WP

Bob Luskin and his famous client, Karl Rove

by Glynn Wilson

Dancing the Potomac Two-Step

Karl Rove’s attorney is very good at the Washington two-step. They say Robert Luskin is an earring-wearing, motorcycle-riding, bald-hippie liberal lawyer from Harvard. The only common thread we might find between these two men could be their cocktail preferences, or their drugs.

Otherwise, it seems odd that they would find themselves together at the epicenter of the biggest political coverup since Watergate, or maybe Iran-Contra. Or, there was that CIA agent, Valerie Plame-Wilson, Rove helped to out, in spite of Luskin’s denials that kept Rove from facing prosecution in that case. I. Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, took the fall for that one. Bush commuted his sentence almost instantly — after lying and saying he would fire anyone involved in the leak.

There has been much speculation over the Internets about whether Bush might have signed a pocket pardon for Rove and the others in his administration facing investigations. Nothing has popped out of that pigeon hole yet, and probably won’t.

It’s all about running out the clock. The statute of limitations clock.

On Monday, Luskin leaked a tidbit to his old pal Murray Waas from the Plame investigation days, side-stepping the House Judiciary Committee investigation where Rove faces a subpoena, and said his client was cooperating in a separate investigation being run by the Justice Department. Since Eric Holder is now instituted at Justice, sworn in today, there is some worry about what he and President Obama are going to determine about “executive privilege.”

The so-called separate investigation is a Bush Justice Department backshop job run by his old OPR unit, the so-called Office of Professional Responsibility, where everything was political – uh, not all about ethics.

They have been talking to all kinds of people in North Alabama trying to dig up non-existent dirt on Dana Jill Simpson, rather than investigating Rove. So the smart political move on the part of the Obama Justice Department, not to mention the right move legally, would be to forestall that post-haste and insist that Rove appear before the House Judiciary Committee — or better yet, appoint a special prosecutor.

After all, Luskin said Rove was claiming no “privilege” as it relates to the case of Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. In other words, he is now saying Bush was not in the loop, so there’s no privilege. We’re not necessarily buying it, but we’ll dance along for now.

Luskin could not be reached for comment on deadline, but he told Waas this regarding Siegelman: “At no time has he or will he assert personal privilege in that matter.” While declining to discuss specifics of what Rove has told investigators regarding Siegelman, Luskin said: “What Karl has said [to investigators] is entirely consistent with what he has said publicly–that he absolutely (had) nothing to do with this.”

Rove Will Cooperate With DOJ Probes?

Ms. Simpson’s lawyer Priscilla Duncan in Montgomery said if you weave your way in and out of Luskin’s verbiage, when he says Rove doesn’t mind answering questions about Siegelman, “it is clear that Rove talked to the Bush Justice Department, not anyone from the new administration. He’s playing with us.”

Luskin then insists that Rove doesn’t know anything about the Siegelman prosecution, she said.

“Did he know about the preliminary discussions that led to it? Did he talk with Leura Canary, his former partner’s wife? Or Alice Martin? We don’t know whether they’ve been invited to testify or not, but the committee’s subpoenas are a long and tortured process.”

We already knew Bush never offered or suggested immunity of any kind for Rove in the Siegelman case, we find out.

“Lawyers are free to lie to the press, but can lose their license if they lie in court and get caught,” she said.

In all that cooperation Luskin says Bush and Rove are so eager to give, she adds, “there is not one hint that it will be 1) under oath or 2) recorded. In other words, it’s the same ‘poison whisper’ campaign he offered the Judiciary Committee last year.”

“Rove’s entire career is to plant juicy stories with pliant media to steer the coverage away from him by implying that they are missing a much bigger story,” she said.

For more, including the MSNBC video from today, hit the jump…

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“Jill and I went through a full bore of Rove’s trivia with 60 Minutes when he called and visited their offices trying to plant all kinds of false suggestions about Jill to stop the Siegelman story. It’s the main reason the show was delayed from November to March — Rove’s lies made CBS executives nervous, and they needed the extra time to track down and debunk every horrid little story,” she said.

“If you recall, he never would appear on film for CBS 60 Minutes or be interviewed about Siegelman. He just wanted to poison the well, as apparently he is doing now. Will he make these charges openly? No, he can spell libel and slander. He will drip the poison out drop by drop to Hinderaker, Bozell and others,” she added.

“Better we get a special prosecutor and cut to the chase,” she said. “Conyers has gone about as far as he can go with this. If Rove does show up, Jill and I are expecting a barrage of filth and criminal accusations from him, as the much-promised OPR investigation appears to have nothing at all to do with investigating the prosecutors but has focused on trying to destroy her credibility. It is probably good that that report has not been issued, as it would most assuredly be sheltering the Bush appointees whose actions were called into question.”

“Don’t be misled by suggestions of some investigative panel, the statute of limitations is running on the most prosecutable offenses, indeed it has on the 2002 events,” she concluded. “The diddling is paying off.”

MSNBC covers the latest developments.

I like David Schuster better than his predecessor Dan Abrams, but he said Rove has “capitulated.” Not true.

It’s still a dance, but Prof. Turley does make it more clear on the executive privilege point. He says there could be an indictment.

Related Links

Wikipedia on Robert Luskin

Because, sometimes, even Bush’s Brain needs a brain
Washington Post: The Liberal on Karl Rove’s Case

Legal Times: There’s Gold Here

Tags: Alice Martin, Jill Simpson, Karl Rove, Leura Canary, Priscilla Duncan, Robert Luskin

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Don Siegelman on Trial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.