Just A Question - If An E-Mail Comes Up Later That Implicates Rove.....

in the Plame case or if a memo surfaces or if somebody outs Rove - could he still be indicted or is he off altogether no matter what happens? Just thinking that Fitz might be playing Rove here and maybe Fitz has an ace up his sleeve to get Rove at a later date when Rove has no possible way to wiggle out.

Just heard David Schuster say Fitz probably thought he couldn't win the case if he indicted Rove now. Just thought that Fitz might be laying in the weeds and hoping that somebody or something might implicate Rove or Rove might in fact slip up and implicate himself somewhere down line.

Maybe Fitz is laying a trap.

If I were Rove I wouldn't celebrate too much or get too big a head (in Rove case a bigger head).

The only time he couldn't be is if they brought it to trial and the jury found him not guilty. It's why Prosecutors don't want to file charges too early.

They get one chance to get the verdict.

The only other times that it changes is if the defence withheld information in discovery or if there is an action in the appeals court.

... implicates Rove in future, he's dead meat.

He can also be indicted later on facts that are in evidence today. Fitz is the type who doesn't spring the trap until he KNOWS he can catch his prey in an inescapable way.

And I agree - if I were Rove, I wouldn't be celebrating - I'd be waiting for the other shoe to fall.

who has been wrong about everything having to do with this Karl Rove indictment story, and still he has never to apologize for getting it wrong every time. He keeps getting paid. His job is secure.

He's a joke, that one. Hardly a source you'd want to cite.

And, there are always new grand juries, and things could always start up all over again. But, for now, Rove is not indicted and, for now, it is over.

In reality, the best take on reality is that it's all over for Rove. Sorry, but that's it. Schuster is as delusional as anyone on freerepublic.com.

Rove has every reason to celebrate, my friend. Sorry about that, too, but them's the reality of the situation.

Fitzgerald doesn't "lay traps." Snap out of it. Stop buying what some TV reporter with a dismal record is telling you. What a joke. He should be fired.

While you may not be happy he was not indicted, you never seemed to think he deserved to be. That he didn't break any laws. Is that a correct assumption about your view?

In your opinion, how come what he did was not worthy of indictment? Is it acceptable in this country, that people like rover can get away with things like this, and it's ok? You said that being a slimeball is not a crime. Does that make sense to you? Being morally bankrupt, helping contribute to smearing someone, a covert CIA agent, in the interest of perpetrating a lie....that's ok under the law, so it's ok period?

Is the point to teach our next generation that it does matter so much if you have integrity, so long as you can get away with it? That power and control are really all that is important, and then if you have to take a few liberties, it's fine.

I'm not familiar with this poster... LeftyLawyer, is it true you never thought Rove should have been endicted? I can't believe that.

Wow... knock me over with a feather!

TC

I never gave a rat's ass if he was indicted or not. I've been a Washington lawyer for over 30 years, so I've learned to wait to see what grand juries will do.

In the meantime, posters with delusions come up with ideas that really do have factual grounding on the planet Zog. Or some such.

Get that feather off the floor. The chickens are annoyed.

I only know that Rove was not indicted.

Whatever else you might have had to say got lost in your absurd and incorrect opening line. What a silly thing to write. The rest of your post is of no interest to me, and now you dwell in Ignoreland, because, frankly, you're not worth my time.

Sorry, but earlier today, you posted the following:

OldLeftieLawyer (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-13-06 02:40 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. No, I don't care

I don't take these things very seriously when there are no known facts, and Fitzgerald has run such a perfect operation, there have been very few known facts - only what he's chosen to make public. A brilliant job.

Being a slimeball is not, last time I looked, a crime. Sorry, but people get away with this stuff all day every day all ove the world. It's human nature, but it's not indictable just because it's Karl Rove. At least not today.

You get carried away. I've watched this system for over 30 years. It's just another day. And, frankly, Joe Wilson is irrelevant now, in comparison to so many other matters.
"There is no hope for liberals if they seek only to imitate conservatives, and no function

OldLeftieLawyer (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-13-06 02:26 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Honesty and justice have prevailed
Fitzgerald did his job.

Why do you think honesty and justice are only available if an indictment is issued or a conviction brought forth? Ever hear of the concept of innocent until proven guilty, something I'm certain you'd certainly want mentioned were you ever to be charged with a criminal violation?

Get out of this delusional RoveBloodLust and get to working for the grassroots candidates who will win in November and bring our country back to us.

Rove's history, and Joe Wilson's taken his little sideshow as far as he can go. I'm sure he'll miss the spotlight, but we've got far, far more important things to fix in America than Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame's gripes. Bigger and more important.

Justice has prevailed. So has dignity, hard work, and honesty. You just don't like the results. Hey, that's how it goes ................
"There is no hope for liberals if they

Here's the problem:

Innocent until proven guilty. Fitzgerald seems an honest, hardworking sort. He seems like a good prosecutor; he seems like a lousy politician. Good for him.

