Okay, I’m not a lawyer but I can play one in the blogosphere. So here is my initial speculation:
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Rove has two goals. He obviously wants to avoid prison. But he also wants to avoid being indicted. If he is indicted he will have to resign. That means he cannot cop a plea to a lesser charge and keep his job.
Rove has the right, under Justice Department protocols, to receive a ‘target letter’ if he is asked subpoenaed to testify before a Grand Jury that is considering indicting him. I believe his lawyer waived that right told Rove to testify voluntarily so that he could continue to deny that Rove is at risk.
Basically, Rove must be offering to give so much information that Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury might be inclined to let him off the hook with NO CHARGES filed. But he is doing it without an immunity agreement.
It looks to me like Rove is attempting a hail-mary pass (avoiding indictment, a plea, or even a target letter).
But, if I am right, this has extremely dire consequences for the administration.
The charges must be very serious if Rove is willing to roll over on his superiors. He must be facing more than 18 months in jail for perjury.
Any lawyers out there, please tell me if I am making sense.
Update [2005-10-6 17:13:23 by BooMan]: it appears a target letter is only issued when a subpoena is issued to a target. By volunteering to testify, Rove avoided getting a subpoena which would have had a target letter attached.