Has Fitzgerald Announced He's Concluded His Investigation?

Because the way a lot of DU'ers are reacting, you'd think just that.

Fitz's MO is to squeeze underlings to get their superiors.

It is VERY likely Fitz presented Rove with an indictment and Rove ended up cooperating. That would be entirely consistent with his past as Prosecutor.

And just because Rove may not go to trial doesn't mean he was not indicted.

We won't really know anything until Fitz says so.

Basically, what happened this morning is that Rove's high-priced lawyer Luskin (famous for defending a number of Columbian drug lords, btw) released a statement.

That's all that has actually happened today, as far as I can tell.

Luskin appears to be worth every gold coin he's being paid for the effects he's able to generate in the press (something he's also rather infamous for).

and testify against his own ilk.

http://www.progressiveu.org/100931-rove-roller-coaster-derailed

Sounds like a lot of people are not seeing that Luskin is giving us a political roller coaster ride just in time for the 06 elections. Doesn't matter if it's true or false. He could just be 'laywering'.

I agree with pro-sense.

Eyes on the ball...06!

(my own words now..donate to dems even locally. Let's kick the crooks out of congress!)

KKKarl is singing and Cheney is the tune.

I can't believe Truthout would still be standing behind their story unless they DO have something. It might be naive optimism, but I think the pinata party for Leopold may be a bit premature.

To innate savagery and a penchant for cannibalism.

My first thought when I heard Rove wasn't going to be indicted was that he'd made a deal with Fitzgerald. It wasn't just Jason Leopold but reporters and pundits all over the mainstream corporate media who believed that Rove was going to be indicted--there must have been good reasons for that belief.

Am I right in thinking that Rove is loyal to Bush but not to Cheney? I'm going to assume that Karl squealed, until we hear that Fitzgerald concluded the investigation.

suit, I'm pretty sure the investigation is on-going.

People on these boards slamming him just because they are disappointed in this morning's news are in need of re-evaluating Fitzgerald's position, his goals, his necessary procedural methods, and his sturdy character.

For some reason those criteria are not in vogue in some quarters.

to go after Rove, Fitz has to prove that he KNOWINGLY lied to the grand jury, to PROVE that he purposely MISSLED the grand jury investigation, and did not just happen to forget about talking to so and so about Plame.

It is very hard to prove.

probably wouldn't be too difficult.

This kind of thing happens all the time. Prosecutors cut deals to go after the worst of the criminals. You know slimeball Rove likely rolled over and gave up Cheney or some fall guy. Rove was called in 5 times for testimony. There is something to the original story. The only thing that probably changed was the outcome.

Fitzpatrick is not going to make announcements based on someone else's priorities or timetable. I think this investigation is far from being over, and if Rove was indeed indicted, he may have cut a deal on the spot to protect himself. If anything, the Repugs look after themselves before all else.

Fitz may have told Rove, "You're going down unless you cooperate with me fully. I'll cut a deal with you right now, but you have to tell me everything." Confronted with that threat, Rove likely spilled his guts, right after he soiled himself.

I have to believe there's still more to come, this deal is far from over.

Christy at Firedoglake has her take on the situation

Some Things To Contemplate


She knows her shit when it comes to the law

investigation. The thing can go on for years, and produce no more indictments.

"Does not anticipate seeking an indictment" means precisely that; the Firedoglake folks may want to think it "strongly suggests" something or other, but I'd say it leads them "to infer."

There's little basis for concluding anything about probabilities in this case. It may be that Rove's cooperating, and that may mean that he's saying things about Cheney. But 'cooperation' could also just mean 'came in to clarify questions and give additional evidence several times.' Just because something is consistent with Fitzgerald's past behavior, even if that's what he's done in every single instance, doesn't serve as grounds for a prediction that it's occurring now. It just says something about what's possible. For anything else, we need evidence, not belief. This cannot devolve into a faith-based argument, "I believe it therefore it must be so."

There's no more indication that Rove will or won't be put on trial than there is he's been indicted. "Not anticipating" implies that Fitzgerald doesn't believe he'll be seeking an indictment; it may be that he's decided to overlook sufficient grounds, it may be that he's looked over the record and in the has concluded he's not likely to win in court absence of new information. That doesn't mean he doesn't have evidence of wrongdoing sufficient for an indictment, just insufficient evidence for a conviction. Indictments mean little, apart from politics. Fitzgerald's not a politician. Good for him. Some people seem to be upset that he's not making this a political issue, and that the judicial and legal system isn't being further politicized. A pox on them.

In normal discourse, 'not anticipating seeking an indictment' would clearly implicate that no indictment has previously been sought; but legal discourse doesn't play by the same rules. One may infer that no indictment's been sought, but it's a shaky inference. One may not infer from this that an indictment has been sought; that's a valid inference only if there's already sufficient proof from other sources that an indictment has been sought to make inferring anything from this statement pointless.

It's far from over, I'm not going to freak until my door is kicked in.