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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Rove's Worrisome Witness (NOVAK: SUSAN RALSTON SEEKING IMMUNITY) Rove's Worrisome Witness By Robert D. Novak On the day presidential senior adviser Karl Rove administered a tongue-lashing to a Republican congressman, disturbing news about his former executive assistant was spread on Capitol Hill. GOP House members learned that Susan Ralston is requesting immunity to testify before Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman's investigating committee. She was an assistant to Jack Abramoff, Washington super-lobbyist and Republican fundraiser, in 2001 when he recommended her for the top job with Rove as he entered the White House. As Rove's gatekeeper, Susan Bonzon Ralston became special assistant to the president and the highest-ranking Filipino American in the administration. For Waxman, she is a link between the disgraced, imprisoned Abramoff and Rove, a principal political target of the Democratic-controlled Congress. As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Waxman is tirelessly making life miserable for a confused administration during George W. Bush's last two years as president. Bringing down Rove ranks high on Grand Inquisitor Waxman's agenda. But Ralston appears to be seeking immunity for self-protection rather than nailing her former boss, and she could be a blank fired by the fierce political marksman from westside Los Angeles. Rove, the hard-edged architect of two victorious presidential campaigns, was in the Democratic cross hairs long before the Republicans lost control of Congress. Democrats were bitterly disappointed when he was not indicted in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case (when Ralston was among the grand jury witnesses). They have targeted Rove in investigating the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and Waxman's committee sought testimony from Ralston about Rove's e-mails. She was deposed behind closed doors last month before her request for immunity. Ralston told one Republican on the committee last week that her lawyers wanted her to seek immunity, and another GOP committee member told me she is doing so. According to her friends, she has nothing to say that would cause problems for Rove. Her request for immunity, they explained, resulted from caution by her attorneys. It was forwarded to the Justice Department, whose recommendation may or may not be followed by Congress. Ralston did not return my telephone call. If her testimony is a dud, that could embarrass Waxman. But he has many other weapons. Since assuming the chairmanship on Jan. 4, Waxman has acted as though he had spent the past dozen years in the congressional minority contemplating how many investigations he could launch. His committee has aimed at the General Services Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, constraints on global-warming scientists, the misrepresentations of Cpl. Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan, private contractors in Iraq and the Plame leak, among other things. The Bush team has seemed confused and disorganized in the face of this fusillade. Warnings by Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, Waxman's Republican counterpart on the committee, fell on deaf ears at the White House. The president's agents appear uncertain about how much they should meet Waxman's demand for documents. In such a climate, Rove telephoned Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois last week to dress him down for allegedly giving the media an account of a private meeting at the White House in which Kirk and other moderate Republicans complained to the president about his Iraq war policy. "That's not the first time I got blamed for doing what Ray LaHood[a garrulous fellow Illinois Republican House member] did," Kirk told a colleague. No matter who was responsible for the leak, Rove's scolding of Kirk was not well received in the House Republican cloakroom. Kirk, a former State Department official and U.S. Naval Reserve aviator, is widely popular in the Republican conference. With Waxman hot on his trail and hounding his former assistant, Rove could use enthusiastic support from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Many of these congressmen believe that Rove should have quit when he was ahead as manager of the two Bush elections and left in January 2005. However, they do not want to see him limp out of Washington with his scalp hanging on Henry Waxman's belt. "We're not hostile to the administration," one prominent conservative House member who did not want his name used told me. "We just want it to be over."
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#1. To: aristeides (#0)
At least the RNC news is entertaining.
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." ~George Washington
Picking on Kirk ain't smart. He's about the only Republican in Illinois who is likely to win next year and he's probably going to become a power in the house. I imagine he will be capable of getting revenge on Bush, Rove and Cheney, even after they leave office. This whole Alberto thing is leading back to Rove and Cheney...and now, with that midnight raid on Ashcroft, trying to get him to reauthorize warrantless eavesdropping when he was in the hospital, seems to lead right back to Cheney. And that is a VERY serious situation. I can't wait to see this pack of jackals behind bars and the new president and congress repealing every single thing they did over eight years.
Gah. Sickening crew.
Laws are like spiderwebs; they hold the weak and delicate who are caught in their meshes, but are torn apart by the rich and powerful.-Anacharsis.
If Novak is backing Kirk over the Bush administration, he's likely to be reflecting the thinking of more powerful people in Congress. Like Boehner.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
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