Comments on: Rove’s Subpoena

By: numbertwopencil

numbertwopencil — Sun, 25 May 2008 05:08:26 +0000

…If Rover and gold bars were 100% confident…

Well, no, I don’t think they are 100% confident but, as far as I can tell, no one has spilled _any_ serious beans yet and, of course, the e-mail is missing and so on. They have done a good job of laundering criminal acts, keeping the circle tight, and limiting the evidence. I think it’s going to take a couple of people breaking the silence to break through to the criminal evidence and testimony. Going straight at Rove and the other main public players as Conyers is doing, isn’t going to shake things up enough to send the people who deserve their day in court to trial. In fact, if they keep trying at the level they’ve been trying they are just likely to make it all that much harder to obtain convictions in the future. They would need to pro-active and run a real investigation. They have gathered some evidence showing that it’s likely crimes have been committed but that’s all. They haven’t shaken the trees, found the missing e-mail, the missing phone records, or even dug deeply enough to sort out how Rove’s machine worked in AL. Again, don’t get me wrong–I think the work Rove and Co. did was deeply illegal, I just don’t think, unless Conyers gets really lucky, that Rove’s testimony is going to sink him. How could it? Based on what we’ve seen of the evidence so far, where’s the crime? Rove can hem and haw and lie but assuming he avoids obvious perjury, I don’t see what he can possibly be indicted on at this point. All of the people, with only a few exceptions, that Conyers has dragged in so far are too far up the food chain, he needs to work the bottom, basically the GOP operative that Rove placed, and then leaned on, in various key positions and job in AL. Once a couple of the little guys run out of money for legal fees and turn on Rove and Co. , you can start to make a real case that Rove can’t easily side step.

By: dosido

dosido — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:53:23 +0000

I agree with your point. Absolutely. I don’t think the answer or response is to appoint a Hilary to the bench.

I still believe it ought to be judges and not career politicians (I know, we can argue the distinctions if you really want) who get appointed to SCOTUS. And I think dems can do better than neo cons in the integrity department. That’s what I am clumsily trying to say.

By: BooRadley

BooRadley — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:32:04 +0000

If Rover and gold bars were 100% confident that they had poisoned the well, Rover would still be pontificating.

By: BooRadley

BooRadley — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:22:03 +0000

Great catch, thanks.

By: numbertwopencil

numbertwopencil — Sat, 24 May 2008 05:08:52 +0000

I’m delighted that Conyers is moving forward and I really hate to say this but…I’m suspicious that Rove has poisoned the well in the Siegelman mess. I think he has good reason to avoid testifying under oath and, yeah, I think he was improperly involved in all of the cases Conyers and company are looking at. However, I think Rove dropped poison way back by, say, suggesting various things to, say, Jill Simpson, that will be easy for him to deny and for which he has clear alibis. If I were Conyers, I’d be working the margins of the Siegelman investigation–putting Eddie Curran, Quinn Hillyer, and various members of the Birmingham News under oath, for example, would be a start. They need to make some of the smaller players sweat hard in hopes of turning someone. AFAIK, no one has the goods on Rove. It’s been suggested, of course, that Simpson has testified about certain things that will trip Rove up but, unfortunately, Simpson really is a weak witness and, of course, it’s likely that Rove knows what she said to the investigators. It’s clear that Rove laundered his influence in AL through various reporters and GOP operatives in AL but it’s unclear that Conyers has been pulling on the right strings. We’ll see but I’m pretty sure Rove has a longterm strategy in place that he hopes will undermine Conyers investigations.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:20:30 +0000

Well, about three weeks ago, Max Dunlap tried to get out of prison. After John Harvey died, I have only seen news accounts like this, but they keep cropping up every now and then.

By: bobschacht

bobschacht — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:58:19 +0000

OMG: Bolles murder investigations are still going on?!!!

What’s new on that front?

Bob in HI
Flagstaff, AZ 1987-2004

By: Rayne

Rayne — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:25:12 +0000

Very interesting. It’s the same kind of pernicious and unavoidable dirt that’s probably shot our chances at impeaching Bush, truth be told — because anybody and everybody in Congress has had some level of interaction and association with folks not unlike those the Hensleys interacted with.

The Lansky-Bronfman bit is still very intriguing, and distinct from the Hensley stuff…wonder if that’s not a thread to pull further.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:09:19 +0000

I know more than a bit about the Arizona “organized crime” part of this. My firm was smack dab in the middle of the biggest part of it, the Bolles murder. To the best of my knowledge, the Hensleys are not particularly mobbed up. They have been around here for a long time and are in the liquor business; a few decades ago that meant that you dealt with some of the folks being called organized crime or the mob (most specifically Kemper Marley). Now Marley had ties, but the Hensley part of it is semi-tangential; they are not clean necessarily, but equating them with Gambinos, Gottis and Bonannos is not quite accurate (you didn’t do that, but I have seen others trying, and that is the gist behind what you are relying on). Every big time family in the state, from Goldwaters to Rosenzwiegs to Udalls to DeConcinis etc had some level of interaction and association with the same people the Hensleys did.

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:33:32 +0000

Interesting; thanks for the info. It sure makes sense.