Indictment coming? Rove Testifies to Grand Jury Today

[SA210]

I remember all the Bush lovers in here saying this was over.

:lol

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b381/livindeadboi/JB/rove_arrested.jpg

^^^^ Is this a preview of what's to come?
================================================== ======

April 26th, 2006 12:35 pm
Rove to Appear Before Grandy Jury to Discuss Leak Testimony


By William Branigin and Jim VandeHei / Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042600849.html?nav=rss_politics)

Top presidential adviser Karl Rove has been called to testify this afternoon before a federal grand jury investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity, a source close to Rove said.

Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, will be asked about discussions his attorney had with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak, the source said. Novak testified last year that she alerted Rove's lawyer in early 2004 that Rove had leaked information to her colleague, Matthew Cooper, about CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Rove's appearance this afternoon would mark the fifth time he has testified before a grand jury in connection with the leak.

Earlier today, Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald met with the grand jury for the second time since it was empaneled following the expiration of an original grand jury investigating the leak.

The first grand jury returned an indictment last year against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in the case. But Fitzgerald wanted to continue the investigation after the grand jury finished its term on Oct. 28, leaving open the prospect of additional indictments.

Novak wrote in Time in December that she mentioned to Rove's attorney Robert D. Luskin in early 2004 that the magazine's reporters were buzzing that Rove was a source for a story by Cooper about Plame in July 2003. The tip prompted Luskin to set in motion a chain of events that led Rove and his lawyers to search phone logs and other material to determine whether Rove had talked to Cooper. It also eventually prompted Rove to change his grand jury testimony.

Until Rove testified for a second time in October 2004, he maintained he did not recall talking to Cooper. Shortly before testifying, Luskin found an e-mail written by Rove to then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley in July 2003 in which Rove mentioned the conversation with Cooper. Rove then testified that the e-mail jarred his memory. :lmao

Novak initially did not tell her editors at Time that she may have tipped off Rove's lawyer or that Fitzgerald was interested in her conversation with Luskin. She took a leave of absence from the magazine while editors contemplated her future and ultimately left Time earlier this month.

Rove, 55, who serves as deputy White House chief of staff, has been under a cloud in the CIA leak case for more than two years. The case was initiated to discover who leaked Plame's CIA employment to the news media in July 2003 in an apparent effort to retaliate against her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had emerged as a prominent critic of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq. The CIA employment of Plame was first reported by conservative columnist Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003, shortly after Wilson went public with his criticism in an op-ed piece in which he accused the Bush administration of twisting pre-war intelligence about Iraq. Robert Novak is not related to Viveca Novak.

In a White House shake-up, Rove was relieved of his responsibilities for domestic policy last week by new Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten. But Rove has retained his title, White House office and security clearances as he turns his attention to Republican political strategies ahead of the November midterm elections.

[SA210]

Target Letter Drives Rove Back to Grand Jury
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 26 April 2006

Karl Rove's appearance before a grand jury in the CIA leak case Wednesday comes on the heels of a "target letter" sent to his attorney recently by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, signaling that the Deputy White House Chief of Staff may face imminent indictment, sources that are knowledgeable about the probe said Wednesday.

It's unclear when Fitzgerald sent the target letter to Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin. Sources close to the two-year-old leak investigation said when Rove's attorney received the letter Rove volunteered to appear before the grand jury for an unprecedented fifth time to explain why he did not previously disclose conversations he had with the media about covert CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who criticized the Bush administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence.

A federal grand jury target letter is sent to a person in a criminal investigation who is likely to be indicted. In a prepared statement Wednesday, Luskin said Fitzgerald indicated that Rove is not a "target" of the investigation. A "target" of a grand jury investigation is a person who a prosecutor has substantial evidence to link to a crime.

Last week, Rove was stripped of some of his policy duties in a White House shakeup orchestrated by incoming Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. The White House insisted that Rove was not demoted, but insiders said the executive branch is bracing for a possible indictment against Rove.

Luskin was accompanying Rove to US District Court in Washington, DC, Wednesday morning and unavailable for comment. Rove was told by Fitzgerald's staff that his testimony could last for as long as three hours.

In an interview last week, Luskin confirmed that Rove was a "subject" of Fitzgerald's probe. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that same prediction again during an interview last week.

"Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any decision on the charges and I can't speculate what the outcome will be," Luskin said in an interview last week. "Mr. Rove has cooperated completely with the investigation."

Luskin said Rove has not been offered any plea deal by Fitzgerald and Rove has cooperated with the probe voluntarily. He said Rove's cooperation is not contingent upon any plea agreement.

People close to the case said that Fitzgerald has presented additional evidence to the grand jury in the past week that shows Rove lied to federal investigators and a grand jury eight out of the nine times he was asked about his knowledge of the leak since October 2003.

