Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., confirmed Rove's closed-door appearance through a committee spokesman who was not authorized to be quoted by name.
Meanwhile, the heat in the Conyers' kitchen is getting a little hotter...
But first to TPMMuckraker's attempt at keeping the Conyers cooking in the kitchen apart.
Report: John Conyers Leads "Separate Life" From Corrupt Wife
If you believe that, then you will believe when Conyers changed his mind on the position he took with the EPA when Papas paid his wife off, the pay off had nothing to do with changing his position.
Late last month, former Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in connection with a city sludge-hauling scandal. After her plea, the former councilwoman’s onetime chief of staff, Sam Riddle, told a Detroit newspaper that Monica Conyers had previously helped get him a consulting job with Detroit businessman Dimitrios Papas and then proceeded to demand half of Riddle’s $20,000 fee.
Riddle also said John Conyers signed a July 2007 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency in support of Papas’s efforts to restart a waste injection well in the city of Romulus — and that Monica Conyers personally approved the letter.
As a result, critics are demanding an explanation from John Conyers, who is described in news accounts as publicly opposed to the toxic well site prior to 2007.
“Rep. John Conyers (D-Detroit) needs to join the long line of Detroit pols who’ve apparently sat down recently with the U.S. attorney in Detroit,” the Detroit Free Press wrote in an editorial.
That's what I call leading separate lives. And TPMMuckraker has it out for Karl Rove, so they will do their damnedest to make Conyers look good.
But in the end, bad karma will come back to haunt John Conyers:
Still, the flap appears to have generated interest in a Democratic primary challenge to the congressman, who was first elected to his Detroit-based seat in 1964.
“There are always opportunists out there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a primary,” said state Rep. LaMar Lemmons, who speaks highly of John Conyers. “Some people might feel that John is vulnerable from this.”
“He got caught in the web his wife was weaving,” said Adolph Mongo, a longtime Detroit-based Democratic strategist. “He can’t escape it. He’s tied up in it.”
“You probably have quite a few people looking at that seat,” said Mongo. “I think John Conyers is in trouble.”
Indeed, Motor City Democrats are already batting around names of potential Democratic primary opponents — including state Sen. Buzz Thomas, state Rep. George Cushingberry Jr. and state Rep. Shanelle Jackson, an ambitious 29-year-old who told the Free Press several weeks ago, “I’d like to be Congresswoman Jackson. That’s my dream.”
The controversy surrounding the congressman and his wife comes at a politically inopportune time. John Conyers is already under fire from Cathy Hughes, the outspoken and influential founder of Radio One, a nationwide African-American broadcasting network, who has launched an all-out public relations war against Conyers over a bill he introduced in the Judiciary Committee that would force radio stations to pay royalties to artists in exchange for playing their music.
Hughes, who has said the measure would kill black-owned radio, has called for listeners to protest outside Conyers’s office and is airing public service advertisements in the Detroit media market slamming the congressman — in surprisingly personal terms.
When Conyers had an ex-aide come to Alaska searching to hang Republicans and then see an honest FBI agent spill the beans on the Democrat operatives within the Justice Department, karma has come back to bite him in the butt.
Rep. John Conyers, start working on your concession speech when you lose. Your party is going to eat you alive and then spit you out.
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