Karl Rove Falls For Bait - Will Testify Again Before Grand Jury

[Nbadan]

By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 6, 2005; 3:21 PM

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked iden y but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.

The persons, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not made any decision yet on whether to file criminal charges against the longtime confidant of President Bush or others.

Washington Post

Looks like those target letters that Fitzgerald had been sending out to those possibly involved in this case have had their intended effect. By testifying now, there is no guarantee that Rove will still not be indicted. There is no more important piece to the WH apparatus than Rove. Once he is gone, the whole house of cards will crumble.

[Nbadan]

Lawrence O'Donnell writes in the Huffington Post:

Excerpt:

Fitzgerald does not have to send Rove or anyone else a target letter before indicting him. The only reason to send target letters now is that Fitzgerald believes one or more of his targets will flip and become a prosecution witness at the pre-indictment stage. A veteran prosecutor told me, "If Fitzgerald is sending target letters at the end of his investigation, those are just invitations to come in and work out a deal."

Huffington Post

[Nbadan]

UPDATE: Plamegate: the Next Step
This just in from the AP:

"Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th-hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked iden y but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation."

What this means is Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, believes his client is defintely going to be indicted.

So, Luskin is sending Rove back into the grand jury to try to get around the prosecutor and sell his innocence directly to the grand jurors. Legal defense work doesn't get more desperate than this. The prosecutor is happy to let Rove go under oath again--without his lawyer in the room--and try to wiggle out of the case. The prosecutor has every right to expect that Rove's final under-oath grilling will either add a count or two to the indictment or force Rove to flip and testify against someone else.

Huffington Post

[Nbadan]

Turd-blossom at his finest...

Why Are These Men Laughing?
-Ron Suskind
Esquire, January 2003.

***

Eventually, I met with Rove. I arrived at his office a few minutes early, just in time to witness the Rove Treatment, which, like LBJ’s famous browbeating style, is becoming legend but is seldom reported. Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston, said he’d be just a minute. She’s very nice, witty and polite. Over her shoulder was a small back room where a few young men were toiling away. I squeezed into a chair near the open door to Rove’s modest chamber, my back against his doorframe.

Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. "We will him. Do you hear me? We will him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever ed him!" As a reporter, you get around—curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events—but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking.

Ron Suskind

[mookie2001]

what a chode

[Nbadan]

Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005 9:28 p.m. EDT
Bill Kristol: While House Indictments Coming

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol predicted on Sunday that there will be at least one and perhaps several indictments of "senior administration officials" by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the outing of CIA employee Valerie Plame.

"Criminal defense lawyers I've spoken to who are friendly to the administration are very worried that there will be one or more indictments in the next three weeks of senior administration officials," the influential editor told "Fox News Sunday."

"Just looking at what Fitzgerald is doing and taking him at his word as a serious prosecutor here," Kristol said, "and I think it's going to be bad for the Bush administration."

FNS co-panelist Brit Hume noted, however, that at least some of the speculation that top Bush adviser Karl Rove may be indicted has been based on false reports in the press.

Newsmax

Looks like even the Neocon news sources are now confirming what I have been posting here for almost 2 weeks.

Brit Hume is a Jeff Gannon wanna-be.

[Nbadan]

Rove Redux

As top Bush aide Karl Rove prepares for his fourth grand-jury appearance, the federal probe into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's iden y to the media is believed to be wrapping up.

But the investigation has taken a toll on White House aides, many of whom now fear that the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, is intent on issuing indictments.

"Fitzgerald's office, although very professional, has been very aggressive in pursuing people," the adviser said. "These guys are bullies, and they threaten you."

----

Meanwhile, lawyers for possible indictment targets are boning up on the Espionage Act, used to charge Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon papers, say people close to the probe.

CNN

Bullies don't like to be bullied.

On Hardball today Chris Matthews, who I typically hate, was brave enough to talk about the growing rift between Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, and Cheney regarding the Fitzgerald investigation. Now that's a bully on bully fight worth seeing.