[JURIST] Senior White House advisor Karl Rove [official profile] spoke at the annual meeting of the Federalist Society [official website] Thursday to commend President Bush's conservative nominees to the US Supreme Court and denounce judicial activism. This was Rove's first public appearance since testifying before a grand jury last month in the ongoing CIA leak investigation [JURIST news archive]. Rove praised Bush's decisions to appoint conservative judges, including current Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito [White House profile; US News profile; JURIST news archive], saying for the past few decades the high court's justices have made "decision after decision after decision that strikes them as fundamentally out of touch with our Constitution." Rove pointed to past decisions including those that barred the death penalty for juveniles and declared the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. Rove told the group that "conservative judicial principles would prevail" saying, "In America, conservatives are winning the battle of ideas on almost every front, and few are more important than the battle over our judiciary." Rove has not been indicted in the CIA leak case [JURIST report] but his future at the White House remains uncertain [Washington Post report]. C-SPAN has recorded video of Rove's remarks. Reuters has more.