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{{short description|American political consultant and policy advisor (born 1950)}} | |||
] | |||
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'''Karl Christian Rove''' (born ], ] in ]) is an ] ], and (]) U.S. ] ]'s senior advisor, chief political strategist, and deputy ] in charge of policy. | |||
{{Infobox officeholder | |||
| name = Karl Rove | |||
| image = Karl Rove.jpg | |||
| alt = Rove looking to the camera | |||
| office = ] | |||
| president = ] | |||
| term_start = February 8, 2005 | |||
| term_end = August 31, 2007 | |||
| predecessor = ] | |||
| successor = ] | |||
| office1 = ] | |||
| president1 = ] | |||
| term_start1 = January 20, 2001 | |||
| term_end1 = August 31, 2007 | |||
| predecessor1 = {{ubl|]|]|]}} | |||
| successor1 = ] | |||
| office2 = ] | |||
| term_start2 = 1973 | |||
| term_end2 = 1977 | |||
| predecessor2 = Joe Abate | |||
| successor2 = John Brady | |||
| birth_name = Karl Christian Rove | |||
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1950|12|25}} | |||
| birth_place = ], ], U.S. | |||
| death_date = | |||
| death_place = | |||
| party = ] | |||
| spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|Valerie Mather Wainwright|July 10, 1976|1980|end=divorced}}|{{marriage|Darby Tara Hickson|January 1986|December 2009|end=divorced}}|{{marriage|Karen Johnson|June 2012}}}} | |||
| children = 1 | |||
| website = {{URL|rove.com|Official website}} | |||
| education = ] | |||
}} | |||
'''Karl Christian Rove''' (born December 25, 1950) is an American ] ], policy advisor, and lobbyist. He was ] and ] during the ] administration until his resignation on August 31, 2007. He has also headed the Office of Political Affairs, the ], and the ]. Rove was one of the architects of the ]. | |||
Prior to his White House appointments, he is credited with the 1994 and 1998 ] gubernatorial victories of ], as well as Bush's ] and 2004 successful presidential campaigns. In his 2004 victory speech, Bush referred to Rove as "the Architect". Rove has also been credited for the successful campaigns of ] (1994 U.S. Senate election), ] (1986 Texas gubernatorial election), Senator ] (2002 U.S. Senate election), ] ] (1990 Texas Agriculture Commission election), and ] (1982 ] and 1984 U.S. Senate elections). Since leaving the White House, Rove has worked as a political analyst and contributor for ], '']'', and '']''. | |||
Rove has been a frequent target of critics of the ], and is presently embroiled in controversy for possibly having ] of ] ] agent ] to at least one reporter, allegedly in retaliation for her husband's criticisms of the administration. | |||
==Early life and |
==Early life and education== | ||
Rove was born on Christmas Day in ], the second of five children, and was raised in ]. His parents separated when he was 19 years old<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11BAKER.html?pagewanted=3|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141208011546/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11BAKER.html?pagewanted=3|archive-date=2014-12-08|title=Rove on Rove: A Conversation with the Former Bush Senior Adviser|newspaper=]|date=10 March 2010|last1=Baker|first1=Peter}}</ref> and the man whom Rove knew as his father was a ].<ref name=bookref1>{{Cite book|last=Alexander|first=Paul|title=Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove|publisher=Rodale|year=2008|page=17|isbn=978-1-59486-825-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zbk_Ml57M10C&pg=17}}</ref> | |||
In 1965, his family moved to ], where Rove entered high school, becoming a skilled debater.<ref>{{cite web | |||
====High school and college==== | |||
|first1=Brendan | |||
Rove was raised in ] and ], the second of five children. His family moved to ], ] when Rove was in high school. At ], Rove began his involvement in politics in 1968: In a 2002 ] interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former ]) ]'s re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, ]." Williams took Rove under his wing, leading to Rove's ]ship with the ]. | |||
|last1=Banaszak | |||
|first2=Ron | |||
|last2=Elving | |||
|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5481603 | |||
|title=Karl Rove, the President's 'Boy Genius' | |||
|publisher=] | |||
|date=June 13, 2006 | |||
|access-date=September 1, 2012 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5481603 | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> Encouraged by a teacher to run for class senate, Rove won the election. As part of his campaign strategy he rode in the back of a convertible inside the school gymnasium sitting between two attractive girls before his election speech.<ref>{{cite news | |||
|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/slater.html | |||
|title=Frontline interview with author William Slater: NPR published PBS Frontline interview | |||
|publisher=] | |||
|date=April 12, 2005 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/slater.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> While at ],<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/20/19903055/about-utah-newsmakers-go-forth-from-utah-olympus|title=Newsmakers go forth from Utah Olympus|author=Lee Benson|newspaper=]|date=July 20, 2005}}</ref> he was elected student council president his junior and senior years. Rove was also a ] and served as Chairman of the Utah Federation of Teenage Republicans. During this time, his father got a job in Los Angeles and visited the family during holidays.<ref name="Rove">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4tOs-x85YC&q=suicide|title=Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight|last=Rove|first=Karl|date=2010-04-03|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781439199268|language=en}}</ref> | |||
Rove's mother suffered from depression and had contemplated suicide more than once in her life.<ref name="Rove"/> Rove has stated that although he loved his mother, she was seriously flawed, undependable and, at times, unstable.<ref name="Rove"/> In December 1969, after a heated fight with his wife, the man Rove had known as his father left the family and ]d Rove's mother soon afterwards.<ref>{{cite news|title=New Book Reveals Rove's Father Was Gay...|work=]|url= https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/09/05/new-book-reveals-roves-f_n_28738.html|date= September 5, 2006|access-date=October 26, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|author=Sam Stein |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20253121/site/newsweek/ |title=Inside Karl Rove's Brain |magazine=Newsweek |date=August 13, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070820214335/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20253121/site/newsweek/ |archive-date=August 20, 2007 }}</ref> It was at this juncture that Rove was finally told that he and his older brother had a different birth father, his mother's prior husband.<ref name="Rove" /> Rove's relationship with his adoptive father was briefly strained for a few months following the divorce, but they maintained a relationship afterward.<ref name="books.google.com">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4tOs-x85YC&q=divorce|title=Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight|last=Rove|first=Karl|date=2010-04-03|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781439199268|language=en}}</ref> | |||
====The Dixon campaign incident==== | |||
In ], Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Illinois Democrat ] and stole some letterhead, which he used to print fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Rove admitted the incident later, saying "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." (). | |||
Rove had only infrequent contact with his mother in the 1970s. She frequently withheld child support checks and spent them for herself. She and her second husband lost most of their money due to poor financial decisions on her part and his gambling and overspending.<ref name="auto">{{Cite journal|last1=Thanapirom|first1=Kessarin|last2=Gonlachanvit|first2=Sutep|date=May 2013|title=Mo1115 Differences in Symptom Profiles Quality of Life Anxiety and Depression Scores Between Patients WHO Suffered From Gastrointestinal Symptom More and Less Than 6 Months|journal=Gastroenterology|volume=144|issue=5|pages=S–582|doi=10.1016/s0016-5085(13)62149-6|issn=0016-5085|doi-access=free}}</ref> On September 11, 1981, Rove's mother died by ] north of ], shortly after she decided to divorce her third and final husband, to whom she had been unhappily married for only three months.<ref name="books.google.com" /><ref name="situation_room_transcripts">'']'' Transcripts: , ''CNN: The Situation Room'', Aired March 5, 2010.</ref> | |||
====A part in the Watergate saga==== | |||
== Early political career == | |||
On August 10, 1973, as a protégé of ] (later convicted as a ] conspirator), in the midst of the ] ], Rove was the subject of a '']'' article titled "] Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks." The article, which was sourced to tape-recorded conversations, reported how the 22-year-old Rove and a colleague had been touring the country giving young Republicans "]" training, complete with stories of derring-do such as the incident at the Dixon headquarters. At the request of then-Chairman of the ] ], Rove was questioned by the ]. Rove's contemporary ] signed an affidavit stating that the admissions caught on tape, including the Dixon incident, were made merely "in jest." | |||
Rove began his involvement in American politics in 1968. In a 2002 '']'' interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former U.S. Sen.) ]'s re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the ], J.D. Williams."<ref name=underdog>{{cite news|url=http://www.deseretnews.com/article/952840/Triumph-of-the-underdog.html |title=Triumph of the Underdog |first=Lee |last=Davidson |work=Deseret News |date=December 8, 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.deseretnews.com/article/952840/Triumph-of-the-underdog.html |archive-date=February 25, 2008 |url-status=dead |access-date=September 19, 2018}}</ref> Bennett was reelected to a third six-year term in November 1968. Through Rove's campaign involvement, Bennett's son, ]—a future United States Senator from ]—would become a friend. Williams would later become a mentor to Rove. | |||
===College and the Dixon campaign sabotage incident=== | |||
Watergate veteran and Republican critic ] corroborates the investigation of Rove during Watergate: "...Based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him." | |||
In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the ], on a $1,000 scholarship,<ref>{{cite news|title=Rove: Ex-Utahn in crisis; Unethical revenge would not surprise his U. poli-sci prof; Rove known as a fierce competitor|newspaper=]|author=Matt Canham and Thomas Burr|date=November 6, 2005}}</ref> as a ] major and joined the ] fraternity. Through the university's ], he got an ]ship with the ]. That position, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped him secure a job in 1970 on ]'s unsuccessful re-election campaign for ] from ] against ] ]. | |||
In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat ], who was running for ]. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and ] shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. (Dixon eventually won the election.) Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973 when Rove told ''The Dallas Morning News''. In 1999 he said, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it."<ref name="balz-2003-strategist">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/rove072399.htm|title=Karl Rove – The Strategist|newspaper=]|author=Dan Balz|date=July 23, 1999}}</ref> In his memoir, Rove wrote that when he was later nominated to the Board for International Broadcasting by President George H.W. Bush, Senator Dixon did not kill his nomination. In Rove's account, "Dixon displayed more grace than I had shown and kindly excused this youthful prank."{{sfn|Rove 2010|p=24}} | |||
====Adoption, divorce, and suicide==== | |||
Rove learned at age nineteen, during his parents' divorce, that the man who raised him, a mineral geologist, was not his biological father. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been. Rove's mother committed suicide in ], in ] (] profile ). | |||
===College Republicans, Watergate, and the Bushes=== | |||
====Dropping education in favor of politics==== | |||
In June 1971, after the end of the semester, Rove ] of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the executive director of the ].<ref>{{cite book|author1=James Moore|author2=Wayne Slater|title=Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ANSfwJOiDEC|year=2011|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-118-03982-3|page=}}</ref> Joe Abate, who was National Chairman of the College Republicans at the time, became his mentor.<ref name="new-yorker-profile-2003">'']'' profile: by Nicholas Lemann "Profiles", ''The New Yorker.'', May 12, 2003. .</ref> Rove then enrolled at the ] in the Fall of 1971, but withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester.<ref name="Draft">{{cite news | |||
Rove ] of the ] in ] to become the Executive Director of the ] and held this position until ], when he became the National Chairman (1973-1974). In this role, Rove had access to powerful politicians and government officials of the Republican party, and formed ties with ], then Chairman of the ] (1973-1974). | |||
|work=Salt Lake Tribune | |||
|date=September 18, 2004 | |||
|title=Did Karl Rove dodge the draft? | |||
|url=http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2416757 | |||
|author=Rebecca Walsh | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2416757 | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> In July 1999 he told '']'' that he did not have a degree because "I lack at this point one math class, which I can take by exam, and my foreign language requirement."<ref name="balz-2003-strategist" /> | |||
Rove traveled extensively, participating as an instructor at weekend seminars for campus ]s across the country. He was an active participant in ]'s ]. A CBS report on the organization of the Nixon campaign from June 1972 includes an interview with a young Rove working for the College Republican National Committee.<ref>{{cite web|title=Daily Show|date=October 22, 2013|url= http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-october-22-2013/moment-of-zen---young-karl-rove|access-date=October 24, 2013}}</ref> | |||
====Weddings and family==== | |||
Rove's 1977 marriage to ] was short-lived. Rove remarried in 1986 and had a teenage son by his wife, Darby. | |||
Rove held the position of executive director of the College Republicans until early 1973. He left the job to spend five months, without pay, campaigning full-time for the position of National Chairman during the time he attended ].<ref name="new-yorker-profile-2003"/> ], the group's Southern regional coordinator, who was two months younger than Rove, assisted with Rove's campaign. His campaign was managed by Daniel Mintz, of the Maryland College Republicans.<ref>Karl Rove, personal interview, June 16, 2018, Washington, D.C.</ref> Karl spent the spring of 1973 crisscrossing the country in a ], lining up the support of Republican state chairs. | |||
==Notable political campaigns== | |||
The College Republicans summer 1973 convention at the ] resort in ] was quite contentious. Rove's opponent was Robert Edgeworth of ]. The other major candidate, ] of ], dropped out, supporting Edgeworth. A number of states had sent two competing delegates, because Rove and his supporters had made credential challenges at state and regional conventions. For example, after the Midwest regional convention, Rove forces had produced a version of the Midwestern College Republicans constitution which differed significantly from the constitution that the Edgeworth forces were using, in order to justify the unseating of the Edgeworth delegates on procedural grounds,<ref name="new-yorker-profile-2003"/> including delegations, such as ] and Missouri, which had been certified earlier by Rove himself. In the end, there were two votes, conducted by two convention chairs, and two winners—Rove and Edgeworth, each of whom delivered an acceptance speech. After the convention, both Edgeworth and Rove appealed to ] Chairman ], each contending that he was the new College Republican chairman. | |||
==== 1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign ==== | |||
For the next few years, Rove worked in various Republican circles and assisted ]'s ]. Rove is credited for introducing Bush to ], who would go on to play a critical role in Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. Like Atwater, Rove is well known for his effective campaign tactics, employing ]s and frequently attacking an opponent on the opponent's strongest issue. | |||
While resolution was pending, Dolan went (anonymously) to '']'' with recordings of several training seminars for young Republicans where a co-presenter of Rove's, Bernie Robinson, cautioned against doing the same thing he had done: rooting through opponents' garbage cans. The tape with this story on it, as well as Rove's admonition not to copy similar tricks as Rove's against Dixon, was secretly recorded and edited by Rich Evans, who had hoped to receive an appointment from Rove's competitor in the CRNC chairmanship race.{{sfn|Rove 2010|p=37}} On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the ], the ''Post'' broke the story in an article titled "GOP Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks".<ref name=guardbrains/> | |||
In 1981, Rove founded ] consulting firm, Karl Rove + Company, based out of ]. This firm's first clients included Republican Governor ] and ] Congressman ], who later became a Republican Congressman and ]. In 1993, Rove began advising ]'s gubernatorial campaign. He continued, however, to operate his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to focus his efforts on Bush's bid for the presidency. | |||
In response, then RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush, had an ] agent question Rove. As part of the investigation, Atwater signed an ], dated August 13, 1973, stating that he had heard a "20 minute anecdote similar to the one described in ''The Washington Post''" in July 1972, but that "it was a funny story during a coffee break".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/rove/cron.html |title=Mastermind – Chronology – Karl Rove's Life And Political Career |publisher=] |work=] |date=April 12, 2005 |access-date=January 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/rove/cron.html |archive-date=February 25, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Former ] Counsel ], has been quoted as saying "based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him."<ref>{{cite news | |||
==== 1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign ==== | |||
|url=http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/03/31/dean/index1.html | |||
In ], just before a crucial debate in the election for governor of ], Karl Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by the ]s. . The police and FBI investigated and discovered that bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. Critics alleged that Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race. | |||
|title=Creepier Than Nixon | |||
|author=David Talbot | |||
|work=] | |||
|date=March 31, 2004 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/03/31/dean/index1.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
On September 6, 1973, three weeks after announcing his intent to investigate the allegations against Rove, ] chose him to be chairman of the College Republicans. Bush then wrote Edgeworth a letter saying that he had concluded that Rove had fairly won the vote at the convention. Edgeworth wrote back, asking about the basis of that conclusion. Not long after that, Edgeworth stated "Bush sent me back the angriest letter I have ever received in my life. I had leaked to '']'', and now I was out of the Party forever." | |||
==== 1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign ==== | |||
