Why Rove Will Fall

[G_j]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/

Tomgram: De la Vega on Why Rove Will Fall

The President passed through his State of the Union address -- ill-digested chunks of so many other speeches he's given ("We're writing a new chapter in the story of self-government -- with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink…) -- largely untouched by the media. His two Supreme Court-changing appointments, Roberts and Alito, were triumphantly in the front row of the audience. Undoubtedly, it wasn't a bad way for a besieged President to start year two of term two. Okay, maybe in distant Baghdad -- "We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory" -- things were actually looking a little peaked and, admittedly, the Bush wave of freedom in the Middle East had just swept Islamic fundamentalists into control of the Palestinian Authority, but all in all the President had reason to feel at least some satisfaction. And yet there lurks a presidential problem of administration-staggering proportions that few are even thinking about at the moment.

Quietly, largely below the radar screen, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald continues to work on the CIA leak case in which the administration decided to punish ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson for embarrassing them on Saddam's nonexistent search for yellowcake uranium by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent. News on the case has been sparse indeed of late. I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, indicted former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, crept back into the papers this week on a fishing expedition for CIA documents; while a single, shades-of-Watergate sentence in a brief report by James Gordon Meek in the New York Daily News indicated that "Fitzgerald… said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy." (The letter can be found at the Raw Story website.) Meanwhile, not so long ago in an investigative report at the Truthout website, the fine Internet reporter Jason Leopold indicated that Fitzgerald "has been questioning witnesses in the CIA leak case about the origins of the disputed Niger documents referenced in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address."

Still, the case, having largely disappeared into the media void, has something of the look of yet another danger dodged by an administration with at least nine lives. Well, don't let the relative silence surrounding Fitzgerald fool you. As former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega indicates below, the Special Counsel is working on another time schedule than that of administration officials. So, in due course, expect fireworks out of his office that will first illuminate the role of Karl Rove in the case and then may well light up a far wider stretch of the horizon. Tom


When Two Worlds Collide
Rove v. Fitzgerald
By Elizabeth de la Vega

For Karl Rove, no news from the Plame case -- Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA agent -- is definitely not good news. Seismic activity is notoriously silent, so we may not be hearing any rumblings at the moment. But speaking as a former prosecutor, I believe it highly likely that, just below the surface, the worlds of Karl Rove and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, shifting like tectonic plates, are about to collide. As was true with Vice President Cheney's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a federal agent as well as to the grand jury, Rove might not be charged with the leak itself. I am confident, however, that Rove will not leave this party empty-handed. He will, at the very least, almost certainly be charged with making false statements to an FBI agent. Here's why.

For starters, the evidence that Rove deliberately lied to the FBI is overwhelming...
..MORE..

[wishlist]

1. Thanks for this encouraging new article by prosecutor de la Vega

I heard WH reporter David Gregory say last weekend on Chris Matthews show that he does not expect an indictment for Rove (in light of Rove's recent high profile and confident demeanor), so informed opinions to the contrary are very welcome right now. Seems unlikely that Fitzgerald would be presenting his case to another grand jury if Rove is in the clear as some of the media pundits believe.

[boobooday]

2. Oooh, that was delicious

Wonderful reading. Thanks for posting that!

What a glorious day it will be, indeed, when Karl Rove is frogmarched out of the White House, with Dubya standing there, sobbing, on the lawn, like an abandoned lover. :woohoo:

[hwmnbn]

3. This article made my day already..........

de la Vega described the difference between Rove and Fitzgerald brilliantly. As a former prosecutor she knows what kind methods slime like Rove use.

This is my favorite part of the article:

Rove has escaped responsibility for his sneaky campaign tricks because the candidates for whom he has worked -- most prominently, George Bush -- have had a stunning ability to accept, unquestioningly, the miraculous appearance of information that takes down their opponents. They had no problem about endorsing brazen dishonesty or the least interest in ferreting out bad actors in their camps. At the same time, opposing candidates have had neither the resources, nor the time to fully investigate the attacks before plummeting in the polls. Afterwards, of course, it was already far too late.

Unlike Rove's former adversaries in the political world, however, Fitzgerald has both the time and investigative resources.

That gave me the warm fuzzies! Thanks for posting this article.



BTW does G_j stand for Grand Jury?

[G_j]

4. enjoy n/t

[G_j]

5. ~~

[G_j]

6. ~~

[seemslikeadream]

7. I've been waiting for those Tectonic Plates

:hi:

Are Josh Marshall's TECHTONIC PLATES finally starting to move?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4002813

[leftchick]

8. me too!

I hope this is it... though... :(


I do love the polar penguin! :hi: