Adviser: Palin Will Be ‘Friend and Force’ for Other Republicans

ABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: Fred Malek, a veteran Republican operative and a key political adviser to Gov. Sarah Palin, tells ABC News that Palin intends to continue to be helpful to other Republicans – and is leaving her political options open even with today’s announcement.

“She’s not going to go hide in a cave,” Malek said in a telephone interview. “She’ll continue to be a major friend and force for Republican figures in this country.”

Malek said Palin is not ruling out a return to politics, though she has no plans on the horizon to seek another office. He said he expects that she’ll raise money for other Republican candidates in the months and years to come.

House GOP to Force Vote on Pelosi

ABC News’ Rick Klein, Jonathan Karl, and Dean Norland report:

House Republicans today plan to force their colleagues to vote on whether to launch an investigation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s allegation that the CIA misled her, a move that will force Democrats to take a stand on a politically contentious issue.

The measure has virtually no chance of passing, given the Democratic majority in the House, and the wide support inside the caucus for Pelosi, D-Calif.

But Republican aides say they want to force the full House to vote on whether to create a special, bipartisan subcommittee to investigate the speaker’s claims — a move that keeps Pelosi in a harsh spotlight for another day, and forces some Democrats into a potentially awkward vote.

“The speaker has had a full week now to either produce the evidence or retract and apologize, and she’s done neither,” a senior Republican aide tells ABC News. “There is no choice now. A bipartisan investigation is needed to get to the facts.”

As Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” yesterday, Republicans don’t want this issue to fade, with next week’s Memorial Day break looming.

“We do go home for this Memorial [Day] break so there is a concern that this will dissipate over time. If it does then it’ll be the country that pays the price,” said King, who supports a more harsh resolution that would strip Pelosi of her security clearances until the matter is resolved.

UPDATE: Democrats voted to table the resolution that would have required an investigation, with a 252-172 party-line vote. So Republicans got the vote they wanted, albeit not directly.

UPDATE II: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called a press conference to blast Republicans’ “policy of distraction” by focusing on Pelosi, instead of the core issues regarding interrogation techniques and policies.

“Republicans for the last few weeks have been focused on the politics of personal destruction,” Hoyer said. “This was a distraction — a distraction because the minority party does not want to look at what George Bush did.”