Rove not to be charged
posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger
A few months back, we discussed an online news report at Truthout suggesting that Karl Rove would be indicted for Plame-related events. That report appears to have been premature — today, the story hit the wires that Rove won’t be charged. From the New York TImes:
Mr. Rove had testified that he had initially forgotten about that conversation, and that his memory had only been jogged after his lawyers found an e-mail from Mr. Rove to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser — now the chief security adviser — referring to a conversation with Mr. Cooper. Mr. Rove had essentially argued that it would have been legal suicide to knowingly lie to a grand jury about a conversation with a reporter.
That argument seems to have been crucial in staving off an indictment. Mr. Fitzgerald, according to several lawyers in the case, believed — at least initially — that Mr. Rove’s effort to find the e-mail meant that he must have already known of its existence. But Mr. Luskin offered an alternative account, at one point switching from his role as a lawyer, offering himself as a witness.
It sounds like Rove and his lawyers handled the investigation as well as they could have. Meanwhile, a new post at Truthout argues that there is still a sealed indictment related to the case. At this point, given the public statements of parties in the case, I’m not betting the mortgage on it.
June 13, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Posted in: Current Events
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Maryland Conservatarian - June 14, 2006 at 11:01 am
And a Happy Fitzmas to all.
Professor Wenger writes about last month’s Truthout bombshell: “That report appears to have been premature..”
Premature? Is that law school professor legalese for “Damn – I wish they had been correct but it looks like every thing they reported on last month was WRONG…but maybe something bad can still happen to Karl Rove and we’ll spin it so that that was obviously what Truthout meant” ??
Truthout was very specific in their report:
“Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.
During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.”
Either that all happened or it didn’t – not a lot of wiggle room here….and even if a grand jury eventually indicts Mr. Rove for the Lindbergh kidnapping or anything else, Truthout will not have been “premature”, they’ll still have been wrong in this report.
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