Ok so he's got 2 weeks to decide Rove's fate but something tells me the repubs will use this as a stalling tactic and use every trick in the book to keep Rove out of jail.
I hope i'm wrong so let's keep our fingers crossed and hopefully Fitzgerald will return with some indictments against Rove.
Full Version: Fitzgerald To Decide In 2 Weeks On Rove
Murray Waas is usually right on stuff like this. And his articles are alway jam-packed with information.
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0428nj1.htm
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0428nj1.htm
QUOTE
Why Rove Testified For A Fifth Time
By Murray Waas, NationalJournal.com
Friday, April 28, 2006
Appearing for a fifth time before the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case, White House adviser Karl Rove on Wednesday was questioned extensively about contradictions between his sworn testimony and that of Time magazine writer Matthew Cooper on the substance of their July 2003 conversation regarding then-agency operative Valerie Plame, according to attorneys involved in the case.
In several hours of testimony, Rove was again asked how he learned three years ago that Plame worked for the CIA, and the circumstances of how he relayed that information to Cooper, according to people familiar with his testimony.
Rove also testified to the grand jury that when he told Cooper that Plame worked at the agency, he was only passing along unverified gossip.
In contrast, Cooper has testified that Rove told him in a phone conversation on July 11, 2003, that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in having the agency select her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, to make a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002.
Cooper has also testified that Rove, as well as a second source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney -- portrayed the information about Plame as accurate and authoritative. Cooper has testified that based on his conversations with Rove and Libby, he felt confident enough about the information to identify Plame as a CIA officer in a July 17 Time story.
It has been widely reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fizgerald has been trying to determine whether Rove tried to mislead the FBI and the grand jury in the early stages of the leak probe when he failed to disclose that he had talked to Cooper about Plame three days before she was outed as a CIA officer. But it has not been previously known that much of the questioning of Rove on Wednesday also focused on the contradictions between Cooper's and Rove's accounts of their crucial July 11 conversation.
Rove did not disclose the conversation with Cooper when he was first interviewed in the early stages of the leak probe by the FBI in October 2003, and again during his first appearance before the grand jury in February 2004. Later, Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury and testified about the Cooper conversation, saying he had forgotten about it in his earlier statements to the FBI and in his first grand jury appearance.
The outing of Plame was part of a broad effort by the Bush administration in the first half of 2003 to discredit Wilson, a vocal administration critic who charged that the president and others in his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.
Wilson had been dispatched in 2002 on a CIA-sponsored overseas mission to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase weapons-grade uranium from Niger. Wilson reported back to the agency that the allegation was mostly likely unfounded; however, in his State of the Union address in January 2003, President Bush stated the British government had information that Hussein did try to buy the uranium from the African nation.
To blunt the criticism, Rove and other senior administration officials mounted an intensive effort against Wilson, alleging that he had been sent to Niger only on the recommendation of his wife, Plame, an agency officer.
Last October, Libby was indicted by the grand jury in the leak case on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice as part of an alleged effort to conceal his own role, and perhaps that of other Bush administration officials, in outing Plame as a covert officer.
Plame's identity was blown on July 14, 2003 in a column by nationally syndicated writer Robert Novak. Novak and Rove have since said that Rove was one of two sources for that column. Both men have also said they did not know of Plame's covert status.
Three days later, on July 17, Time published Cooper's article on its Web site identifying Plame as a CIA officer. Cooper has since testified and written in the magazine that it was Rove and Libby who told him that Plame worked for the CIA.
After initially not telling the FBI and federal grand jury of his conversation with Plame, Rove formally revised his testimony during a grand jury appearance on October 15, 2004. In that testimony, Rove said he believed that he had spoken to Cooper about Plame, but still had little independent recollection of what was said.
Rove's new testimony came as a result of the discovery of a July 11 White House email that Rove had written to then-deputy National Security advisor Stephen J. Hadley in which Rove said he had spoken to Cooper about the Niger controversy.
Rove has insisted that he did not initially volunteer information to the FBI and the grand jury about his July 11 conversation with Cooper because of a faulty memory. He has said that he has so many conversations and phone calls in the course of the work day that he simply had forgotten about that conversation until the email surfaced.
Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, have also argued that it would have been foolhardy for Rove to lie, knowing that Cooper might someday testify against him, and that other evidence might surface showing that the two had talked about Plame.
Central to Fitzgerald's decision on whether to bring charges against Rove is whether Rove's failure to disclose his conversation with Cooper early in the investigation was because of a faulty memory, or whether he was trying to conceal the conversation.
