Dodgy Rove Stutters through Undenying Siegelman Denial

ht The Veracifier

Transcript (by me) starts with Rove’s first answer:

Rove: Uh, lemme say three things. First of all, uh, I think it’s interesting, eh. Everybody who was supposedly on that telephone call that Ms. Simpson talks about says that the call never took place. I’d say…

Stephanopoulos: Oh, but she produced a cell phone record according the committee.

Rove: Uh, uh, I would say three things. First of all, uh, I’ve, uh, vse, uh, 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 the 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 similiar instance in the Senate. It lbe will probably be asserted very quickly in this in the House.

Third, the White House and ha-has agreed. I, I’m not sert (sic), I’m not asserting any personal privilege. The White House offered and, uh, my lawyers offered several different ways if the House wants to find out information about this, they can find out that information about this, and they’ve refused to avail themselves of those opportunities. We didn’t say close off any uh option to do, what, anything else 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, uh, if you, you know, you’re, you’re entitle to do what you want to do in the future. This is now tied up in court. It’s gonna be tied up in court and settled in court. And frankly, the House last week doing this, you know, um, uh, is duplicating what the Senate has already done, and it’s already found its way into the court.

Stephanopoulos: But to be clear, you did not contact the Justice Department about this case…

Rove: Uh, uh, I read about uh,…I’m gonna simply say what I 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: Uh, I, I, I’ve, I’ve, uh, uh, ee, uh, you know, I read about, I heard about it, read about, learned about it for the first time about by reading it in the newspaper.