interest in talking to him. The committee is trying to determine whether the firings were part of an effort to exert political influence over federal prosecutions.

This is a smoking gun which ties Rove (and thus Bush) directly to the firings of United States Attorneys for refusing to engage in partisan witch-hunts, and for firing US Attorneys who dared investigate Republican criminals... clear Obstruction of Justice. So why is the White House releasing this information?

Two reasons: (a) they're off their game because they have no idea how to spin a hostile Congress, having never faced one before, and (b) because the Senators, Congressmen and state Republican apparatchiks involved have already spoken out that they delivered their findings to Rove... the White House is just trying to get ahead of the story and desperately trying to spin this entire event as "disgunted ex-employees" who got fired for "just causes" and "who cares anyway, it's an internal Human Resources issue" -- when it's clearly politically motivated and illegal.

Several of the prosecutors who were fired were fired because they investigated Republicans with connections to the White House. Two of them were STILL investigating well-connected Republicans when they got fired. That's obstruction of justice, hindrance of a federal prosecution and a whole slew of other FELONY crimes. The kind of felony crimes that can take down Alberto Gonzales & Karl Rove at the bare minimum.

Not to mention that the President's men secretly rewrote the Patriot Act in the middle of the night stripping Congress of Federal oversight of US Attorney hiring without telling ANYONE, including the Republicans in the Senate. That's enough power-play to infuriate any Senator who might be willing to hinder this investigation.

This is it. This is this Administration's Watergate, Monicagate, Iran-Contragate, etc. We've just begun to skin this onion, and each layer is going to reveal a new, seamier, more rotten layer beneath. Using this one crime, we can finally leverage out all of the wrongdoing these scumbags have accomplished since they took office, and EVERYONE can understand this one: They fired some guys who were investigating them. That's what finally woke up America during Watergate, the "Saturday Night Massacre" when Nixon fired everyone at the Justice Department to prevent them from investigating him. That's what we're really talking about here... these prosecutors were on the trail of guys connected to the White House, so they had to go. Even an idiot could understand it.

Now let's just see if the morons in the Corporate Media get it and if they're able to frame it in such simple terms.