Remember when they wanted to hang Gore for a few phone calls?

[DoYouEverWonder]

Gore actions merit further investigation

10/01/97

WASHINGTON - A Justice Department task force is expected to recommend Attorney General Janet Reno take the next step toward determining whether an independent prosecutor should investigate Vice President Al Gore's fund-raising telephone calls, government officials said Wednesday.

The task force has been conducting a 30-day preliminary review of allegations that Gore violated a law by making fund-raising telephone calls from his office. Reno must decide by Friday whether to launch a second-stage inquiry - a preliminary investigation that can last 90 days and might lead her to request appointment of an independent counsel for a full investigation.

<snip>

House Speaker Newt Gingrich intensified Republican pressure on Reno to call for an independent counsel. "I think 90 more days of waiting around and doing nothing is wrong," he told reporters at the White House after meeting with Clinton on a separate issue.

"I don't know why she is dragging her feet and every time it takes as much time as possible for her to get around to a decision," Gingrich said. "She has the evidence, she knows what the situation is. She should appoint an independent counsel."


http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/finance/ncfin117.htm


Funny, that was such a big deal back then and no one even blinks at what goes on now.





Rachel Clarke's description for the BBC is here:


>>Drawing up blueprints for Bush victory
By Rachel Clarke
BBC News, Washington

6 November, 2004

...Pressure and pranks: By the time election night came around, Mr Rove was in the White House, where, unusually for a political adviser, he has an office. He set up computers in the Old Family Dining Room and started tabulating results. He had set up a massive network of contacts, not just in state capitals, but individual districts and precincts to monitor turnout and support.

Mr Rove may spin the news, but the media still wants to hear him: Early exit polls quoted by media seemed to give Mr Kerry the edge, but colleagues said Mr Rove indicated right away that they did not tally with his information. He used his own data to put Ohio and Florida in the Bush column - bringing cheers from the president and his family when he went into the Roosevelt Room and told them. And when the TV networks gave either Ohio or Nevada to Mr Bush but not both - which would have led him to be declared as the winner - Mr Rove was one of the president's aides who got on the phone to news chiefs to try to pressure them to change their minds...<<

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3987237.stm


(Thanks to EuroObserver for the pic)

[Goldeneye]

1. God I hate him!

You know he was in on it. I just wonder what specifically he did.

[elepet]

2. Karl Rove

Does anyone know whether as Presidential Advisor he is paid personally by Bush etc, or is he on Government, taxpayer supported payroll?

[sepia_steel]

11. Maybe he claims Rove as a 'Small Business'

on his taxes, just like he does Cheney.

[bemis12]

3. It's fundraising from the gov't premises that's illegal.

Not watching the elections. That said, the deal with Gore was pretty ho-hum. The investigation went pretty much nowhere, as I recall.

[merh]

5. Isn't it the Hatch act that prohibts "CAMPAIGNING" on

federal property?

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Since Rove micromanged every aspect of the Bush campaign

I would assume that he probably made a few fund raising calls before the election.

[Goldeneye]

4. A second thought

I want to kick something.

"Pressure and pranks: By the time election night came around, Mr Rove was in the White House, where, unusually for a political adviser, he has an office. He set up computers in the Old Family Dining Room and started tabulating results. He had set up a massive network of contacts, not just in state capitals, but individual districts and precincts to monitor turnout and support."

How in the hell do they expect us to believe that he knew more than the pollsters? Hell, he didn't even graduate from college. They admit right in the article what Rove was doing was weird. Is anyone else ready to explode? I mean this isn't real is it?

[Heewack]

12. From what I understand, and as was discussed in another thread

Both parties run exit polls apart from the media exit polls. So, it's not that he knew more than the pollsters just that his pollsters were telling him something different. Add that to the Mitofsky claim the the early poll numbers released were faulty, and it starts to make some sense. His coordinating this is the WH, IMO, is much ado about nothing.


Where I think Rove is knee deep in a mess is with the Swift Boat Vets for Slander. He ran a very subdued campaign. Something that was totally baffling to me until you add in the SBfS. They did all the dirty work, and no one can ever convince me that that wasn't coordinated by Rove.

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Isn't Rove a Federal Employee?

If he is, doesn't the Hatch Act apply to him?

http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm

Or did the Repugs manage to retire that law when no one was looking?


In regards to the SBVs, I have documents that prove the Bush/Cheney Campaign did more than just coordinate with the SBVs, sometimes they even ran the show.

[Heewack]

17. I have never heard that.

From what I undestand campaign managers are not federal employees.

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. Karl Rove is a member of the White House staff

He is paid by the US government and has an office in the White House. That makes him a Federal Employee.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/bio_383.html

Karl Rove -- White House
Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the President

[vireo]

15. So why doesn't Rove release this supposed poll data

which would corroborate a Bush victory?

Also, I haven't heard of any Kerry campaign exit polling. Does such data exist?

[Heewack]

16. My guess would be

... that he doesn't feel the need to release them because there really hasn't been anything substantial raised about the Mitofsky polls given his explanations. Other than that I have no idea. Have any campaign's ever released their own exit polling data? I don't know.

Both parties have been running thier own exit polls for years. If Kerry were to release his, which I think is far more likely than Rove releasing any(try cold day in hell), and there were large discrepencies maybe we could make a case out of that.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

20. remember, they have decided....

exit polls are worthless because they are inaccurate. Except his apparently.

[thecrow]

6. He used his own data to put Ohio and Florida in the Bush column

Mr Rove was one of the president's aides who got on the phone to news chiefs to try to pressure them to change their minds...

That about says it all.
We need look no further...

[Vidar]

7. The independent prosecutor law conveniently died before it

could be used on the Republicans.

[pacalo]

8. Ewwwwhooooohooooo -- Rove is soooooo gross to look at!

That cotton-candy hair on top of that shiny bald head...his shiny pig snout...ooooh...it's enough to make me lose my breakfast.

[O.M.B.inOhio]

9. Examples of GOP hypocrisy would make a BIG book.

Thanks for the reminder of all the pious rancor from those good old days when Fascism in America seemed impossible.

[McCamy Taylor]

13. was one of those calls to Blackwell early election day to say "No exit...

...polls in Ohio, that would give away the scam"?

[Red State Blues]

18. Old Family Dining Room

I assume that the dining room is in the residence. If so, Rove was ok.

Now how Rove runs his office day to day without violating the Hatch Act is another matter.