According to MSNBC reporter, David Schuster, Karl Rove testified before the Grand Jury today for three and half hours. Prior to Rove’s appearance, sources ‘close to Rove’ seeded expectations into articles at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, and elsewhere. Their story was that Rove was going in to address one issue: the meeting between his lawyer Robert Luskin and former Time reporter Viveca Novak. But Rove lawyers are, according to Schuster, distressed that Rove had to spend three and half hours answering questions.
This is the fifth time that Rove has appeared before a Grand Jury. Many lawyers are calling five appearances unprecedented in the annals of jurisprudence. I really don’t know whether it is unprecedented or not. But it does provide a lot of entertainment. My best guess on where this is headed is that Rove is going to be indicted for perjury and making false statements to the FBI. He is probably fighting an additional series of obstruction of justice charges. He probably went to the Grand Jury today to try to explain away his failure to correct his perjurious testimony before the Grand Jury for seven months after he undubitably realized that his testimony had been erroneous.
Essentially, he testified that he learned about Valerie Wilson working at the CIA from reporters and that he didn’t divulge that fact to anyone prior to Novak’s column. But, he was actually a source for Novak and he was also a source for Matt Cooper. He is fucked on the Novak charge, but he is trying to avoid getting nailed for obstruction over the Cooper matter. I predict that he will be indicted on all of these charges, but might have an outside chance of beating the obstruction charge in court.
Whether or when Bush will pardon him is another matter.
