Larisa Alexandrovna: Lawyer - Rove Knew Who DoJ Was Interviewing & Which Witnesses Were Cooperating

[Hissyspit]

(Mods: Reproduced in entirety with permission.)

Pricilla Duncan, Simpson’s former attorney, said during a Thursday morning phone interview that she was concerned and wanted to know “how Rove could possibly know who the (Department of Justice) was interviewing and which witnesses were cooperating or not?”

Rove op-ed reveals he had inside information about probe

BY LARISA ALEXANDROVNA

Published: August 20, 2009
Updated 1 hour ago

Lawyer declines to say how he found out accuser didn’t talk to Justice Department

Karl Rove’s latest attempt to proclaim his innocence and demand apologies from those who have accused him of being behind the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman may backfire if it turns out that Rove was improperly receiving inside information after leaving his position as Deputy White House Chief of Staff.

“For more than two years,” Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal, “House Judiciary Committee Democrats and the New York Times editorial board have argued that I personally arranged for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to be prosecuted in 2004 for corruption and ordered the removal of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 for failing to investigate Democrats. The Washington Post editorial board also echoed this last charge. The Times and the Post have published a combined 18 editorials on these issues, which were also catnip to House Judiciary Committee Democrats.”

Rove then goes on to attack Dana Jill Simpson, an Alabama Republican lawyer turned whistleblower who has linked him to the Siegelman prosecution. In doing so, however, he raises serious questions of impropriety by revealing that he has received confidential information from both the House Judiciary Committee and the Department of Justice.

“Committee staff confided to me that they considered her an unreliable witness,” Rove says of Simpson. “I also understand that Mr. Siegelman and Ms. Simpson refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s review of his claim of political persecution, while I willingly gave sworn testimony.”

Simpson’s allegations

Simpson — who worked for then-Republican Congressman Bob Riley as an opposition researcher during his successful 2002 campaign to unseat then-Governor Don Siegelman — alleged in a 2007 affidavit that Riley’s campaign staff had used unscrupulous means to force Siegelman not to contest the outcome of the election and also stated that “Karl” had taken a personal interest in the matter.

In even more explosive testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Simpson further described a conference call during which Riley campaign advisor Bill Canary said that “Rove had spoken with the Department of Justice” about “pursuing” Siegelman and advised Riley’s staff “not to worry about Don Siegelman” because “‘his girls’ would take care of” the governor.

Canary is a longtime friend and business associate of Karl Rove, and the “girls” to whom he allegedly referred were his wife Leura Canary, who was US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, who was US Attorney for the Northern District.

Siegelman had been the target of a series of investigations launched by his political opponents just a few weeks after the took office as governor in 1999, and those investigations were escalated from the state to the federal level by Bush Administration appointees in 2001. He was charged with corruption in 2005, just as he was attempting a political comeback, was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, and is currently out on appeal.

Rove’s op-ed is intended in part to refute persistent claims, by Siegelman and others, that he was directly involved in the prosection.

The Office of Professional Responsibility

Simpson’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, along with other evidence, prompted an investigation into Leura Canary and Alice Martin by the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is tasked with investigating corruption allegations against attorneys employed by the Department of Justice.

Rove’s remarkable admission that he “understand(s) that Mr. Siegelman and Ms. Simpson refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s review of his claim of political persecution, while I willingly gave sworn testimony,” opens both Rove himself and and the OPR to questions of serious impropriety.

Pricilla Duncan, Simpson’s former attorney, said during a Thursday morning phone interview that she was concerned and wanted to know “how Rove could possibly know who the (Department of Justice) was interviewing and which witnesses were cooperating or not?”

When asked for comment, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, clarified Rove’s statement about Simpson refusing to cooperate. He wrote in an email to Raw Story, “I think he’s referring to the current round of hearings/interviews. You are correct that she provided an affidavit and interview previously. She did decline to cooperate with the OPR investigation at Justice.”

Luskin declined, however, to comment as to how he found out Simpson had not testified.

Fresh questions about the Department of Justice

Asked if Rove’s claims were true and if her former client had in fact refused to cooperate with OPR, Duncan said yes. But her revelations about why Simpson had refused to cooperate raise additional questions of impropriety by the Department of Justice.

According to documents supplied by Duncan to Raw Story — two of which are emails between Duncan and the DOJ and are quoted below — the OPR appears to have been investigating Simpson herself rather than the US Attorneys whom Simpson had alleged were involved in political prosecution of Don Siegelman.

Duncan says, “My client refused to cooperate in an investigation that had nothing to do with her allegations, but were entirely focused on her personal life.”

