Rove's Unexplained Personal Wealth Hotlist
by citizendc at DKos
Tue May 02, 2006
Have you ever wondered how a man who owns a $1,500,000 house in DC, a $1,000,000+ house in Florida and a $48,000 cottage in Texas manages to survive on $161,000 a year federal salary? It's odd.
Would it raise questions that same man had sold a property to a shell company controlled by his former business partners and that man made between $250,000 and $750,000 profit?
Maybe it would raise further questions if those former business partners that bought the property were raking in millions of political dollars from the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, the RNC and multiple other Republican candidates? Would that just be a coincidence? Well, those are a string of coincidences that happened to Karl Rove.
What you first must know is that Karl used to run a successful fundraising, mailing list sales and political services company called Karl Rove & Co. Rove did work for many candidates, national, state and local, ranging from Congress to various state supreme court candidates. When George Bush tapped Rove in 1999 to work on the Presidential, Bush wanted his undivided attention, and reportedly required Rove to sell his company, reportedly at a financial loss to Rove. Keep in mind, if Bush were to win, Karl Rove & Co would be in for some big dollars:
The relationships get pretty incestuous, as the money has moved first from the Bush campaign to what had been Karl Rove & Co., the direct-mail and consulting service owned by Rove. Rove has worked as a political adviser to Bush for years, and in the spring his boss asked him to sell his profitable business if he wanted to continue working on the presidential campaign.
Rove wasn't too eager to sell his company, at least according to his sister, who spoke to Dallas Observer reporter Miriam Rozen for a profile of Rove in May of this year. Rove's sister suggested that her brother's hasty sale of his business might have cost him some money. But Rove told Michael Holmes of the Associated Press he was selling because Bush "didn't want my focus diluted." Texas Observer Article on Rove In fact, during Bush's re-election run for governor, Karl Rove & Co (the company) was receiving nearly 1/5 of the re-election campaign's budget:
Since Bush payments to Rove's company constituted nearly one-fifth of his entire $14 million (governor's re-elect) campaign budget in the recent election, it's understandable that both men wanted to avoid any of the obvious "conflict of interest" questions that might be forthcoming from future big bucks contributors. Any possible concern they have could be based on what may be a trend in politics: the man running for office gets the bucks and passes on the cash to companies owned by members of the candidate's campaign team. Bushwatch-Guru Gives Up Direct Mail Outfit Austin Chonicle - the Man Behind the Bush So, Karl is about to sell a company that could make him a mint after George W. Bush gets re-elected. Eager to miss out on all that cash, he does so. Is this logical? Not in my book. Who does he sell Karl Rove & Co to? He sells the company Todd Olsen, a registered lobbyist and someone who works for Rove and a guy named Ted Delisi. But what's unusual about this? Olsen is a political neophyte, with no experience other than with Rove. And Todd's lobbying clients net him only a cut of $60,000 a year. Is this the picture of a guy who can afford to buy and run such a profitable company? Doesn't seem that way to me. Delisi was no better - he was on the State of Texas payroll with Attorney General John Cornyn while also doing political consulting:
According to the November 5, 1999, Austin Chronicle, "Ted Delisi and Todd Olsen, a registered lobbyist, are fairly new to the political consulting game. In March, the two bought the political consulting portion of Karl Rove & Company, the consulting firm formerly owned by Karl Rove, the chief political strategist in George W. Bush's presidential campaign. Both are former employees of Rove. According to filings at the Texas Ethics Commission, Olsen lobbies for two clients, the Clean Power Campaign and the Texas Association of Paging Services. The combined income from those two clients is less than $60,000.
"However, Olsen and Delisi bought what appears to be a profitable business from Rove, who has worked as a political adviser to most of the statewide officials now in office. Mailing list services are used not only by politicians but by for-profit and nonprofit groups who are eager to have the names and addresses of people who are known for charitable giving. And Rove's lists were among the most sought-after in the direct mail business. As a direct mail guru, Rove raised tens of millions of dollars for Republican politicians in Texas and elsewhere. With such clients as U.S. Senators Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Kit Bond of Missouri, Rove could easily have continued operating his consulting business, and he apparently planned to do so. But Bush wanted all of Rove's attention. In March, Rove told Michael Holmes of the Associated Press that he was selling his business to Olsen and Delisi because Bush wanted him to do so. Rove said Bush asked him to sell because the candidate didn't 'want my focus diluted.
and
"While Delisi's work for the Bush campaign may not violate state ethics laws or Cornyn's policy, the amount of money involved in his consulting business is substantial enough to raise eyebrows.
Sourcewatch on Olsen and DelisiFlash Forward - The Houses and Questionable Money
Karl and his wife Darby used to own a Bed and Breakfast in Ingram, TX called the River Oaks Lodge. In 2003, Dan Froomkin reported that Rove sold the B&B for somewhere between $250,000 and $750,000 profit (property currently assessed at $249,000) according to Rove's SF-278 financial disclosure statement filed with the US Office of Government Ethics, the office that handles ethics filings for the White House. (Since Rove is a senior appointed official, he must, by law, make these filings to show he has no conflicts of interest.)
The big news: Senior Adviser Karl Rove sold his bed and breakfast business, the River Oaks Lodge Bed and Breakfast in Ingram, Tex., for somewhere between $500,000 and a million dollars. Froomkin - Bush's Unsupported Assertion Well, the River Oaks Lodge in Kerr County, at 1120 Hwy 39 is today worth $221,069 market value. In 2003, it would have been worth $202,927 market value. See the assessment here:
TXCountyData.com (Kerr County). It is owned by Estadio Partners LLC.
Karl, why did you receive between $500,000 and $1,000,000 for a property that was only worth, market value, $202,927?
~snip~
So if you're Karl Rove and you've helped George W. Bush win the Presidency with an empire you built, will you settle for the $161,000 annual government salary? Or will you be pissed off that the company that you built is now raking in the dough now that George Bush is in office and Republicans are in power?
That's the question. Karl, according to US Government Ethics, should have no financial connection or interest in Olsen-Delisi, a company that receives vast sums of political money. Political money that, arguably, Karl Rove as key political strategist at the White House may have a hand in directing. Surely you might want some kickbacks from the empire that you're built while you're serving time in the government sector, eh, Karl?
~snip~
http://www.dailykos.com/hotlist/add/2006/5/2/10177/11404/displaystory//
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