"Rove is in serious legal jeopardy" (reposted w/ correct link)

Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Sunday 04 December 2005

The attorney representing Karl Rove in the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson has made a desperate attempt to ensure President Bush's deputy chief of staff does not become the subject of a criminal indictment.

In doing so, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has turned the tables on the media, who ultimately fought a losing battle to protect Rove - their source - who revealed to some reporters Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status.

Now Luskin has fired back, revealing to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame case - inadvertently tipped him off last year that her colleague at the magazine would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status, several people close to the case said this week.

The latest twist in the two-year-old investigation has all the elements of a Hollywood thriller. New details in the case seem to emerge on a daily basis. Selective leaks to a small handful of newspapers and cable news stations are aimed at portraying some of the key Bush administration officials involved in the case in a sympathetic light, while casting Fitzgerald as a partisan prosecutor.

But the fact remains, several sources close to the investigation said, that Rove is in serious legal jeopardy. According to sources, Fitzgerald is expected to decide before the end of the year whether to seek an indictment against Rove for obstruction of justice and making false statements to Justice Department, FBI investigators, and the grand jury on three separate occasions, for failing to disclose a conversation he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003 about Plame Wilson.

...more...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120405A.shtml

Truth is stranger than fiction.

shut up?

be struck (permanently) mute....This pair truly gives credence to the bad rep that the legal profession has gotten (little bit of truth in every sterotype and absolute truth in some).

LOL

And I don't think I'm way stupid or anything.

I find myself wanting to ask, "And what does this MEAN in the context of what we already know?"

Because of new information from these reporters - does anyone know anything about it?

BUT THIS FROM FIREDOGLAKE:
What we're supposed to believe (i.e., the Rovian spin) is that Fitzgerald erroneously thought that Rove had "mis-testified" about a conversation he had with Viveca Novak (and there are rumors that she has been interviewed by Fitzgerald before). But, voila! Turns out the conversation was not with Rove but with V. Novak's good pal Robert Luskin. Fitzgerald's mistake. Luskin will go in, clear up the whole mess, and poor honest Karl will go into the back yard and chop down a cherry tree then confess to Karen Hughes over pie and ice cream before bedtime.

I am hearing through sources that the Franken story is crap, 100% spin. Fitzgerald is supposedly busy right now dealing with Bob Woodward, who may have earned himself a trip to the grand jury next week for his efforts, and with Woodward's source, whoever that may turn out to be. Only then will he start dealing with Viveca Novak, and the "Fitzgerald made a mistake" rumor is pure bullshit. And nobody at this point is buying the story that Luskin himself is going in to testify.
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

Do not collect $200.

I sat and listened to him on Larry King live, and he stated that he did not have a bomb shell.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/27/lkl.01.html

WOODWARD: I wish I did have a bombshell. I don't even have a firecracker. I'm sorry. In fact, I mean this tells you something about the atmosphere here. I got a call from somebody in the CIA saying he got a call from the best "New York Times" reporter on this saying exactly that I supposedly had a bombshell.

KING: (INAUDIBLE).

WOODWARD: Finally, this went around that I was going to do it tonight or in the paper. Finally, Len Downie, who is the editor of the "Washington Post" called me and said, "I hear you have a bombshell. Would you let me in on it."

KING: So now the rumors are about you.

WOODWARD: And I said I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't.

KING: What do you think will happen?

WOODWARD: But Michael's point is exactly right. There is deep mystery here. It only grows with time and people are speculating and there are -- there is so little that people really know.

Why did he wait so long to bring this up if he had information on an ongoing investigation from the get go? Then to sit there on Larry King and deny having a bomb shell infuriates me. He could have dismissed the question, but he goes on at length about Len Downie calling him etc.

Personally I just think he is trying to make a name for himself once again. He just wants to be the big player once again like Watergate. I don't trust him, and something smells.

for the likes of this administration? STOOOPID. Why would KKKRove not want his conversation with Cooper logged? Gee, I wonder. :eyes:



<snip?During this time, the White House was facing a deadline on turning over documents, emails and phone logs to Justice Department officials probing whether or not the leak came from the White House. Rove's email to Hadley about the conversation he had with Cooper three months earlier didn't turn up during the search, the reasons for which are still murky. Furthermore, a log of Cooper's call to Rove wasn't included in White House phone logs either. Rove's assistant at the time, Susan Ralston, had said Cooper called the White House switchboard and was transferred to Rove's office and transferred calls aren't logged. However, she is said to have "clarified" her testimony earlier this month, saying that Rove told her not to log the call, after Fitzgerald is said to have obtained documentary evidence proving that wasn't the case with other calls transferred to Rove's office, sources close to the investigation who are familiar with Ralston's testimony said.<snip>

perfect Fitzmas present.

:kick: and recommended!

The email Rove supposedly sent that documents his conversation w/ Cooper:

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in the email to Hadley immediately following his conversation with Cooper on July 11, 2003. "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."

--snip--

But Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothing like he had described in his email to Hadley, according to an email Cooper sent to his editor following his conversation with Rove.

"It was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized trip," Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said. "Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The email characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an suspect but so is the report. he implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro Niger .. "

--snip--

And guess what? The email in question turned up much, much later in the investiagation. Much later than it should have:

"During this time, the White House was facing a deadline on turning over documents, emails and phone logs to Justice Department officials probing whether or not the leak came from the White House. Rove's email to Hadley about the conversation he had with Cooper three months earlier didn't turn up during the search, the reasons for which are still murky. Furthermore, a log of Cooper's call to Rove wasn't included in White House phone logs either. Rove's assistant at the time, Susan Ralston, had said Cooper called the White House switchboard and was transferred to Rove's office and transferred calls aren't logged. However, she is said to have "clarified" her testimony earlier this month, saying that Rove told her not to log the call, after Fitzgerald is said to have obtained documentary evidence proving that wasn't the case with other calls transferred to Rove's office, sources close to the investigation who are familiar with Ralston's testimony said."