Rove admits more

Last night, I did a large post on Rove's "partial admission" regarding the US attorneys. Well, lookee, lookee what we've got today. (This is an updated version of yesterday's article.)

Perino offered Rove's account of his dealings with the Justice Department after talking with him by telephone. She said Rove routinely passed along complaints about various U.S. attorneys to the Justice Department and then-White House counsel Miers.

Among the complaints that Rove relayed were concerns among Republican Party officials in various jurisdictions that the Justice Department was not being aggressive in pursuing allegations of election fraud by Democrats. Such allegations by Republicans were a particular concern in New Mexico and Washington.

Rove acknowledged that he personally complained to Miers that "voter fraud cases were not being treated as a priority" by the Justice Department, Perino said. He also passed along complaints about Iglesias that he had heard going back as far as 2004.

In addition to the voter fraud issue, some New Mexico Republicans were angry that Iglesias refused to speed up his corruption investigation of several Democratic state officials. At the time, party leaders were looking for any advantage they could get that might help them retain control of Congress.

Understand, this is Rove's version of what he did (passed through a spokesman so he wouldn't have to answer questions.)

In Rove's version, he didn't request that they be fired, but he's not denying adding politics to the decision. This version would legally clear Rove, but definitely throw the decision maker under the bus.

(Are they going to try to pin all this on Harriet Miers to save Rove and Gonzales? Would she take it?)