Even if OLL firmly believes that Rove is a rotting, undercooked haggis it doesn't matter: justice is a process, not an outcome, and has to apply equally to everybody, good or bad, criminal or law-abiding, without reference to good or bad, just to the legal code and to standards of evidence. It's not political: it's a question of what the law says, what needs to be established given evidence, and what evidence is available. Fitz seems to have insufficient evidence for now, and few prospects of getting more. These things happen. Case closed, until more evidence comes along. When there's something new, then tune in again. The public record is not GJ testimony, and we don't know what the GJ heard. Political yearnings are inadmissible. Got evidence? No? Ciao.

The other way to skin this particular Felis is to do repubs serious harm. OLL believes Rove is neutered. Unless dwelling on the past makes the future better, don't dwell on the past unless you have nothing to offer the future. Good fighters neither gloat, nor get angry. They simply get serious and efficient.

Most of DU, on this topic, has been either gloating or angry; they dwell on the past, and hope for a quick salvation when there's little chance of it. It distracts from being serious and efficient. It's a time-kill.

I seriously don't know if I'd like to meet OLL in person. I've known people that I think are like her. Good friends with some; serious clashes with others.

How come it's not a duck?

I mean, this guy rove did not do anything bad enough to warrant indictment, right? Yet the guy is so morally bankrupt, and is so ruthless in his actions, and he can get away with it scot free.

You or I could get thrown in jail for doing an insignificant thing, but someone like rove can just skirt the law, and not have any consequences for his actions. Quite the opposite, he's actually Rewarded for his actions. They gain him more and more power, which enables him to get away with more corrupt conspiracies.

But if I went outside and smoked a joint, I'd be indicted in a heartbeat. And this makes sense how? And this is a fair and legitimate decision by Fitzgerald, how? And it's now time to move on to the next defeat for the liberals in November. Does anyone honestly think it will be any different then? Why? If rove can be so intwined in a conspiracy and get away with practically a medal, and go back to resuming his duties, then why do we expect to have a chance in '06 or '08 or '10 or '12 or anytime soon?

Sometimes they overlap. Sometimes they don't. My vocabulary's not really even set up to handle the difference well all the time.

Run a red light at 4 am, no other car for miles around, you broke the law. There's nothing immoral, apart from the actual breaking of the law. It's illegal, but in the absence of the legal code it's not wrong.

Get a woman drunk at a bar and have sex with her in your car, and it's wrong, but for a long time it wasn't illegal.

Yes, Rove skirts the law. It's unclear that he actually broke the law this time: I haven't seen anybody claiming that the CIA told him that they were taking active measure to protect Plame's status. The problem is that we rely on having a formal, explicit body of laws that define the crimes and the requirements for the a person to be found guilty. In most instances, this is a good thing, it cuts down on judicial caprice. In some cases, it means no law covers what obviously is a wrong act worthy of punishment. But if there was an all-purpose law saying that anything a prosecutor and judge thought was sufficiently bad could be punished, I'd move to another country. Having the laws in print ahead of time lets you know what's ok and not ok, and protects civil liberties; this has the side-effect of letting you know what the limits are, so you can act sleazy without being criminal, and game the system.

Getting bad guys off the street is a good thing. But I don't get upset when a thug gets off, because it's not my personal battle. Fitz v Rove ... also not my personal struggle. I'm an observer.

OLL's point is well taken, I think. Rove's lost much of his luster and is on the downside of his peak. I'm not sure he's getting bonuses for what's happened, and he's going to have to work his tail off, made much harder in part because of screw-ups he was personally involved in. And, in any event, he's not invincible, and we're not in need of chunk of kryptoniste. This is a speed bump.

it is not his job to "set traps" for anyone. He is a fact finder, as I understand it. This isn't Perry Mason or Law & Order -- I think this is pretty much over for now. Maybe he has something on Cheney, maybe not. I'm not getting my hopes up.

TC

I got lots of hopes for all sorts of things. No one knows what's up with Fitzgerald, where's he going to go, if anywhere, or even if this shitty law can ever be successfully applied to anyone involved. I personally think it's going to be impossible to get anyone indicted on this one.

It's a leakproof investigation so far, and I applaud Fitzgerald for how he's done his job. It's been impeccable.

We'll see what happens.

I get put on ignore, yet you don't even see what you're saying. Sounds to me exactly like you're saying that rove should not have been indicted. You don't think this law will be applied to anyone involved. So I guess you won't explain what the hell you're talking about, since you obviously think that rove didn't deserve to be indicted under this "shitty law." What am I missing? Here is your quote:

"No one knows what's up with Fitzgerald, where's he going to go, if anywhere, or even if this shitty law can ever be successfully applied to anyone involved. I personally think it's going to be impossible to get anyone indicted on this one."