As National Chairman, Rove introduced Bush to Atwater, who had taken Rove's job as the College Republican's executive director, and who would become Bush's main campaign strategist in future years. Bush hired Rove as a Special Assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 to become Executive Assistant to the co-chair of the RNC, ]. | |||
In ], "Sources close to the former president ] say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist ] about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted" (''Esquire Magazine'', January 2003). Robert Novak provided some evidence of motive in his column describing the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator ]: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove deny that Rove was the leaker, but Mosbacher maintains that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it." | |||
(Sources: "Karl and Bob: a leaky history," ''Houston Chronicle'', Nov. 7, 2003; "Genius," ''Texas Monthly'', March 2003, p. 82; "Why Are These Men Laughing," ''Esquire'', January 2003.) | |||
As Special Assistant, Rove performed small personal tasks for Bush. In November 1973, he asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son ], who was visiting home during a break from ]. It was the first time the two met. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma – you know, wow", Rove recalled years later.<ref name="guardbrains">{{cite news | |||
==== 2004 George W. Bush presidential campaign ==== | |||
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/09/uselections2004.usa1 | |||
|title=Who is Karl Rove? The Brains | |||
|work=] | |||
|location=London | |||
|first=Julian | |||
|last=Borger | |||
|date=March 9, 2004 | |||
|access-date=May 7, 2010 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/09/uselections2004.usa1 | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
===Virginia=== | |||
Rove has professional ties to the producers of the ] television ads that quoted ] reporting stories in front of Congress that he had personally heard from U.S. military personnel in ] who "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," "randomly shot at civilians," and "razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of ]." | |||
Another ad from SBVT accused Kerry of lying to win his Vietnam combat medals. | |||
In 1976, Rove left D.C. to work in Virginian politics. Initially, Rove served as the Finance Director for the Republican Party of Virginia. Rove describes this as the role in which he discovered his love for direct mail campaigns.<ref name="books.google.com"/> | |||
President ] thanked Rove in his ] ] acceptance speech, just after defeating John Kerry in the ], calling Rove "the architect." | |||
. | |||
==The Texas years and notable political campaigns== | |||
==Consulting business and work in politics in 1990-2000== | |||
===1977–1991=== | |||
Rove's initial job in Texas was in 1977 as a legislative aide for ], a Texas Republican ] from ].<ref>{{cite web | |||
|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/gwynne.html | |||
|title=Karl Rove – The Architect | |||
|publisher=] | |||
|access-date=September 20, 2013 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/gwynne.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> Later that same year, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by ], a Houston lawyer (later President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979–1980. | |||
His work for ] during the Texas ] election of 1978 helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Clements was elected to a four-year term, succeeding Democrat ]. Rove was deputy director of the Governor William P. Clements Junior Committee in 1979 and 1980, and deputy executive assistant to the governor of Texas (roughly, Deputy Chief of Staff) in 1980 and 1981.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marquiswhoswho.com/ |title=Marquis Who's Who |publisher=Marquiswhoswho.com |access-date=2015-06-21}}</ref> | |||
In ], according to the '']'', Karl Rove + Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by ]'s successful Senate campaign (Ashcroft paid Rove more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns). In ], Karl Rove + Company was paid $2.5 million in fees by the successful ] presidential campaign. According to Rove, "bout 30 percent of that is postage." | |||
In 1981, Rove founded a ] consulting firm, '''Karl Rove & Co.''', in Austin. The firm's first clients included Texas Governor Bill Clements and ] congressman ], who later became a Republican congressman and ]. Rove operated his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's presidential campaign. | |||
According to the campaign manager of John McCain's 2000 presidential bid, a ] was conducted during the 2000 South Carolina primaries which asked potential voters "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for ] for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". Since McCain was campaigning with his adopted Bangladeshi daughter, an image quickly gathered around that statement. The book and movie ''Bush's Brain'', allege that he was involved in this ] due to his intimate role as campaign advisor to Bush, though no proof of Rove's direct involvement ever surfaced. | |||
Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of races. Most were in a supporting role, doing direct mail fundraising. A November 2004 '']'' article estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 statewide, congressional, and national races, and Rove's candidates won 34 races.<ref name="Karl Rove in a Corner">{{cite magazine | |||
After the presidential elections in November ], Karl Rove organized an emergency response of Republican politicians and supporters to go to ] to assist the Bush campaign's position during the recount. | |||
|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green/3 | |||
|title=Karl Rove in a Corner | |||
|author=Green, Joshua | |||
|magazine=] Monthly | |||
|date=November 2004 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green/3 | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
Rove also did work during those years for non-political clients. From 1991 to 1996, Rove advised tobacco giant ], and ultimately earned $3,000 a month via a consulting contract. In a ], Rove testified that he severed the tie in 1996 because he felt awkward "about balancing that responsibility with his role as Bush's top political advisor" while Bush was governor of Texas and Texas was suing the ].<ref name="nerdbehind">{{cite news|url=http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues/1999-05-13/news/feature_print.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050110154803/http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/1999-05-13/news/feature_print.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 10, 2005 |author=Rozen, Miriam |newspaper=The Dallas Observer |date=May 13, 1999 |title=The Nerd Behind the Throne }}</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} | |||
George W. Bush was inaugurated in January ]. Rove accepted a position in the Bush administration as Senior Advisor to the President. The President's confidence in Rove is such that during a meeting with ]n president ] on ] ], President ] brought only Rove and then-] ]. | |||
====1978 George W. Bush congressional campaign==== | |||
Other Republican politicians who have sought Rove's advice include ], who in anticipation of a special recall election later that year met with Rove on ] ] to discuss how the actor should run for Governor of ]. | |||
Rove advised the younger Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978. | |||
==George W. Bush |
====1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign==== | ||
In 1977, Rove was the first person hired by ] for his unsuccessful ], which ended with Bush as the vice-presidential nominee. | |||
====1982 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign==== | |||
===White House Iraq Group=== | |||
In 1982, Rove returned to assisting Governor Bill Clements in his run for reelection, but was defeated by Democrat ]. | |||
====1982 Phil Gramm congressional campaign==== | |||
Rove chaired meetings of the ] (WHIG), a secretive internal White House working group established by August 2002, eight months prior to the ]. According to CNN and ''Newsweek'', WHIG was “charged with developing a strategy for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.” WHIG's existence and membership was first identified in a ''Washington Post'' article by ] and ] on ] ]; members of WHIG included George W. Bush’s chief of staff ], National Security Advisor ], Rice's deputy ], Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff ], legislative liaison ], and communication strategists ], ], and ]. Quoting one of WHIG's members without identifying him or her by name, the ''Washington Post'' explained that the task force's mission was to “educate the public” about the threat posed by Hussein and (in the reporters' words) “to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad.” Rove's "strategic communications" task force within WHIG helped write and coordinate speeches by senior Bush administration officials, emphasizing in September 2002 the theme of Iraq's purported nuclear threat. | |||
In 1982, ] was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a conservative Texas Democrat. | |||
====1984 Phil Gramm senatorial campaign==== | |||
The White House Iraq Group was “little known” until a subpoena for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by CIA leak investigator ] in January 2004, a legal move first reported in the press and acknowledged by the White House on March 5, 2004. | |||
In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, who had become a Republican in 1983, defeat Republican ] in the primary and Democrat ] in the race for U.S. Senate. | |||
====1984 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign==== | |||
===Allegations of conflict of interest=== | |||
Rove handled direct-mail for the ]-Bush campaign. | |||
====1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign==== | |||
In March ], Rove met with executives from ], successfully advocating a merger between a Dutch company and an ] company supplier. Rove owned $100,000 in Intel stock at the time. In June ], Rove met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. At the time, Rove held almost $250,000 in drug industry stocks. On ] ], Rove divested his stocks in 23 companies, which included more than $100,000 in each of ], ], ], and ]. On ] ], the White House admitted that Rove was involved in administration energy policy meetings, | |||
In 1986, Rove helped Clements become governor a second time. In a strategy memo Rove wrote for his client prior to the race, now among Clements' papers in the ] library, Rove quoted ]: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack." | |||
while at the same time holding stock in energy companies including ]. | |||
In 1986, just before a crucial debate in the campaign, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by Democrats. The police and ] investigated and discovered that the bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/04/135514.php |title=Bush's Brain |date=September 4, 2004 |author=El Bicho |publisher=blogcritics.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051129193728/http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/04/135514.php |archive-date=November 29, 2005 }}</ref> Critics, including other Republican operatives, suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_060404_roving.html |title=Roving Reporters |date=June 4, 2004 |publisher=onthemedia.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050422052224/http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_060404_roving.html |archive-date=April 22, 2005 }}</ref> | |||
===Allegations of the use of 9/11 tragedy for political gain=== | |||
====1988 Texas Supreme Court races==== | |||
], 2005, marked another controversial statement from Rove. | |||
In 1988, Rove helped ] become the first Republican elected as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Phillips had been appointed to the position in November 1987 by Clements. Phillips was re-elected in 1990, 1996 and 2002.{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} | |||
"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," said Mr. Rove at a fund-raiser in New York City for the ]. | |||
Phillips' election in 1988 was part of an aggressive grassroots campaign called "Clean Slate '88", a conservative effort that was successful in getting five of its six candidates elected. (Ordinarily there were three justices on the ballot each year, on a nine-justice court, but, because of resignations, there were six races for the Supreme Court on the ballot in November 1988.) By 1998, Republicans held all nine seats on the Court. | |||
Democrats were angered by this comment, demanding Rove's resignation or an apology. Among other responses, they pointed out that every Democratic Senator voted for military force against ] in retaliation for the ] in the United States.. | |||
====1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign==== | |||
], an organization founded in October, 2001 by families of those who died in the terrorist attack, issued a statement requesting Rove "stop trying to reap political gain in the tragic misfortune of others." | |||
In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, brought in experts to tutor him on policy, and introduced him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided not to run, and Rove backed another Republican for governor who lost in the primary. | |||
====Other 1990 Texas statewide races==== | |||
The Bush administration characterized Rove's comments as "very accurate" and stated that the calls for an apology were "somewhat puzzling", since he was "simply pointing out the different philosophies when it comes to winning the war on terrorism." | |||
In 1990, two other Rove candidates won: ], the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and ] became state treasurer. | |||
One notable aspect of the 1990 election was the charge that Rove had asked the ] (FBI) to investigate major Democratic officeholders in Texas. In his 2010 autobiography, Rove called the whole thing a "myth", saying: | |||
== Plame affair == | |||
{{blockquote|The FBI did investigate Texas officials during that span, but I had nothing to do with it. The investigation was called "Brilab" and was part of a broad anti-] probe that looked at officials in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., as well as Texas{{nbsp}}... An official for the U.S. Department of Agriculture spotted expenses claimed by ]'s shop that raised red flags{{nbsp}}... enough to indict some of Hightower's top aides; they were later found guilty and sent to prison.{{nbsp}}... The myth that I had something to do both with spurring the investigation and with airing all of this has stuck around because it is convenient for some to blame me rather than those aides who ran afoul of the law.{{sfn|Rove 2010}}}} | |||
Rove was campaign manager for ]'s 1992 campaign for ] in the ], which included ] and counties in ]. Shapiro was the top vote-getter in the Republican primary against Don Kent and former Plano mayor Jack Harvard, then defeated Kent by 1 percentage point in a hotly-contested run-off election, during which vandals defaced her campaign signs with ]s due to Shapiro's Jewish faith.<ref name="D Magazine">{{cite news |last1=Sweany |first1=Brian |title=POLITICS: Robin Hood's Worst Nightmare |url=https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2005/january/politics-robin-hoods-worst-nightmare/ |access-date=14 June 2023 |publisher=] |date=2005-01-01}}</ref> | |||
''Main article ] covers Karl Rove's role as the reported source of published information as to the identity of ], wife of Ambassador ], as a ] ] agent to ] after Wilson contradicted the George W. Bush administration's statements regarding the ].'' | |||
====1991 Richard L. Thornburgh senatorial campaign and lawsuit==== | |||
=== Origins === | |||
In 1991, ] ] resigned to run for a Senate seat in ], one made vacant by ]'s death in a helicopter crash. Rove's company worked for the campaign, but it ended with an upset loss to Democrat ]. | |||
Rover had been hired by an intermediary Murray Dickman to work for Thornburgh's campaign. Subsequently, Rove sued Thornburgh directly, alleging non-payment for services rendered. The ], worried that the suit would make it hard to recruit good candidates, urged Rove to back off. When Rove refused, the RNC hired ] to write an ] on Thornburgh's behalf. ''Karl Rove & Co. v. Thornburgh'' was heard by U.S. Federal Judge ], who had been appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991. After a trial in Austin, Rove prevailed.<ref name="new-yorker-profile-2003"/> | |||
On ] ], retired ambassador ] IV, a career diplomat who had worked under Democratic and Republican administrations, alleged that Rove leaked the identity of his wife, ], as a ] operative (timeline). The leak is a potential violation of federal law. | |||
===1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign=== | |||
Wilson, who in February 2002 investigated claims of attempted 1990s uranium ore purchases by Iraq from ], wrote an opinion piece in '']'', published ] ], suggesting that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence findings to justify war against Iraq. Wilson said that his African diplomatic experience led to his selection for the mission: He is the former ambassador to ], another uranium-producing African nation, and was once posted in the 1970s to ], Niger's capital. Wilson, who was open about the CIA's sponsorship of his trip (which he called "discreet but not secret"), wrote that he had been "informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President ]'s office had questions about a particular intelligence report" relating to the sale of ] ] from Niger (''see also ]''). Of his trip to Niger Wilson wrote, "I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." Wilson also noted that U.S. Ambassador to Niger ] "knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington." | |||
Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist ] about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief ]<ref>'']'', January 2003</ref> Novak's column suggested a motive when it described the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator ]: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove denied that Rove leaked, but Mosbacher maintained that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it."<ref>{{cite news | |||
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/06/politics/06novak.html | |||
|title=Rove and Novak, a 20-Year Friendship Born in Texas | |||
|date=August 6, 2005 | |||
|author=Bumiller, Elisabeth | |||
|work=] | |||
|page=A8 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090425150155/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/06/politics/06novak.html | |||
|archive-date=April 25, 2009 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
During testimony before the ], Rove apparently confirmed his prior involvement with Novak in the 1992 campaign leak, according to '']'' reporter ].<ref>{{cite magazine | |||
|url=http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0525nj1.htm | |||
|title=Rove-Novak Call Was Concern To Leak Investigators | |||
|date=May 25, 2006 | |||
|author=Waas, Murray | |||
|magazine=National Journal | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0525nj1.htm | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
===1993–2000=== | |||
Wilson's Op-Ed piece appeared three and a half months after the US-led ], at a time when search teams in occupied Iraq were raising questions about whether ] would ever be found. On ] ], five days following the publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece, the CIA issued a statement discrediting what he called "highly dubious" accounts of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger. In the press release, CIA Director ] said it should "never" have permitted the "16 words" relating to alleged Iraqi uranium purchases to be used in President Bush's 2003 ] address, and called it a "mistake" that the CIA allowed such a reference in the speech Bush used to take the United States to war. | |||
'''1993 Kay Bailey Hutchison senatorial campaign''' | |||
Rove helped Hutchison win a special Senate election in June 1993. Hutchison defeated Democrat ] to fill the last two years of ]'s term. Bentsen had resigned to become ] in the Clinton administration. | |||
=== Publication of the leak === | |||
'''1994 Alabama Supreme Court races''' | |||
Eight days after publication of Wilson's article, syndicated columnist ] wrote an article dismissing the importance of Wilson's trip to Niger. Novak wrote that the choice to use Wilson "was made routinely at a low level without Director]] ]'s knowledge." Novak went on to identify Plame as Wilson's wife: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him." Although Wilson wrote that he was certain his findings were circulated within the CIA and conveyed (at least orally) to the office of the Vice President, and George Tenet himself had written not only of his familiarity with the report but that it "was given a normal and wide distribution" in intelligence circles, Novak questioned the accuracy of Wilson's report and added that "it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it." | |||
In 1994, a group called the Business Council of Alabama hired Rove to help run a slate of Republican candidates for the state supreme court. No Republican had been elected to that court in more than a century. The campaign by the Republicans was unprecedented in the state, which had previously only seen low-key contests. After the election, a court battle over absentee and other ballots followed that lasted more than 11 months. It ended when a federal appeals court judge ruled that disputed absentee ballots could not be counted, and ordered the ] to certify the Republican candidate for Chief Justice, ], as the winner. An appeal to the Supreme Court by the Democratic candidate was turned down within a few days, making the ruling final. Hooper won by 262 votes. | |||
Although the Novak article called her a CIA "operative," it did not necessarily identify Valerie Plame as an "undercover" (or ] agent). However, the publication of her name and a brief account of her duties was enough to abruptly end her "undercover" status, as well as that of her ] and other agents using its cover (as well as their contacts). | |||
Another candidate, ], ran against Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice and the son-in-law of ]. The race included charges that Kennedy was mingling campaign funds with those of a ] children's foundation he was involved with. A former Rove staffer reported that some within the See camp initiated a ] that Kennedy was a ].<ref name="Karl Rove in a Corner"/> Kennedy won by less than one percentage point. | |||
Nearly a year after Wilson's editorial was published (] ]), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Report on the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessments on Iraq stated that Plame "offered up name" for the trip. Several high ranking CIA officials disputed this claim, however, and indicated that the person who made the claim was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. "In an interview with '']'', Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. 'That is bullshit. That is absolutely not the case,' Wilson told ''Time''. 'I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere . None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job.'" | |||
'''1994 John Ashcroft senatorial campaign''' | |||
=== Spreading the leak === | |||
In 1993, Karl Rove & Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by Ashcroft's successful 1994 Senate campaign.<ref>'']''</ref> Ashcroft paid Rove's company more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns. | |||
], a ''Washington Post'' columnist, has written that he was told in confidence by an (unnamed) Bush administration official on ] ], two days before Novak's column appeared, that "the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a ] by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction." Because he did not believe it to be true, Pincus did not report the story. | |||
'''1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign''' | |||
Days after Novak's initial column appeared, several other journalists, notably ] of '']'' magazine, published Plame's name citing "some" unnamed government officials as sources. In his article, titled "A War on Wilson?", Cooper, with no proof, speculated that the White House had "declared war" on Wilson for speaking out against the Bush Administration. | |||
In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat ], with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm. | |||
In the October 13 ], Wilson is reported to have received a call from ], of MSNBC's "Hardball," who told him, "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game." | |||
Rove has been accused of using the ] technique to call voters to ask such things as whether people would be "more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if knew her staff is dominated by ]s". Rove has denied having been involved in circulating these rumors about Richards during the campaign,<ref>Mark, David. ''Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning''. 2007, p. 204</ref> although many critics nonetheless identify this technique, particularly as used in this instance against Richards, as a hallmark of his career.<ref>Burbach, Roger and Tarbell, Jim. ''Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of Empire''. 2004, p. 118 | |||
NBC correspondent ] also has been mentioned in the press as having early knowledge of the Plame leak, although her and Matthews' conversations may have taken place after Novak's article was published. ], the Washington bureau chief of ], and ], a diplomatic reporter for the ''Washington Post'', have both offered testimony in an ongoing investigation. | |||
</ref><ref>Hill, Frances. ''Such Men are Dangerous: The Fanatics of 1692 and 2004''. 2004, p. 121</ref><ref>Blumenthal, Sydney. ''How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime''. 2006, p. 400</ref> | |||
'''1996 Harold See's campaign for Associate Justice, Alabama Supreme Court''' | |||
Two '']'' reporters who also confirmed and expanded upon Novak's account, ] and ], were mentioned in October 2003 in connection to an ongoing judicial inquiry. | |||
A former campaign worker charged that, at Rove's behest, he distributed flyers that anonymously attacked ], their own client. This put the opponent's campaign in an awkward position; public denials of responsibility for the scurrilous flyers would be implausible. Rove's client was elected.{{citation needed|date=July 2009}} | |||
=== CIA seeks special prosecutor from Department of Justice === | |||
'''1998 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign''' | |||
Wilson and both current and former CIA officials claimed the leak not only damaged his wife's career, but arguably endangered and ruined the ability to operate of many other CIA agents who worked abroad like Plame under ] (as "NOCs"), passing as private citizens. Plame, who worked undercover for the CIA for nearly 20 years, was identified as an ] and confirmed as a "specialist in nonconventional weapons" by ''New York Times'' reporter ] on ] ]. | |||
Rove was an adviser for Bush's 1998 reelection campaign. From July through December 1998, Bush's reelection committee paid '''Rove & Co.''' nearly $2.5 million, and also paid the Rove-owned Praxis List Company $267,000 for use of mailing lists. Rove says his work for the Bush campaign included direct mail, voter contact, phone banks, computer services, and travel expenses. Of the $2.5 million, Rove said, ''"bout 30 percent of that is postage"''. In all, Bush (primarily through Rove's efforts) raised $17.7 million, with $3.4 million unspent as of March 1999.<ref>{{cite magazine | |||
In an unsuccessful attempt to dim the controversy, Robert Novak wrote a second column on ] ], minimizing the importance of the leak, and further suggesting that Plame's relationship to Wilson could be assumed by reading his entry in '']''. The following day on CNN, Novak announced that Plame's nominal employer was ]. "There is no such firm, I'm convinced," Novak said, noting that "Ms. Valerie E. Wilson" had donated $1,000 to the Gore campaign in 1999 and had listed Brewster Jennings & Associates as her employer. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery." In fact, Brewster Jennings & Associates did exist, and proved to be an elaborately crafted CIA enterprise likely to have provided cover not only to Plame/Wilson but to other covert CIA operatives and contacts working abroad: subsequent articles in many publications | |||
|url=http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=942 | |||
suggest that BJA, nominally an oil exploration firm, was in fact a CIA front company (now defunct) spying on ] and other interests across the ]. | |||
|date=February 5, 1999 | |||
|magazine=The Texas Observer | |||
|title=Political Intelligence: Bush Goes A-Rove-ing | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041103-3.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> During the course of this campaign Rove's much-reported feud with Rick Perry began, with Perry's strategists believing Rove gave Perry bad advice in order to help Bush get a larger share of the Hispanic vote.<ref>{{cite web | |||
|url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59687.html | |||
|title=POLITICO: If Rick Perry gets in, will Karl Rove be out? | |||
|website=] | |||
|access-date=September 10, 2010 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041103-3.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
'''2000 Harold See campaign for Chief Justice''' | |||
Under certain circumstances, disclosure of the identity of a covert agent is illegal under the ] of 1982, though the language of the statute raises the issue of whether Rove is within the class of persons to whom the statute applies. | |||
For the race to succeed Perry Hooper, who was retiring as ]'s chief justice, Rove lined up support for See from a majority of the state's important Republicans.<ref name="Karl Rove in a Corner"/> | |||
In September 2003, the CIA requested that the ] investigate the matter. Rove was identified by the ''New York Times'' in connection to the Plame leak on ] ], in an article that both highlighted ] ]'s employment of Rove in three previous political campaigns and which pointed to Ashcroft's potential conflict of interest in investigating Rove. In recusing himself from the case two months later, Ashcroft named Deputy Attorney General James Comey, to be "acting attorney general" for the case; on 30 December 2003, Comey named ], U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, () to pursue an investigation into the leak, working initially from White House telephone records turned over to the ] in October 2003. | |||
===2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign and the sale of Karl Rove & Co.=== | |||
Both ] ] and ] ] have been interviewed by Fitzgerald, although neither under oath. Colleagues of Rove who have testified before the grand jury (quietly convened in Washington, D.C. by January 2004) include current ] ], former White House Press Secretary ], Deputy Press Secretary ], former White House communications aide ], former advisor to the Vice President ], and former ] ]. On ] ], citing "close followers of the case," ''The Washington Post'' reported that the length of the investigation, and the particular importance paid to the testimony of reporters, suggested that the counsel's role had expanded to include investigation of perjury charges against witnesses. Other observers have suggested that the testimony of journalists was needed to show a pattern of intent by the leaker or leakers. | |||
{{See also|George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign}} | |||
In early 1999, Rove sold his 20-year-old direct-mail business, '''Karl Rove & Co.''', which provided campaign services to candidates, along with '''Praxis List Company''' (in whole or part) to Ted Delisi and Todd Olsen, two young political operatives who had worked on campaigns of some other Rove candidates. Rove helped finance the sale of the company, which had 11 employees. Selling '''Karl Rove & Co.''' was a condition that ] had insisted on before Rove took the job of chief strategist for Bush's presidential bid.<ref name=nerdbehind/> | |||
During the Republican primary, Rove was accused of spreading false rumors that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Rove denies the accusation.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|title=Karl Rove 'In The Fight' Again With New Memoir|url=https://www.npr.org/2010/03/17/124597241/karl-rove-in-the-fight-again-with-new-memoir|website=NPR.org|language=en|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref> | |||
=== Supreme Court decision, testimony of journalists === | |||
==George W. Bush administration== | |||
''New York Times'' investigative reporter ], who (according to a subpoena) met with an unnamed White House official on ] ], two days after Wilson's editorial was published, never wrote or reported a story on the Wilson/Plame matter, but nevertheless refused (with Cooper) to answer questions before a grand jury in 2004 pertaining to sources. Both reporters were held in contempt of court. On ] ], after the ] refused to rule on the reporters' request for appeal, ''Time'' magazine said it would surrender to Fitzgerald e-mail records and notes taken by Cooper. Miller and Cooper faced potential jail terms for failure to cooperate with the independent counsel's investigations. Columnist Robert Novak, who later admitted that the CIA attempted to dissuade him from revealing Plame's name in print, "appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor" (according to ''Newsweek''). | |||
] | |||
When George W. Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001, Rove accepted an appointment as Senior Advisor. He was later given the title Deputy Chief of Staff to the President after the successful 2004 presidential election. In a November 2004 speech, Bush publicly thanked Rove, calling him "the architect" of his victory over ] in the ].<ref>{{cite web | |||
|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041103-3.html | |||
|title=President Bush Thanks Americans in Wednesday Acceptance Speech | |||
|publisher=White House press release | |||
|date=November 3, 2004 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041103-3.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> In April 2006, Rove was reassigned from his policy development role to one focusing on strategic and tactical planning in anticipation of the November 2006 congressional elections.<ref>{{Cite news|url= https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-19-whitehouseshakeup_x.htm|work=]|publisher=Gannett|title=White House 'transition' continues|author=David Jackson and ]|date=April 20, 2006|access-date=August 12, 2009}}</ref> | |||
=== Iraq War === | |||
Miller was jailed on ] ], and is expected to remain there until October 2005. She is being held in ] in the same facility as ]. | |||
Rove played a leading role in the lead-up to the Iraq War.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Iraq War hawks are back|url=https://www.vox.com/2020/1/7/21051868/iraq-war-fleischer-rove-bush-administration-iran-trump|last=Coaston|first=Jane|date=2020-01-07|website=]|language=en|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Karl Rove's Iraq War Role|url=https://www.newsweek.com/karl-roves-iraq-war-role-98969|last=Isikoff|first=Michael|date=2007|website=]|language=en|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref> In 2002 and 2003, Rove chaired meetings of the ] (WHIG), an internal White House ] established in August 2002, eight months prior to the ]. WHIG was charged with developing a strategy "for publicizing the White House's assertion that ] posed a threat to the United States.".<ref name="leakprobe">{{cite news|author=Kelli Arena|date=March 6, 2004|title=Air Force One records subpoenaed in CIA leak probe|publisher=]|url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/03/05/cia.leak.probe/|access-date=2006-12-14}}</ref> The group pushed narratives within the administration about the Hussein regime possessing weapons of mass destruction (the regime had no active WMD program) and its ties to international terrorism (the Hussein regime had no operational relationship with al-Qaeda).<ref name=":1" /> Members of WHIG included Bush's ] ], ] ], her deputy ], Vice President ]'s Chief of Staff ], legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio, and communication strategists ], ], and James R. Wilkinson. | |||
Quoting one unnamed WHIG member, ''The Washington Post'' explained that the task force's mission was to "educate the public" about the threat posed by Saddam and (in the reporters' words) ''" set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with ]"''. Rove's "strategic communications" task force within WHIG helped write and coordinate speeches by senior Bush administration officials, emphasizing Iraq's purported nuclear threat.<ref>{{cite news|author=Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus|date=2001-08-10|title=Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence|newspaper=]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A39500-2003Aug9}}</ref> The White House Iraq Group was "little known" until a ] for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by ] investigator ] in January 2004.<ref name="leakprobe" /><ref>{{cite news|author=Tom Hamburger and Sonni Efron|date=August 26, 2005|title=The CIA leak: Infighting, grudges, justifying a war|publisher=]|url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002452876_leak26.html|access-date=2006-12-14}}</ref> | |||
=== Allegations of illegal activities === | |||
In 2015, Rove defended the decision to invade Iraq, telling an Iraq War veteran that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States.<ref>{{Cite web|title=CT Soldier Demands Apology From Karl Rove; Rove Says No Apology Needed For Iraq War|url=https://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-ct-soldier-demands-apology-from-karl-rove-rove-says-no-apology-needed-for-iraq-war-20150402-story.html|last=McNerney|first=Pem|website=courant.com|date=3 April 2015 |access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Karl Rove Won't Apologize To Veteran For The Iraq War|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/karl-rove-iraq-veteran_n_7000158|last=Tani|first=Maxwell|date=2015-04-03|website=]|language=en|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref> In 2010, Rove said his biggest mistake regarding the Iraq War was to not push back on the narrative that the Bush administration lied to lead the U.S. into the Iraq War.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Rove's Biggest Mistake?|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/07/roves-biggest-mistake/184701/|last=Dish|first=The Daily|date=2010-07-16|website=]|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=Rove: Bush didn't 'lie us into war' - CNN.com|url=https://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/06/karl.rove.book/index.html|website=www.cnn.com|language=en|access-date=2022-03-27}}</ref> | |||
On ] ] ], senior ] political analyst, on the ] stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that '']'''s going to do with the grand jury." The document dump has since occurred. | |||
=== Valerie Plame affair === | |||