Fordham University law school professor Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said that Fitzgerald's decision to summon Rove before the grand jury repeatedly "reflects the importance that prosecutors-and ultimately juries-place on motive in [potential] perjury or obstruction cases."
Such cases are typically difficult to bring, Richman said, because "in many instances you almost have to literally take the jury inside a defendant's head... to demonstrate their intent."
The fact that Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury to testify about his conversation with Cooper might "prove to be an obstacle to any [potential] obstruction or perjury case in that the person ultimately cooperated and told what he knew," Richman said.
But if Rove only revised his earlier statements when faced with the likelihood that he was going to be found out anyway, Richman said, that would demonstrate the crucial element of intent to a jury. "You do score points for coming in and retracting or clarifying your previous false testimony," Richman said. "But it is an entirely different case if you are doing so only out of fear that you are about to be caught."
More recently, Luskin provided evidence to prosecutors about his own contacts with another Time reporter, Viveca Novak, in an attempt to show that Rove has testified as honestly as he could to the federal grand jury.
Luskin told prosecutors that Novak told him prior to Rove's first grand jury appearance that she had heard from colleagues at Time that Rove was one of the sources for Cooper's story about Plame. Luskin in turn said that he told Rove about this, but Rove still did not disclose to the grand jury that he had ever spoken to Cooper about Plame.
On Wednesday, Rove reportedly testified to the federal grand jury that earlier he had no reason to hide that he had spoken to Cooper, if indeed he recalled the conversation, because he already knew from Luskin that Novak and others at Time were saying they had been told that Rove had been a source for Cooper. Another reason, Rove said, is that he knew Cooper might himself one day testify in the case.
In her own sworn testimony in the case, however, Novak could not pinpoint the date that she had her conversation with Luskin, telling prosecutors that she was not sure wheter it was before or after the first time Rove testified before the grand jury. In a highly unusual move, Rove waived attorney-client privilege in a limited way, so that Luskin could testify that he remembered the conversation with Novak having occurred earlier than she had.
According to legal sources familiar with Rove's testimony, Rove said that prior to talking with Cooper on July 11, 2003, he believed that he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a person who was a journalist, although he has also testified that he could not recall the name of the person or the circumstances of the conversation.
Rove also has testified that he spoke with Robert Novak about Plame on July 9, 2003. During that conversation, Rove has testified, Novak told him that he had heard that Plame -- referred to during the conversation only as Wilson's wife -- worked for the CIA. Because of that conversation with Novak, Rove has testified to the grand jury, he believed that Plame worked for the CIA.
Novak and Rove have both testified that in their July 9 conversation Rove briefly said that he had heard the same information about Plame that Novak had heard. But Novak has also testified that as a result of the July 9 conversation, he used Rove as a second source for his July 14 column outing Plame as an "agency operative."
"If you believe both of them, Novak was saying that Rove was his source, and Rove was saying that Novak was his source," said one person with first-hand knowlege of the grand jury accounts of both men.
Rove also testified to the grand jury that he had heard from Libby that Plame worked for the CIA. But Rove testified that Libby told him that he only heard the information as rumors being passed on to him by journalists.
Cooper has said he told the grand jury that Libby was a second source for his July 17 story reporting that Plame worked for the CIA. Libby spoke to him on July 12, one day after his conversation with Rove.
Libby testified to the grand jury, in contradiction to Cooper's testimony, that when he told Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA he was careful to say that the information was only an unsubstantiated rumor that Libby himself had first heard from others.
Regarding his conversation with Cooper, according to the indictment of Libby, he told the grand jury: "I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still don't know it as fact. Later, Libby added: "And I said [to Cooper] reporters are telling us that, I don't know if it's true."
If Rove's and Libby's accounts to the grand jury are correct, journalists wrote about Plame's CIA employment even though both White House aides said the information was unsubstantiated gossip. Both reporters have said that the information was not qualified in any way, and that they believed it authoritative enough to publish.
Some journalism professors say that, in Washington, there is often a rush to print information.
"Much of what passes for news in Washington is very hurried leaks from officials in power, whether in a corridor conversation or a thirty second phone call," said Mark Feldstein, a former investigative correspondent for CNN, who is currently a professor of journalism at George Washington University. "And the media is far too credulous of accepting the word of Washington officialdom when it comes to self-serving leaks or publishing self-serving information."
Geneva Overholser, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, and former editor of the Des Moines Register, went even further, questioning whether columnist Novak should have used Karl Rove as a source that Plame worked for the CIA based on brief comments that Rove made that he simply heard the same information that Novak did.
