<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16414" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/"></A> <!-- ADXINFO classification="button" campaign="foxsearch2007-emailtools01d-nyt5-511276"-->
<TABLE style="MARGIN-TOP: 3px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 3px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0
width="80%" border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR vAlign=bottom>
<TD>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 2px">
<DIV align=right><IMG height=1 alt=""
src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/spacer.gif" width=1 border=0><A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch2007-emailtools01d-nyt5-511276&ad=waitress_88x31.gif&goto=http://www.foxsearchlight.com/waitress/"
target=_blank><IMG height=24 alt="Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By"
src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/printerfriendly.gif" width=106
border=0></A><BR></DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><BR clear=all>
<HR align=left SIZE=1>
<DIV class=timestamp><EM>NY Times</EM> March 29, 2007</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">E-Mail Shows Rove’s Role in Fate of
Prosecutors </NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE type=" " version="1.0"></NYT_BYLINE>
<DIV class=byline>By <A title="More Articles by David D. Kirkpatrick"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/david_d_kirkpatrick/index.html?inline=nyt-per">DAVID
D. KIRKPATRICK</A> and <A title="More Articles by Jim Rutenberg"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/jim_rutenberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per">JIM
RUTENBERG</A></DIV><NYT_TEXT></NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>WASHINGTON, March 28 — Almost every Wednesday afternoon, advisers to
President Bush gather to strategize about putting his stamp on the federal
courts and the <A title="More articles about United States Attorneys."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/united_states_attorneys/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">United
States attorneys</A>’ offices.</P>
<P>The group meets in the Roosevelt Room and includes aides to the White House
counsel, the chief of staff, the attorney general and <A
title="More articles about Karl Rove."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/karl_rove/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Karl
Rove</A>, who also sometimes attends himself. Each of them signs off on every
nomination.</P>
<P>Mr. Rove, a top adviser to the president, takes charge of the politics. As
caretaker to the administration’s conservative allies, Mr. Rove relays their
concerns, according to several participants in the Wednesday meetings. And
especially for appointments of United States attorneys, he manages the horse
trading.</P>
<P>“What Karl would say is, ‘Look, if this senator who has been working with the
president on the following things really wants this person and we think they are
acceptable, why don’t we give the senator what he wants?’ ” said one former
administration official. “ ‘You know, we stiffed him on that bill back there.’ ”
</P>
<P>Mr. Rove’s role has put him in the center of a Senate inquiry into the
dismissal of eight United States attorneys. Democrats and a few <A
title="More articles about Republican Party"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Republicans</A>
have raised questions about whether the prosecutors were being replaced to
impede or jump-start investigations for partisan goals.</P>
<P>Political advisers have had a hand in picking judges and prosecutors for
decades, but Mr. Rove exercises unusually broad influence over political, policy
and personnel decisions because of his closeness to the president, tenure in the
administration and longstanding interest in turning the judiciary to the
right.</P>
<P>In Illinois, Mr. Rove once reprimanded a Republican senator for recommending
the appointment of <A title="More articles about Patrick J. Fitzgerald"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/patrick_j_fitzgerald/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Patrick
J. Fitzgerald</A>, a star prosecutor from outside the state, to investigate the
state’s then-governor, a Republican. In New Jersey, Mr. Rove helped arrange the
nomination of a major Bush campaign fund-raiser who had little prosecutorial
experience. In Louisiana, he first supported and then helped scuttle a similar
appointment.</P>
<P>In the months before the United States attorneys in New Mexico and Washington
State were ousted, Mr. Rove joined a chorus of complaints from state Republicans
that the federal prosecutors had failed to press charges in Democratic voter
fraud cases. While planning a June 21, 2006, White House session to discuss the
prosecutors, for example, a Rove deputy arranged for top Justice Department
officials to meet with an important Bush supporter who was critical of New
Mexico’s federal prosecutor about voter fraud.</P>
<P>And in Arkansas, newly released Justice Department e-mail messages show, Mr.