On ] ], Karl Rove's lawyer, ], said that his client spoke to ''Time'' reporter Matt Cooper "three or four days" before Plame's identity was first revealed in print by commentator ]. (Cooper's article in ''Time'', citing unnamed and anonymous "government officials," confirmed Plame to be a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Cooper's article appeared three days after Novak's column was published.) Rove's lawyer, however, asserted that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." This second statement has since been called into question by an e-mail, written three days before Novak's column, in which Cooper indicated that Rove had told him Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. If Rove were aware that this was classified information at the time then both disclaimers by his lawyer would be untrue. Furthermore, Luskin said that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" (three times, according to the ''Los Angeles Times'' of ] ] in addition to two interviews by the FBI) and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. Luskin stated that Rove "has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else." Rove's lawyer declined to share with ''Newsweek'' reporter ] the nature or contents of his client's conversations with Cooper. | |||
On August 29, 2003, retired ambassador ] claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, ], as a ] (CIA) employee,<ref name="timeline">{{cite news|author=New York Times|date=July 21, 2005|title=Timeline of Plame affair|work=]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/07/21/politics/20050722leak_graphic.html}}</ref> in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in '']'' in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of the ] among the justifications for the ] enumerated in Bush's 2003 ]. | |||
In late August 2006, it became known that ] was responsible for the leak. The investigation led to felony charges being filed against ] for ] and ]. Eventually, Libby was found guilty by a jury.<ref name="WheresRove">{{cite news|last=Sniffen|first=Michael|author2=Matt Apuzzo|date=2007-03-06|title=Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial|publisher=]|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070306/cia-leak-trial?|access-date=2007-03-09}}</ref> | |||
On ] ], Cooper agreed to testify, thus avoiding being held in ] and sent to jail. Cooper said "I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions for not testifying," but told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance at court he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" an indication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep his source's identity secret. For some observers this called into question the allegations against Rove, who had signed a waiver months before permitting reporters to testify about their conversations with him (see above paragraph). | |||
On June 13, 2006, prosecutors said they would not charge Rove with any wrongdoing.<ref name="noindict">{{cite news|author=CNN|date=June 13, 2006|title=Lawyer: Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case|url=http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/13/rove.cia/}}</ref> Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated previously that ''"I can tell you that the substantial bulk of the work of this investigation is concluded."'' | |||
Cooper, however, stated in court that he did not previously accept a general waiver to journalists signed by his source (whom he did not identify by name), because he had made a personal pledge of confidentiality to his source. The 'dramatic change' which allowed Cooper to testify was later revealed to be a phone conversation between lawyers for Cooper and his source confirming that the waiver signed two years earlier included conversations with Cooper. Citing a "person who has been officially briefed on the case," ''The New York Times'' identified Rove as the individual in question, a fact later confirmed by Rove's own lawyer. According to one of Cooper's lawyers, Cooper has previously testified in August 2004 before the grand jury regarding conversations with ], chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, after having received Libby's specific permission to testify. | |||
On July 13, 2006, Plame sued Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others, accusing them of conspiring to destroy her career.<ref name="lawsuit">{{cite news|agency=]|date=July 13, 2006|title=Plame sues White House figures over CIA leak|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13845613}}</ref> | |||
Attorney and ] whistleblower ] observed that even if Rove didn't technically break the specific law barring the | |||
exposure of a covert agent, the administration has almost certainly run afoul of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641. | |||
On May 2, 2007, the ] issued a subpoena to Attorney General Gonzales compelling the Department of Justice to produce all email from Rove regarding the ], no matter what email account Rove may have used, with a deadline of May 15, 2007, for compliance. The subpoena also demanded relevant email previously produced in the ] controversy and the investigation regarding the ].<ref>{{cite web |last=Lahey |first=Patrick |date=May 2, 2007 |title=Rove Email Subpoena |url=http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/doj/sjc50207rovesmailsubpoena.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=May 8, 2007 |publisher=United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (via 'Findlaw') |archive-date=January 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170106064459/http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/doj/sjc50207rovesmailsubpoena.pdf }}</ref> On August 31, 2007, Karl Rove resigned without responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena, saying, "I just think it's time to leave."<ref>{{cite news|date=August 13, 2007|title=Bush Adviser Karl Rove to Resign at End of Month|publisher=]|url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/bush-adviser-karl-rove-to-resign-at-end-of-month|url-status=live|access-date=April 17, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C293051%2C00.html|archive-date=February 25, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Peter Baker and Michael A. Fletcher|date=August 14, 2007|title=Rove to Leave White House Post|newspaper=]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/13/AR2007081300180.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Baker|first1=Peter|last2=Fletcher|first2=Michael A.|date=August 14, 2007|title=Rove to Leave White House Post|newspaper=]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/13/AR2007081300180.html|access-date=September 1, 2012}}</ref> | |||
Rove's White House ], governed by ], apparently required both a criminal background check as well as training in the protection of ]. To receive security clearance, Rove agreed, in writing (] Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement), not to divulge or confirm classified information to individuals (including reporters) not authorized to have it. According to Rove's attorney's public statements, Rove has admitted to violating SF-312 agreement.. | |||
Former Bush press secretary ] claims in his book '']'', published in the spring of 2008 by Public Affairs Books, that the statements he made in 2003 about Rove's lack of involvement in the ] were untrue, and that he had been encouraged to repeat such untruths. His book has been widely disputed, however, with many key members of McClellan's own staff telling a completely different story. Former CNN commentator Robert Novak has questioned if McClelland wrote the book himself. It was also revealed that the publisher was seeking a negative book to increase sales.<ref>{{cite news|last=Novak|first=Robert D.|date=June 2, 2008|title=Parroting the Democrats|newspaper=]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/01/AR2008060101915.html|access-date=May 7, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=2008-05-28|title=Ex-spokesman attacks Bush over Iraq|work=AlJazeera.net|publisher=]|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3FDDB097-FE8B-4DDE-884D-57345F734676.htm|access-date=2008-05-30}}</ref> | |||
====Rove's role as ''Time'' leaker revealed ==== | |||
=== 2006 congressional elections and beyond === | |||
On ], ], White House Press Secretary ] said, regarding any suggested involvement of Rove with the leak, that "he President knows" that it was not true. | |||
On October 24, 2006, two weeks before the ], in an interview with ]'s ], Rove insisted that his insider polling data forecast Republican retention of both houses.<ref>{{cite web|title=''All Things Considered'' (transcript)|url=https://www.npr.org/about/press/061024_rove.html|date=2006-10-24|publisher=]|access-date=2006-11-18}}</ref> In the election the ] won both houses of Congress. The ''White House Bulletin'', published by Bulletin News, cited rumors of Rove's impending departure from the White House staff: ''"'Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along', said a key Bush advisor."''<ref>{{cite web|title=REPORT: Karl Rove May Be Leaving The White House In 'Weeks, Not Months'|url=http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/17/rove-departure/|date=2006-11-17|publisher=Bulletin News cited on the blog of the ]|access-date=2006-11-18}}</ref> However, while allowing that many Republican members of Congress are "resentful of the way he and the White House conducted the losing campaign", '']'' also stated that, ''"White House officials say President Bush has every intention of keeping Mr. Rove on through the rest of his term."''<ref name="NYT_Tough_Road">{{cite news|author=Jim Rutenberg and ]|date=2006-11-19|title=A Tough Road Ahead for Rove|newspaper=]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19rove.html|access-date=2006-11-19}}</ref> | |||
:''And I said it is simply not true . So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He 's aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it.'' | |||
During the ], Rove told ]: | |||
:''I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name. This is at the Justice Department. I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation.'' | |||
In Rove's analysis, 10 of the 28 House seats Republicans lost were sacrificed because of various scandals. Another six, he said, were lost because incumbents did not recognize and react quickly enough to the threat. Rove argued that, without corruption and complacency, the Democrats would have gained around a dozen seats and Republicans could have kept narrow control of the House regardless of Bush's troubles and the war.<ref>{{cite news|author=Peter Baker|date=November 12, 2006|title=Rove Remains Steadfast in the Face of Criticism|newspaper=]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/11/AR2006111101103.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|author=Mike Allen|date=November 10, 2006|title=The Architect Speaks|url=http://time-blog.com/allen_report/2006/11/the_architect_speaks.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061111201007/http://time-blog.com/allen_report/2006/11/the_architect_speaks.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 11, 2006|magazine=Time}}</ref> | |||
On ] ], ''Newsweek'' posted a story from its forthcoming July 18 print edition which quoted one of the e-mails written by ''Time'' reporter Matt Cooper in the days following the publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece. Writing to ''Time'' bureau chief ] on ] ], three days before Novak's column was published, Cooper recounted a two-minute conversation with Karl Rove "on ]" in which Rove said that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee: "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." In a ''Time'' article released ] ], Cooper says Rove ended his conversation by saying "I've already said too much." If true, this could indicate that Rove identified Wilson's wife as a CIA employee prior to Novak's column being published. Some believe that statements by Rove claiming he did not reveal her name would still be strictly accurate if he mentioned her only as 'Wilson's wife', although this distinction would likely have no bearing on the alleged illegality of the disclosure. The White House repeatedly denied that Rove had any involvement in the leaks. Whether Rove's statement to Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in fact violated any laws has not been resolved. | |||
=== Torture === | |||
In addition, Rove told Cooper that CIA Director George Tenet did not authorize Wilson's trip to Niger, and that "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an suspect but so is the report" which Wilson made upon his return from Africa. Rove "implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro Niger," and in an apparent effort to discourage Cooper from taking the former ambassador's assertions seriously, gave Cooper a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Cooper recommended that his bureau chief assign a reporter to contact the CIA for further confirmation, and indicated that the tip should not be sourced to Rove or even to the White House. The ''Washington Post'' reported that the CIA, contradicting Rove, "maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999", though she is reported to have suggested him for the 1999 trip. | |||
Rove defended the Bush administration's use of ], a form of torture.<ref name=":3" /> | |||
=== E-mail scandal === | |||
Cooper testified before a grand jury on ] ], confirming that Rove was the source who told him Wilson's wife was an employee of the CIA. In the ] ] ''Time'' magazine article detailing his grand jury testimony, Cooper wrote that Rove never used Plame's name nor indicated that she had covert status, although Rove did apparently convey that certain information relating to her was classified: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me." Cooper also explained to the grand jury that the "double super secret background" under which Rove spoke to him was not an official White House or ''Time'' magazine security designation, but an allusion to the 1978 film '']'', in which a college fraternity is placed under "double secret probation." | |||
{{Main|Bush White House e-mail controversy}} | |||
Due to investigations into White House staffers' e-mail communication related to the ] of ], it was discovered that many White House staff members, including Rove, had exchanged documents using ] e‑mail ] such as {{code|gwb43.com}}<ref>{{cite news |first=Steve |last=Holland |date=13 April 2007 |title=Rove in new controversy over e‑mails |agency=] |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1319467820070413 }}</ref> and {{code|georgewbush.com}}<ref>{{cite report |title=Rove exhibits part 1 |publisher=] ] |pages=50, 55, 113, etc. |url=http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/RExhibits.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=2009-08-11 |df=dmy-all |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090825125348/http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/RExhibits.pdf |archive-date=2009-08-25 }}</ref> or personal e‑mail accounts with third party providers such as ];<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Paul |last=Bedard |date=27 March 2007 |title=E‑mail controversy prompts many aides to stop use |magazine=] }}</ref> evasion of U.S. government record-keeping was determined to be a violation of the ]. Over 500 of Rove's e‑mails were mistakenly sent to a parody website, who forwarded them to an ].<ref>{{cite news |first=Greg |last=Palast |date=24 May 2007 |title=Karl Rove emails mistakenly sent to reporter |website=10zenmonkeys.com |url=http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/05/24/justice-department-scandal-greg-palast/ }}</ref> | |||
=== Congressional subpoenas === | |||
On ] ] journalist Murray Waas reported that Justice Department and FBI officials had recommended appointing a special prosecutor to the case because they felt that Rove had not been truthful in early interviews, withholding from FBI investigators his conversation with Cooper about Plame and maintaining that he had first learned of Plame's CIA identity from a journalist whose name Rove could not recall. In addition, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, from whose prior campaigns Rove had been paid $746,000 in consulting fees, had been briefed on the contents of at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI - raising concerns of a conflict of interest with the not-yet-recused Attorney General. | |||
On May 22, 2008, Rove was ]ed by ] Chairman ] to testify on the politicization of the ]. But on July 10, Rove refused to obey the congressional subpoena, citing ] as his reason.<ref>{{cite news|last=Evans|first=Ben|date=July 10, 2008|title=Rove ignores subpoena, refuses to testify on Hill|newspaper=]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Johnson|first= Carrie|date=May 23, 2008|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203563.html|title=House Panel Subpoenas Rove Over Role in Justice Dept. Actions|newspaper=]}}</ref> | |||
On February 23, 2009, Rove was required by congressional subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee concerning his knowledge of the controversy over the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys, and the alleged political prosecution of former Alabama Governor ], but did not appear on that date. He and former ] ] later agreed to testify under oath before Congress about these matters.<ref>{{cite news | |||
====Rove email==== | |||
|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/04/karl-rove-harriet-miers-t_n_171961.html | |||
|title=Karl Rove, Harriet Miers To Testify Before House Judiciary Committee | |||
|date=March 4, 2009 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/04/karl-rove-harriet-miers-t_n_171961.html | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|work=] | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
On July 7 and July 30, 2009, Rove testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding questions about the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys under the Bush administration. Rove was also questioned regarding the federal prosecution of former Alabama Governor ], who was convicted of fraud. The Committee concluded that Rove had played a significant role in the Attorney firings.{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}} | |||
In an email sent by Rove to top White House security official ] immediately after his discussion with Matt Cooper (obtained by the ] and published on ] ]), Rove claimed that he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations Wilson was making about faulty Iraq intelligence. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming," Rove wrote to Hadley. "When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this." Rove made no mention to Hadley in the e-mail of having leaked Plame's CIA identity, nor of having revealed classified information to a reporter, nor of having told the reporter that certain sensitive information would soon be declassified. Although Rove wrote to Hadley (and perhaps testified) that the initial subject of his conversation with Cooper was welfare reform and that Cooper turned the conversation to Wilson and the Niger mission, many months later Cooper disputed this suggestion in his grand jury testimony and subsequent statements: "I can't find any record of talking about with him on July 11 , and I don't recall doing so," Cooper said. | |||
==Activities after leaving the White House== | |||
=== White House/Republican reaction === | |||
{{Conservatism US|activists}} | |||
===Activities in 2008=== | |||
From the beginning, the White House dismissed the allegation that Rove deliberately disclosed classified information as "totally ridiculous" and "simply not true." The White House continued to publicly assert that no Bush administration officials were involved in the leak until after the Supreme Court decision of 2005, the subsequent release of internal ] email, and ''Time'' reporter ]'s decision to testify to the grand jury. The White House subsequently adopted "we do not comment on ongoing investigations" as their official position. Other Republicans have been more public on what they consider an unfair smearing of Karl Rove. | |||
Shortly after leaving the White House, Rove was hired to write about the ] for '']''.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/11/15/karl_roves_new_gig.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517055150/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/11/15/karl_roves_new_gig.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 17, 2008|title=Karl Rove's New Gig|newspaper=]|date=November 15, 2007|access-date=September 1, 2012}}</ref> He was also later hired as a contributor for '']'' and a political analyst for ]. Rove was an informal advisor to 2008 Republican presidential candidate ], and donated $2,300 to his campaign.<ref>{{cite news | |||
