Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Oh Please, Oh Please, Oh Please...
From last night's Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann:
Mr. Shuster, I pray you're not toying with us.
Could it finally be Fitzmas Eve?
BTW - Another poll has been released putting poor old George W. @ 31%. Ouch!
- Let‘s call in MSNBC‘s David Shuster.
OLBERMANN: Thanks for your time, David.
DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Good to be with you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: What are you gathering on these two main points? Is the decision by Mr. Fitzgerald coming soon? Would it be an indictment?
SHUSTER: Well, Karl Rove‘s legal team has told me that they expect that a decision will come sometime in the next two weeks. And I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted. And there are a couple of reasons why.
First of all, you don‘t put somebody in front of a grand jury at the end of an investigation, or for the fifth time, as Karl Rove testified a couple—a week and a half ago, unless you feel that‘s your only chance of avoiding indictment. So, in other words, the burden starts with Karl Rove to stop the charges.
Secondly, it‘s now been 13 days since Rove testified. After testifying for three and a half hours, prosecutors refused to give him any indication that he was clear. He has not gotten any indication since then, and the lawyers that I‘ve spoken with outside of this case say that if Rove had gotten himself out of the jam, he would have heard something by now.
And then the third issue is one we‘ve talked about before, and that is, in the Scooter Libby indictment, Karl Rove was identified as Official A. It‘s the term that prosecutors use when they try to get around restrictions on naming somebody in an indictment.
We‘ve looked through the records of Patrick Fitzgerald from when he was prosecuting cases in New York, and from when he‘s been U.S. attorney in Chicago. And in every single investigation, whenever Fitzgerald has identified somebody as Official A, that person eventually gets indicted themselves, in every single investigation.
Will Karl Rove defy history in this particular case? I suppose anything is possible when you‘re dealing with a White House official. But the lawyers that I‘ve been speaking with, who know this stuff, say, Don‘t bet on Karl Rove getting out of this.
OLBERMANN: It‘s like when the president calls you Stretch, you don‘t want that nickname.
In Mr. VandeHei‘s piece in “The Washington Post” described the scope of the Fitzgerald investigation as having really narrowed to whether or not Rove misled the grand jury about his conversation with Matt Cooper. Is it really that narrow? And if it is, does that, in fact, narrow the kinds of potential charges against Rove?
SHUSTER: Well, it‘s narrow as far as what prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been telling Karl Rove‘s attorneys. But and so in that case, you could be looking at possible making false statements or perjury or obstruction of justice.
But the big danger for Karl Rove is that prosecutors tend not to give you all of the evidence or information they‘ve collected against you. So if there is some testimony, some memos, some documents, some statements against Karl Rove that he was not aware of in his final appearance before the grand jury, that‘s where the possible problems for him could broaden, and where the investigation could be going as well.
Mr. Shuster, I pray you're not toying with us.
Could it finally be Fitzmas Eve?
BTW - Another poll has been released putting poor old George W. @ 31%. Ouch!