On September 19, 2008, an OPR attorney — Lisa Howard — sent this email to Duncan, requesting Simpson’s cooperation:

From: Howard, Lisa (OPR)
To: XXXXXX
Sent: 9/19/2008 12:33:48 PM
Subject: Jill Simpson
Ms. Duncan - I am an attorney with the Office of Professional Responsibility at the U.S. Department of Justice involved in investigating allegations that former Alabama governor Don Siegelman’s prosecution was politically motivated. I have learned that you represented Ms. Simpson when she was interviewed by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary.
I would like to contact Ms. Simpson by letter to ask her to agree to an interview with OPR about the Siegelman matter. Do you still represent her, or can you tell me if she is represented by someone else? If she is unrepresented, can you tell me her mailing address? You can call me to discuss my request at 202-305-2544. Thank you.”

By this time, Simpson had been told by a former client, an ex-husband, and a former close friend that officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the DOJ had approached them asking questions about Simpson’s private life, including her adopted daughter, her sexual behavior, and her business practices.

“No one was asked about Siegelman or any of the allegations,” Duncan said.

When Duncan learned of these interviews, she refused to let her client meet with OPR because “it became clear they were not investigating anyone but Jill.”

“They only asked me if Jill had anything more to add outside of her testimony and that was that,” Duncan added.

In response to the DOJ’s questioning of Simpson’s family and friends, Duncan wrote an email to Lisa Howard:

From: Priscilla Duncan
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 12:56 PM
To: Howard, Lisa (OPR)
Subject: RE: Jill Simpson
Dear Ms. Howard:
My client and I have been waiting for your OPR report on Gov. Siegelman’s case with interest.
To our understanding, the only efforts your office put forth in this matter were to hire Jim Sullivan, the criminal division chief for discredited U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, and William Causey, from your office, to attempt to badger Miss Simpson’s former client, a husband she has not seen in 12 years and an old girlfriend into saying something to discredit her.
(redacted material)
It was the suspicion that this sort of “investigation” was what your office had in mind that convinced Ms. Simpson not to participate in this sham investigation. Any attempts to discredit Ms. Simpson by your office will be met with litigation against the individuals involved. Since there is no remote connection with your charge in this inquiry, you and your minions have no hope of claiming prosecutory privilege.

Columbia law professor and legal contributor to Harper’s Magazine, Scott Horton, who has been investigating the matter, confirms part of Duncan’s account.

“Rove’s claim that Simpson failed to cooperate with the DOJ investigation is untruthful — and this is a point I have studied,” Horton wrote in an email to Raw Story.

“In fact what happened was this: DOJ investigators contacted Simpson’s attorney and asked her whether Simpson had any information to share beyond her testimony and the documents she produced to Congress. She said “no.” That was the end of it. Simpson was entirely willing to meet and discuss the matter with the investigators — unlike Rove. And also unlike Rove, she had already testified and been crossexamined under oath and had produced her documents, so it was not really necessary.”

Lisa Howard of OPR did not return calls for comment.

Rove’s claims of an inside source at the House Judiciary Committee

In addition to the claims relating to Ms. Simpson, Rove also wrote in his op-ed that “Committee staff confided to me that they considered an unreliable witness.”

In this reporter’s conversations with the House Judiciary Committee, Simpson was always described as a credible witness. Horton conforms that he has had much the same experience in his own dealings with HJC staffers.

“I have spoken repeatedly with Committee staff myself and formed exactly the opposite view,” wrote Horton in an email. “They consider Simpson a highly credible witness. Moreover, you don’t need to take my word for it since we have explicit evidence for just that proposition: they issued a report which relies, heavily and repeatedly, on Simpson’s testimony — not something which they would have done had they disbelieved her or found her testimony not credible,”

“What Rove means to say, perhaps, is this: “I have spoken with Republican staffers at the Judiciary Committee,…” And yes, it is clear that the job of Republican staffers on the committee was to challenge Simpson’s credibility. The peak of this effort came when Randy Forbes (R-VA) claimed that there was no evidence to corroborate Simpson’s claims of a telephone conference with Rob Riley’s office on a specific date. Recall that Artur Davis (D-AL) turned Forbes into a proverbial greasespot by whipping out the phone records and showing that they did, in fact, reflect exactly the call she discussed at the time she discussed it. The Republican staffers, as usual, did no research, resting instead on Rove’s “facts” as facts.

“But this shows just what I expected,” Horton continues, “namely that Rove was communicating with G.O.P. staffers throughout the process to get information about the investigation — a process that violated his understanding with the Committee. Just as he violated his agreement by giving “exclusive” interviews to the NY Times and Washington Post before the process was completed. What this shows is two-fold: Rove isn’t bothered in the slightest by breaking his agreements, and Rove is the master of the half-truth and the outright lie.”

Requests for comment to the House Judiciary Committee were not immediately returned.