Will Karl Rove Be Indicted?
Judge: Have you ever been indicted?
Defendant: Not since I was a baby, your honor….
That (old) joke may be a laughing matter (actually, given the quality of the joke, it isn’t) but some dead serious predictions are now being made about the legal fate of White House political guru Karl Rove.
Truthout.org goes out-on-a-limb on this one:
Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.Details of Rove’s discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove’s indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove’s situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on “wildly speculative rumors.”
Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, did not return a call for comment Friday.
Rove’s announcement to President Bush and Bolten comes more than a month after he alerted the new chief of staff to a meeting his attorney had with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in which Fitzgerald told Luskin that his case against Rove would soon be coming to a close and that he was leaning toward charging Rove with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, according to sources close to the investigation.
A few weeks after he spoke with Fitzgerald, Luskin arranged for Rove to return to the grand jury for a fifth time to testify in hopes of fending off an indictment related to Rove’s role in the CIA leak, sources said.
If this is true White House spokesman Tony Snow will have his work cut out for him.
An accurate report? We’ll know more this week.
13 Responses to “Will Karl Rove Be Indicted?”
I’ll go along with the White House press office… NO comment on “wildly speculative rumors.”
AubreyJ………
Leopold hasn’t been that far off the mark thus far. I’m expecting it myself, this just adds a bit of weight to my own suspicion.
Still, the jury’s still out.
It is now time to ask, how long will it be ’til Bush pardons him
Other questions arise…..Will Fitzgerald indict him before or after the mid-term elections? Why has this been dragging on since before the 2004 elections? Rove’s new “job” is to bring down any Democrat trying for a Republican seat. Is the impending indictment the reason for moving him away from his position as policy Czar at the White House? Will Rove, like Libby turn on Cheney? Inquring minds want to know.
Prediction: Bush will pardon Libby and Rove (if they ever get convicted of anything) in the final hours of his term.
Opinion: They outta pass a law that the Presidential Pardon cannot be used for Presidential aides behaving badly.
>It is now time to ask, how long will it be ’til Bush pardons him
First, this rumor will have to be true.
Second, Rove will have to be tried and found guilty.
A loooooooooong way to go yet.
According to this follow-up, also by Leopold on TruthOut, the roosters are about to come home:
“Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.
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.”
My thought is – if you’re going to state in your own words “Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment” and it’s not true, you’re not caring about your own reputation. I don’t sense this about Leopold.
Wow, this looks like it might happen. If he’s indicted, this will be ALL over the news for weeks. Think about how much people heard about the Libby indictment, and nobody had ever heard of Scooter Libby before. Karl Rove is a very high-profile advisor to Bush and the GOP. Anybody who watches the news semi-regularly knows who he is and how important he is to Bush. A Rove indictment would devastating to the Republicans because it would effectively remove him and his expertise from the 2006 campaign (nobody wants to take advice from a man under indictment), and it will demolish any remaining credibility Bush has with the American people.
Passing a law restricting the President’s veto would likely be unconstitutional.
Amazingly, it’s not essential that Rove be tried and found guilty before he’s pardoned.
Republican Presidents have used their power to pardon in order to clamp the lid on scandals, even before any trial has occurred, the full evidence presented, or any determination of innocence or guilt has been made.
Most recently, in 1992, George Bush, Senior, pardoned Caspar Weinberger of charges of lying to Congress before his trial had occurred.
Bush did this to keep the lid on Iran-Contra details that would have likely embroiled himself and certainly other prominent Republicans.
According to the independent prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, the trial would have revealed “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”
And in 1974, Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in order to avoid a trial on many charges related to felonious acts not just limited to the Watergate cover up.
This tactic is, of course, a vile miscarriage of justice. In addition to allowing the quilty party to avoid responsibility for their criminal acts, it deprives American citizens of their fundamental right to fully know what their highest elected and appointed government officials have really done.
It’s one more glaring example of the Republicans’ consistent efforts to fundamentally subvert American democracy.
And it’s a tactic that George W. Bush will undoubtedly employ to avoid further investigation into criminal acts committed in his administration, just like his father did.
LongMemory correctly explains the executive power to pardon before any conviction but incorrectly says, “This tactic is, of course, a vile miscarriage of justice.”
On the contrary issuing a pardon to a guilty person is exactly what the power to issue pardons is all about. It is following the LAW,i.e., doing precisely what the law intended–it is not a miscarriage of justice. Long Memory’s beef is with the power to issue pardons, perhaps with some justification? Perhaps not? But that is an argument for another day. If you want to learn more about pardons, look here:
“The President’s power to pardon is effectively unreviewable. The only real constraint is political: the President must take the political heat for his actions, as Gerald Ford did in pardoning President Richard Nixon. Bush’s father was able to pardon Weinberger et al. a month before his term expired, so he had very little to lose politically, and he wagered (correctly as it turned out) that most people would soon forget the potential self-dealing in his decision. Bill Clinton also took considerable heat for his last minute pardons of political supporters near the end of his presidency, but he too figured (also correctly) that this too, would pass.”
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/20/182923/29
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“The power to grant a pardon derives from the English system in which the king had, as one of his royal prerogatives, the right to forgive virtually all forms of crimes against the crown. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution, in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, provided that the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Throughout U.S. history the courts have interpreted this clause to give the president virtually unlimited power to issue pardons to individuals or groups and to impose conditions on the forgiveness.
