ROVE AIDE CALLED TO TESTIFY TOOK HIS MESSAGES

John Byrne

A former senior aide to Bush adviser Karl Rove who reportedly gave testimony to a grand jury investigating the leaking of a CIA agent's identity answered phones and took Rove's messages, RAW STORY has discovered.

According to a 2004 Salon piece, she also had a role with one of conservative Washington's leading men, Grover Norquist, in which she took messages for Rove and called Norquist to screen callers.

"For two years, the assistant who answered Rove's phone was a woman who had previously worked for lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close friend of Norquist's and a top DeLay fundraiser," Salon reported. "One Republican lobbyist, who asked not to be named because DeLay and Rove have the power to ruin his livelihood, said the way Rove's office worked was this: 'Susan took a message for Rove, and then called Grover to ask if she should put the caller through to Rove. If Grover didn't approve, your call didn't go through.'"

The Washington Monthly added, soon thereafter:

"Speaking of phones and doorkeepers, it's widely understood that to have real influence in Washington, one must be on good terms, not so much with Cabinet secretaries, as with White House secretaries--that is, the assistants who sit in the outer offices of the president's senior advisors. As with much else in this town, uber-lobbyist/anti-tax activist Grover Norquist seems to understand this rule as well as anybody. Norquist had a deal with Susan Ralston, who until recently was the assistant to Karl Rove. An unnamed Republican lobbyist recently told Salon.com: "Susan took a message for Rove, and then called Grover to ask if she should put the caller through to Rove. If Grover didn't approve, your call didn't go through."

How did Norquist attain such influence over Ralston? Flowers every Friday? Redskins tickets? The answer, actually, is what the White House ethics lawyers call a "preexisting relationship." Ralston had formerly worked for lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close friend of Norquist's and a top fundraiser for House majority whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Ralston has since left the pressure cooker White House job for possibly the most isolated island in Washington. She is now executive assistant to Eddy R. Badrina, the senior advisor of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

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