Government watchdog Public Citizen filed suit yesterday against the United States Office of Special Counsel seeking any of its records related to former President George W. Bush advisor Karl Rove.
In its Freedom of Information Act complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the organization asks for any records from the office that were sent to or from Rove, mentioned his name, or discussed his legal rights and obligations.
The normally obscure Office of Special Counsel thrust itself into the national spotlight in 2007, when it opened an investigation into Rove’s involvement in the controversial firing of nine U.S. Attorneys. At the time, Rove was chief strategist for President Bush.
But Public Citizen’s lawyer, Brian Wolfman, said his suit wasn’t directly related to the firing scandal. Rather, he said he was interested in Rove’s dual role as a government employee and political operative. The law prohibits the Treasury Department from funding any the political activities of high level presidential appointees like Rove, he said, and the Office of Special Counsel is responsible for enforcing that ban.
Wolfman said he wants to know how Rove’s political work was funded.
“I just think he’s just a good illustration” of the issue, Wolfman said. “Someday I may try to look into this more generally.”
Wolfman, who directs the Georgetown University Law Center Institute for Public Representation, first filed a Freedom of Information Act request in January, while he was still Public Citizen’s director of litigation.
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