Posted on 10/06/2005 12:19:41 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th-hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.
The persons, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not made any decision yet on whether to file criminal charges against the longtime confidant of President Bush or others.
The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment.
Rove has already made at least three grand jury appearances and his return at this late stage in the investigation is unusual.
The prosecutor did not give Rove similar warnings before his earlier grand jury appearances.
Problem is in order to attack the prosecutor you need to attack early on in the process, but to do so means you know you're guilty (just like Clinton did to Starr).
It's just bad news if Rove gets indicted by a Federal "Independent" Prosector. Two things that are different from Earle...Federal and Independent.
Is the prosecutor a Democrat? good question.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497414/posts?page=70#70
Why does he need to give more testimony then? Why does the prosecutor, trying to make a name for himself, say he could be indicted?
we will soon see how accurate your statement is.
Ahh, I missed that. I just remember watching the Press and Buchanan show in 2003, witnessed the stunning claim by him that the leaker was Scooter Libby! Never forgot the shock and awe on Pat's and Bill's faces!!!
Could be that the prosecutor is just playing brinksmanship. Probably is hoping that Rove will rat. He did not send him a target letter, but he said he could not guaranty that Rove would not be indicted. That seems like he was trying to shake something loose, to me.
Fitzgerald has a good reputation here in Illinois...he's after the Daley clan...
What was the letter for?
I don't know if Fitz will indict anyone, but he should beflogged for taking soooooooo looooooong and soooooooo much $$$$$$$$$ to investigate.
indeed, we do not know how to play this game.
If Rove is indicted - I want to hear people posting about how his "rope-a-dope" strategy is so brilliant.
Yes, could be.............
(We'll know soon enough)
Before accepting the offer, Fitzgerald sent correspondence to Rove's legal team making clear that there was no guarantee he wouldn't be indicted at a later point as required by the rules.That little snippet means that Fitz had to make that stipulation under the rules of the court. It does not mean that Karl will be indicted. I would suggest that everyone calm down and take a wait and see attitude. Besides, it was Libby that Miller pointed the finger at.
I think you may be right. If Miller agreed to only testify about Libby, why would Rove be going back in now?
yeah, I would like to see what they found on Larry
Unless he's trying to talk him out of it. This may explain why Bush has been so preoccupied lately.
Why? To sacrifice Libby in hopes of saving his own ass
My gripe about this from day one is that - to paraphrase a line from "Apocalypse Now" - indicting someone in DC for a leak is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. I thought the Dem/media rhetoric that "outing" Plame threatened either her or national security was just plain hyperventilated hogwash, and I still believe that. What this is all about is the Administration trying to defend itself from what it saw to be false or misleading allegations. Somewhere in that defense, someone let it slip that Plame was a CIA staffer, as a way of explaining how Wilson got the Niger assignment. If that's a crime worthy of a two-year investigation, we are living in a very hypocritical and f*cked up society.
Why do you patronize CNN?
the white house didn't need to attack the prosecutor.
what they needed to do all along was point how how this Plame/Wilson thing was a setup - the Niger story about Iraq was true - that's the case they needed to be making all along. The administration needed to ask DOJ to launch criminal investigations of what was going on at CIA to cook this up. That was the counter assault we should have been mounting since this whole thing started.
Didn't Starr give Clinton a friendly heads up that he had "the goods"?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.