Rove’s staff repeatedly prodded the department’s staff to install one of his
protégés as a United States attorney by ousting a previous Bush appointee who
was in good standing.</P>
<P>Senate Democrats and a few Republicans have called for Mr. Rove to testify
publicly about the dismissals. </P>
<P>“There is an issue of intrigue, and for better or worse, that surrounds Karl
Rove,” said Senator <A title="More articles about Arlen Specter."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/arlen_specter/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Arlen
Specter</A> of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary
Committee. “It is in the president’s interest and the country’s interest to have
it dispelled or verified, but let’s hear it from him.” </P>
<P>The White House, however, is offering only a private interview without a
sworn oath.</P>
<P>Congressional Democrats said they were focusing on Mr. Rove in part because
the administration appeared to have tried to hide his fingerprints. In a
February 23 letter to Senate Democratic leaders that was approved by the White
House counsel’s office, for example, the Justice Department said that no one in
the White House had “lobbied” for any of the eight dismissals, and specifically
denied that Mr. Rove had “any role” in the appointment of the protégé, J.
Timothy Griffin, a former Bush campaign operative. </P>
<P>But the Justice Department officials who drafted the letter had corresponded
with Mr. Rove’s staff just weeks earlier about how to get the nomination done.
On Wednesday night, a department official apologized for inaccuracies in the
letter.</P>
<P>White House officials said Mr. Rove was just one voice in the approval of
federal prosecutors, whose selection is traditionally guided by the
recommendations of senior members of the president’s party in their states. </P>
<P>“Our job is to find qualified nominees who can win confirmation and be good
public servants,” said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. After the United
States attorneys are confirmed, she said, Mr. Rove and others at the White House
show “wide deference” to the Justice Department about specific cases.</P>
<P>Some Republicans say they always understood that Mr. Rove had a say in
prosecutor appointments. “I basically felt when I was talking to Karl I was
talking to the president,” said former Senator Peter G. Fitzgerald, an Illinois
Republican.</P>
<P>Early in the Bush administration, Mr. Fitzgerald said, he sought to recruit a
prosecutor who could investigate Gov. <A
title="More articles about George Ryan."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/george_ryan/index.html?inline=nyt-per">George
Ryan</A> of Illinois without fear of influence by the state’s political powers.
But Governor Ryan and his political ally Speaker <A
title="More articles about J. Dennis Hastert."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/j_dennis_hastert/index.html?inline=nyt-per">J.
Dennis Hastert</A> argued to the White House that they should have a voice in
the decision and insisted that someone from Illinois get the post. Mr.
Fitzgerald, who had hired Mr. Rove as a consultant , called him to settle the
question. </P>
<P>“Peter, it is your pick,” Mr. Rove told Mr. Fitzgerald, the former senator
recalled. “But we don’t want you to pick anybody from out of state. For your
Chicago guy, it has to be from Chicago.”</P>
<P>Undeterred, Mr. Fitzgerald sidestepped the White House. He made only one
recommendation — Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a New York prosecutor — announced it
publicly, and drew public acclaim that made it unstoppable. Some time after the
appointment, the former Senator Fitzgerald said, Mr. Rove “kind of yelled at
me,” telling him, “The appointment got great headlines for you but it ticked off
the base”— a phrase that the senator took to refer to the state’s Republican
establishment.</P>
<P>Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Rove was simply pushing a
general administration goal to appoint home-state prosecutors.</P>
<P>Democrats have seized on a connection to Mr. Rove to attack a prosecutor’s
credibility. In New Jersey, William Palatucci, a Republican political consultant
and Bush supporter, boasted of selecting a United States attorney by forwarding
Mr. Rove the résumé of his partner, Christopher J. Christie, a corporate lawyer
and Bush fund-raiser with little prosecutorial experience. </P>
<P>Mr. Christie has brought public corruption charges against prominent members
of both parties, but his most notable investigations have stung two Democrats,
former Gov. <A title="More articles about James E. McGreevey."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/james_e_mcgreevey/index.html?inline=nyt-per">James
E. McGreevey</A> and Senator <A title="More articles about Robert Menendez."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/robert_menendez/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Robert
Menendez</A>. When word of the latter inquiry leaked to the press during the
2006 campaign, Mr. Menendez sought to dismiss it by tying Mr. Christie to Mr.
