Frog March Rove Trembling edition

Oh, oh, how sweet it would be, to see Mr. Rove led away in chains....

To understand why Karl Rove is believed to be in grave danger of indictment for his role in the Wilson leaks, let's return to the earliest days of the investigation. If Rove is found criminally liable for lying, then the falsehoods that led to his downfall may well have been uttered during the weeks when his old friend and client John Ashcroft was still in charge of the leaks probe -- and before the case was turned over to the special counsel, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

During the autumn of 2003, after repeated requests from the CIA, Ashcroft finally exercised his duty as attorney general to investigate the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity by administration officials to various journalists. Although the CIA first notified the Justice Department as early as July 30 of a potentially serious crime -- namely, a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- Justice didn't open an investigation until the end of September, after the CIA informed the department that it had completed its own review of the facts.
For three months, until Ashcroft decided to recuse himself, the investigation remained under his control, despite the well-founded suspicions of Rove's involvement. Ashcroft willfully ignored his own inherent conflict in overseeing a case that might lead to an indictment of Rove, who had assisted his political campaigns in Missouri and had directed the process that led to his appointment as attorney general. Only after repeated protests from Democrats in Congress, strong editorial comment on the unseemliness of Ashcroft's conduct, and polls showing public demand for an independent counsel did he finally recuse himself from the Wilson matter.

By then, however, the investigation had already begun, and Rove, among others in the White House, was already on record publicly denying any involvement in the leaks. Indeed, those denials by Rove himself and White House press secretary Scott McClellan returned to haunt them and the president earlier this year, following evidence provided by Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about his July 2003 conversation with Rove concerning the Wilsons.

...Back then, Rove might well have assumed that the case would be buried without any undue inconvenience to him. The president had publicly predicted, after all, that the perpetrators of the leak were unlikely to be identified. There was no reason, at the outset, to think that an independent-minded prosecutor would take over from Ashcroft a few months later.

If Rove told the FBI agents the same story that he and McClellan were telling the press, then he might have set himself up for a felony charge of lying to a federal law enforcement official. And if he lied, then he need not have been under oath to have committed a crime.
-Joe Conason

Oh, delicious day. Pardon my unbridled glee at the anticipated announcement of indictments, but my strongly held belief is that Karl Rove singlehandedly has besmirched America and its reputation abroad, while simultaneously degrading the entire political climate with his constant mudslinging. Prison is the only sensible relocation available to Rove, his Florida residence notwithstanding.

a recent story in the Washington Post discussed the tax status of Rove's home in Washington. The story said that Rove is registered to vote in Texas -- apparently based on his ownership of a couple of rental cottages there -- despite the fact that he lives in Washington and is building a home for himself in Florida. In the course of the story, Elizabeth Reyes, a lawyer in the Texas secretary of state's office, was quoted saying that a person could be criminally prosecuted for voting in a place he doesn't live. When the story came out, Rove put in a phone call to the Texas secretary of state, a man described as a longtime supporter of George W. Bush and a major GOP fundraiser. Shortly thereafter, Reyes was fired. That might have been the end of things if it weren't for Comfort resident Frances Lovett, who has written a letter to the Kerr County district attorney asking for an investigation into whether Rove has been voting in Texas illegally.

Tags: corruption, /Frog March, /Politics