Investigations Turning on Themselves

Here's an intriguing story from Tuesday's LA Times. It seems that there's another investigational spotlight being turned on Karl Rove. Although I'm sure we could all think of various reasons to justify a probe into Rove's White House activities, the Hollywood twist on this one is that it's coming from inside the Bush administration.

Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.

But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

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"We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned."

Well, no stone unturned at first, anyway. Think Progress points out that Bloch is a Bush appointee. As he's one of those who we keep getting reminded "serves at the pleasure of the President," it doesn't seem to me that it might not take long for the President to stop being pleased. If the administration can get this started, we can only assume that the administration can stop it just as fast. We can hope that the minor publicity the Office of Special Counsel has received from this will inoculate it somewhat from getting shut down by the Prez and his cronies, but I wouldn't expect it to be inoculated much. What's the worst that could happen to the Bushies--a little adverse publicity? More adverse publicity than starting a quagmire of a war? More adverse than shooting a friend and hunting partner in the face? This is not a group of people who shy away from bad publicity. So the real issue is how much will the Office of Special Counsel uncover before it is squashed? Of course, there's a third possibility, too. Bloch may be helping to orchestrate a cover up. A later Think Progress post links to a blog post from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that raises just that possibility. Think Progress also links to David Corn at The Nation, who details the current investigation of Scott Bloch. Who watches the watchmen, indeed?