By Murray Waas, NationalJournal.com
Friday, April 28, 2006
Appearing for a fifth time before the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case, White House adviser Karl Rove on Wednesday was questioned extensively about contradictions between his sworn testimony and that of Time magazine writer Matthew Cooper on the substance of their July 2003 conversation regarding then-agency operative Valerie Plame, according to attorneys involved in the case.
In several hours of testimony, Rove was again asked how he learned three years ago that Plame worked for the CIA, and the circumstances of how he relayed that information to Cooper, according to people familiar with his testimony.
Rove also testified to the grand jury that when he told Cooper that Plame worked at the agency, he was only passing along unverified gossip.
In contrast, Cooper has testified that Rove told him in a phone conversation on July 11, 2003, that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in having the agency select her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, to make a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002.
Cooper has also testified that Rove, as well as a second source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney -- portrayed the information about Plame as accurate and authoritative. Cooper has testified that based on his conversations with Rove and Libby, he felt confident enough about the information to identify Plame as a CIA officer in a July 17 Time story.
It has been widely reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fizgerald has been trying to determine whether Rove tried to mislead the FBI and the grand jury in the early stages of the leak probe when he failed to disclose that he had talked to Cooper about Plame three days before she was outed as a CIA officer. But it has not been previously known that much of the questioning of Rove on Wednesday also focused on the contradictions between Cooper's and Rove's accounts of their crucial July 11 conversation.
Rove did not disclose the conversation with Cooper when he was first interviewed in the early stages of the leak probe by the FBI in October 2003, and again during his first appearance before the grand jury in February 2004. Later, Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury and testified about the Cooper conversation, saying he had forgotten about it in his earlier statements to the FBI and in his first grand jury appearance.
The outing of Plame was part of a broad effort by the Bush administration in the first half of 2003 to discredit Wilson, a vocal administration critic who charged that the president and others in his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.
Wilson had been dispatched in 2002 on a CIA-sponsored overseas mission to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase weapons-grade uranium from Niger. Wilson reported back to the agency that the allegation was mostly likely unfounded; however, in his State of the Union address in January 2003, President Bush stated the British government had information that Hussein did try to buy the uranium from the African nation.
To blunt the criticism, Rove and other senior administration officials mounted an intensive effort against Wilson, alleging that he had been sent to Niger only on the recommendation of his wife, Plame, an agency officer.
Last October, Libby was indicted by the grand jury in the leak case on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice as part of an alleged effort to conceal his own role, and perhaps that of other Bush administration officials, in outing Plame as a covert officer.
Plame's identity was blown on July 14, 2003 in a column by nationally syndicated writer Robert Novak. Novak and Rove have since said that Rove was one of two sources for that column. Both men have also said they did not know of Plame's covert status.
Three days later, on July 17, Time published Cooper's article on its Web site identifying Plame as a CIA officer. Cooper has since testified and written in the magazine that it was Rove and Libby who told him that Plame worked for the CIA.
After initially not telling the FBI and federal grand jury of his conversation with Plame, Rove formally revised his testimony during a grand jury appearance on October 15, 2004. In that testimony, Rove said he believed that he had spoken to Cooper about Plame, but still had little independent recollection of what was said.
Rove's new testimony came as a result of the discovery of a July 11 White House email that Rove had written to then-deputy National Security advisor Stephen J. Hadley in which Rove said he had spoken to Cooper about the Niger controversy.
Rove has insisted that he did not initially volunteer information to the FBI and the grand jury about his July 11 conversation with Cooper because of a faulty memory. He has said that he has so many conversations and phone calls in the course of the work day that he simply had forgotten about that conversation until the email surfaced.
Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, have also argued that it would have been foolhardy for Rove to lie, knowing that Cooper might someday testify against him, and that other evidence might surface showing that the two had talked about Plame.
Central to Fitzgerald's decision on whether to bring charges against Rove is whether Rove's failure to disclose his conversation with Cooper early in the investigation was because of a faulty memory, or whether he was trying to conceal the conversation.
Fordham University law school professor Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said that Fitzgerald's decision to summon Rove before the grand jury repeatedly "reflects the importance that prosecutors-and ultimately juries-place on motive in [potential] perjury or obstruction cases."
Such cases are typically difficult to bring, Richman said, because "in many instances you almost have to literally take the jury inside a defendant's head... to demonstrate their intent."
The fact that Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury to testify about his conversation with Cooper might "prove to be an obstacle to any [potential] obstruction or perjury case in that the person ultimately cooperated and told what he knew," Richman said.
