On Huff Post - Lawrence O'Donnell - Plamegate: The Next Step

[Pirate Smile]

Plamegate: The Next Step

If Karl Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, is still as easy to read as he has been since I broke the story that his client was Matt Cooper's source, then we now know that Rove has received a target letter from Patrick Fitzgerald. How do we know it? Luskin refuses to deny it.

Fitzgerald does not have to send Rove or anyone else a target letter before indicting him. The only reason to send target letters now is that Fitzgerald believes one or more of his targets will flip and become a prosecution witness at the pre-indictment stage. A veteran prosecutor told me, "If Fitzgerald is sending target letters at the end of his investigation, those are just invitations to come in and work out a deal."

Prosecutors prefer pre-indictment plea bargaining to post-indictment because they have more to offer you, like not being indicted at all or downgrading your status to unindicted co-conspirator. And pre-indictment plea bargaining can greatly enrich the indictments that the prosecutor then obtains. If, for example, Fitzgerald has a weak case against, say, Scooter Libby, imagine how much Rove's cooperation might strengthen that case.

If no one RSVPs to Fitzgerald's invitations, look for indictments as early as next week. If anyone does sit down with Fitzgerald, he will probably have to move to extend the grand jury, which now has only thirteen working days left in its term.

Prediction: at least three high level Bush Administration personnel indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/plamegate-the-next-step_b_8447.html

edit to add - this is the full text.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Nice way to drive a stake between

Bush and Cheney and their staffs.

Way to go Fitz.

[progressoid]

7. Gotta be a lot of tension in the halls of the White House!

:popcorn: Tehehe

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. I can't wait till

they start eating their own in public.

Pass the :popcorn: Thanks.

[acmavm]

2. NEXT WEEK????

I had 8:00 a.m. CST today in the pool.

Rats!

[Pirate Smile]

3. If he flips someone to get more dirt, the wait will be worth it.

[Pirate Smile]

4. They have now moved this to be the headline on Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

[Pirate Smile]

5. This needs one more vote for Greatest Page. IMO, I think people would like

to hear this information.

[Czolgosz]

6. Recommended for O'Donnell

[Kurovski]

9. Really, O'Donnell has been damn good these days.

A couple weeks back he was a pistol on McLauglin's show.

Reporters doing their job is such a turn-on these days. Go figure.

[Czolgosz]

14. He's been on fire on the McLaughlin Group and at HuffPost

[spooky3]

10. no wonder they're talking "terra" again today

gotta distract the public, and fast!

[cassiepriam]

11. They are all narcissistic cowards. They will sing like canaries to save

their own skin.

[Pirate Smile]

12. UPDATE - O'Donnell has added an Update to this post.

UPDATE: Plamegate: the Next Step

This just in from the AP:

"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."

What this means is Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, believes his client is defintely going to be indicted.

So, Luskin is sending Rove back into the grand jury to try to get around the prosecutor and sell his innocence directly to the grand jurors. Legal defense work doesn't get more desperate than this. The prosecutor is happy to let Rove go under oath again--without his lawyer in the room--and try to wiggle out of the case. The prosecutor has every right to expect that Rove's final under-oath grilling will either add a count or two to the indictment or force Rove to flip and testify against someone else.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/update-plamegate-the-ne_b_8457.html

[napi21]

13. I thought the same thing when I heard the report on CNN.

They said that Rove's atty had been working on this for about a week! That sure sounds like some kind of a deal.

What do you think? Will Rove fall on his sword for his masters?

[liberalla]

15. I am soooo looking forward to some actual charges

and indictments. The anticipation is delicious. I hope we are not disappointed. I love these posts from O'Donnell! Thank you!