Directed by WH, Rove skips hearing for exotic getaway
RAW STORY
Published: Saturday July 19, 2008
While House Democrats fumed over the absence of Karl Rove from hearings investigating his possible interference in the Justice Department, the man himself was well on his way to the Yalta Black Sea resort, Newsweek reported Saturday.
"That's just extremely contemptuous—it shows the disdain that he has for Congress and which he has encouraged in the Bush White House," said Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee.
Rove had a speaking engagement at the fifth annual conference of the YES Foundation, which Newsweek describes as a "confab of world luminaries bankrolled by billionaire Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian steel magnate and son-in-law of the country's former autocratic president, Leonid Kuchma."
Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin defended his actions as justifiable given that White House counsel Fred Fielding instructed Rove not to show up because anything he said was protected by executive privilege.
"What was he supposed to do, sit at home with his lights off?" Luskin said in the article. Luskin added that this "was not something we concocted so he could make money in Yalta."
Speaking fees for Rove can be as high as $40,000, according to an article describing his controversial presence scheduled for a Texas Associated of Realtor convention this September.
Rove appeared on The O'Reilly Factor Wednesday to discount the Democrats demand for his presence: "They want a circus," he said.
"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music"