|url=http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=8B58A658-3048-5C12-006F9CBBFFC54DE3 | |||
|author=David Paul Kuhn | |||
|title=Mehlman, Rove boost McCain campaign | |||
|publisher=] | |||
|date=March 8, 2008 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=8B58A658-3048-5C12-006F9CBBFFC54DE3 | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
|author-link=David Paul Kuhn | |||
}}</ref> His memoir, ''Courage and Consequence'', was published in March 2010.{{sfn|Rove 2010}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/16/AR2008031602748_pf.html |title=Howard Kurtz – Rove on Fox: It's Fair to Say He's Mellowed |newspaper=] |date=2008-03-16 |access-date=2015-06-21}}</ref> One advance reviewer, ] of '']'', said of the book that Rove "revives claims discredited long ago".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Milbank|first=Dana|author-link=Dana Milbank|title=Karl Rove sets the record straight – sort of|newspaper=]|date= March 7, 2010|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030502872.html?sid=ST2010030301920&sub=AR| access-date=March 8, 2010}}</ref> The controversial book inspired a ] rock and roll compilation of a similar name, ],<ref>{{cite web|title=karlrovebook.net|url=http://www.karlrovebook.net |access-date=March 3, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308064106/http://www.karlrovebook.net/ |archive-date=March 8, 2010 }}</ref> that was released a week before the memoir. | |||
On March 9, 2008, Rove appeared at the ] as a paid speaker to a crowd of approximately 1,000. He was met with hostility and two students were removed by police after attempting a ] for alleged crimes committed during his time with the ]. Near the end of the speech, a member of the audience asked, "Can we have our $40,000 back?" Rove replied, "No, you can't."<ref>{{Cite news | |||
====Denials: July 2003 — July 11, 2005==== | |||
|title=Rove taunted at University of Iowa | |||
|author=Mooney, Alexander | |||
|date=March 10, 2008 | |||
|publisher=] | |||
|url=http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/10/rove-taunted-at-university-of-iowa/ | |||
|access-date=March 11, 2008 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/10/rove-taunted-at-university-of-iowa/ | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
On June 24, 2008, Rove said of Democratic presidential nominee ], "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone."<ref>{{cite news | |||
On ], ], Mr. Bush said "if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." He followed that remark with "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." | |||
|first=Jason | |||
|last=Carroll | |||
|url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/26/obama.rove/ | |||
|title=Rove, critics try to pin 'arrogant' label on Obama | |||
|publisher=] | |||
|date=June 26, 2008 | |||
|access-date=September 1, 2012 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/26/obama.rove/ | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
In July 2008, Rove, who was hired by Fox News to provide analysis for the network's November 2008 election coverage, defended his role on the news team to the Television Critics Association.<ref name="re-tools">{{cite web|last=Hibberd|first=James|url= http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/07/fox-news-defend.html|title=Fox News defends hiring Karl Rove|publisher=The Live Feed}}</ref> | |||
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan explained that "appropriate action" meant "f anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration," adding that Karl Rove had specifically assured McClellan that he was not involved, and that "the President expects his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct and the highest ethics." | |||
Rove agreed to debate one-time presidential candidate and former Senator ] on September 26, 2008, at the ].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/384676.html|title=Edwards, Rove to face off in UB debate|date=July 4, 2008|newspaper=]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704230505/http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/384676.html|archive-date=July 4, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> However, Edwards dropped out and was replaced by ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.buffalo.edu/news/9620|title=Wesley Clark to Replace John Edwards in Debate with Rove|date=September 5, 2008|publisher=]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.buffalo.edu/news/9620|archive-date=February 25, 2008|url-status=dead|access-date=September 1, 2012}}</ref> | |||
Mr. Bush, who repeatedly denied knowing the identity of the leaker, called the leak a "criminal action" for the first time on ] ], stating "f anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker." Speaking to a crowd of journalists the following day, Bush said "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers." On ] ], White House spokesman ] said that "no one has more of an interest in getting to the bottom of this than the White House does, than the President does." | |||
On ] ], after the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor two other officials whom he had personally questioned – ], a national security aide, and ], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – were involved. | |||
===Since 2009=== | |||
On ] ], eight months after the formal outside investigation was begun and five months after the appointment of an Independent Counsel, President Bush was asked by a reporter, "Given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, suggesting that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leak the agent's name? ... And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?" The President responded, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts." | |||
In September 2009, Rove was inducted into the ]. The induction became a major dispute as political views clashed over the announcement. Governor ] was scheduled to introduce Rove during the SAHF banquet but did not attend. At that time, Rove was being investigated by Democrats in Congress for his role in the 2006 dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.<ref>{{cite news|title=Rove Hall induction subject of dispute|url=http://legacy.wday.com/event/article/id/24449/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160125080438/http://legacy.wday.com/event/article/id/24449/|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 25, 2016|access-date=January 19, 2016|agency=]|publisher=WDAY News|date=September 3, 2009}}</ref> | |||
In 2010, with former RNC chair ], Rove helped found ], a Republican ] raising money for the 2012 election effort.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sBr2AgAAQBAJ&q=%22American%20Crossroads%22%20%22Karl%20Rove%22%20%22Ed%20Gillespie%22&pg=PA89 |title=Dark Money, Super PACs, and the 2012 Election|last1=Smith|first1=Melissa M.|last2=Powell|first2=Larry|date=2014-02-27|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=9780739185421|pages=89|language=en}}</ref> Rove serves as an informal adviser for this ].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/20100405-tea-party-poll.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110630144631/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/20100405-tea-party-poll.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 30, 2011|title=Republicans plan $50 million independent effort in 2010|last=Cillizza|first=Chris|date=April 5, 2010|newspaper=]}}</ref> | |||
===='If Someone Committed a Crime': July 11, 2005 onward==== | |||
In a profile which appeared in the December 15, 2011 issue of ''The New Republic'', Rove, with his hands-on involvement with American Crossroads, was described as one of the shrewdest navigators of the political climate after the ] which exempted political broadcasts funded by corporations and unions from campaign finance limits. "Rove had no role in creating this new legal environment... but if Rove and his allies did not invent it, they certainly were adroit at exploiting it."<ref>{{cite news|last=Shapiro|first=Walter|title=Organization Man: Karl Rove and the Rise of the SuperPAC|url= http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/97760/karl-rove-crossroads-superpac-2012?passthru=NDliOWE3MDI1YzkzYThiOWMxNThmZmM1NmEyMjY1MGY|magazine=The New Republic |date=November 23, 2011|access-date=December 2, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926205525/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/magazine/97760/karl-rove-crossroads-superpac-2012?passthru=NDliOWE3MDI1YzkzYThiOWMxNThmZmM1NmEyMjY1MGY |archive-date=September 26, 2013 }}</ref> | |||
On ] ], White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who had since become a grand jury witness himself, refused at a press conference to answer dozens of questions, repeatedly stating that the Bush Administration had made a decision not to comment on an "ongoing criminal investigation" involving White House staff. McClellan declined to answer whether Rove had committed a crime. McClellan also declined to repeat prior categorical denials of Rove's involvement in the leak, nor would he state whether Bush would honor his prior promise to fire individuals involved in the leak. Although Democratic critics called for Rove's dismissal, or at the very least immediate suspension of Rove's security clearances and access to meetings in which classified material was under discussion, Rove remained working in the White House. | |||
Following ]'s comments regarding "]" and the notion that ], Rove joked about murdering the Missouri Senate candidate, saying "We should sink Todd Akin. If he's found mysteriously murdered, don't look for my whereabouts!"<ref>{{cite news|last=Kolhatkar |first=Sheelah |title=Exclusive: Inside Karl Rove's Billionaire Fundraiser |url=http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-31/exclusive-inside-karl-roves-billionaire-fundraiser |newspaper=Bloomberg Businessweek |date=August 31, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-31/exclusive-inside-karl-roves-billionaire-fundraiser |archive-date=February 25, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | |||
Neither Rove nor the President offered immediate public comment on the unfolding scandal. Rove was vociferously defended by Republican Party Chairman ] and by many conservative news outlets and commentators, some of whom followed cues laid out in a "talking points" memo, circulated among Republicans on Capitol Hill, which questioned Joseph Wilson's credibility. Among others, ], conservative ''New York Times'' editorialist and ] commentator, attacked Wilson on ] ] by falsely alleging that Wilson had claimed Cheney sent him on the Niger mission, and that in speaking to Cooper, Rove was merely correcting a misconception about the Vice President's possible involvement. In an even more extreme example of partisanship, the Editorial Board of ''The Wall Street Journal'' praised Rove on ] ] for leaking Plame's identity, referring to him as a "whistleblower." Fox News's ] said that even if Rove is not being truthful, he deserves a medal for leaking Plame's CIA identity because Joseph Wilson opposed the war and "Valerie Plame should have been outed by somebody." | |||
|last=Kroll | |||
|first=Andy | |||
|title=Karl Rove Jokes About Murdering Rep. Todd Akin | |||
|url=https://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/karl-rove-crossroads-todd-akin-murder | |||
|newspaper=] | |||
|date=August 31, 2012 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/https://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/karl-rove-crossroads-todd-akin-murder | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> After multiple news outlets picked up on the story, Rove apologized for the remark.<ref>{{cite news|last=Killough|first=Ashley|title=TRENDING: Akin accepts apology from Rove over murder comment|url= http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/31/reporter-goes-inside-karl-rove-billionaire-fund-raiser/|newspaper=]|date=August 31, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120902011159/http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/31/reporter-goes-inside-karl-rove-billionaire-fund-raiser/ | |||
|archive-date=September 2, 2012 }}</ref> Rove's ] organization had previously pulled its television advertising from Missouri in the wake of the comments.<ref>{{cite news|last=Zornick |first=George|title=Akin Fiasco Gets Rove to Admit, Again, Why Crossroads Exists |url=http://www.thenation.com/blog/169485/akin-fiasco-gets-rove-admit-again-why-crossroads-exists#|newspaper=The Nation|date=August 21, 2012}}</ref> | |||
On November 6, 2012, Rove protested Fox News' call of the 2012 presidential election for Obama, prompting host ] to ask him, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better? Or is this real?"<ref>{{cite magazine | |||
After ignoring reporters' questions for more than a week, on ] ] Mr. Bush said "f someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." | |||
|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/109941/megyn-kelly-can-save-fox-news | |||
|author=Noreen Malone | |||
|title=Megyn Kelly Can Save Fox News | |||
|magazine=] | |||
|date=November 9, 2012 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/109941/megyn-kelly-can-save-fox-news | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.cc.com/video-clips/bxtuzh/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-post-democalypse-2012---america-takes-a-shower---karl-rove-s-math|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150919105226/http://www.cc.com/video-clips/bxtuzh/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-post-democalypse-2012---america-takes-a-shower---karl-rove-s-math|url-status= dead|archive-date= September 19, 2015|title=Post Democalypse 2012 America Takes a Shower – Karl Rove's Math|publisher=]|date=November 7, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | |||
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-romney-is-president.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB | |||
|author=Maureen Dowd | |||
|title=Romney Is President | |||
|newspaper=International ] | |||
|date=November 10, 2012 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-romney-is-president.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> | |||
In 2013 Rove and the PAC American Crossroads created the ] for the purpose of supporting electable conservative candidates.<ref name=NYT02613>{{cite news | |||
Critics of Bush consider this to be an expansion of the criteria, i.e., that Mr. Bush now reserves the right to fire only in the event of an actual ''conviction'', which clearly requires a higher standard of proof and would in any case take much longer. Supporters believe that this is consistent with the position President Bush has taken from the very beginning. | |||
|title=New Rove Effort Has G.O.P. Aflame | |||
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/politics/new-rove-effort-has-gop-aflame.html?_r=0 | |||
|access-date=February 7, 2013 | |||
|newspaper=] | |||
|date=February 6, 2013 | |||
|author=Jeff Zeleny | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/politics/new-rove-effort-has-gop-aflame.html?_r=0 | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 | |||
|url-status=dead | |||
}}</ref> These efforts have attracted criticism, and even personal attacks, from elements within the ].<ref>{{cite news|title=Tea Party group apologizes to Rove for Nazi photo |url=http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/19/tea-party-group-apologizes-to-rove-for-nazi-photo/comment-page-1/ |publisher=] |date=February 19, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/19/tea-party-group-apologizes-to-rove-for-nazi-photo/comment-page-1/ |archive-date=February 25, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> | |||
Rove's history, ''The Triumph of ]: Why the ] Still Matters'', was published in 2015.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters |first=Carl|last=Rove |place=New York |publisher=] |year=2015 |isbn=9781476752952}}</ref> | |||
Others counter this view by relying on Bush's one previous mention of illegality, his September 30, 2003 remarks, to suggest that Bush has never meant anything ''other'' than that ''only'' a criminal conviction would prevent someone from working in the White House, though it seems exceedingly unlikely that any presidential administration would continue to employ someone while they were in prison. | |||
In 2017, Rove's ] ] group ''One Nation'' nonprofit raised nearly $17 million, according to IRS tax filings released in November 2018.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/karl-rove-crossroads-gps-is-dead-long-live-dark-money-operation/|title=Crossroads GPS is dead long live his multi-million dollar dark money group| publisher=]|date=16 November 2018}}</ref> | |||
=== Reactions of members of Congress === | |||
Rove has lobbied on behalf of ], a communications technology business.<ref>{{Cite magazine|title=A Pitch for a Nationwide 5G Network Tailor-Made for Trump's 2020 Campaign|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/karl-rove-and-a-pitch-for-a-nationwide-5g-network-tailored-to-trumps-2020-campaign|last=Halpern|first=Sue|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Karl Rove jumps into wireless battle that is dividing Trump world|url=https://politi.co/2FGfKEk|last1=Mcgill|first1=Margaret Harding|last2=Hendel|first2=John|website=]|date=28 March 2019 |language=en|access-date=2020-05-18}}</ref> | |||
Ninety-one members of Congress from the Democratic Party a on July 15, 2005 calling for Rove to explain his role in the Plame affair, or to resign. Thirteen members of the House Judiciary Committee, all Democrats, have called for hearings on the matter. | |||
In December 2019, Rove predicted that the ] would result in a ]; in December 2020, after ] was nominated at the ] with a clear majority of delegates, '']'' named Rove's prediction one of "the most audacious, confident and spectacularly incorrect prognostications about the year".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/29/worst-predictions-about-2020-451444|title=The Worst Predictions of 2020|date=December 29, 2020|access-date=December 30, 2020|work=]|first=Zack|last=Stanton}}</ref> | |||
A ] has been offered by Rush Holt (D-NJ) and John Conyers (D-MI), requesting that the Bush Administration release all documents concerning the exposure of Plame's CIA identity. | |||
Rove was an advisor to ].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The mastermind of George W. Bush's White House victories is advising Trump's 2020 campaign, focusing on swing-state battlegrounds and Republican voter outreach|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/karl-rove-helping-trump-campaign-2020-5|last=LoBianco|first=Tom|website=]|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref> In May 2020, Rove accused former president Obama of engaging in a "political drive by shooting" after Obama gave a ] to ] where he criticized the ].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Budryk|first=Zack|date=2020-05-18|title=Karl Rove: Obama's commencement speech 'a political drive-by shooting'|url=https://thehill.com/homenews/media/498295-karl-rove-calls-barack-obamas-hbcu-2020-commencement-speech-a-political-drive|access-date=2020-07-14|website=]|language=en}}</ref> | |||
Barney Frank (D-MA) and John Conyers (D-MI) have authorized the Library of Congress to research legal precedent for the impeachment of White House staffers. | |||
