Jim VandeHei has a new piece up about Rove and Plame. The most important sentence in the whole article? Well, we all want to know when Fitzmas is coming…
Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted — or publicly cleared of wrongdoing — for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser.
So, Rove fears Fitzmas is imminent. There is still a remote chance that Fitzgerald will choose not to indict Rove. There is also the fate of Stephen Hadley to consider. I’m fairly sure that he committed perjury before the grand jury on some of the same matters as Rove and Libby. But, right now, the focus is on Rove.
Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald is wrapping up his investigation into White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove’s role in the CIA leak case by weighing this central question:
Did Rove, who was deeply involved in defending President Bush’s use of prewar intelligence about Iraq, lie about a key conversation with a reporter that was aimed at rebutting a tough White House critic?
VandeHei goes on to note that Fitzgerald is reading over Rove’s testimony from his five appearances before the grand jury. Fitz is said to be focused solely on the Matt Cooper conversation and Rove’s failure to disclose it. There is more than a ham sandwich there, so we know Rove will be indicted unless Fitzgerald thinks the case is too weak to win at trial. To determine his prospects at trial, Fitz must consider not only the possible procedural defenses, like greymail, but also Rove’s affirmative defense: that he simply forgot his conversation with Cooper. Here is how VandeHei frames this:
In his most recent testimony, Rove said he would have been foolish to lie when he first testified and explained how he had been tipped before his first grand jury appearance that Time reporters were openly speculating about his conversation with Cooper. The details of the “tip” are in dispute, however. According to the source close to Rove, his message to the prosecutor was, in essence: Why would he risk lying when he could safely assume that his discussion of Plame with Cooper would soon get out?
Moreover, he has testified, if he really wanted to damage Wilson in the summer of 2003, he would have sought out the many other reporters he knew better and trusted more than Cooper. He argued that he hardly knew Cooper, who had recently started on the White House beat — one reason the conversation slipped his mind, the source close to Rove said.
To determine whether Rove could simply forget this conversation, Fitzgerald and his investigative team have questioned current and former government officials about Rove’s involvement in the 2003 campaign to counter Wilson and defend prewar intelligence.
One former aide, who would discuss internal White House discussion only on the condition of anonymity, said Rove was intimately involved in the prewar intelligence fight and discussed various components of the plan at senior staff meetings and one-on-one strategy conversations.
The aide said Rove’s message was that “if there are no WMDs and some blame us, it will not be a pleasant election year.” The aide said Rove talked a lot about Wilson that week, but mostly about the fact he was a Democrat and needed to be rebutted.
We already know that Fitzgerald doesn’t like to have sand thrown in his eyes. He seems to have Rove on perjury if he wants to go that way. But, he also may have him on obstruction of justice. VandeHei says Fitzgerald is focused narrowly on the Cooper testimony, just as he previously said that Rove’s testimony before the grand jury would be narrowly focused on the Viveca Novak testimony. (In fairness, these are related matters).
It is hard to pin down what is really going on here. It is clear that Fitzgerald does not believe that Rove was tipped off by his lawyer (via Viveca Novak) prior to his February 2004 testimony. It’s also clear that he believes Rove only produced the email to Hadley about his conversation with Cooper when it became increasingly likely that Cooper would eventually have to testify. There have also been rumors that Rove has been cooperating and even tipped Fitzgerald off about undisclosed emails from the office of the Vice-President. If so, there could be some truth in the reporting that Fitzgerald is only considering narrow perjury charges for Rove. There is too much misinformation for me to be able to determine the true state of affairs.
A few days ago, Jane Hamsher put together an excellent timeline on the Cooper aspects of the case. I recommend reviewing it to get a good sense of Rove’s chances of avoiding perjury and obstruction charges.