It can't be fixed. It's shitty; but that's the best you get. It's aimed at CIA agents that turn on their fellow agents. For that, you want to protect stupid mistakes from prosecution. It's stacked in favor of the presumption of innocence, and makes the burden high for prosecutors. This is generally a good thing, right? Catch only the guilty, never the innocent; let some guilty people walk free if it means protecting the rights of the innocent?

A few things are required for this law against outing a covert agent to apply: you need to have clearance to allows you authorized access to an agent's status; you need to know the agent's status is 'covert'; you need to know that the CIA is currently taking measures to preserve that covert status; and you need to tell that agent's identity to somebody who doesn't have sufficient clearance to know. If any of those things can't be proven using evidence allowed in court, sworn or under affidavit, you're not guilty. Period. By definition.

Think about all Fitz has to prove. He must show Rove knew Plame was covert, not just an agent with 'secret' status; he must show Rove knew steps were actively being taken to protect that status; and he has to show that Rove told somebody not authorized to know. Not just that he had access to the knowledge, or had a document in his possession, or should have inferred it. This is a heavy burden of proof. Then there's this. I've read lots of facts that I wouldn't say I currently know--is, "I didn't know at the time because I forgot" or "I must have read it but I didn't pay attention and remember it" a defense? This is all assuming one person is involved. When two are involved, it's *harder*.

If Rove told Libby everything but 'measures are actively being taken', and Libby then told Miller on his own, there was no crime. The crime is defined by the law: Libby has authorization, but unless he knew both 'covert' *and* 'measures being taken', the law doesn't apply. Something horrible may have happened. Rove may even have left out a bit knowing he'd be innoculating Libby against the law: but then you have to prove that Rove knew all the info, *and* show beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury that Rove specifically left out that information knowing that Libby would divulge Plame/Wilson's name. Fitz isn't psychic; that's a very difficult thing to prove *beyond a reasonable doubt*.

It's unlikely anybody not in the CIA can ever be convicted under this law, Plame's covert status and any CIA measures being taken on her behalf are too tangential to what Rove and Libby were doing for these details to loom so large as to leave lots of evidence. And the burden of proof is high; if it's too high for Fitzgerald to meet, and that's intended to protect people who do stupid things, then Rove's accidentally protected because Fitzgerald can't meet the standard intended to ensure only the guilty are caught. The system worked: it's not set up to convict Rove, or necessarily to convict every guilty person every time. Rove walks; it sucks, but the alternatives, in the absence of perfection, are bad.

But you can never tell. In theory, the burden of proof is high; it's not impossible. Fitzgerald says what he says. Tomorrow he may get evidence that Rove is not only indictable, but can be convicted. Perhaps he's working on something entirely different, and will come back to Rove. Perhaps he's targetting somebody else. Perhaps he'll prosecute Libby and call it quits. No point getting worked up over it; let Fitzgerald do his job.

In any criminal case the prosecution is required to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, and this is a very tough burden of proof -- as it should be. If the available evidence is insufficient to prove Rove guilty of certain specific offenses (not just that he's a sleazy, corrupt bastard), then Fitzgerald can't legitimately proceed, because the grand jury won't return an indictment.

This, however, doesn't mean that Rove will never be charged -- only that as of this moment there is insufficient evidence to support charges against him. If, notwithstanding weak evidence, Fitzgerald were nevertheless able to pursuade the grand jury to indict, Rove almost certainly would be acquitted at trial. Because of the double jeopardy rule, he could never be charged again, even if more evidence turned up later. It seems to me that it's much better to decline to charge on weak evidence (meaning charges could still be brought later if more evidence is developed), than to go to trial where there is a great risk of acquittal.

That said, it doesn't mean Fitzgerald is "laying a trap"; it means only that there isn't enough solid evidence to proceed against Rove at this time. And maybe there will never be enough evidence. So what is, is. We go on to other, bigger things and don't let this disappointment become a distraction.

The problem with honest prosecutors like Fitzgerald is that they to go where the actual facts lead them, not where we'd like them to go. Rove is scum, but he's entitled to the same presumption of innocence as everybody else.

be charged, especially with the investigation going on. Almost supports Jason's story, because why say you won't be indicted in a letter unless there was some indication you were going to be? Why bother, otherwise, to even make the point that you won't be indicted now? You'd only do it if there was a reason for it, like the sealed indictment.

Which could have been, this administration begs everything to be considered a grave matter of "national security." Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean the court isn't giving into this on this matter now. Bush and Co are always trying to change things to be more authoritarian and secretive and now they have their RW idealogues on the Supreme Court; they're going to try out their new "powers" wherever they can. Especially to their own personal advantage.