Sizzle... Turn Rove Over, He's Done On This Side

The Raw Story is reporting that Rove is the white whale Ahab Fitzgerald has been hunting down virtually since the beginning, and it looks like Fitz' harpoon (if I can continue this tortured metaphor) will indeed bag him:

Short of a last minute intervention by Rove’s attorney, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to ask a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to indict Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove for making false statements to the FBI and Justice Department investigators in October 2003, lawyers close to the case say.

Rove failed to tell investigators at the time that he had spoken about Plame to Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and conservative columnist Robert Novak, both of whom later cooperated in the case. Novak outed Plame in a July 14, 2003 column.

The Chicago prosecutor briefed the second grand jury investigating the outing last week for more than three hours. During that time, he brought them up to speed on the latest developments involving Rove and at least one other White House official, the sources said. The attorneys refused to identify the second person.

As of Monday, neither Rove nor his attorney Robert Luskin has explained Rove’s misstatements to Fitzgerald’s satisfaction, those familiar with the case said. Eleventh-hour testimony from Time Magazine reporter Viveca Novak—who Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin fingered as a crucial witness in keeping his client out of court—does not appear to have been helpful in dodging an indictment, they added.

Rove is also under scrutiny for allegedly telling his assistant not to log a phone call from Cooper, the sources said. Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston, provided Fitzgerald with information last month in which she alleged that Rove told her not to log a call from Cooper that was transferred to Rove’s office from the White House switchboard, sources close to the case said. The lawyers added that Luskin and Rove have an explanation for that as well, but declined to elaborate.

I haven't been blogging on the Viveca Novak revelation, which really wasn't a revelation, except that a Washington reporter apparently can be easily sweet-talked into giving a lawyer crucial information about his client. Also, that said Washington reporter apparently has no problem continuing to report on the story while hiding this crucial information from her editors, even after getting a lawyer and talking to the grand jury herself.

So the Viv story is more about the crippled nature of ethics in the Beltway press corps. Her slip of the tongue definitely helped Rove in his attempt to correct his testimony to the grand jury. But the question is whether or not it was too late by that time. I guess Fitz thinks it was. Especially given the evidence that Rove purposefully told his assistant not to log the phone call. That's a cover-up if I've ever heard one.