But if Rove only revised his earlier statements when faced with the likelihood that he was going to be found out anyway, Richman said, that would demonstrate the crucial element of intent to a jury. "You do score points for coming in and retracting or clarifying your previous false testimony," Richman said. "But it is an entirely different case if you are doing so only out of fear that you are about to be caught."
More recently, Luskin provided evidence to prosecutors about his own contacts with another Time reporter, Viveca Novak, in an attempt to show that Rove has testified as honestly as he could to the federal grand jury.
Luskin told prosecutors that Novak told him prior to Rove's first grand jury appearance that she had heard from colleagues at Time that Rove was one of the sources for Cooper's story about Plame. Luskin in turn said that he told Rove about this, but Rove still did not disclose to the grand jury that he had ever spoken to Cooper about Plame.
On Wednesday, Rove reportedly testified to the federal grand jury that earlier he had no reason to hide that he had spoken to Cooper, if indeed he recalled the conversation, because he already knew from Luskin that Novak and others at Time were saying they had been told that Rove had been a source for Cooper. Another reason, Rove said, is that he knew Cooper might himself one day testify in the case.
In her own sworn testimony in the case, however, Novak could not pinpoint the date that she had her conversation with Luskin, telling prosecutors that she was not sure wheter it was before or after the first time Rove testified before the grand jury. In a highly unusual move, Rove waived attorney-client privilege in a limited way, so that Luskin could testify that he remembered the conversation with Novak having occurred earlier than she had.
According to legal sources familiar with Rove's testimony, Rove said that prior to talking with Cooper on July 11, 2003, he believed that he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a person who was a journalist, although he has also testified that he could not recall the name of the person or the circumstances of the conversation.
Rove also has testified that he spoke with Robert Novak about Plame on July 9, 2003. During that conversation, Rove has testified, Novak told him that he had heard that Plame -- referred to during the conversation only as Wilson's wife -- worked for the CIA. Because of that conversation with Novak, Rove has testified to the grand jury, he believed that Plame worked for the CIA.
Novak and Rove have both testified that in their July 9 conversation Rove briefly said that he had heard the same information about Plame that Novak had heard. But Novak has also testified that as a result of the July 9 conversation, he used Rove as a second source for his July 14 column outing Plame as an "agency operative."
"If you believe both of them, Novak was saying that Rove was his source, and Rove was saying that Novak was his source," said one person with first-hand knowlege of the grand jury accounts of both men.
Rove also testified to the grand jury that he had heard from Libby that Plame worked for the CIA. But Rove testified that Libby told him that he only heard the information as rumors being passed on to him by journalists.
Cooper has said he told the grand jury that Libby was a second source for his July 17 story reporting that Plame worked for the CIA. Libby spoke to him on July 12, one day after his conversation with Rove.
Libby testified to the grand jury, in contradiction to Cooper's testimony, that when he told Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA he was careful to say that the information was only an unsubstantiated rumor that Libby himself had first heard from others.
Regarding his conversation with Cooper, according to the indictment of Libby, he told the grand jury: "I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still don't know it as fact. Later, Libby added: "And I said [to Cooper] reporters are telling us that, I don't know if it's true."
If Rove's and Libby's accounts to the grand jury are correct, journalists wrote about Plame's CIA employment even though both White House aides said the information was unsubstantiated gossip. Both reporters have said that the information was not qualified in any way, and that they believed it authoritative enough to publish.
Some journalism professors say that, in Washington, there is often a rush to print information.
"Much of what passes for news in Washington is very hurried leaks from officials in power, whether in a corridor conversation or a thirty second phone call," said Mark Feldstein, a former investigative correspondent for CNN, who is currently a professor of journalism at George Washington University. "And the media is far too credulous of accepting the word of Washington officialdom when it comes to self-serving leaks or publishing self-serving information."
Geneva Overholser, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, and former editor of the Des Moines Register, went even further, questioning whether columnist Novak should have used Karl Rove as a source that Plame worked for the CIA based on brief comments that Rove made that he simply heard the same information that Novak did.
QUOTE
Fitzgerald To Decide In 2 Weeks On Rove
Should we all chip in and send a muffin basket to Fitz? Or several bottles of very nice wine? Anything to help ... 
Good post on Fitz and Rove, from FireDogLake:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/28/some...ove-and-things/
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/28/some...ove-and-things/
QUOTE
Some Thoughts on Fitz, Rove and Things
By Christy Hardin Smith
Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 7:46 am
We’ve had quite a flurry of activity since everyone found out that Karl was going back before the grand jury — under oath, for testimony, for a fifth time. The coverage in the news has been interesting, to say the least, and there have been lots of dropped hints and spin jobs from the Luskin and pals camp, but nary a word from Patrick Fitzgerald.