Rove worked as a guest professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall semester of 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-12-03|title=Karl Rove recruits bipartisan A-list to help teach UT students about campaigning|url=https://news.utexas.edu/2021/12/03/karl-rove-recruits-bipartisan-a-list-to-help-teach-ut-students-about-campaigning/|access-date=2021-12-28|website=UT News|language=en-US}}</ref> He taught a course for UT's Plan II Honors department called ''Modern American Political Campaigns.'' Each week Rove invited guest speakers for the students to interview including James Carville and Mary Matalin, former Secretary of State James Baker, Jonathon Swan, Ken Melhman, and others. The class was protested by a variety of students accusing Rove of being a war criminal.<ref>{{Cite web|title=An Open Letter On Karl Rove, Bush Chief Strategist Turned UT Honors Lecturer -- And Why That's a Problem|url=https://orangemag.co/orangeblog/2021/10/28/an-open-letter-on-karl-rove-bush-chief-strategist-turned-ut-honors-lecturer-and-why-thats-a-problem|access-date=2021-12-28|website=ORANGE Magazine|language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
Twenty-six Democratic Senators, including seven members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have issued a public statement authored by Senator ], calling for Congressional hearings to investigate the Plame leak. | |||
==Personal life== | |||
As of ] ], none of the 306 Republican members of Congress had expressed public concern about Rove's continued role in the Bush Administration. | |||
] in 2024]] | |||
Rove married ] socialite Valerie Mather Wainwright, on July 10, 1976. He moved to ] in January 1977. His sister and father said that "the wedding was so extravagant that ... still recall it with awe".<ref>{{cite news |first=James |last=Ridgeway |date=July 22, 2005 |title=From bad to worse |newspaper=The ] |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Rove and Wainwright divorced in early 1980.<ref>{{cite news |first=Miriam |last=Rozen |date=July 17, 1999 |title=The man who would be kingmaker |newspaper=] |df=dmy-all }}</ref> In January 1986, Rove married Darby Tara Hickson,<ref name=balz-2003-strategist/> a ] survivor, ]er, and former employee of Karl Rove & Company. Rove and Hickson have one son, Andrew Madison Rove, who attended ] in ].<ref>{{cite news |last=Sessions |first=David |date=December 29, 2009 |title=Karl Rove divorces wife of 24 years in Texas |website=] |url=http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/29/karl-rove-divorces-wife-of-24-years-in-texas |access-date=July 13, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091230205953/http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/29/karl-rove-divorces-wife-of-24-years-in-texas/ |archive-date=December 30, 2009 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Rove and Hickson divorced in December 2009.<ref name="politico.com">{{cite news |first=Mike |last=Allen |date=December 29, 2009 |title=Karl Rove granted divorce in Texas |website=] |url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31036.html |df=dmy-all }}</ref> In June 2012, Rove married lobbyist Karen Johnson in ]. The wedding was attended by ] and ].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Vogel |first1=Kenneth |last2=Friess |first2=Steve |date=July 13, 2012 |title=Rove hits big: The birth of a mega-donor |website=] |url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78466.html |url-status=dead |access-date=July 13, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78466.html |archive-date=February 25, 2008 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> | |||
Rove resides in the ] section of Washington, DC, and also keeps a house near Austin, Texas.<ref> | |||
=== Opinion polls === | |||
{{cite magazine | |||
|last=Hagan |first=Joe | |||
|date=February 27, 2011 | |||
|title=Goddangit, baby, we're making good time | |||
|magazine=] | |||
|url=https://nymag.com/news/politics/karl-rove-2011-3/ | |||
|url-status=dead |access-date=July 13, 2012 | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225062850/http://nymag.com/news/politics/karl-rove-2011-3/ | |||
|archive-date=February 25, 2008 |df=dmy-all | |||
}} | |||
</ref> | |||
In 2002, Rove built a home in ], just near ]; the home includes a television studio for remote news appearances.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Horton |first=Scott |date=31 March 2008 |title=The house that Karl built |magazine=] |url=http://harpers.org/blog/2008/03/the-house-that-karl-built/ |access-date=14 January 2016 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> | |||
In a 2007 interview with the '']'', ] ] claimed that Rove was "not a believer".<ref>{{cite magazine |title=''God Is Not Great'' author Christopher Hitchens on religion, Iraq, and his own reputation |magazine=] |date=26 April 2007 |type=book review |url=https://nymag.com/arts/books/features/31244/ |df=dmy-all }}</ref> However, in 2010, Rove told Kamy Akhavan of {{code|ProCon.org}}, in an e‑mail exchange, that Hitchens had misinterpreted a quote of his about feeling that the faith of other White House staffers was stronger than his own: "I am a practicing Christian who attends a Bible-centered ] in Washington and an ] in Texas."<ref>{{cite web |title=Karl Rove |date=24 January 2011 |department=Source biographies |series=Under God in the Pledge |website=ProCon.org |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. |place=Chicago, IL |url=http://undergod.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=010559 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110305004313/http://undergod.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=010559 |archive-date=March 5, 2011 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> | |||
A ] conducted by ] in mid-July 2005 revealed that 53% of respondents were following this story closely, and 47% were not following the matter closely. In the same poll, 47% believed the White House is not cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation, 28% had no opinion and 25% thought the White House was fully cooperating. | |||
==References== | |||
A CNN poll dated ] - ] found that 49% of respondents say Rove should resign, 31% said he should not, and 20% had no opinion. | |||
{{Reflist}} | |||
*{{cite book|last1=Rove|first1=Karl|title=Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight|url=https://archive.org/details/courageconsequen00rove_0|url-access=registration|date=2010|publisher=Threshold Editions|isbn=978-1439191057|ref={{sfnRef|Rove 2010}}}} | |||
A poll commissioned by ''Newsweek'' and published ] ] indicated 45% believed Rove "guilty of a serious offence", 15% "not guilty of a serious offence", who 37% who "don't know." | |||
=== Legal opinions === | |||
The unusual circumstances of this case led a number of media organizations to file a friend-of-the-court ('']'') brief on behalf of the journalists who were subpoenaed (Matthew Cooper, Judith Miller, and ''Time'' Inc.). In this brief, lawyers representing 36 media organizations, including ABC News, AP, CNN, CBS News, WSJ, Fox News, ''USA Today'', NBC News, ''Newsweek'', and Reuters, argued to the court that "there exists ample evidence in the public record to cast serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed under the Intelligence Protection Act in the investigation underlying the attempts to secure testimony from Miller and Cooper." ], the principal author of the ''amicus'' brief, also contended that Ms. Plame didn't have a cover to blow, citing a July 23, 2004 article in the '']'' which argued that Valerie Plame's status as an undercover CIA agent may have been known to Russian and Cuban intelligence operations prior to the Novak article. | |||
Perhaps because Toensing's brief did not address issues relating to (possible) perjury and obstruction of justice charges, nor many other possible violations associated with the disclosure of classified information, many of these same news outlets continue to suggest the possibility that Rove may have violated the law. (The ''amicus'' brief predated the publication of internal ''Time'' email, as well as Cooper's own testimony and published account of Rove's role.) Although some reporters speculate that Rove's (future) legal defense might be built upon testimony that he was ignorant of Plame's protected status at the time he outed her as a CIA employee, most agree that if it could be proven that he had heard of her CIA covert status or knew material was classified when he spoke to journalists, Rove could face far more serious charges. | |||
A ''New York Times'' story of ] ] suggested that the Independent Counsel grand jury has questioned whether a particular top secret State Department briefing which named Plame in connection to Wilson may have been the source of Rove's information.. ] was photographed carrying the briefing during a visit to Africa, in the company of the President, in the days following the ] ] publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece. (According to ''Time'', Powell received the briefing, dated ], nearly a month later on ] ].) | |||
''The Wall Street Journal'' reported on ] ] that the briefing "made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared." Specifically, the briefing marked Valerie Wilson's name and CIA responsibilities as "snf", for "secret no foreign", meaning the information was so sensitive it could not be shared even with allied foreign security agencies such as Britain's ]. | |||
Although some legal pundits felt that Rove was unlikely to have been in violation of the narrowly-worded ] — in fact, the CIA's original "crimes report" submitted to Fitzgerald apparently did not mention the Act— many others argue that by compromising Valerie Plame's position, Rove may have broken one or more federal laws. According to ], a ] columnist and former presidential counsel, Rove is likely to have violated Title 18, Section 641 of the ], which prohibits the ] or conversion of government records for non-governmental use. | |||
In ], this law was successfully used to convict ], a ] analyst, for leaking to the ] media a name of someone that he believed the DEA was not paying enough attention to in a money laundering investigation (]) . In a statement to Randel, United States ] Judge ] wrote, "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country." Having pled guilty, Randel's sentence was reduced from 500 years in a ], to a year of imprisonment and three years of ]. | |||
This may be seen by Bush's political opponents as setting ] for the prosecution of similar leaks, and Karl Rove is likely to face greater consequences than Randel if indicted for violating Section 641. Whereas Randel leaked sensitive information about an individual whose name could be found in the DEA files, unlikely to affect the ] of the United States, it is argued that Rove may have leaked the identity of a CIA agent, an expert on ], at a time when the United States had gone to war based on the perceived threat from such weapons. | |||
=== Fallout from the affair === | |||
While the breaking of ]'s cover as a NOC operative of the CIA may be regarded as serious in and of itself, there has been debate over the damage caused by the leak, and the areas into which that damage may extend, particularly in relation to Plame's work with her cover company, ]. Legal filings by Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald contain many pages blanked out for security reasons, leading some observers to speculate that Fitzgerald has pursued the extent to which national security was compromised by the actions of Rove and others. | |||
While a preponderance of evidence to date appears to suggest that retaliation for Wilson's public contradiction of the Bush Administration claim (that Iraq had attempted to obtain enriched uranium) was the motive for the leak, another explanation holds that the leak was an attempt to sabotage an investigation into Saudi oil reserve (see ]). | |||
==John Ashcroft / Karl Rove Conflict Of Interest Allegation== | |||
When Karl Rove was being questioned over the leak by the ], ] ] was being personally briefed about the investigation. ] described this at the time as a "stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation." | |||
Rep. Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has sent a letter asking for a formal investigation of the time between the start of Rove's investigation and John Ashcroft's recusal: | |||
:There has long been the appearance of impropriety in Ashcroft's handling of this investigation. The former attorney general had well documented conflicts of interest in this matter, particularly with regard to his personal relationship with Karl Rove. Among other things, Rove was employed by Ashcroft throughout his political career, and Rove reportedly had fiercely advocated for Ashcroft's appointment as attorney general. Pursuant to standard rules of legal ethics, and explicit rules on conflict of interest, those facts alone should have dictated his immediate recusal. | |||
:The new information, that Ashcroft had not only refused to recuse himself over a period of months, but also was insisting on being personally briefed about a matter implicating his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General. | |||
==Trivia== | |||
{{Wikiquote}} | |||
* On ] ], Rove was named by ] as the "Most Fascinating Person" of the year. | |||
* ] as "The Boy Genius", "The Architect" and "]," a ] term for a flower which grows from a pile of ]. | |||
* Karl Rove is known for careful management of the press, including the use of ] to put reporters at ease. | |||
* Karl Rove is a ]. According to ]'s recent book, Rove is obsessed with the "historical duplicity" of the Swedes, who ] back in ]. According to Woodward, this nationalism manifested itself as hatred for Swedish weapons inspector ]. | |||
* Rove is also fascinated by ], President ]'s political adviser. | |||
* Karl Rove's alleged reputation for political ] is such that, among both his supporters and critics the phrase "'''Rovian'''" has come to be used as a synonym for "]". The documentary '']'' “…depicts Rove as the most powerful political consultant in American history and, in essence, a co-president” according to ]. | |||
*The television show '']'' depicted Rove as a shadowy figure clad in a red robe and cowl. Whenever his name is said a wolf howls, and when he tried to enter a church, he began to burn. He later departed the scene by transforming into a swarm of bats. | |||
==Further reading== | |||
* <cite>Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains Behind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush</cite>, Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl Cannon, 2003, Paperback, 256 pages, ISBN 1586481924. | |||
* <cite>]</cite>, James C. Moore and Wayne Slater, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, hardcover, 416 pages, ISBN 0471423270, and the film of the same name | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
{{Sister project links|wikt=no|v=no|b=no|s=no|d=Q311135|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no}} | |||
{{wikinews|Karl Rove named as a source of Plame leak}} | |||
* {{Official website|http://www.rove.com/}} | |||
* {{C-SPAN|52586}} | |||
===Biographical data=== | |||
* {{IMDb name|1311211}} | |||
* - 'Karl Rove' (critical biography), ] | |||
* {{Charlie Rose view|2367}} | |||
* - 'Karl Rove' (wiki profile) | |||
* {{NYTtopic|people/r/karl_rove}} | |||
* - 'Karl Rove in a Corner: Karl Rove is at his most formidable when running close races, and his skills would be notable even if he used no extreme methods', Joshua Green, '']'' (November, 2004) | |||
* , ] documentary on ] | |||
===Legal Links=== | |||
* filed by 36 news organizations asserting that "there exists ample evidence on the public record to cast serious doubt that a crime has been committed." | |||
===Editorials=== | |||
* | |||
* - ] - 'Karl Rove's America,' (July 15, 2005) | |||
* - 'It's time for Karl Rove to go: The president needs to ask for a special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case', Congressman ], ] (October 15, 2003) | |||
* - 'Karl Rove, ]' | |||
* - 'It Doesn't look good for Rove' contains a legal assessment by ] regarding the state of the Plame scandal. | |||
* - ] - 'Follow the Uranium' | |||
* - ] - 'Where's the Newt?' where he christens the Plame scandal "]" due to his opinion that there is no scandal. | |||
===Media accounts=== | |||
* - 'Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove,' Lorne Manly and David Johnston (July 18, 2005) | |||
* - 'Drawing up Blueprints for Bush Victory', Rachel Clarke, ] (November 6, 2004) | |||
* - 'The Controller: Karl Rove is working to get George Bush reelected, but he has bigger plans' (profile), ] '']'' (May 12, 2003) | |||
* - '] Analyst and a ] Reporter Say Karl Rove Named in Matt Cooper Documents', Greg Mitchell (July 2, 2005) | |||
* - 'White House 'Puzzled' Over Rove Flap', ] (June 24, 2005) | |||
* - 'Karl Rove The Architect' (documentary), ] Frontline (April 12, 2005) | |||
* - 'Rove rejects charges he was CBS source', Stephen Dinan, Rowan Scarborough, ''] (July 2, 2005) | |||
* - 'Lawyer: Cooper "Burned" Karl Rove' - ]. | |||
* interview with ], where he states that "my wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," causing much speculation about his intended meaning from both sides. | |||
* - 'Rove Fight Escalates,' includes quotes from a former CIA agent who claims that Plame's 'nonofficial cover' did not qualify her as 'a covert agent'. This claim is based on a gross misquote of USA Today. | |||
* - 'The Plame blame: What do we know so far?' contains a recap of what is known to date (July 17, 2005) | |||
* - 'Andrew C. McCarthy on Valerie Plame' - Links to an ] and details Plame's name being outed by the CIA prior to Novak's article. | |||
* - ] - 'Valerie's No Victim.' | |||
* - Staff - 'Memo Underscored Issue of Shielding Plame's Identity' - CIA memo at the center of the leak scandal was marked 'sensitive' | |||
===News compilations=== | |||
* , summary from ''Los Angeles Times'' published August 25, 2005. | |||
* - 'Karl Rove Controversy', ], a ]/] media watchdog group. | |||
* , summary compiled by ], a liberal/progressive watchdog group. | |||
*. | |||
===Satire and blogs=== | |||
* - 'I Love Karl Rove! Are you a Roveho, too?' (satirical blogsite) | |||
* - 'Taking the Fight to Karl: American Service Men and Women Mad at Karl Rove' | |||
* - 'Closing in on Karl,' about the possible legal implications, written by lawyer | |||
* - "Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover", ], '']'' (July 2, 2005) | |||
* Debunks talking points on Rove/Plame. | |||
* - Live during the 2004 presidential campaign. "If only one candidate has a Karl Rove, it's not a fair presidential race." | |||
* - Follow-on to KerrysKarlRove.com, where the anonablogger channels the savvy of Karl Rove to help the opposition party. "If Only One Party Has a Karl Rove, We Risk Living in a One Party America." | |||
* | |||
* | |||
===Search compilations=== | |||
* - 'Karl Rove' (search engine category) | |||
* - 'Campaign Contribution Search' (Karl Rove's individual political campaign donations of $200 or more, since 1977) | |||
* - 'Karl Rove' (search engine category) | |||
* - 'What we know and when we knew it' | |||
=== U.S. Government links === | |||
===White House media=== | |||
* - RealVideo of Karl Rove's tour of the ] Roosevelt Room | |||
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Latest revision as of 05:42, 15 November 2024
American political consultant and policy advisor (born 1950)Karl Rove | |
---|---|
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy | |
In office February 8, 2005 – August 31, 2007 | |
President | George W. Bush |
Preceded by | Harriet Miers |
Succeeded by | Joel Kaplan |
Senior Advisor to the President | |
In office January 20, 2001 – August 31, 2007 | |
President | George W. Bush |
Preceded by | |
Succeeded by | Barry Jackson |
Chair of the College Republicans | |
In office 1973–1977 | |
Preceded by | Joe Abate |
Succeeded by | John Brady |
Personal details | |
Born | Karl Christian Rove (1950-12-25) December 25, 1950 (age 74) Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Spouses |
|
Children | 1 |
Education | University of Utah |
Website | Official website |
Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950) is an American Republican political consultant, policy advisor, and lobbyist. He was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation on August 31, 2007. He has also headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. Rove was one of the architects of the Iraq War.
