Rove was neck deep in the Justice Department, the politics, and the US Attorney firings

Two clips from NYTimes articles point to a far deeper Rove involvement than the White House has previously stated.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department released more than 200 additional pages of e-mail messages and other documents and sent a letter to lawmakers saying that it had given Congress inaccurate information in an earlier letter that asserted that Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, had played no role in the removals.

See, they just forgot he was involved. They didn't lie to Congress. They "provided inaccurate information." It's an understandable mistake. It's not like Rove "exercises unusually broad influence."

Political advisers have had a hand in picking judges and prosecutors for decades, but Mr. Rove exercises unusually broad influence over political, policy and personnel decisions because of his closeness to the president, tenure in the administration and longstanding interest in turning the judiciary to the right.

For example, Mr. Rove reprimanded a Republican senator from Illinois for recommending the appointment of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a star prosecutor from outside the state, to investigate the state’s then-governor, a Republican. In New Jersey, Mr. Rove helped arrange the nomination of a major Bush campaign fund-raiser who had little prosecutorial experience. In Louisiana, he first supported and then helped scuttle a similar appointment.

In the months before the United States attorneys in New Mexico and Washington State were ousted, Mr. Rove joined a chorus of complaints from state Republicans that the federal prosecutors had failed to press charges in Democratic voter fraud cases. While planning a June 21, 2006, White House session to discuss the prosecutors, for example, a Rove deputy arranged for top Justice Department officials to meet with an important Bush supporter who was critical of New Mexico’s federal prosecutor about voter fraud.

And in Arkansas, newly released Justice Department e-mail messages show, Mr. Rove’s staff repeatedly prodded the department’s staff to install one of his protégés as a United States attorney by ousting a previous Bush appointee who was in good standing.

Bring him in. Put him under oath.

(All these examples "came out" right before the hearings tomorrow where Sampson is to testify. This is an awful lot of specific detail for either a leak or emails. I would think that this is the White House trying to immunize before tomorrow. They may know what the Dems are bringing to the hearing.)

UPDATE: The AP has different euphemisms for lying. "erred in asserting," "certain statements... appeared to be contradicted by department documents included in our production."

We wouldn't know about any of this if the Dems had "taken their word."

Bring 'em in. Under oath.