Rove, calling the investigation “straight out of the Bush-Rove playbook.” (Mr.
McGreevey resigned after admitting to having an affair with a male aide and the
Menendez investigation has not been resolved.)</P>
<P>Mr. Rove initially supported the 2002 nomination of Fred Heebe, a lawyer
turned developer and a major Bush donor, for United States attorney in
Louisiana. But after former romantic partners of Mr. Heebe raised accusations of
abuse, which he denied, the White House backed off. Gov. Mike Foster publicly
blamed Mr. Rove for the reversal. Local Republican women sent Mr. Rove’s fax
machine letters supporting Mr. Heebe, to no avail.</P>
<P>Mr. Rove acts as a conduit to the White House for complaints from Republican
officials around the country, including gripes about federal prosecutors. During
the tight 2004 governor’s race in Washington State, for example, Chris Vance,
then chairman of the state’s Republican party, complained to a member of Mr.
Rove’s staff about what he considered Democratic voter fraud. </P>
<P>“When you are a state party chairman, the White House regional political
director is just part of your life,” Mr. Vance recalled. Mr. Vance said he never
complained specifically about the United States attorney John McKay, who has
been dismissed. Mr. Vance said he did not know if Mr. McKay had started an
investigation.</P>
<P>But in New Mexico, Mr. Vance’s counterpart as well as the state’s senior
Republican, Senator <A title="More articles about Pete V. Domenici."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/pete_v_domenici/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Pete
V. Domenici</A>, both complained to Mr. Rove that the United States attorney
David C. Iglesias was not prosecuting Democratic voter fraud. </P>
<P>Mr. Rove readily took up their alarms. In an April 2006 speech to the
Republican National Lawyers Association, he detailed accusations about
Democratic abuses in several locations, including New Mexico and “the spectacle
of Washington State.” He also relayed the complaints to Attorney General <A
title="More articles about Alberto R. Gonzales."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/alberto_r_gonzales/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Alberto
R. Gonzales</A> and the White House counsel, <A
title="More articles about Harriet E. Miers."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/harriet_e_miers/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Harriet
E. Miers</A>, and possibly Mr. Bush, the administration has recently
acknowledged. The prosecutors in those two states, who have said they could not
prove accusations of voter fraud, were among those ousted last year.</P>
<P>In Arkansas, Representative John Boozman, the state’s highest ranking
Republican in Congress, said he recommended Mr. Rove’s protégé, Mr. Griffin, for
a United States attorney vacancy in 2004, in part because of his ties to Mr.
Rove. </P>
<P>A prosecutor in the Army Reserves, Mr. Griffin worked for Mr. Rove as an
opposition researcher attacking Democratic presidential candidates in 2000. In
between, for six months, the Justice Department had dispatched him to Arkansas
to get experience as a prosecutor. </P>
<P>“I have been in situations through the years where Tim and Karl were at,” Mr.
Boozman recalled. “I could tell that Karl thought highly of him.” -</P>
<P>Mr. Griffin dropped out of the running in 2004 when he accepted a campaign
job for Mr. Rove, then became his deputy in the White House. But last summer,
the department asked United States Attorney H. E. Cummins III to resign to make
room and Mr. Rove’s staff began talking with department officials about how to
install Mr. Griffin despite Senate opposition, internal e-mail shows.</P>
<P>Republican defenders of the Griffin appointment said it is hardly unheard of
for a prominent official like Mr. Rove to call in such a favor. </P>
<P>Ultimately, United States attorneys know they are political appointees, said
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, who is close to Mr. Rove.</P>
<P>“To suggest that these folks do not know or understand the process by which
they are appointed, confirmed and retained,” Mr. Cornyn said, “is to suggest
that they are naïve.” </P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>