Prior to his White House appointments, he is credited with the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of George W. Bush, as well as Bush's 2000 and 2004 successful presidential campaigns. In his 2004 victory speech, Bush referred to Rove as "the Architect". Rove has also been credited for the successful campaigns of John Ashcroft (1994 U.S. Senate election), Bill Clements (1986 Texas gubernatorial election), Senator John Cornyn (2002 U.S. Senate election), Governor Rick Perry (1990 Texas Agriculture Commission election), and Phil Gramm (1982 U.S. House and 1984 U.S. Senate elections). Since leaving the White House, Rove has worked as a political analyst and contributor for Fox News, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal.
Early life and education
Rove was born on Christmas Day in Denver, Colorado, the second of five children, and was raised in Sparks, Nevada. His parents separated when he was 19 years old and the man whom Rove knew as his father was a geologist.
In 1965, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where Rove entered high school, becoming a skilled debater. Encouraged by a teacher to run for class senate, Rove won the election. As part of his campaign strategy he rode in the back of a convertible inside the school gymnasium sitting between two attractive girls before his election speech. While at Olympus High School, he was elected student council president his junior and senior years. Rove was also a Teenage Republican and served as Chairman of the Utah Federation of Teenage Republicans. During this time, his father got a job in Los Angeles and visited the family during holidays.
Rove's mother suffered from depression and had contemplated suicide more than once in her life. Rove has stated that although he loved his mother, she was seriously flawed, undependable and, at times, unstable. In December 1969, after a heated fight with his wife, the man Rove had known as his father left the family and divorced Rove's mother soon afterwards. It was at this juncture that Rove was finally told that he and his older brother had a different birth father, his mother's prior husband. Rove's relationship with his adoptive father was briefly strained for a few months following the divorce, but they maintained a relationship afterward.
Rove had only infrequent contact with his mother in the 1970s. She frequently withheld child support checks and spent them for herself. She and her second husband lost most of their money due to poor financial decisions on her part and his gambling and overspending. On September 11, 1981, Rove's mother died by suicide north of Reno, Nevada, shortly after she decided to divorce her third and final husband, to whom she had been unhappily married for only three months.
Early political career
Rove began his involvement in American politics in 1968. In a 2002 Deseret News interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former U.S. Sen.) Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, J.D. Williams." Bennett was reelected to a third six-year term in November 1968. Through Rove's campaign involvement, Bennett's son, Robert "Bob" Foster Bennett—a future United States Senator from Utah—would become a friend. Williams would later become a mentor to Rove.
College and the Dixon campaign sabotage incident
In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the University of Utah, on a $1,000 scholarship, as a political science major and joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Through the university's Hinckley Institute of Politics, he got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That position, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped him secure a job in 1970 on Ralph Tyler Smith's unsuccessful re-election campaign for Senate from Illinois against Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.
In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. (Dixon eventually won the election.) Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973 when Rove told The Dallas Morning News. In 1999 he said, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." In his memoir, Rove wrote that when he was later nominated to the Board for International Broadcasting by President George H.W. Bush, Senator Dixon did not kill his nomination. In Rove's account, "Dixon displayed more grace than I had shown and kindly excused this youthful prank."
College Republicans, Watergate, and the Bushes
In June 1971, after the end of the semester, Rove dropped out of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the executive director of the College Republican National Committee. Joe Abate, who was National Chairman of the College Republicans at the time, became his mentor. Rove then enrolled at the University of Maryland in College Park in the Fall of 1971, but withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester. In July 1999 he told The Washington Post that he did not have a degree because "I lack at this point one math class, which I can take by exam, and my foreign language requirement."
Rove traveled extensively, participating as an instructor at weekend seminars for campus conservatives across the country. He was an active participant in Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign. A CBS report on the organization of the Nixon campaign from June 1972 includes an interview with a young Rove working for the College Republican National Committee.
Rove held the position of executive director of the College Republicans until early 1973. He left the job to spend five months, without pay, campaigning full-time for the position of National Chairman during the time he attended George Mason University. Lee Atwater, the group's Southern regional coordinator, who was two months younger than Rove, assisted with Rove's campaign. His campaign was managed by Daniel Mintz, of the Maryland College Republicans. Karl spent the spring of 1973 crisscrossing the country in a Ford Pinto, lining up the support of Republican state chairs.
The College Republicans summer 1973 convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri was quite contentious. Rove's opponent was Robert Edgeworth of Michigan. The other major candidate, Terry Dolan of California, dropped out, supporting Edgeworth. A number of states had sent two competing delegates, because Rove and his supporters had made credential challenges at state and regional conventions. For example, after the Midwest regional convention, Rove forces had produced a version of the Midwestern College Republicans constitution which differed significantly from the constitution that the Edgeworth forces were using, in order to justify the unseating of the Edgeworth delegates on procedural grounds, including delegations, such as Ohio and Missouri, which had been certified earlier by Rove himself. In the end, there were two votes, conducted by two convention chairs, and two winners—Rove and Edgeworth, each of whom delivered an acceptance speech. After the convention, both Edgeworth and Rove appealed to Republican National Committee Chairman George H. W. Bush, each contending that he was the new College Republican chairman.
While resolution was pending, Dolan went (anonymously) to The Washington Post with recordings of several training seminars for young Republicans where a co-presenter of Rove's, Bernie Robinson, cautioned against doing the same thing he had done: rooting through opponents' garbage cans. The tape with this story on it, as well as Rove's admonition not to copy similar tricks as Rove's against Dixon, was secretly recorded and edited by Rich Evans, who had hoped to receive an appointment from Rove's competitor in the CRNC chairmanship race. On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the Post broke the story in an article titled "GOP Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks".
In response, then RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush, had an FBI agent question Rove. As part of the investigation, Atwater signed an affidavit, dated August 13, 1973, stating that he had heard a "20 minute anecdote similar to the one described in The Washington Post" in July 1972, but that "it was a funny story during a coffee break". Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, has been quoted as saying "based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him."
On September 6, 1973, three weeks after announcing his intent to investigate the allegations against Rove, George H. W. Bush chose him to be chairman of the College Republicans. Bush then wrote Edgeworth a letter saying that he had concluded that Rove had fairly won the vote at the convention. Edgeworth wrote back, asking about the basis of that conclusion. Not long after that, Edgeworth stated "Bush sent me back the angriest letter I have ever received in my life. I had leaked to The Washington Post, and now I was out of the Party forever."
As National Chairman, Rove introduced Bush to Atwater, who had taken Rove's job as the College Republican's executive director, and who would become Bush's main campaign strategist in future years. Bush hired Rove as a Special Assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 to become Executive Assistant to the co-chair of the RNC, Richard D. Obenshain.
As Special Assistant, Rove performed small personal tasks for Bush. In November 1973, he asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma – you know, wow", Rove recalled years later.
Virginia
In 1976, Rove left D.C. to work in Virginian politics. Initially, Rove served as the Finance Director for the Republican Party of Virginia. Rove describes this as the role in which he discovered his love for direct mail campaigns.
The Texas years and notable political campaigns
1977–1991
Rove's initial job in Texas was in 1977 as a legislative aide for Fred Agnich, a Texas Republican state representative from Dallas. Later that same year, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by James A. Baker, III, a Houston lawyer (later President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979–1980.
His work for Bill Clements during the Texas gubernatorial election of 1978 helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Clements was elected to a four-year term, succeeding Democrat Dolph Briscoe. Rove was deputy director of the Governor William P. Clements Junior Committee in 1979 and 1980, and deputy executive assistant to the governor of Texas (roughly, Deputy Chief of Staff) in 1980 and 1981.
In 1981, Rove founded a direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co., in Austin. The firm's first clients included Texas Governor Bill Clements and Democratic congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican congressman and United States Senator. Rove operated his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of races. Most were in a supporting role, doing direct mail fundraising. A November 2004 Atlantic Monthly article estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 statewide, congressional, and national races, and Rove's candidates won 34 races.
Rove also did work during those years for non-political clients. From 1991 to 1996, Rove advised tobacco giant Philip Morris, and ultimately earned $3,000 a month via a consulting contract. In a deposition, Rove testified that he severed the tie in 1996 because he felt awkward "about balancing that responsibility with his role as Bush's top political advisor" while Bush was governor of Texas and Texas was suing the tobacco industry.
1978 George W. Bush congressional campaign
Rove advised the younger Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978.
1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign
In 1977, Rove was the first person hired by George H. W. Bush for his unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign, which ended with Bush as the vice-presidential nominee.
1982 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign
In 1982, Rove returned to assisting Governor Bill Clements in his run for reelection, but was defeated by Democrat Mark White.
1982 Phil Gramm congressional campaign
In 1982, Phil Gramm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a conservative Texas Democrat.
1984 Phil Gramm senatorial campaign
In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, who had become a Republican in 1983, defeat Republican Ron Paul in the primary and Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate.
1984 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign
Rove handled direct-mail for the Reagan-Bush campaign.
1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign
In 1986, Rove helped Clements become governor a second time. In a strategy memo Rove wrote for his client prior to the race, now among Clements' papers in the Texas A&M University library, Rove quoted Napoleon: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack."
In 1986, just before a crucial debate in the campaign, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by Democrats. The police and FBI investigated and discovered that the bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. Critics, including other Republican operatives, suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.
1988 Texas Supreme Court races
In 1988, Rove helped Thomas R. Phillips become the first Republican elected as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Phillips had been appointed to the position in November 1987 by Clements. Phillips was re-elected in 1990, 1996 and 2002.
Phillips' election in 1988 was part of an aggressive grassroots campaign called "Clean Slate '88", a conservative effort that was successful in getting five of its six candidates elected. (Ordinarily there were three justices on the ballot each year, on a nine-justice court, but, because of resignations, there were six races for the Supreme Court on the ballot in November 1988.) By 1998, Republicans held all nine seats on the Court.
1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign
In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, brought in experts to tutor him on policy, and introduced him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided not to run, and Rove backed another Republican for governor who lost in the primary.
Other 1990 Texas statewide races
In 1990, two other Rove candidates won: Rick Perry, the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison became state treasurer.
One notable aspect of the 1990 election was the charge that Rove had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate major Democratic officeholders in Texas. In his 2010 autobiography, Rove called the whole thing a "myth", saying:
The FBI did investigate Texas officials during that span, but I had nothing to do with it. The investigation was called "Brilab" and was part of a broad anti-corruption probe that looked at officials in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., as well as Texas ... An official for the U.S. Department of Agriculture spotted expenses claimed by Hightower's shop that raised red flags ... enough to indict some of Hightower's top aides; they were later found guilty and sent to prison. ... The myth that I had something to do both with spurring the investigation and with airing all of this has stuck around because it is convenient for some to blame me rather than those aides who ran afoul of the law.
Rove was campaign manager for Florence Shapiro's 1992 campaign for District 2 in the Texas Senate, which included Collin County and counties in East Texas. Shapiro was the top vote-getter in the Republican primary against Don Kent and former Plano mayor Jack Harvard, then defeated Kent by 1 percentage point in a hotly-contested run-off election, during which vandals defaced her campaign signs with swastikas due to Shapiro's Jewish faith.
