Karl Rove’s help for Sweden as it and the Obama administration investigate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be the latest example of the adage, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
As sex and spy probes move forward, word is getting out about how Rove, the former Bush White House strategist, has advised Swedish Prime Minister Fredric Reinfeldt for the past two years.
“This all has Karl’s signature,” a reliable political source told me last month in encouraging our Justice Integrity Project to investigate Rove’s Swedish connections as an important factor in the WikiLeaks probes. “He [Rove] must be very happy. He’s right back in the middle of it. He’s making himself valuable to his new friends, seeing the U.S. government doing just what he’d like ─ and screwing his opponents big-time.”
The possibility that the Republican Rove might have hidden influence in Swedish and the United States law enforcement is inherently hard to prove because of the secrecy of proceedings. So, I refrained until now from writing about it for Connecticut Watchdog, especially because Rove himself has so far failed to respond to my invitation to comment. Instead, I recently published the relevant information as a political opinion column on the Huffington Post.
But the consumer stakes of potential WikiLeaks prosecutions are too important not to mention to this audience. In fact, underlying relationships between key figures in politics, law enforcement and the news media hold significant dangers for the public in restricting Net and web-based communications even if no improper action by Rove is ever established.
That’s particularly true if authorities use national security rationales to curtail Net access, as in the unprecedented and successful pressure by the U.S. government for Amazon.com, PayPal and others to cut off their services to WikiLeaks. Similarly, the Air Force forbade any of its employees from reading any part of the New York Times because it published redacted versions of some of the secret cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
So, we recap today scuttlebutt about the WikiLeaks probes and potential implications for U.S. consumers. We’ll touch also on why even such a partisan figure as Rove retains clout among security-conscious Democrats along with his base of Republicans as well as overseas supporters.
Rove himself says on his Karl Rove and Company website that he has been advising Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. It’s well-known in Sweden how Rove has helped Reinfeldt lead the nation’s Moderate Party to election success over liberal competitors who previously dominated the nation’s leadership.
Swedish political blogger Martin Moberg reported Nov. 5, for example, that Rove was visiting Sweden for unknown purposes. But Moberg warned his readers, according to a translation by Google’s automatic toolbar, that their country has “been spared the vulgar way” political campaigns are conducted in the U.S. “but the question is for how long?”
Going further, the Swedish web-tabloid daily News 24 published on Dec. 26 an article, “Karl Rove helps Reinfeldt to manage Julian Assange.” News 24, which says it’s the ninth best-read online news site in Sweden, cited as evidence my Huffington Post column and a similar blog by Alabama-based legal commentator Roger Shuler. News 24’s Swedish readers helped flesh out the story in their comments. Shuler today wrote on his Legal Schnauzer blog, Daily Kos and elsewhere, “The Rove/Assange Story Hits the International Press in Sweden.” Shuler provided a translation of the Swedish story and links to other materials. (Continued)
Read entire article at The Swedish Wire
Justice Integrity Project Executive Director Andrew Kreig has two decades experience as an attorney and non-profit executive in Washington, DC.An author and longtime investigative reporter, his primary focus since 2008 has been exploring allegations of official corruption and other misconduct in federal agencies.
