Explore Harvard's Nieman network Nieman Fellowships Nieman Lab Nieman Reports Nieman Storyboard
Rove leaving the White House in August. (AP)

Questions I’d like to see someone ask Karl Rove

ASK THIS | June 19, 2008

The author of a new Rove biography thinks the newly minted television pundit still has some explaining to do – about Valerie Plame, Jack Abramoff, Don Siegelman and missing White House e-mails, just for starters.


By Paul Alexander
journal212@aol.com

Through his appearances on the Fox News Network and his columns in Newsweek, Karl Rove has reinvented himself as a pundit. I must say, however, that every time I encounter his punditry I think to myself that I still have a few questions for him left over from his last gig -- senior adviser to the president --  a post he held from the start of the Bush administration until August 31, 2007. Members of the House Judiciary Committee have a few questions for him as well, but so far Rove has refused to appear before the body under oath.

Given the opportunity, here are just a few of the questions I would like to see posed to Rove next time he pops up in public:

Q. Congressman Tom DeLay was brought down by a money-laundering scheme whereby corporate contributions were made to his political action committee that were then distributed to state political candidates in Texas, circumventing state laws that prohibited corporate campaign contributions to state candidates. What role did you play in the money-laundering scheme?

Q. Susan Ralston, a former aide to Jack Abramoff, worked for you in the White House. Did she pass information back and forth between you and Abramoff? If so, what kind of information?

Q. Why did you conduct most of your official White House business using a private e-mail system run by the Republican Party instead of the official White House e-mail system?

Q. Describe your association with Leura Canary, a United States attorney in Alabama and wife of your good friend and former business partner William “Bill” Canary. Did you in any way advise or help facilitate what is now being described as the wrongful prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama, a prosecution headed up by Leura Canary?

Q. In your last appearance before the grand jury convened by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald you testified that you had forgotten you leaked the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent, to Matt Cooper of Time. What exactly made you remember that you had not told the truth to the grand jury four previous times – and that you in fact had leaked Plame’s identity to a reporter, a federal crime?

Q. Do you still have plans to try to establish a permanent Republican majority in this country, as you have stated publicly? Why would you want to establish such a majority?



hurricane katrina survivor who lived in New Orleans when Katrina hit
Posted by jim martin
06/20/2008, 05:25 PM

Let me express my thanks to Paul Alexander for documenting what many of us
who remained in New Orleans during and
after Katrina have always believed: Somebody in the White House kept the regular army and other military units from arriving to help rescue
stranded people. Only the Coast Guard rescued people from rooftops and elsewhere in flooded New Orleans starting Monday afternoon, August 29. I first saw dozens
and then legions of helicopters of all shapes, sizes and colors, military and
civilian, fly over my place at 1719
jackson avenue in uptown New Orleans
from Monday afternoon, Aug 29 until
Sunday afternoon, September 4, when
I finally managed to make good my
escape from New Orleans.
My thanks to all those who granted
interviews to Alexander to document
for the historical record who really
deserves blame for the hell that the
blameless and innocent poor homeowners
and renters of the flooded areas of
New Orleans endured.
God must certainly love me, for the
floodwaters stopped three blocks
from my house.
I lived at 1719 Jackson Avenue.
The waters rose Monday afternoon
and Monday night, Aug 29/ I watched them
rise by walking out my front door
and looking down Jackson. When
the waters reached the intersection
of Jackson and Baronne Streets,
they stopped rising.
Till I draw my last breath I will
always believe that the hand of
God played a role in stopping those
flood waters.
I am a political junkie who happens
to love and miss New Orleans. I wish
I could return to live there.
Thanks again to Paul Alexander for
providing me and my fellow internally
displaced person for giving us a
name and a face to blame for some
of the hell we had to live through
when the inept and corrupted US Army Corp of Engineers
discovered their chickens had come
home to roost.
To paraphrase Franklin D Roosevelt,
August 29 2005 is a day that will
live in infamy.
Karl Rove and George Bush are names
that will live in infamy.
Jim Martin
jimfrankmartin@excite.com
formerly of
1719 Jackson Avenue
New Orleans Louisiana 70113





How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
An excerpt from Alexander's book, published on Salon.com.

The NiemanWatchdog.org website is no longer being updated. Watchdog stories have a new home in Nieman Reports.