ROVEGATE - July 17, 2005

July 17, 2005 — ROVEGATE — Appearing on Meet the Press this morning, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta gave some insights into Karl Rove’s job as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Bush White House. Podesta said that Rove coordinates the activities of two major national security bodies — the National Security Council (NSC) and the Homeland Security Council (HSC).

In that position, Rove is responsible for chairing meetings of the Principals and Deputies Committees, which bring together high-level representatives from various intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies for regular and ad hoc briefings. Rove has access to "all source intelligence," meaning he has a Top Secret/Special Background Investigation (SBI) clearance with access to numerous compartments and special access programs (SAPs): Special Intelligence (SI), COMINT, Byeman, ECI, Endseal, Gamma, H, Talent Keyhole (TK), Pearl, and VRK (Very Restricted Knowledge).

This means that Rove can access signals intelligence (SIGINT) information, including trancripts of domestic FBI wiretaps, human intelligence reports, reports on "black bag" and other "sneak and peek" operations, and internal CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI, and Homeland Security documents.

In his national and homeland security role as Deputy White House Chief of Staff, there are definite indications that Rove has, in the past and even quite recently, authorized the misuse of U.S. intelligence, including potentially illegal phone and email wiretaps, to gather extremely personal and sensitive information in order to smear his political opponents.

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