I’ve gotten a couple of questions as to why this is, and I wanted to take a moment to make this clear: Fitzgerald and his team are bound by the grand jury secrecy rules. They cannot make any statements of any kind with regard to proceedings, testimony, or otherwise unless and until an indictment is issued against one or more persons — and then they are only able to discuss the information contained in the indictment(s) and related matters pertaining to the indictment(s).
Period.
Defense counsel have a lot more leeway in this sort of situation (although most are smart enough to know that conflicting public comments can come back to bite both you and your client in the ass at some later time). Witnesses to the grand jury are free to discuss their testimony after they testify. Prosecutors might prefer that they do not — especially if it could be a tip off to persons who may not know they are under consdieration for indictment — but there are no restrictions on public discussion once a witness has testified. (Which makes Luskin’s statement that Rover was unable to discuss his testimony due to grand jury secrecy issues all the more interesting, doesn’t it?)
Yesterday, there were a couple of comments that got lost in the rush that I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention — partially because they illustrate several points well, and partially because I got e-mails about them asking some questions that I wanted to address. The first was from Veritas78 in the Spin Me Right Round thread:
Either way, I think it is correct to say that being asked back in person before the new jurors isn’t good news for Rove — if it had just been a matter of tying up a loose end or two, they could have done that in Luskin’s office in about an hour over coffee. Nope, Fitz has something more — and my guess is that he won’t be afraid to use it if all the pieces fall into place. I keep wondering if perhaps this latest squeeze on Rover isn’t some signal to another player in this mess that they had best jump on board the deal train or they are next. (Hadley, anyone?)
As to the silence issue, Fitzgerald and his team are bound to follow the law. That this also works for them tactically is a side benefit — and it does work, believe me, after watching people sweat through grand jury terms, it really is a useful means of pulling the rats out of the woodwork. That it is so remarkable after watching the Starr team leak like a sieve any chance they got is all the more useful for Fitzgerald. Someone in DC with some self control seems all the more rare after the hooker-o-rama news from the Duke Cunningham case yesterday, doesn’t it? (And ergh, what a mental image that is. Bleh.)
Which brings me along to the second comment that I wanted to highlight this morning. This one is from reader Mamayaga, who gives us a little glimpse:
What Fitzgerald was doing was watching the other side’s spin. It’s useful on multiple levels: it gives you an idea of where they are headed tactically, at least with their public press maneuvers; it is something you have to monitor to see if there is a need for a gag order in the case if they go to far; if a witness has cut a deal, you have to monitor what they say or their representatives say in order to ensure they are living up to their end of the bargain…the list is pretty much endless. But let’s just say there are numerous reasons to monitor the leaks in this case, not the least of which is that you want to think about how they will play to other witnesses/likely defendants who also are on the hook.
Having never had a case this enormous, I can’t really speak for Fitzgerald and how he is dealing with all of this. But I can say that when you are in the middle of a huge case — my last one was a very involved murder trial — the details of the case become everything, and the outside malarky just falls by the wayside a lot of the time. But you also struggle to have some semblance of a life around the edges, some time to sit back and take a deep breath or have a glass of wine and a nice dinner with friends or any of those things that makes all the hard work have meaning for you.
Here’s hoping that Pat Fitzgerald and his entire team get those moments around the edges. And that this feeling I’ve been having that something is coming like an inevitable bulldozer toward Karl Rove is right. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too far — the wheels of justice can turn very slowly indeed — but this has been a very interesting week, and the signs are not looking so good for Karl (or Scooter) at the moment.
Guess we’ll see — but ultimately, whichever way this case goes, this is the way a prosecutor conducts himself — with dignity and respect for the process and for the law. Good on you, Pat Fitzgerald, and your entire team, for playing by the rules and not making it about ego on your end of things.
(Picture from the indespensible Dubyasworld.)
By Christy Hardin Smith
Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 7:46 am
We’ve had quite a flurry of activity since everyone found out that Karl was going back before the grand jury — under oath, for testimony, for a fifth time. The coverage in the news has been interesting, to say the least, and there have been lots of dropped hints and spin jobs from the Luskin and pals camp, but nary a word from Patrick Fitzgerald.
I’ve gotten a couple of questions as to why this is, and I wanted to take a moment to make this clear: Fitzgerald and his team are bound by the grand jury secrecy rules. They cannot make any statements of any kind with regard to proceedings, testimony, or otherwise unless and until an indictment is issued against one or more persons — and then they are only able to discuss the information contained in the indictment(s) and related matters pertaining to the indictment(s).
