Presidents and their Advisers: George W. Bush and Karl Rove
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush from the start of Bush' presidency until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He also headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. He is given much of the credit for the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of George W. Bush, as well as Bush's 2000 and 2004 successful presidential campaigns. In his 2004 victory speech Bush referred to Rove as "the Architect". Others have pejoratively referred to Rove as "Bush's Brain", though author Peter Baker dispels this as a myth in his recent book about the Bush administration entitled Days of Fire. Nevertheless, Bush, probably more than any other adviser, deserves credit for Bush's campaign success, and he is someone who was definitely in Bush's inner White House circle.
Karl Christian Rove was born in Denver, Colorado on Christmas Day of 1950. In 1965, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where Rove entered high school and becoming a skilled debater. He began his involvement in politics in 1968, working on Senator Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign. He attended the University of Utah and got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That position led to a job in 1970 on Ralph Tyler Smith's unsuccessful re-election campaign for Senate from Illinois against Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.
In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. He later said, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." In June 1971, after the end of the semester, Rove dropped out of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee. He was an active participant in Richard Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign. Rove held the position of executive director of the College Republicans until early 1973.
On September 6, 1973, RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush chose him to be chairman of the College Republicans. In November 1973, he asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met.
Rove first worked in Texas was in 1977 as a legislative aide for Fred Agnich, a Texas Republican state representative from Dallas. Later that same year, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by James A. Baker, III, a Houston lawyer (later President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979-1980. Rove worked for William Clements during the Texas gubernatorial election of 1978 and helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Rove was deputy director of the Governor Clements Junior Committee in 1979 and 1980, and deputy executive assistant to the governor in 1980 and 1981.
Rove suffered personal tragedy when, on September 11, 1981, his mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada. That same year he founded a direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co., in Austin. The firm's first clients included Governor Clements and Democratic congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican congressman and United States Senator. In 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's presidential campaign. Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of election races. Most were in a supporting role, doing direct mail fundraising. A November 2004 Atlantic Monthly article estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 statewide, congressional, and national races, and Rove's candidates won 34 races. He also did work during those years for non-political clients. From 1991 to 1996, Rove advised tobacco giant Philip Morris, and ultimately earned $3,000 a month via a consulting contract.
Rove advised the George W. Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978. In 1977, Rove was the first person hired by George H. W. Bush for his unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign, which ended with Bush as the vice-presidential nominee. In 1986, Rove helped Clements become governor a second time.
In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, brought in experts to tutor him on policy, and introduced him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided not to run, but in 1990, two other Rove candidates won: Rick Perry, the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison became state treasurer. In 1991, United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh resigned to run for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, one made vacant by John Heinz's death in a helicopter crash. Rove's company worked for the campaign, but it ended with an upset loss to Democrat Harris Wofford. Rove subsequently sued Thornburgh alleging non-payment for services rendered. Karl Rove & Co. v. Thornburgh was heard by U.S. Federal Judge Sam Sparks (who had been appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991) and Rover was successful.
1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards, with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm. In 1998 Rove was an adviser for Bush's reelection campaign as governor. From July through December 1998, Bush's reelection committee paid Rove & Co. nearly $2.5 million. Rove's work for the Bush campaign included direct mail, voter contact, phone banks, computer services, and travel expenses.
In early 1999, Rove sold his 20-year-old direct-mail business, Karl Rove & Co. Selling Karl Rove & Co. was a condition that George W. Bush had insisted on before Rove took the job of chief strategist for Bush's presidential bid. When Bush was elected President in the controversial election of 2000, Rove became a significant adviser in the Bush White House. For example in 2002 and 2003 Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), an internal White House working group established in August 2002, eight months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. WHIG was charged with developing a strategy "for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States." Members of WHIG included Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio, and communication strategists Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes, and James R. Wilkinson. The existence of this group was confirmed when a subpoena for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by CIA leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald in January 2004.
On August 29, 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of the yellowcake documents among the justifications for the War in Iraq enumerated in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address. In late August 2006 it became known that Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage was responsible for the leak. The investigation led to felony charges being filed against Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Eventually, Libby was found guilty by a jury. On June 13, 2006, prosecutors determined there was no cause to charge Rove with any wrongdoing. On July 13, 2006, Plame unsuccessfully sued Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others, accusing them of conspiring to destroy her career.
Bush was re-elected to the presidency in 2004 and he publicly thanked Rove and called him "the architect" in his 2004 victory speech, after defeating John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. But in the 2006 mid-term elections the Democrats won both houses of Congress. Rove was blamed in part for the losses. Am unnamed White House staff member said: "Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along', said a key Bush advisor." Many Republican members of Congress were resentful of the way Rove and the White House conducted the losing campaign, according to the New York Times.
Rove was involved in another controversy involving the firing of US Attorneys. When Allen Weh, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, complained to Rove about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in 2006, Rove personally told Weh that Iglesias had been dismissed. Weh was dissatisfied with Iglesias due to his failure to indict New Mexico State Senator Manny Aragon on fraud and conspiracy charges. After Iglesias was dismissed, his replacement, Larry Gomez brought a 26 count felony indictment against Aragon. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that Rove wasn’t involved in any decision to fire any US Attorneys. On July 26, 2007 Senator Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that the committee was issuing a subpoena for Rove to appear personally before the committee and testify about the U.S. Attorney dismissal controversy. He refused to testify and on July 30, 2008, a U.S. Congressional panel voted 20-14 to hold Rove in Contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to testify in its probe into suspected political interference at the Justice Department. He later testified on this subject.
During the investigations into White House staffers' e-mail communication related to the controversy over the dismissal of United States Attorneys, it was discovered that many White House staff members, including Rove, had exchanged documents using Republican National Committee e-mail servers. This is considered a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Over 500 of Rove's emails were mistakenly sent to a parody website, who forwarded them to an investigative reporter.
