Karl Rove, now a frequent talking head on Fox News, for the first time publicly addressed the Don Siegelman case today. You can watch his appearance here:
It amounted to a complete denial that he ever knew Dana Jill Simpson (he might have met her at a fundraiser, he said, but didn’t “believe” that he ever had) and that she ever worked on any campaign with which he was involved. “I never asked her to do a darn thing,” he said. “It’s a lie what she said.”
Simpson, a Republican lawyer, told 60 Minutes and congressional investigators (under oath) that Rove had asked her to take a picture of Siegelman cheating on his wife — and that this was just one of many requests that he’d made of her. Simpson also has testified that she was on a conference call where Rove’s friend William Canary recalled talking to his buddy Karl about sicking the Justice Department on Siegelman, adding that “my girls would take care of him,” referring to U.S. attorney Leura Canary (his wife) and another U.S. attorney in the state.
Rove also took the opportunity to scold 60 Minutes for not interviewing him again after first conducting an off the record interview with him “five months ago.” He did not say whether he would have agreed to do an on-camera interview if he’d known precisely what 60 Minutes was going to report. But “60 Minutes is now the National Enquirer of network news,” in his estimation.
Simpson will be on MSNBC tonight on the Dan Abrams show.