reality-based educator

First there was Jason Leopold's May 13 report that Karl Rove had already been indicted in the CIA leak case last Friday. Then there was Wayne Madsen's May 18 report that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would announce the indictment of Karl Rove in the CIA leak case today. Finally there was Steve Clemons' report at Washington Note that ex-NSA head Bobbie Ray Inman said that former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is the guy Fitzgerald is aiming for in the CIA leak case (Clemons has since corrected the record, saying prominent Washington insiders have told him Inman's claims are "BS" while another person who has direct knowledge of the direction of Fitzgerald's investigation told Clemons what Inman said "is not the case" and that you "would be on 100 percent solid ground" if you said Armitage was not going to be indicted in the case.)

My head is swimming from all the misinformation. Obviously Leopold was wrong in his assertions that Karl Rove has already been indicted on perjury and false statement charges (unless Rove's indictment was sealed and kept secret, which is a very remote possibility.) I never took Madsen's report very seriously (he's got a rep for being a crank) and Clemons' report yesterday that Armitage was in legal jeopardy in the case didn't make much sense to me either. Frankly, I don't know what to think anymore.

Which is perhaps the spot I should have been in in the first place. Only Fitzgerald, his assistants, and the members of the grand jury know what's going on with the case. Lots of people are leaking, lots of people are whispering, lots of people are posting theories on various threads and blogs, but nobody seems to have any real information.

The last time around when Libby was indicted, we knew something was going to happen because the grand jury, which had already been extended once, was set to expire at the end of October and Fitzgerald had to act. He didn't have to indict anybody, of course, but he had to take some kind of action before the grand jury's term expired.

This time around there is no artificial deadline on the horizon to force a move, so who really knows when Fitzmas arrives? Not I, certainly, and apparently not Jason Leopold, Wayne Madsen, or Bobbie Ray Inman either.

I do know that Jim VandeHei reported in the Washington Post on May 8, 2005 that Fitzgerald was wrapping up his investigation into Karl Rove's role in the CIA leak question and Rove expected "to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted." I also know that David Shuster of MSNBC told Keith Olbermann on the May 8 edition of Countdown that he expected Karl Rove to be indicted in the CIA leak case. I also know that Shuster's reasons for why he expected Rove to be indicted in the case remain good ones (i.e., 5 visits before the grand jury shows Rove is in serious legal jeopardy, Rove hasn't been told by Fitz he's cleared yet/Fitz would have told Rove already if he had in fact talked himself out of an indictment, Rove was "Official A" in the Libby indictment and Fitz always indicts people he diseignates Official A in other indictments.)

So while Karl Rove has not been indicted in the CIA leak case yet, I don't think it's because Fitzgerald suddenly has had a change of heart and decided to stop pursuing Rove in the case. Rather I think there are several possibilities: a) Fitzgerald is carefully preparing the indictment before filing it; b) Fitzgerald is allowing Rove to twist slowly in the wind in order to get him to deal and dish some dirt on others, c) Fitzgerald has already gotten Rove to deal and is in the process of extracting information out of him.

Rove is not getting out of this thing untouched. The administration is not getting away from this thing untouched either. The trouble their facing may not explode publicly this week or next or even for months down the road. But it is coming.