Period.
Defense counsel have a lot more leeway in this sort of situation (although most are smart enough to know that conflicting public comments can come back to bite both you and your client in the ass at some later time). Witnesses to the grand jury are free to discuss their testimony after they testify. Prosecutors might prefer that they do not — especially if it could be a tip off to persons who may not know they are under consdieration for indictment — but there are no restrictions on public discussion once a witness has testified. (Which makes Luskin’s statement that Rover was unable to discuss his testimony due to grand jury secrecy issues all the more interesting, doesn’t it?)
Yesterday, there were a couple of comments that got lost in the rush that I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention — partially because they illustrate several points well, and partially because I got e-mails about them asking some questions that I wanted to address. The first was from Veritas78 in the Spin Me Right Round thread:
- If Fitz didn’t have Rove, he wouldn’t bother. He’s got him.
Fitz can read a calendar. And he knows what this bunch did, and what he can prove. Yesterday was Meet The Weasel You’re About to Indict Day.
What impresses me most about Fitz is the silence. Prosecutors (Nifong!) take note—this is a superb tactic. You gain the trust of the judge, you “out” the defense as the spinners, and you frighten the hell out of everyone, including potential witnesses. It’s just plain brilliant, and best of all, it goes by the letter of the law. Hey, how ’bout that!
Note that Ken Starr was not smart enough to know this. (emphasis mine)
Either way, I think it is correct to say that being asked back in person before the new jurors isn’t good news for Rove — if it had just been a matter of tying up a loose end or two, they could have done that in Luskin’s office in about an hour over coffee. Nope, Fitz has something more — and my guess is that he won’t be afraid to use it if all the pieces fall into place. I keep wondering if perhaps this latest squeeze on Rover isn’t some signal to another player in this mess that they had best jump on board the deal train or they are next. (Hadley, anyone?)
As to the silence issue, Fitzgerald and his team are bound to follow the law. That this also works for them tactically is a side benefit — and it does work, believe me, after watching people sweat through grand jury terms, it really is a useful means of pulling the rats out of the woodwork. That it is so remarkable after watching the Starr team leak like a sieve any chance they got is all the more useful for Fitzgerald. Someone in DC with some self control seems all the more rare after the hooker-o-rama news from the Duke Cunningham case yesterday, doesn’t it? (And ergh, what a mental image that is. Bleh.)
Which brings me along to the second comment that I wanted to highlight this morning. This one is from reader Mamayaga, who gives us a little glimpse:
- Yesterday when I was flying back from DC to Chicago, I was sitting in the waiting area at National Airport, reading Jane’s recap of Rove’s history with the GJ on my Blackberry. It was late afternoon, the usual intercity shuttle crowd was gathering, when I glanced up from Jane’s disquisition to see none other than the tall man in the rumpled suit himself walking in my direction. I had no doubt who this was, flying home after a hard day on the road. If you’ve seen his picture as often as any FDLer has, there is no mistaking Patrick Fitzgerald in person. Fitz parked himself in front of the TV and watched VERY intently as CNN explained to him what he’d done with Karl that day. A rather surreally fractured moment, my reading Jane explaining Fitz to me while Fitz watched CNN explaining Fitz to Fitz. And in his attaché case were probably the documents that would set all of these stories straight — oh to have had Xray eyes!
I wanted to but didn’t go over and tell him how much I appreciate the service he is doing for the country (I’m more than a bit shy). One man in the waiting room did recognize him and spoke and shook his hand. I just sat and beamed somewhat involuntarily in his direction. I’m kind of an old lady so I can indulge in that kind of dottiness.
The thing that struck me about Fitz was his seeming to be completely un-self-conscious. I fly in and out of DC fairly often and when I do I play “Count the Congressmen.” They are easy to pick out in the crowd – middle aged men in expensive suits who clearly have their who’s-watching-me-now radar turned way up high. Even just waiting for a plane these guys are completely on stage. There was none of that about Fitz. He watched CNN, checked his messages, sat in what appeared to be contemplation of his day. It seemed that no more than two people in the crowd knew that this was the man who had just slow cooked the Rovester over a smoky fire for four hours on our behalf, and in doing so may very well have saved our system of lawful democracy.
This is a tiny story, just the “wow” reaction of someone who’s spotted a celebrity and not a whole lot more: Fitz travels in coach like a good government employee, he carries his own bags and apparently takes the El home. He sat in the emergency exit row, undoubtedly ready to render assistance to any and all should the plane have to bail. He’s quite boyish looking, and you might guess he was younger than his mid-forties except for the bald spot in back which gives him something of a monk’s tonsure, appropriately enough for someone with his reputation for devotion to his life’s work.
I was amazed again while at the baggage claim in Chicago seeing this whole passel of travelers standing around attending to their small businesses completely unaware that a key actor in the fate of our country was standing there as well, retrerieving his CTA fare card, getting a piece of gum, checking his messages again, and most likely revisiting the lies told to him all afternoon by the Rasputin of American politics. Don’t know if he noticed the aging groupie beaming at him across the baggage carousel, but I hope some of the good vibes reached him and helped speed him on his way.
What Fitzgerald was doing was watching the other side’s spin. It’s useful on multiple levels: it gives you an idea of where they are headed tactically, at least with their public press maneuvers; it is something you have to monitor to see if there is a need for a gag order in the case if they go to far; if a witness has cut a deal, you have to monitor what they say or their representatives say in order to ensure they are living up to their end of the bargain…the list is pretty much endless. But let’s just say there are numerous reasons to monitor the leaks in this case, not the least of which is that you want to think about how they will play to other witnesses/likely defendants who also are on the hook.
Having never had a case this enormous, I can’t really speak for Fitzgerald and how he is dealing with all of this. But I can say that when you are in the middle of a huge case — my last one was a very involved murder trial — the details of the case become everything, and the outside malarky just falls by the wayside a lot of the time. But you also struggle to have some semblance of a life around the edges, some time to sit back and take a deep breath or have a glass of wine and a nice dinner with friends or any of those things that makes all the hard work have meaning for you.
Here’s hoping that Pat Fitzgerald and his entire team get those moments around the edges. And that this feeling I’ve been having that something is coming like an inevitable bulldozer toward Karl Rove is right. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too far — the wheels of justice can turn very slowly indeed — but this has been a very interesting week, and the signs are not looking so good for Karl (or Scooter) at the moment.
Guess we’ll see — but ultimately, whichever way this case goes, this is the way a prosecutor conducts himself — with dignity and respect for the process and for the law. Good on you, Pat Fitzgerald, and your entire team, for playing by the rules and not making it about ego on your end of things.
(Picture from the indespensible Dubyasworld.)
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/MSNBC_No...e_for_0428.html
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MSNBC: No decision on Rove for at least a week; 'Did Rove coordinate testimony with Libby?'
04/28/2006 @ 5:34 pm
Filed by RAW STORY
The latest Rove update, which ran at 5pm on MSNBC Friday evening, confirms RAW STORY's earlier report that Rove's lawyers have been told no decision will be made for at least another week on whether Rove will face indictment over potential perjury.
The report, filed by Hardball's David Shuster, follows.
To read yesterday's report, in which Rove was quoted as saying his three and a half hour interrogation by the grand jury was "hell," click here.
#
David Shuster: "For Karl Rove, the drama is going to continue for a while. Sources close to Rove say his legal team has been told by prosecutors that no indictment decision will be made for at least another week. It means that even though Rove on Wednesday answered questions for three and a half hours, prosecutors are still unwilling to clear him or signal that his answers satisifed the grand jury.
Scott Fredericksen, former independent counsel: "The fact is, this is high risk strategy. But if Mr. Rove had said, I'm not going in there for a 5th time, I think that would have been a guarantee of an indictment."
Rove's own lawyers say the key issue is Rove's failure, for the first ten months of the investigation, to acknowledge that he spoke with Time magazine's Matt Cooper about former CIA operative Valerie Wilson. Rove sources tell MSNBC the presidential advisor testified again this week he has little memory of the Cooper conversation and argued that any mis-statements the last two years were not intentional. Last summer, following an appearance where Rove testified that most of their conversation was about welfare reform, Matt Cooper testified the entire discussesion was about the Wilsons and that Rove ended the call by saying, I've already said too much.
Matt Cooper: "I thought maybe he meant, I've been indiscreet, but then as I thought about it, I thought it might just be more benign like, I've said too much, I've got to get to a meeting. I don't know exactly what he meant, but I do know the memory of that line has stayed in my head for two years."
Last fall, when prosecutors indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby, they held off indicting Rove because his attorney said there was evidence that would prove Rove did not intend to mislead investigators. But based on the apparent scope of Wednesday's grand jury session, there are still questions about what prompted Rove to update his testimony.
