As part of the "Rove is off the hook" media spin last weekend, Michael Isikoff, wrote an article in this week's
Newsweek claiming that Fitzgerald had agreed not to charge Rove last Friday because of a flurry of last minute negotiations by Rove's lawyer. In the article, Isikoff even alluded to the mysterious Friday morning, pre-indictment visit of Fitzgerald to Bush's personal lawyer, James Sharp, and offered the visit as confirmation that Rove was no longer in legal jeopardy:
In any case, Fitzgerald made another visit early Friday morning--shortly before the grand jury voted to indict Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby--to the office of James Sharp, President George W. Bush's own lawyer in the case, to tell him the president's closest aide would not be charged.
(emphasis mine)
Not only did the article seem to swallow the GOP talking points whole, Isikoff didn't seem to see anything startling or contradictory in this explanation of Fitzgerald's behavior, despite the fact that Fitzgerald is the man who spent a large part of his Friday news conference talking about the importance, even sanctity, of grand jury secrecy. Others, however, especially Jane Hamsher at
firedoglake, found this explanation of Fitzgerald's visit to Sharp not only unbelievable, but completely at odds with everything Fitzgerald stands for. Now a story at the NYT indicates Jane and others were right to doubt Isikoff's take.
In the NYT article, the explanation for Fitzgerald's visit to Bush's lawyer indicates that Isikoff was not only wrong, but nearly 180 degrees off. The visit didn't indicate Rove was out of danger; it instead merely narrowed the laser-like beam Fitzgerald has trained on Rove:
Mr. Fitzgerald no longer seems to be actively examining some of the more incendiary questions involving Mr. Rove. At one point, he explored whether Mr. Rove misrepresented his role in the leak case to President Bush - an issue that led to discussions between Mr. Fitzgerald and James E. Sharp, a lawyer for Mr. Bush, an associate of Mr. Rove said.
So Fitzgerald wasn't seeing Sharp to give him info he shouldn't be receiving anyway that Rove was in the clear, but to continue his investigations into possible wrongdoing by Rove. The article goes on to state:
The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has narrowed his investigation of Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to whether he tried to conceal from the grand jury a conversation with a Time magazine reporter in the week before an intelligence officer's identity was made public more than two years ago, lawyers in the case said Thursday.
The special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has centered on what are believed to be his final inquiries in the matter as to whether Mr. Rove was fully forthcoming about the belated discovery of an internal e-mail message that confirmed his conversation with the Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, to whom Mr. Rove had mentioned the C.I.A. officer.
If Rove did mislead the grand jury, then we're talking a perjury indictment, not just the false testimony charges to FBI agents that has been generally bandied around this week. Looks like Fitzgerald is following the same path towards Rove that he took towards Libby. We'll see in the days to come if he makes it. I would love to see Jane Hamsher or Emptywheel's analysis of Fitzgerald's timing in visiting Sharp the morning of the Libby indictments. Was Fitzgerald playing a little chicken with Rove before the hammer came down on Libby? More importantly, did Karl get the message?