Should Wednesday's court appearance by Rove provide the grand jury with answers to lingering questions, Rove may not be charged with obstruction of justice, but will likely be indicted for perjury and lying to investigators, sources close to the case said.

For one, according to the sources close to the investigation, the likelihood that Rove will be charged with perjury centers on the fact that Rove has testified at least three times that he first discovered that Plame worked for the CIA after her name was printed in a July 2003 newspaper report by conservative columnist Robert Novak. Evidence has since surfaced that shows Rove spoke to Novak about Plame prior to Novak's published report in which Novak outed the undercover CIA officer.

Moreover, Rove did not disclose that he had also been a source for a story about Plame written by Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, and Rove testified that he was not involved in a campaign to discredit or attack the credibility of Plame's husband, Ambassador Wilson, when at least two dozen witnesses have testified before the grand jury that Rove was in fact instrumental in the smear campaign on Wilson.

Rove's grand jury appearance Wednesday is crucial in determining whether he will face a charge of obstruction of justice for not turning over an explosive email that was written moments after his July 2003 conversation with Time's Cooper. Rove volunteered to testify before the grand jury Wednesday to explain why he did not disclose and locate the email for more than a year, sources close to the case said.

Luskin said that Rove simply forgot about his conversation with Cooper when he testified before the grand jury because Rove had been dealing with other pressing matters, such as Bush's reelection campaign.

Rove's story began to unravel when Fitzgerald discovered the existence of an email Rove sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley after he spoke with Cooper on July 11, 2003, which Hadley and Rove did not disclose to the special prosecutor or hand over to his probe, sources close to the case said.

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in the email to Hadley immediately following his conversation with Cooper. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

In December, desperate to keep his client out of Fitzgerald's crosshairs, Luskin became a witness in the case when he made an explosive revelation to Fitzgerald.

Luskin revealed to Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame Wilson case - inadvertently tipped him off in early 2004 that her colleague at the magazine, Matt Cooper, would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status.

Novak - who bears no relation to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the journalist who first published Plame Wilson's name and CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column - met Luskin in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2004, and over drinks, the two discussed Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame Wilson leak.

Luskin assured Novak that Rove learned Plame Wilson's name and CIA status after it was published in news accounts and that only then did he phone other journalists to draw their attention to it. But Novak told Luskin that everyone in the Time newsroom knew Rove was Cooper's source and that he would testify to that in an upcoming grand jury appearance, these sources said.

According to Luskin's account, after he met with Viveca Novak he contacted Rove and told him about his conversation with her. The two of them then began an exhaustive search through White House phone logs and emails for any evidence that proved that Rove had spoken with Cooper. Luskin said that during this search an email was found that Rove sent to Hadley immediately and it was subsequently turned over to Fitzgerald.

Still, Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothing like he described in his email to Hadley, according to an email Cooper sent to his editor at Time magazine following his conversation with Rove in July 2003.

"It was, KR said, [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized [Wilson's] trip," Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042606I.shtml

[Duff McCartney]

Come on now give me a fucking break...this article is the biggest amount of bullshit I ever seen.....



































Karl Rove isn't that skinny...:P

[SA210]

NBC Nightly News video

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=3874ca13-55f4-435e-9407-7b55b8cb0a62&f=00&fg=copy

[SA210]

April 27th, 2006 1:03 am
Rove Testifies 5th Time On Leak



Bush Aide Is Said To Be Unsure if He Will Be Indicted

By Jim VandeHei / Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042600849.html?nav=rss_nation)

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove sought to convince a federal grand jury yesterday that he did not provide false statements in the CIA leak case, testifying for more than three hours before leaving a federal courthouse unsure whether he would be indicted, according to a source close to the presidential aide.

In his fifth appearance before the grand jury, Rove spent considerable time arguing that it would have been foolish for him to knowingly mislead investigators about his role in the disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to the media, the source said. His grand jury appearance, which was kept secret even from Rove's closest White House colleagues until shortly before he went to court yesterday, suggests that prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald remains keenly interested in Rove's role in the case.

Rove for the first time partly waived his attorney-client privilege to detail conversations he had with his attorney, Robert Luskin, about the leak and his knowledge of it, the source said.

Rove's testimony focused almost exclusively on his conversation about Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2003 and whether the top aide later tried to conceal it, the source said. Rove testified, in essence, that "it would have been a suicide mission" to "deliberately lie" about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed, the source said. Lawyers involved in the case said yesterday that they expect a decision on Rove's fate soon.

The source's account could not be corroborated by the prosecutor's office, which has declined to discuss the case.

Luskin said in a statement that the top Bush strategist testified "voluntarily and unconditionally" at Fitzgerald's behest.

