Office Of Special Counsel To Look At Karl Rove

This could spell more trouble for White House political maven Karl Rove and the White House:

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.

There are really two issues raised immediately by this development.

(1) The investigation and what it finds or doesn’t find. (2) It’s yet another water drop in the drip-drip-drip of bad publicity, investigations, stories about investigations etc. that is adding to a panoramic view of this administration — one that is bound to be political poison to Republicans, particularly those who continue to tie their futures to high profile loyalty to the Bush administration. And it’ll continue to spur on the flight of independent voters from the GOP. More from the L.A. Times piece:

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.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

“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.”

Bloch declined to comment on who his investigators would interview, but he said the probe would be independent and uncoordinated with any other agency or government entity.

Of course, in the existing political climate whatever they find will be dismissed by one side. If they find Rove at fault, there will inevitably be some kind of spin or a new riff on the “…but under Clinton…” And if Rove is exonerated, administration critics will say the fix was in. But the Times article suggests it’ll be a fair investigation…and watch for it to generate some stories in coming months, even if it’s not supposed to generate publicity while it’s going on. And that can’t be good news for the White House.