In a Wall Street Journal interview published on August 13, 2007 Rove announced that he would resign from the Administration effective August 31. He said "I just think it's time to leave."
Karl Christian Rove was born in Denver, Colorado on Christmas Day of 1950. In 1965, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where Rove entered high school and becoming a skilled debater. He began his involvement in politics in 1968, working on Senator Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign. He attended the University of Utah and got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That position led to a job in 1970 on Ralph Tyler Smith's unsuccessful re-election campaign for Senate from Illinois against Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.
In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. He later said, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." In June 1971, after the end of the semester, Rove dropped out of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee. He was an active participant in Richard Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign. Rove held the position of executive director of the College Republicans until early 1973.
On September 6, 1973, RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush chose him to be chairman of the College Republicans. In November 1973, he asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met.
Rove first worked in Texas was in 1977 as a legislative aide for Fred Agnich, a Texas Republican state representative from Dallas. Later that same year, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by James A. Baker, III, a Houston lawyer (later President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979-1980. Rove worked for William Clements during the Texas gubernatorial election of 1978 and helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Rove was deputy director of the Governor Clements Junior Committee in 1979 and 1980, and deputy executive assistant to the governor in 1980 and 1981.
Rove suffered personal tragedy when, on September 11, 1981, his mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada. That same year he founded a direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co., in Austin. The firm's first clients included Governor Clements and Democratic congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican congressman and United States Senator. In 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's presidential campaign. Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of election races. Most were in a supporting role, doing direct mail fundraising. A November 2004 Atlantic Monthly article estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 statewide, congressional, and national races, and Rove's candidates won 34 races. He also did work during those years for non-political clients. From 1991 to 1996, Rove advised tobacco giant Philip Morris, and ultimately earned $3,000 a month via a consulting contract.
Rove advised the George W. Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978. In 1977, Rove was the first person hired by George H. W. Bush for his unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign, which ended with Bush as the vice-presidential nominee. In 1986, Rove helped Clements become governor a second time.
In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, brought in experts to tutor him on policy, and introduced him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided not to run, but in 1990, two other Rove candidates won: Rick Perry, the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison became state treasurer. In 1991, United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh resigned to run for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, one made vacant by John Heinz's death in a helicopter crash. Rove's company worked for the campaign, but it ended with an upset loss to Democrat Harris Wofford. Rove subsequently sued Thornburgh alleging non-payment for services rendered. Karl Rove & Co. v. Thornburgh was heard by U.S. Federal Judge Sam Sparks (who had been appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991) and Rover was successful.
1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards, with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm. In 1998 Rove was an adviser for Bush's reelection campaign as governor. From July through December 1998, Bush's reelection committee paid Rove & Co. nearly $2.5 million. Rove's work for the Bush campaign included direct mail, voter contact, phone banks, computer services, and travel expenses.
In early 1999, Rove sold his 20-year-old direct-mail business, Karl Rove & Co. Selling Karl Rove & Co. was a condition that George W. Bush had insisted on before Rove took the job of chief strategist for Bush's presidential bid. When Bush was elected President in the controversial election of 2000, Rove became a significant adviser in the Bush White House. For example in 2002 and 2003 Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), an internal White House working group established in August 2002, eight months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. WHIG was charged with developing a strategy "for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States." Members of WHIG included Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio, and communication strategists Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes, and James R. Wilkinson. The existence of this group was confirmed when a subpoena for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by CIA leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald in January 2004.
On August 29, 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of the yellowcake documents among the justifications for the War in Iraq enumerated in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address. In late August 2006 it became known that Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage was responsible for the leak. The investigation led to felony charges being filed against Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Eventually, Libby was found guilty by a jury. On June 13, 2006, prosecutors determined there was no cause to charge Rove with any wrongdoing. On July 13, 2006, Plame unsuccessfully sued Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others, accusing them of conspiring to destroy her career.
Bush was re-elected to the presidency in 2004 and he publicly thanked Rove and called him "the architect" in his 2004 victory speech, after defeating John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. But in the 2006 mid-term elections the Democrats won both houses of Congress. Rove was blamed in part for the losses. Am unnamed White House staff member said: "Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along', said a key Bush advisor." Many Republican members of Congress were resentful of the way Rove and the White House conducted the losing campaign, according to the New York Times.
Rove was involved in another controversy involving the firing of US Attorneys. When Allen Weh, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, complained to Rove about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in 2006, Rove personally told Weh that Iglesias had been dismissed. Weh was dissatisfied with Iglesias due to his failure to indict New Mexico State Senator Manny Aragon on fraud and conspiracy charges. After Iglesias was dismissed, his replacement, Larry Gomez brought a 26 count felony indictment against Aragon. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that Rove wasn’t involved in any decision to fire any US Attorneys. On July 26, 2007 Senator Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that the committee was issuing a subpoena for Rove to appear personally before the committee and testify about the U.S. Attorney dismissal controversy. He refused to testify and on July 30, 2008, a U.S. Congressional panel voted 20-14 to hold Rove in Contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to testify in its probe into suspected political interference at the Justice Department. He later testified on this subject.
During the investigations into White House staffers' e-mail communication related to the controversy over the dismissal of United States Attorneys, it was discovered that many White House staff members, including Rove, had exchanged documents using Republican National Committee e-mail servers. This is considered a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Over 500 of Rove's emails were mistakenly sent to a parody website, who forwarded them to an investigative reporter.
In a Wall Street Journal interview published on August 13, 2007 Rove announced that he would resign from the Administration effective August 31. He said "I just think it's time to leave."