"In connection with this appearance, the special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target of the investigation," Luskin said in a statement. "Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges." Regarding Rove's testimony, Luskin said that it centered on information that has surfaced since he last testified, in October 2005. A spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment on the case.

The leak investigation, which led to the indictment last year of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began after administration officials were accused of disclosing Plame's identity as part of a broader White House effort to discredit critics of the administration's justification for the Iraq war.

Specifically, Fitzgerald began investigating in late 2003 whether administration officials illegally disclosed Plame's post at the CIA to discredit allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. In the summer of 2003, Wilson publicly charged that President Bush had twisted intelligence about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons material to justify the invasion.

The disclosure of Plame's name was used to argue that because she had helped set up a trip Wilson took to Niger to investigate Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear material, that mission was little more than a boondoggle.

Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with the original crime. But in October 2005, a grand jury indicted Libby on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstructing justice in the course of the investigation. Libby's trial is scheduled to begin early next year. He has denied the charges, and his lawyers say that he is guilty of nothing more than a faulty memory and that he is the victim of an overzealous prosecutor.

The Libby case has served as a constant distraction for the White House and comes at a politically turbulent time for the president. A court filing by Fitzgerald earlier this month, for instance, provided the new and politically damaging revelation that Bush had authorized Libby to disclose previously classified information about Iraq's weapons programs. The president did not authorize Libby to leak information about Plame, however, according to Libby's legal team.

Rove, who recently gave up his role in White House policy as part of a staff shake-up, testified only hours after Bush named Tony Snow as his new press secretary. Snow replaces Scott McClellan, who has come under fire for initially telling the media that Rove was not involved in the Plame leak.

In grand jury appearances and other conversations with federal investigators, Rove has testified that he discussed Wilson's wife briefly with columnist Robert D. Novak and Cooper before she was publicly unmasked in July 2003, according to lawyers in the case. Fitzgerald zeroed in on Rove's contact with Cooper yesterday, according to the source who provided Rove's version of events.

The source said Rove testified in February 2004 that he did not recall discussing Plame with Cooper. Rove told the prosecutor that at the time he had no recollection of that short conversation with one of the scores of reporters he talks to in his job.

Cooper later testified and then a wrote a first-person account that Rove told him that Wilson's wife was in the CIA and had authorized her husband's CIA mission.

Rove would later tell the grand jury that he had forgotten that conversation and remembered it only after his legal team unearthed a crucial e-mail. The e-mail -- written by Rove to then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley shortly after the Cooper conversation -- shows Rove saying he waved the Time reporter off Wilson's claim. Luskin found the e-mail as part of a document search he conducted before Rove testified a second time in October 2004, telling the grand jury that the conversation must have taken place.

All the while, Fitzgerald suspected that Rove was acknowledging what had happened only because new evidence was surfacing, according to lawyers in the case. But Rove and his lawyer have presented an alternative explanation: that Rove genuinely did not remember his conversation with Cooper, and testified to that effect even though he was aware of rumors that he was one of Cooper's sources.

The new information Luskin cited in his statement yesterday relates to this part of the saga. After agreeing to a partial waiver of attorney-client privilege, Rove testified yesterday about a conversation Luskin had with former Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak, the source said. (Viveca Novak is not related to Robert Novak, the columnist who first revealed Plame's identity in 2003.) Luskin had informed Fitzgerald about that conversation last October, a few days before Libby was indicted, in a last-ditch effort to save Rove from the same fate.

Luskin told the prosecutor that Viveca Novak had informed him that she had heard from other Time reporters that Rove was Cooper's source for a July 2003 story on Plame. Luskin shared this information with Rove -- before Rove testified that he did not recall his conversation with Cooper.

Yesterday, Rove told the grand jury that it would make no sense for him to lie in February, knowing that all of this would soon be public, the source said.

But the timing of that Luskin-Novak conversation is in dispute. Novak has said she testified that the conversation took place between January and May of 2004 -- which could place it either before or after Rove's initial grand jury testimony. Moreover, Rove did not know at that point that Cooper would later be forced to testify and reveal him as a source, according to lawyers who follow the case.

Rove also testified that he was aware that several aides had been subpoenaed in the case before that first grand jury appearance and that they would be forced to turn over documents.

[Extra Stout]

My condolences.

[xrayzebra]

Shift leader to Warden. Warden, SA210 is back in and in the padded cell next
to dan and boutons. I am running short on people to maintain the suicide watch.
Warden: Okay, double the Reynolds wrap once more, give them some more of
the old copies of The Washington Post and let your people get a little rest. If
they get real restless, play them the old newscast of Dan Rather on the VCR.
That always raises their spirits. But I may need your people back on a short
notice if somethings else happens. Like the Presidents approval ratings going
up again. You know how that really sits them back.