The first major court case on the pardon power, Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333, 18 L. Ed. 366 (1866), established both the scope of the pardon power and the legal effect on a person who was pardoned. President Andrew Johnson pardoned Arkansas attorney and Confederate sympathizer Alexander Hamilton Garland, who had not been tried, for any offenses he might have committed during the Civil War. Garland sought to practice in federal court, but federal law required that he swear an oath that he never aided the Confederacy. Garland argued that the pardon absolved him of the need to take the oath.
The Supreme Court agreed with Garland. It held that the scope of the pardon power “is unlimited, with the exception stated [impeachment]. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” The granting of an unconditional pardon fully restores an individual’s civil rights forfeited upon conviction of a crime and restores the person’s innocence as though he or she had never committed a crime. This means that a recipient of a pardon may regain the right to vote and to hold various positions of public trust.”
http://www.answers.com/topic/pardon
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I believe that Bush’s big political mistake was failing to pardon everyone in his administration long before anyone was indicted and then discharging the prosecutor. That would have put a lid on everything his administration did which doesn’t seem to be able to stand the light of day. He didn’t do that and now he is hemorrhaging drop by drop. He gamboled and lost. He should have acted very boldly. Whatever heat he would have taken, he is taking more now and it’s not even close to being over–he will continue to hemorrhage politically. He’s not as tough as he’d like you to believe.
There is more than a grain of truth in Churchill’s famous comment that “the single biggest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”
I totally disagree. Maybe if Bush had pardoned everyone involved in this sorry mess, he WOULD have had to take the political heat, as Jerry Ford did for his pardon of Nixon. Wouldn’t that mean that we’d have John Kerry as president instead of GWB for a second term? Fitzgerald was appointed 12/03 to investigate Plamegate, and the Democrats would have used the pardons as ammunition in the close election.
(On the plus side, pardoning Libby and Rove before an investigation would have saved taxpayers a cool 20 mil!)
Presidential pardons of administrative lawbreakers set bad legal precedent. It tells the executive branch that they are above the law; and that congressional oversight and oversight by the justice department are meaningless. Checks and balances of government have already become weakened enough; I have no desire for an imperial executive who thinks he’s above the law, and who can run roughshod over our civil rights.
Bush &Co did not want the embarassing truth to come out about pre-war intelligence. Cheney told Libby and Rove to try to discredit Joe Wilson, and the loyal toadies did it. They perjured themselves and obstructed the investigation, which crimes became Fitzgerald’s focus. Many pundits on the right think its no big deal because he never proved the original crime had been committed. Would those same pundits have excused Clinton’s perjury?
Merely because something does what the law intended does not make it injust. Judges who correctly applied laws about returning escaped slaves were following the law yet acting unjustly.
Now even if you support the pardon power it isn’t necessarily about justice. In fact, as I understand it the pardon power is supposed to be a power to grant mercy or forgiveness which were viewed as reprieves for justice. As I understand it the idea is that it is analagous to god’s power to grant forgiveness even for sinners who justly deserve to be punished.
Of course whether or not the act of forgiving/granting mercy is itself unjust is another question but your argument doesn’t establish that he is wrong.
Lawstudent: Passing a law restricting the President’s veto would likely be unconstitutional.
Aside from the fact that you meant pardon, not veto (though it holds for both) — it’s not just “likely”, it’s a fact. What are they teaching you law students these days? Since the power to pardon is explicitly granted (without limitation) by the Constitution, it would require a constitutional amendment to restrict it.
logicnazi: Merely because something does what the law intended does not make it injust.
I think you mean “What is legal isn’t necessarily just”.
PING:
TITLE: Rove Will Be Indicted, Truthout.org Reports
BLOG NAME: Liberty and Justice
Who would have thought: the great spindoctor, the master of propaganda; will, maybe, be indicted.
If this is true it will be a major blow for the entire Bush administration. Rove played a key-role in everything the White House did. Every strategy was completely based on Rove. Rove was, still is of course, incredibly important for Bush. What will happen when the great spindoctor will resign?
PING:
TITLE: Rove Rumor Mill Grinds On
BLOG NAME: Pajamas Media
Truthout kicked it off claiming Rove told the White House he will be indicted and will resign. Blogbuzz was off and running in a nanosecond. The White House calls it a “wildly speculative rumor.” Kevin Drum agrees it is… at…
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TITLE: Another Karl Rove fantasy?
BLOG NAME: The Florida Masochist
So I did a little checking on Leopold. He is a former WSJ reporter. More importantly go and read this.
It appears Leopold believes in conspiracies.
PING:
TITLE: Karl Rove Indicted For Sure…Maybe
BLOG NAME: The Sandbox
Truthout, a leftist news website, reports that Karl Rove is indicted. Not soon to be. Not expected to be. Indicted. Hot Air has been covering this one, and Moran has pleny of analysis painting the story as pure BS. Go
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TITLE: Still No Rove Indictment, Give Us The Goods TruthOut.org
BLOG NAME: RightWinged.com
***SCROLL FOR UPDATES*** Yesterday we discussed the left side of the blogosphere’s “Rove has been indicted” campaign, in which rumors initially flew Friday that Rove told the White House he was going to be indicted, and later that the indictments…