William Pitt says
“I just got off the phone with Jason Leopold who clarified something for me that is pretty damned important. In his article, he said:
“During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.”
In point of fact, those 24 hours are “business hours,” i.e. starting on Monday.
“Jeez, Jason,” I said, “we might want to put that into the essay. Half the planet thought 24 hours was 24 hours. They thought the deal would go down today.”
So. Monday at the very earliest, but more like Tuesday or Wednesday.
Or Thursday, since 24 “business hours” won’t end until after close of business Wednesday, and then there’s the delay in getting releases finished and printed and distributed and all so the official news, if there IS such a thing, will of course be buried in the weekend.
Anyone wanna bet THIS was also part of the negotiation?
They probably would not announce it until MONDAY or tomorrow night’s Dumbya talk.
24 hours on a Friday afternoon actually gives him more time on a weekend to settle things and get ready. Bet you the media is chilling too, waiting for their cue, sitting on this case like flunkies always do.
So I am not stressing that Leopold may not know WTF he’s talking about…like Aravosis over at Americablog, who is claiming that he’ll believe it when he sees it. Wanna bet he and some others need to take a pill.
Fitzmas IS going to happen, but not as fast as we would probably like.
Now, for Cheney’s indictment, I am kicking back with some popcorn. Let Mary boo-the-f**k-hoo over that one.
blksista (her poor daddy, my ass)
Except they’re now saying “24 Business Hours” which would be Monday through Wednesday (since they almost CERTAINLY didn’t count Friday and the weekend isn’t “business hours”).
So Thursday EARLIEST because they can’t really announce in advance that they’re giving the Shrubberies five days to destroy evidence; they’ll present that as a fait accompli to avoid a political firestorm…
And I’m just cynic enough to think “you let us bury this or we’ll bury you” or the equivalent would be a standard negotiating tactic.
since he’d have to wait till Monday to officially submit his resignation. And the 24 hours might not mean “total business hours”, but rather one working day (sort of like when you’re expecting a package, and it says it’ll take 7-10 working days, meaning the weekends don’t count.
Damn…and I wanted to see Rove frog-marched out of the White House…looks like he’ll get to do it from the comfort of his own home though. More than that bastard or this whole misAdministration deserves…
24 business hours isn’t the part that makes this report loopy. The false note in Leopold’s story is the phrase, “get your affairs in order.” Rove is not going to spend any more time being processed than Rush Limbaugh did. He’s being booked, not checking straight into prison. He’ll be out on the street in about an hour, getting blinded by camera flashes. He’ll be back home in time to fax out talking points to the media before the 5 o’clock news.
The real countdown to our celebration will come when Fitz announces a press conference. I’m betting that advance notice may come out tomorrow because the Prez is trying to bump that headline down in advance. This could be a week of dueling news leads: Countdown will open with “Rove Indicted” and Fox will lead with footage of the Preznit riding shotgun along the border.
When did Bush announce that he would be giving his speech tonight? Did they plan it once they knew that Rove’s indictment would be coming down the next day? On the “Today Show” they just said that tonight is Bush’s first national address on a domestic issue because immigration is such an important issue. Yeah right. That, and his poll numbers are in oblivion and his brain is about to be indicted. Time to act like you care.
by Tony Snow at the end of the press gaggle on Friday morning around 10am. So let’s be really cynical:
End of Thursday, Rove knows that Fitz will send out notice on Tuesday morning that he’s having a presser on Wednesday afternoon — everyone will know that means Rove’s indictment will be made public.
So Rove arranges for the media to choose Tuesday’s headline to be “Prez Sends Guard to Border” instead of Fitz is gonna make an announcement.
Wednesday afternoon, Fitz announces that Karl has been indicted and that night the media have a choice between Fitz at a podium being lawyerly (boring!) or the Prez bouncing in a humvee over a rough road at the border surrounded by men with guns (always go with the exciting visual footage). They may jump the shark — again — and there will be a photo of Bush holding an AK-47 like he’s personally gonna shoot some mex’cans.
The whole issue of whether Rove will resign isn’t even brought up until Snow’s regular Friday press gaggle. Someone asks and Snow says, well, of course, Rove resigned and the Prez accepted it on Wednesday; that’s old news. In fact, Rove’s resignation only means he will continue his job from his home office and no one in the media will even mention that they’re still getting faxes and calls from him.
The legal process of motions/delays will proceed much like Libby’s, i.e., mainly unreported, until after the November elections when Bush will pardon everyone because, you know, they were only doing what they thought was best for national security.
CNN’s White House correspondent said on I believe Thursday (also could have been Friday morning) that the administration was asking for 30 minutes of prime time that night. I was wondering the next morning what Bush had said and couldn’t find any mention of it, it was only later that I found out about the Monday scheduling. That leads me to believe that they were rebuffed by the networks for the time they initially wanted, which means this might not tie into Rove’s problems at all.
From the NY Sun this morning:
A spokesman for a top White House aide under scrutiny in a criminal leak probe, Karl Rove, yesterday vigorously denied an Internet report that the political adviser to President Bush was told that he had been indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators.
“The story is a complete fabrication,” the spokesman for Mr. Rove, Mark Corallo, told The New York Sun. “It is both malicious and disgraceful.”
http://www.nysun.com/article/32727
Ok, so we know Leopold’s right and there IS an indictment in hand. Now it’s just a matter of waiting until it’s released and finding out where it’s hidden, and hoping they haven’t negotiated keeping it under seal until after Jeb takes over in `09….