That testimony came more than seven months after Rove's lawyer got a tip from Time magazine's Viveca Novak about what Cooper might say. On the other hand, Rove's testimony came just three days after prosecutors first ordered Cooper to testify. Legal experts suggest prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be returning to the theory that Rove held off disclosing information until he realized there would be reporter testimony against him under oath.
Sol Wisenberg, former federal prosecutor: "Any time your client has been identified as a subject and has gone to the grand jury five times, and the last time is three-and-a-half hours, you have a lot to worry about."
Another area of potential concern for Karl Rove involves an issue raised by pleadings in the Scooter Libby case. Prosecutors allege that Libby coordinated some of his actions with other white house officials including Rove. Rove is part of the prosecution narrative against Libby. And one document alleges Libby tried to mislead or confuse investigators by testifying he had a conversation with a reporter when the evidence shows it was Rove who had the conversation with the reporter.
Did Libby and Rove coordinate their testimony? And what does it mean for the overall investigation? In court documents, Fitzgerald says the investigation remains active.
And legal experts point out the big danger for Karl Rove is that the grand jury may have evidence Rove is not aware of. The only player in this drama who knows for sure is Fitzgerald -- who declined to clear Rove following his testimony and would only tell Rove's legal team that a decision on the presidential advisor will take at least ten days. I'm David Shuster, for Hardball, in Washington.
04/28/2006 @ 5:34 pm
Filed by RAW STORY
The latest Rove update, which ran at 5pm on MSNBC Friday evening, confirms RAW STORY's earlier report that Rove's lawyers have been told no decision will be made for at least another week on whether Rove will face indictment over potential perjury.
The report, filed by Hardball's David Shuster, follows.
To read yesterday's report, in which Rove was quoted as saying his three and a half hour interrogation by the grand jury was "hell," click here.
#
David Shuster: "For Karl Rove, the drama is going to continue for a while. Sources close to Rove say his legal team has been told by prosecutors that no indictment decision will be made for at least another week. It means that even though Rove on Wednesday answered questions for three and a half hours, prosecutors are still unwilling to clear him or signal that his answers satisifed the grand jury.
Scott Fredericksen, former independent counsel: "The fact is, this is high risk strategy. But if Mr. Rove had said, I'm not going in there for a 5th time, I think that would have been a guarantee of an indictment."
Rove's own lawyers say the key issue is Rove's failure, for the first ten months of the investigation, to acknowledge that he spoke with Time magazine's Matt Cooper about former CIA operative Valerie Wilson. Rove sources tell MSNBC the presidential advisor testified again this week he has little memory of the Cooper conversation and argued that any mis-statements the last two years were not intentional. Last summer, following an appearance where Rove testified that most of their conversation was about welfare reform, Matt Cooper testified the entire discussesion was about the Wilsons and that Rove ended the call by saying, I've already said too much.
Matt Cooper: "I thought maybe he meant, I've been indiscreet, but then as I thought about it, I thought it might just be more benign like, I've said too much, I've got to get to a meeting. I don't know exactly what he meant, but I do know the memory of that line has stayed in my head for two years."
Last fall, when prosecutors indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby, they held off indicting Rove because his attorney said there was evidence that would prove Rove did not intend to mislead investigators. But based on the apparent scope of Wednesday's grand jury session, there are still questions about what prompted Rove to update his testimony.
That testimony came more than seven months after Rove's lawyer got a tip from Time magazine's Viveca Novak about what Cooper might say. On the other hand, Rove's testimony came just three days after prosecutors first ordered Cooper to testify. Legal experts suggest prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be returning to the theory that Rove held off disclosing information until he realized there would be reporter testimony against him under oath.
Sol Wisenberg, former federal prosecutor: "Any time your client has been identified as a subject and has gone to the grand jury five times, and the last time is three-and-a-half hours, you have a lot to worry about."
Another area of potential concern for Karl Rove involves an issue raised by pleadings in the Scooter Libby case. Prosecutors allege that Libby coordinated some of his actions with other white house officials including Rove. Rove is part of the prosecution narrative against Libby. And one document alleges Libby tried to mislead or confuse investigators by testifying he had a conversation with a reporter when the evidence shows it was Rove who had the conversation with the reporter.
Did Libby and Rove coordinate their testimony? And what does it mean for the overall investigation? In court documents, Fitzgerald says the investigation remains active.
And legal experts point out the big danger for Karl Rove is that the grand jury may have evidence Rove is not aware of. The only player in this drama who knows for sure is Fitzgerald -- who declined to clear Rove following his testimony and would only tell Rove's legal team that a decision on the presidential advisor will take at least ten days. I'm David Shuster, for Hardball, in Washington.
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