Karl Rove appeared on This Week and was caught it what sounded like a stonewall. He obviously has something to hide (see read source article and video):
STEPHANOPOULOS: We’re just about out of time. This is — as you know, and our viewers probably know, you were subpoenaed this week by the House Judiciary Committee to give testimony on any involvement you may have had with the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. He’s claiming there was selective prosecution. He’s out on bail now, even though he was convicted. He says your fingerprints were all over it.
Here’s what the House report said. It said, “In May 2007, a Republican attorney for northern Alabama named Jill Simpson wrote an affidavit stating that in November 2002, she heard a prominent Alabama Republican operative named Bill Canary say that Karl Rove had contacted the Justice Department about bringing a prosecution of Don Siegelman. The question for Mr. Rove is whether he directly or indirectly discussed the possibility of prosecuting Don Siegelman with either the Justice Department or Alabama Republicans.” Did you?
ROVE: Let me say three things. First of all, I think it’s interesting — everybody who was supposedly on that telephone call that Ms. Simpson talks about says that the call never took place. I’d say…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Although she produced a cell phone record, according to the committee.
ROVE: Well, I would say three things. First of all, I have — I learned about Don Siegelman’s prosecution by reading about it in the newspaper. Second of all, this is really about a constitutional question of separation of powers. Congress, the House Judiciary Committee, wants to be able to call presidential aides on its whim up to testify, violating the separation of powers. Executive privilege has been asserted by the White House in a similar instance in the Senate. It will probably be asserted very quickly in this — in the House. Third, the White House has agreed — I’m not asserting any personal privilege. The White House has offered, and my lawyers offered, several different ways in which if the House wants to find out information about this, they can find out information about this. And they’ve refused to avail themselves of those opportunities.
We didn’t say, close off any option to do anything else that you want to do in the future. We said if you want to hear about this, let’s sit down and talk about this, and then you’re entitled to do what you want to do in the future. This is now tied up in court. It’s going to be tied up in court and settled in court. And frankly, the House last week doing this, you know, is duplicating what the Senate has already done and it’s already found its way into the courts.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But to be clear, you did not contact the Justice Department about this case?
ROVE: I read about — I’m going to simply say what I’ve said before, which is I found out about Don Siegelman’s investigation and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s not a denial.
ROVE: I’ve — you know, I read — I heard about it, read about it, learned about it for the first time by reading about it in the newspaper.
The reason he is using classic lawyer language has to do with the possible legal troubles he faces:
The House Judiciary Committee pressed its investigation of possible political influence in Justice Department prosecutions on Thursday by issuing a subpoena to Karl Rove, the former chief political operative at the Bush White House.
Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee chairman, said the subpoena was necessary because Mr. Rove had explicitly declined an invitation to appear voluntarily. Mr. Conyers and fellow committee Democrats say they want to question Mr. Rove about the dismissals of several federal prosecutors and ask whether he knows anything about the decision to prosecute former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.
Mr. Siegelman, who was convicted on a bribery charge, was released from prison in March pending an appeal after an appeals court ruled that he had raised “substantial questions” about his case.
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