As I expected, Jason Leopold has possibly broken the biggest scoop of the Bush administration. It looks like Rove has been given 24 hours to get his affairs in order before he must turn himself in.
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 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
In other news, Fitzgerald has released an amazing exhibit (.pdf). It is a copy of Joe Wilson’s editotial that was marked up by Dick Cheney. Cheney actually wrote on the newspaper:
Have they done this sort of thing before?
Send an Amb to answer a question?
Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?
Or did his wife send him on a junket?
Talk about a smoking gun!!!!!!!!!!!
For even more exciting reading, you can read Fitz’s full disclosure GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO COURT’S INQUIRY REGARDING NEWS
ARTICLES THE GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO OFFER AS EVIDENCE AT TRIAL (.pdf)
And the walls come tumbling down…
BUT…
Lost in the well deserved joy of this good beginning and the undoubtedly well deserved hatred directed towards Semnio-President Pro Tem Cheney is this one question.
Send an Amb to answer a question?
Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?
Or did his wife send him on a junket?
Four questions, actually.
Cheney may be an asshole, but he is a MASTER political infighter, and he smelled a rat immediately. He saw the whole thing building, the Old Money CIA against the New Money NeoCons
Are we going to swallow this one whole, like the Watergate fiction?
Or are the blogs going to continue to probe on BOTH sides of issues?
My guess?
We will swallow it whole.
And look where that got us the first time.
Reagan controlled by Daddy Bush.
Caveat Emptor
I don’t buy the whole story, myself.
Glad that it’s working?
Yup.
Feeling safe?
Nope.
Not by a LONG shot.
The overall strategy still remains.
Economic imperialism, control of oil.
And it is a LOSING strategy, as far as I can see.
Only the tactics are changing.
Out with the old, in with the…in with the what?
We shall see…
AG
I have no idea what you are talking about. Can you be a little more concrete?
If you don’t know about Arthur, his speciality is finding the dark tunnel at the end of the light.
Bullshit.
My “specialty” is seeing things for what they are.
Good, bad or indifferent.
What we have here is a trade-off.
From bad to less bad.
I”ll take it…
With a grain of salt.
AG
ROFLMAO!
What I am talking about is the fact that the particular enemies of this administration that have been able to do the most damage to it are not necessarily the best people in whom to put our trust.
This is and has been a NeoCon vs.old-line CIA war.
Do NOT trust the CIA OR the forces for whom it works.
The whole system is rotten at its base.
Any forces that favor a continuation of U.S. economic imperialism by ANY means are not to be trusted, and historically the post-W.W II CIA-based intel services have been by FAR the most active and most effective soldiers in that war. The NeoCons took it in another, more violent and more criminal direction. Good that they are being stopped. But that war is unwinnable.
THAT is what I am saying.
Clear yet?
If not…then I can’t tell you.
AG
Let me put it this way to you Arthur: even if we can agree that the bad guys won a long time ago, it’s still nice to see one of them getting busted once in a while, isn’t it? Can you allow yourself that small and simple pleasure?
It IS a pleasure.
We are in a wild forest, howie. I am sure that the animals of the forest take pleasure in their good moments. Mating, eating, sleeping, playing…but have you ever watched a deer eat? Nibble, nibble…LOOK UP AND AROUND. Nibble some more…SNIFF!!!
Two of the worst predators in the forest are locked in battle for supremacy here.
Either one would eat us as a snack if it so suited their aims.
I will root for the lesser of two evils.
No further.
AG
AG, [the] ” deer eat? Nibble, nibble… LOOK UP AND AROUND. Nibble some more..SNIF!!” reminds of Putin’s ‘Comrade wolf’ analogy just days ago,
‘U.S. is like a wolf that eats without listening.’
One that eats without stopping, too.
Way past being full.
Then pukes and does it again.
Comrade Wolf has an eating disorder.
Prognosis…if caught, he will have to be put down.
AG
Nibble, nibble… LOOK UP AND AROUND. Nibble some more..SNIFF!!
Wow. What an image. You’re on point, AG.
AND…I do not believe that “the bad guys” HAVE won.
If I believed that I would just get out of town and start somewhere else.
I know I use this quote too often, but…there it is. It is just too heavy to leave lying around unread.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – MLK Jr.
I believe that. And I live by it. I believed it before I read it. Reverend King just said it very well.
AG
The spooks in the CIA do indeed have a long, ugly history, from subverting democratic governments to perfecting the technology of torture (I forget what the current pc term for “torture” is these days, so I’ll keep calling it what it is – hell I’d do that anyways). How much blood is on that agency’s hands? How much more can we expect in the future?
I’ll accept that one of the bastards (Rove) and some cronies are on the way down. Worthy of a bit of celebration, but that’s only one tree in a very vast, dark forest.
Monday should be fun. Wonder how I’ll get any work done!
cheap or otherwise.
My question is, is it too late for The Republic?
It’s never too late.
If true, and, if there is the kind of fall-out that should accompany this, given the 29% rating of Herr Bush…we are in for an interesting ride.
Constitutional Crisis/Power vacuum anyone?
I remain hopeful, but skeptical, that this will be the tipping point that sends BushCo and his congressional enablers over the edge. Seems to me that we’ve seen this movie before and didn’t like the ending…heaven forbid the democRats would find a spine.
As I said earlier, Hope springs eternal.
Peace
I’m more inclined to believe this. I’ll hold out until Monday, but I think it’s a safe assumption to presume that Rove has been indicted.