1991 Richard L. Thornburgh senatorial campaign and lawsuit
In 1991, United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh resigned to run for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, one made vacant by John Heinz's death in a helicopter crash. Rove's company worked for the campaign, but it ended with an upset loss to Democrat Harris Wofford.
Rover had been hired by an intermediary Murray Dickman to work for Thornburgh's campaign. Subsequently, Rove sued Thornburgh directly, alleging non-payment for services rendered. The Republican National Committee, worried that the suit would make it hard to recruit good candidates, urged Rove to back off. When Rove refused, the RNC hired Kenneth Starr to write an amicus brief on Thornburgh's behalf. Karl Rove & Co. v. Thornburgh was heard by U.S. Federal Judge Sam Sparks, who had been appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991. After a trial in Austin, Rove prevailed.
1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign
Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief Robert Mosbacher Jr. Novak's column suggested a motive when it described the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator Phil Gramm: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove denied that Rove leaked, but Mosbacher maintained that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it." During testimony before the CIA leak grand jury, Rove apparently confirmed his prior involvement with Novak in the 1992 campaign leak, according to National Journal reporter Murray Waas.
1993–2000
1993 Kay Bailey Hutchison senatorial campaign
Rove helped Hutchison win a special Senate election in June 1993. Hutchison defeated Democrat Bob Krueger to fill the last two years of Lloyd Bentsen's term. Bentsen had resigned to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration.
1994 Alabama Supreme Court races
In 1994, a group called the Business Council of Alabama hired Rove to help run a slate of Republican candidates for the state supreme court. No Republican had been elected to that court in more than a century. The campaign by the Republicans was unprecedented in the state, which had previously only seen low-key contests. After the election, a court battle over absentee and other ballots followed that lasted more than 11 months. It ended when a federal appeals court judge ruled that disputed absentee ballots could not be counted, and ordered the Alabama Secretary of State to certify the Republican candidate for Chief Justice, Perry Hooper, as the winner. An appeal to the Supreme Court by the Democratic candidate was turned down within a few days, making the ruling final. Hooper won by 262 votes.
Another candidate, Harold See, ran against Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice and the son-in-law of George Wallace. The race included charges that Kennedy was mingling campaign funds with those of a non-profit children's foundation he was involved with. A former Rove staffer reported that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. Kennedy won by less than one percentage point.
1994 John Ashcroft senatorial campaign
In 1993, Karl Rove & Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by Ashcroft's successful 1994 Senate campaign. Ashcroft paid Rove's company more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns.
1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign
In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards, with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm.
Rove has been accused of using the push poll technique to call voters to ask such things as whether people would be "more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if knew her staff is dominated by lesbians". Rove has denied having been involved in circulating these rumors about Richards during the campaign, although many critics nonetheless identify this technique, particularly as used in this instance against Richards, as a hallmark of his career.
1996 Harold See's campaign for Associate Justice, Alabama Supreme Court
A former campaign worker charged that, at Rove's behest, he distributed flyers that anonymously attacked Harold See, their own client. This put the opponent's campaign in an awkward position; public denials of responsibility for the scurrilous flyers would be implausible. Rove's client was elected.
1998 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign
Rove was an adviser for Bush's 1998 reelection campaign. From July through December 1998, Bush's reelection committee paid Rove & Co. nearly $2.5 million, and also paid the Rove-owned Praxis List Company $267,000 for use of mailing lists. Rove says his work for the Bush campaign included direct mail, voter contact, phone banks, computer services, and travel expenses. Of the $2.5 million, Rove said, "bout 30 percent of that is postage". In all, Bush (primarily through Rove's efforts) raised $17.7 million, with $3.4 million unspent as of March 1999. During the course of this campaign Rove's much-reported feud with Rick Perry began, with Perry's strategists believing Rove gave Perry bad advice in order to help Bush get a larger share of the Hispanic vote.
2000 Harold See campaign for Chief Justice
For the race to succeed Perry Hooper, who was retiring as Alabama's chief justice, Rove lined up support for See from a majority of the state's important Republicans.
2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign and the sale of Karl Rove & Co.
See also: George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaignIn early 1999, Rove sold his 20-year-old direct-mail business, Karl Rove & Co., which provided campaign services to candidates, along with Praxis List Company (in whole or part) to Ted Delisi and Todd Olsen, two young political operatives who had worked on campaigns of some other Rove candidates. Rove helped finance the sale of the company, which had 11 employees. Selling Karl Rove & Co. was a condition that George W. Bush had insisted on before Rove took the job of chief strategist for Bush's presidential bid.
During the Republican primary, Rove was accused of spreading false rumors that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Rove denies the accusation.
George W. Bush administration
When George W. Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001, Rove accepted an appointment as Senior Advisor. He was later given the title Deputy Chief of Staff to the President after the successful 2004 presidential election. In a November 2004 speech, Bush publicly thanked Rove, calling him "the architect" of his victory over John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. In April 2006, Rove was reassigned from his policy development role to one focusing on strategic and tactical planning in anticipation of the November 2006 congressional elections.
Iraq War
Rove played a leading role in the lead-up to the Iraq War. In 2002 and 2003, Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), an internal White House working group established in August 2002, eight months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. WHIG was charged with developing a strategy "for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.". The group pushed narratives within the administration about the Hussein regime possessing weapons of mass destruction (the regime had no active WMD program) and its ties to international terrorism (the Hussein regime had no operational relationship with al-Qaeda). Members of WHIG included Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio, and communication strategists Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes, and James R. Wilkinson.
Quoting one unnamed WHIG member, The Washington Post explained that the task force's mission was to "educate the public" about the threat posed by Saddam and (in the reporters' words) " set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad". Rove's "strategic communications" task force within WHIG helped write and coordinate speeches by senior Bush administration officials, emphasizing Iraq's purported nuclear threat. The White House Iraq Group was "little known" until a subpoena for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by CIA leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald in January 2004.
In 2015, Rove defended the decision to invade Iraq, telling an Iraq War veteran that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. In 2010, Rove said his biggest mistake regarding the Iraq War was to not push back on the narrative that the Bush administration lied to lead the U.S. into the Iraq War.
Valerie Plame affair
On August 29, 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of the yellowcake documents among the justifications for the War in Iraq enumerated in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address.
In late August 2006, it became known that Richard L. Armitage was responsible for the leak. The investigation led to felony charges being filed against Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Eventually, Libby was found guilty by a jury.
On June 13, 2006, prosecutors said they would not charge Rove with any wrongdoing. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated previously that "I can tell you that the substantial bulk of the work of this investigation is concluded."
On July 13, 2006, Plame sued Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others, accusing them of conspiring to destroy her career.
On May 2, 2007, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Attorney General Gonzales compelling the Department of Justice to produce all email from Rove regarding the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, no matter what email account Rove may have used, with a deadline of May 15, 2007, for compliance. The subpoena also demanded relevant email previously produced in the Valerie Plame controversy and the investigation regarding the CIA leak scandal (2003). On August 31, 2007, Karl Rove resigned without responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena, saying, "I just think it's time to leave."
Former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan claims in his book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, published in the spring of 2008 by Public Affairs Books, that the statements he made in 2003 about Rove's lack of involvement in the Valerie Plame affair were untrue, and that he had been encouraged to repeat such untruths. His book has been widely disputed, however, with many key members of McClellan's own staff telling a completely different story. Former CNN commentator Robert Novak has questioned if McClelland wrote the book himself. It was also revealed that the publisher was seeking a negative book to increase sales.
2006 congressional elections and beyond
On October 24, 2006, two weeks before the congressional election, in an interview with National Public Radio's Robert Siegel, Rove insisted that his insider polling data forecast Republican retention of both houses. In the election the Democrats won both houses of Congress. The White House Bulletin, published by Bulletin News, cited rumors of Rove's impending departure from the White House staff: "'Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along', said a key Bush advisor." However, while allowing that many Republican members of Congress are "resentful of the way he and the White House conducted the losing campaign", The New York Times also stated that, "White House officials say President Bush has every intention of keeping Mr. Rove on through the rest of his term."
In Rove's analysis, 10 of the 28 House seats Republicans lost were sacrificed because of various scandals. Another six, he said, were lost because incumbents did not recognize and react quickly enough to the threat. Rove argued that, without corruption and complacency, the Democrats would have gained around a dozen seats and Republicans could have kept narrow control of the House regardless of Bush's troubles and the war.
Torture
Rove defended the Bush administration's use of waterboarding, a form of torture.
E-mail scandal
Main article: Bush White House e-mail controversyDue to investigations into White House staffers' e-mail communication related to the controversy over the dismissal of United States attorneys, it was discovered that many White House staff members, including Rove, had exchanged documents using Republican National Committee e‑mail servers such as gwb43.com
and georgewbush.com
or personal e‑mail accounts with third party providers such as BlackBerry; evasion of U.S. government record-keeping was determined to be a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Over 500 of Rove's e‑mails were mistakenly sent to a parody website, who forwarded them to an investigative reporter.
Congressional subpoenas
On May 22, 2008, Rove was subpoenaed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to testify on the politicization of the Department of Justice. But on July 10, Rove refused to obey the congressional subpoena, citing executive privilege as his reason.
On February 23, 2009, Rove was required by congressional subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee concerning his knowledge of the controversy over the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys, and the alleged political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, but did not appear on that date. He and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers later agreed to testify under oath before Congress about these matters.
On July 7 and July 30, 2009, Rove testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding questions about the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys under the Bush administration. Rove was also questioned regarding the federal prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, who was convicted of fraud. The Committee concluded that Rove had played a significant role in the Attorney firings.
Activities after leaving the White House
Activities in 2008
Shortly after leaving the White House, Rove was hired to write about the 2008 presidential election for Newsweek. He was also later hired as a contributor for The Wall Street Journal and a political analyst for Fox News. Rove was an informal advisor to 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and donated $2,300 to his campaign. His memoir, Courage and Consequence, was published in March 2010. One advance reviewer, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, said of the book that Rove "revives claims discredited long ago". The controversial book inspired a grassroots rock and roll compilation of a similar name, Courage and Consequence, that was released a week before the memoir.
On March 9, 2008, Rove appeared at the University of Iowa as a paid speaker to a crowd of approximately 1,000. He was met with hostility and two students were removed by police after attempting a citizen's arrest for alleged crimes committed during his time with the Bush administration. Near the end of the speech, a member of the audience asked, "Can we have our $40,000 back?" Rove replied, "No, you can't."
On June 24, 2008, Rove said of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone."
In July 2008, Rove, who was hired by Fox News to provide analysis for the network's November 2008 election coverage, defended his role on the news team to the Television Critics Association.
Rove agreed to debate one-time presidential candidate and former Senator John Edwards on September 26, 2008, at the University at Buffalo. However, Edwards dropped out and was replaced by General Wesley Clark.
Since 2009
In September 2009, Rove was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame. The induction became a major dispute as political views clashed over the announcement. Governor John Hoeven was scheduled to introduce Rove during the SAHF banquet but did not attend. At that time, Rove was being investigated by Democrats in Congress for his role in the 2006 dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.
In 2010, with former RNC chair Ed Gillespie, Rove helped found American Crossroads, a Republican 527 organization raising money for the 2012 election effort. Rove serves as an informal adviser for this Super-PAC.
In a profile which appeared in the December 15, 2011 issue of The New Republic, Rove, with his hands-on involvement with American Crossroads, was described as one of the shrewdest navigators of the political climate after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision which exempted political broadcasts funded by corporations and unions from campaign finance limits. "Rove had no role in creating this new legal environment... but if Rove and his allies did not invent it, they certainly were adroit at exploiting it."
Following Todd Akin's comments regarding "legitimate rape" and the notion that raped women are unlikely to become pregnant, Rove joked about murdering the Missouri Senate candidate, saying "We should sink Todd Akin. If he's found mysteriously murdered, don't look for my whereabouts!" After multiple news outlets picked up on the story, Rove apologized for the remark. Rove's Crossroads GPS organization had previously pulled its television advertising from Missouri in the wake of the comments.
On November 6, 2012, Rove protested Fox News' call of the 2012 presidential election for Obama, prompting host Megyn Kelly to ask him, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better? Or is this real?"
In 2013 Rove and the PAC American Crossroads created the Conservative Victory Project for the purpose of supporting electable conservative candidates. These efforts have attracted criticism, and even personal attacks, from elements within the Tea Party movement.
Rove's history, The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, was published in 2015.
In 2017, Rove's 501(c)(4) dark money group One Nation nonprofit raised nearly $17 million, according to IRS tax filings released in November 2018.
Rove has lobbied on behalf of Rivada Networks, a communications technology business.
In December 2019, Rove predicted that the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries would result in a contested convention; in December 2020, after Joe Biden was nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention with a clear majority of delegates, Politico named Rove's prediction one of "the most audacious, confident and spectacularly incorrect prognostications about the year".
Rove was an advisor to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. In May 2020, Rove accused former president Obama of engaging in a "political drive by shooting" after Obama gave a commencement speech to historically black colleges where he criticized the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rove worked as a guest professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall semester of 2021. He taught a course for UT's Plan II Honors department called Modern American Political Campaigns. Each week Rove invited guest speakers for the students to interview including James Carville and Mary Matalin, former Secretary of State James Baker, Jonathon Swan, Ken Melhman, and others. The class was protested by a variety of students accusing Rove of being a war criminal.
Personal life
Rove married Houston socialite Valerie Mather Wainwright, on July 10, 1976. He moved to Texas in January 1977. His sister and father said that "the wedding was so extravagant that ... still recall it with awe". Rove and Wainwright divorced in early 1980. In January 1986, Rove married Darby Tara Hickson, a breast cancer survivor, graphic designer, and former employee of Karl Rove & Company. Rove and Hickson have one son, Andrew Madison Rove, who attended Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Rove and Hickson divorced in December 2009. In June 2012, Rove married lobbyist Karen Johnson in Austin, Texas. The wedding was attended by George W. Bush and Steve Wynn.
Rove resides in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC, and also keeps a house near Austin, Texas. In 2002, Rove built a home in Rosemary Beach, Florida, just near Panama City; the home includes a television studio for remote news appearances.
In a 2007 interview with the New York Review of Books, atheist Christopher Hitchens claimed that Rove was "not a believer". However, in 2010, Rove told Kamy Akhavan of ProCon.org
, in an e‑mail exchange, that Hitchens had misinterpreted a quote of his about feeling that the faith of other White House staffers was stronger than his own: "I am a practicing Christian who attends a Bible-centered Episcopal church in Washington and an Anglican church in Texas."
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- "God Is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens on religion, Iraq, and his own reputation". New York Magazine (book review). 26 April 2007.
- "Karl Rove". Source biographies. ProCon.org. Under God in the Pledge. Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 24 January 2011. Archived from the original on 5 March 2011.
- Rove, Karl (2010). Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1439191057.
External links
- Official website
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Karl Rove at IMDb
- Karl Rove on Charlie Rose
- Karl Rove collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Karl Rove – The Architect, Frontline documentary on PBS
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Preceded bySid Blumenthal Joel Johnson Doug Sosnik |
Senior Advisor to the President 2001–2007 |
Succeeded byBarry Jackson |
Preceded byHarriet Miers | White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy 2005–2007 |
Succeeded byJoel Kaplan |
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