Arrogance Can Make You Sloppy

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No, that picture is not real, unfortunately. I can dream can't I? Perhaps, I won't have to keep dreaming. In the upcoming October 17th issue of Newsweek, Michael Isikoff reports that Karl Rove has been summoned back to the grand jury for the fourth time over 1 email. "The White House's handling of a potentially crucial e-mail sent by senior aide Karl Rove two years ago set off a chain of events that has led special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to summon Rove for a fourth grand jury appearance this week. Rove's 4th appearance is creating quite a stir in Washington. A stir that has some believing Fitzgerald may be preparing to bring indictments. This federal grand jury has been investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity. It expires at the end of October. Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, tells NEWSWEEK that, in his last conversations with Fitzgerald, the prosecutor assured Luskin "he has not made any decisions."

Well, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, see which hand gets filled first. Isikoff goes on to report that lawyers close to the case, say that the Special Prosecutor is focusing on discrepancies in testimony between Rove and Time reporter Matt Cooper about their conversation of July 11, 2003. Cooper testified that Rove told him the wife of White House critic Joseph Wilson worked at the "agency" on WMD issues and was responsible for sending Wilson on a trip to Niger to check out claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. However, Karl Rove failed to disclose this conversation during his first interview with FBI agents in the fall of 2003, nor did he mention this conversation during his first grand jury testimony.

After Rove testified, his attorney Robert Luskin discovered an e-mail Rove had sent that same day, July 11th, alerting deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley that he had just talked to Cooper. In the e-mail, Rove said Cooper pushed him on whether the president was being hurt by the Niger controversy. "I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote Hadley, adding that he warned Cooper not to get "far out in front on this." After reviewing the e-mail, Rove then returned to the grand jury last year and reported the Cooper conversation. He testified that the talk was initially about "welfare reform"—a topic mentioned in the e-mail and that Cooper then changed the subject. Cooper has written that he doesn't recall a discussion of welfare reform.

This Rove e-mail has recently surfaced because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it as the right "search words" weren't used. In addition to this latest development of evidence, Fitzgerald has also summoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller back for questioning this week: a notebook was discovered in the paper's Washington bureau, reflecting a late June 2003 conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, about Wilson and his trip to Africa, says one of the lawyers. The notebook may also be significant because Wilson's identity was not yet public. A lawyer for the Times declined to comment.

Let's see, 2 indictments from a grand jury against Tom Delay, Bill Frist is under investigation, and Rove is on his 4th trip before another grand jury. What was it Dubya said about hitting a trifecta?