Hell yeah!
I will take the joy in the moment while we can.
We have only scratched the surface of all the stinking decomposing, treacherous acts of this gang. We will have to keep digging and digging and digging to uncover where all the bodies are buried.
We have only begun and the stink gets worse the deeper we go.
But I will take each and every small victory step as they become available and I will smile!
Never give up hope!
that 911 was concocted not with bin Laden, but right here in the White House, with Bush and that corrupt band…the Republican Party is finished. F-i-n-i-s-h-e-d.
I think that Cheney would rather resign than give up any goods and thus explode his heart on the witness stand.
If they put Condi in as Veep, I am going to LMAO. Because everyone knows she is an idiot.
WOOT! Let’s celebrate — for a day or two. Then we have a few more issues to deal with. : )
Oh Yes Yes Yes Yes YES!!!
Sounds like this comes from an associate at Patton Boggs. Fascinating!
I’m troubled that this account mentions a perjury charge but no obstruction charge. I hope the latter, more serious, charge is added too.
I think I’m going to declare Monday a holiday for me and my employees!
Oh please oh please oh please…I want a perp walk in handcuffs!
Can you say 19% approval rate?!
…now we may have another explanation for why Bush wants Monday prime time to talk about “immigration” and the need to deploy the National Guard on our southern border.
When I read Bush was “talking to the nation” Monday night, the first thought that crossed by mind was, “What news is coming out? What headline is he trying to displace?”
Oh, I hope this is true, but it seems like it’s been 24 hours since that Friday afternoon visit. Wouldn’t he be turning himself in right now if that were true?
I was just about to say “24 hours from when?” but you beat me to it!
the process outline in this article by Leopold is gappy. I thought the 24 hr timing didn’t make sense. Camera crews would be encamped at Rove’s house to click the drive out.
Leopold said Fitz spent half day, Talkleft had an update in a commentary on the indict that Leopold said 15 hours. Awfully long time Fitz sat down to talk with gold bars Luskin if an indictment is in. !!? FWIW.
And why if there’s an indictment…how is it that obstruction of justice is to be added later? Too much detail, yet conflicting with the MO and process.
I’ll keep my bottles chilled. After Fitz speaks then I’ll hear if its time to uncork.
I’ve got the Korbel ready to go, but I should mention that over on America.blog several posters have noted that Jason Leopold has a controversial reputation. Editors at Salon.com, for example, pulled one of his articles and accused him of plagiarism (and the article was an announcement that a top Bush official was about to be indicted). You can read about that on Wikipedia. H
owever, he’s done lots of good articles. I hope he’s right here. He’s really sticking his neck out.
I agree with the post above: the “24 hours” detail doesn’t ring true. Among other things, guys like Rove make bail. It’s not like they have 24 hours before walking behind prison bars for the last time. It’s an overly melodramatic detail that severely undercuts the rest of it, alas.
giving him 24 hours to type up his resignation paperwork and clear out his office…I want to see the photo of him carrying the brown cardboard box out of the White House, escorted by WH security to make sure he didn’t steal the spoons as well as the 2000/2004 elections…
Perhaps we’ll need many more facilities to house the coming wave of Republican inmates. I suppose that a contract with Halliburton is in order. 😉
…there won’t be any bubbly popped until I see the bastard turn himself in.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, but the very first sentence of Leopold’s piece is a head-scratcher:
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.
Why would a prosecutor go to the defendant’s firm? Shouldn’t that be the other way around? If it’s happened before, please let me know.
.
October 25, 2005 — Raw Story posts that tomorrow’s Roll Call will report that Patrick Fitzgerald paid a visit to Robert Luskin, Karl Rove’s lawyer, at his Patton Boggs D.C. office today.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Thanks for the link, my friend! It seems odd, but I’m sure Rove has grown accustomed to doing things differently than the rest of us.
I forgot that shrub’s giving a speech on Monday, so Rove must be going down–the speech is a diversion tactic.
I still want to see it, though. I want to hear what Fitzgerald has on the bastard. And I’ll raise a glass when it happens!
.
(FindLaw) April 7 — Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has now revealed in court filings bombshell information that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby told the grand jury …
According to Fitzgerald, Libby “undertook vigorous efforts to rebut” Wilson because “Vice President Cheney, defendant’s immediate superior, expressed concern to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson’s [CIA-sponsored] trip [to Africa to determine if Iraq was getting uranium from Niger] was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson’s wife.”
This disclosure about Wilson’s wife, according to Fitzgerald’s filing, “was one way” to undercut the Op Ed – based on the hope it would be taken less seriously “if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism.”
Another way to undercut the Op Ed was to use the top-secret information in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). A knowledgeable reporter like Judith Miller would understand that this information was the best judgment of the American intelligence community.
Fitzgerald reports that Libby “testified that he was specifically authorized … to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller” because the information “was ‘pretty definite’ against Ambassador Wilson… and that the Vice President thought that it was ‘very important’ for the key judgments of the NIE to come out.”
When Libby raised the problem of discussing the NIE with Miller because of its classified status, the filing reports that Libby “testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized” Libby to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE.
● Libby Loses Bid for Documents in CIA Case
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
WOW.
…excellent.
Keep the PDFs, and clip a few headlines when it hits. Your grandchildren will appreciate the historic quality of it all, as they learn about the history of Waterworld when it was once called “Earth”…
😉