GOP heavyweights, Rove reportedly tried to oust Fitz.

I always suspect Karl Rove's fingerprints all over trying to oust the Rugby Man. As Don Siegelman said in an interview with Tavis Smiley about Rove: "We didn't find the knife but we found the glove." All we need is the surveillance video with Karl Rove's face.

U.S. attorney allegedly targeted by Karl Rove, Bob Kjellander


In a bombshell disclosure before testimony began Wednesday morning in the Antoin "Tony" Rezko trial, a federal prosecutor said a former Rezko confidant was prepared to say that another friend of Rezko was trying to pull strings with White House political director Karl Rove to fire U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald and kill his investigation into Rezko.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton said Ali Ata would testify to conversations he had with Rezko in 2004 about the power play. The Rezko investigation then was in its early stages.Ata, a former official in the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, on Tuesday pleaded guilty in connection with Rezko-related corruption, saying that Blagojevich was present in the room when Ata and Rezko discussed swapping a $25,000 campaign contribution for a job in the administration.Before the jury was brought into the courtroom Wednesday, Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve that Republican National Committeeman Robert Kjellander was working with Rove "to have Fitzgerald removed."

Judge Amy St. Eve that Republican National Committeeman Robert Kjellander was working with Rove "to have Fitzgerald removed."

Both Rove and Kjellander issued denials Wednesday.

Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President Bush who is now a private consultant in Washington, said through his attorney that he didn't recall any such conversations and denied he ever sought Fitzgerald's firing.

"Karl has known Kjellander for many years but does not recall him or anyone else arguing for Fitzgerald's removal," Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said Wednesday.

"And [Rove] is very certain that he didn't take any steps to do that, or have any conversations with anyone in the White House—or in the Justice Department—about doing anything like that." Kjellander issued a statement, saying, "I never have discussed with Karl Rove or any other person on the White House staff the proposition that U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald should or could be removed from his office."

Kjellander was a sometimes business associate of Stuart Levine, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Rezko to rig state boards for contracts.

Rove for years was Bush's chief political strategist as well as an old friend of Kjellander.

Hamilton said the conversation she hoped Ata would testify to was about having Fitzgerald replaced by someone else, she said, "so individuals who have been cooperating in this investigation will be dealt with differently."

St. Eve did not make a ruling on whether Ata will be allowed to testify.

Though St. Eve said she would not allow it into evidence, prosecutors said they were also prepared to have Steve Loren, a former attorney for a state teachers pension board, testify about a conversation he had in November 2004 with Springfield power broker William Cellini.

Though Cellini has not been charged in the case, prosecutors have labeled him a co-schemer with Rezko in plots to rig the actions of two state boards in exchange for kickbacks.

Loren was prepared to say that he asked Cellini what he knew about an investigation by federal agents into activities of the two boards, prosecutors said. They added that Loren would say that Cellini told him: "Bob Kjellander's job is to take care of the U.S. attorney."

Loren's account appears to buttress Ata's claims.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-rezko-rove-fitzgerald-web-apr24,0,2332070.story

On a side note:

And after news broke last year that Fitzgerald had been on the firing list, at least one Chicago commentator predicted that Kjellander was the reason, and not the Plame case. (This is a March 21 Chicago Trib article by John Kass behind the firewall, but here's a blog post that cites most of it.)

How many conversations did Karl Rove--the political Rasputin of the Bush White House--have with top Illinois Republicans about U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald?

Ten? Fifty? None?

Did Rove speak directly to Big Bob Kjellander, whom Rove engineered into the job of treasurer of the Republican National Committee?

Answers might tell us why Fitzgerald, honored in 2002 as one of the top prosecutors in the Justice Department--and the fed most feared by the bipartisan political Combine that runs Illinois--was abruptly downgraded in March 2005.
[snip]

Conventional wisdom from Washington is that Fitzgerald fell out of favor with the Republicans because of his pursuit of the CIA leak case, which led to the recent perjury conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
But why not consider an alternative?

Just as that March 2005 memo downgrading Fitzgerald was making its way to the White House, Fitzgerald's office in Chicago was proceeding in a fascinating political corruption probe involving alleged kickbacks requiring state approval for the construction of hospitals.

That case would mushroom into Operation Board Games, revealing bipartisan political influence in hundreds of millions of dollars invested through state pension funds.

There have been so many distractions that you're bound to have forgotten about Operation Board Games. The distractions include City Hall's Olympic dreams that won't cost taxpayers a dime and whether Lord Conrad Black's wife thinks reporters covering her husband's federal fraud trial are a bunch of vermin and sluts. With all this talk of Olympics and sluts and so on, you probably haven't had time to figure the Fitzgerald timeline.

But as that 2005 memo was sent to the White House, Fitzgerald was formally unmasking the Combine in what would later become Operation Board Games.
[snip]

One fellow in the federal documents of the Operation Board Games case was listed as "Individual K." And his buddy appeared several times in those same documents as "Individual A," for Alpha.
Individuals A and K have not been indicted. But the Tribune identified them as Big Bob Kjellander (pronounced $hell-ander) and his buddy, Big Bill Cellini, the political boss of Springfield.
Kjellander is the Republican committeeman of Illinois who flaunts his friendship with Rove and who recently resigned as treasurer of the Republican National Committee. Kjellander also represented the famous Carlyle Group before the teachers' pension fund board and he received $4.5 million in questionable consulting fees.

Did Kjellander discuss Fitzgerald with Rove? I don't know.

Hmmm... Rezko was being investigated in 2004. Fitz became Special Prosecutor in December 2004. In January 2005, Rove started his plan into a USA firing list. October 2005, Libby was indicted in the CIA Leak case. In 2006 before the November election, Fitz indicted Rezko. And in 2006, Sampson put Fitz on the firing list.

One has to question why would Kjellander go to Karl Rove to have Fitz removed. This tells you how much power Karl Rove had in the White House and the DOJ. If Rove went to the Justice Dept. to look into having a probe into Don Siegelman, it certainly wouldn't stop Rove for influence the DOJ or maybe Gonzo, himself, to have Fitz remove. A blast from the past. Gonzo's aide and stooge, Kyle Sampson testified to the Senate Committee that he placed Fitz's name on the firing list in 2006. Now he claimed that he didn't know why he placed Fitz's name on the list. Smells like Karl Rove's doing...

Here is the video of Ali Ata in connection to the Rezko case. Click here.

Here is Kyle Sampson's testimony to the Senate Committee: