[Mb-civic] Rove's Future Role Is Debated - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Rove's Future Role Is Debated
White House May Seek Fresh Start In Wake of Leak

By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 3, 2005; Page A01

Top White House aides are privately discussing the future of Karl Rove, 
with some expressing doubt that President Bush can move beyond the 
damaging CIA leak case as long as his closest political strategist 
remains in the administration.

If Rove stays, which colleagues say remains his intention, he may at a 
minimum have to issue a formal apology for misleading colleagues and the 
public about his role in conversations that led to the unmasking of CIA 
operative Valerie Plame, according to senior Republican sources familiar 
with White House deliberations.

While Rove faces doubts about his White House status, there are new 
indications that he remains in legal jeopardy from Special Counsel 
Patrick J. Fitzgerald's criminal investigation of the Plame leak. The 
prosecutor spoke this week with an attorney for Time magazine reporter 
Matthew Cooper about his client's conversations with Rove before and 
after Plame's identity became publicly known because of anonymous 
disclosures by White House officials, according to two sources familiar 
with the conversation.

Fitzgerald is considering charging Rove with making false statements in 
the course of the 22-month probe, and sources close to Rove -- who holds 
the titles of senior adviser and White House deputy chief of staff -- 
said they expect to know within weeks whether the most powerful aide in 
the White House will be accused of a crime.

But some top Republicans said yesterday that Rove's problems may not end 
there. Bush's top advisers are considering whether it is tenable for 
Rove to remain on the staff, given that Fitzgerald has already 
documented something that Rove and White House official spokesmen once 
emphatically denied -- that he played a central role in discussions with 
journalists about Plame's role at the CIA and her marriage to former 
ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the Iraq war.

"Karl does not have any real enemies in the White House, but there are a 
lot of people in the White House wondering how they can put this behind 
them if the cloud remains over Karl," said a GOP strategist who has 
discussed the issue with top White House officials. "You can not have 
that [fresh] start as long as Karl is there."

A swift resolution is needed in part to ease staff tension, a number of 
people inside and out of the White House said. Many mid-level staffers 
inside have expressed frustration that press secretary Scott McClellan's 
credibility was undermined by Rove, who told the spokesman that he was 
not involved in the leak, according to people familiar with the case.

Some aides said Rove told Bush the same thing, though little is known 
about the precise nature of the president's conversations with his 
closest political adviser.

McClellan relayed Rove's denial to reporters from the White House 
lectern in 2003, and he has not yet offered a public explanation for his 
inaccurate statements. "That is affecting everybody," said a Republican 
who has discussed the issue with the White House. "Scott personally is 
really beaten down by this. Everybody I talked to talks about this."

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, 
will be arraigned today on five counts, involving three felony charges, 
in the leak probe. Libby also told McClellan two years ago he was not 
involved, a denial that was also relayed to the public.

White House communications director Nicolle Wallace said that there have 
not been any White House meetings to discuss Rove's fate, and that the 
senior adviser is actively engaged and "doing an outstanding job." She 
said "there is no debate" over Rove's future.

Rove has long been regarded as the most influential and feared Bush aide 
and has enjoyed the fervent backing of the president and influential 
conservatives. Republicans with firsthand knowledge of the private talks 
about Rove's political problems said there have been informal 
discussions involving people inside and outside the White House, and 
that they reflected the views of a large number of administration 
officials who are concerned about Bush's efforts to start anew in 2006 
with as little interference from the scandal as possible.

(continued)...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110203276.html
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