Rove reveals in new book that at one point Fitzgerald was inclined to indict him in Plame leak case

[sabra]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/us/politics/04rove.html

<snip>

More personally damaging was the long-running investigation into the leak of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame, whose husband, Joseph Wilson, was a critic of the administration. Mr. Rove discusses in greater length and more intimate terms than ever before his experience as a target who was ultimately never charged.

At one point, Mr. Rove says, the prosecutor told his lawyer that he was “inclined to indict your client.” Only after five grand jury appearances and marathon efforts by the lawyer to address any suspicions did the prosecutor decide not to charge Mr. Rove. “I placed the receiver in its cradle and wept,” he writes of learning that an indictment was unlikely. Mr. Rove describes the stress on his wife, Darby, but does not mention their recent divorce as the book was being finished.

“I obsessed about all the Wilson stuff, but out of everyone’s view,” he writes. “I was determined not to let White House colleagues, the press, the public, or anyone else — up to and including Darby — see me suffer. Stiff upper lip, soldier on, all that.” He added, “But behind the mask, the whole thing was scaring the hell out of me.”

He discloses that after the furor erupted, Mr. Bush called him from the Oval Office to ask about his involvement. Mr. Rove says he told the president that he had had a conversation with the columnist, Robert Novak, in which Mr. Novak asked whether Mr. Wilson’s wife was a C.I.A. official, and he responded, “I have heard that, too,” a comment that Mr. Novak took as confirmation. “Bush sounded a little annoyed,” Mr. Rove writes, “but took my word.”

[RobertDevereaux]

1. He didn't incline FAR enough!

[Lasher]

2. Rove shouldn't have worried.

Most of the time you can get away with anything as long as you have enough money to rent fancy lawyers.

[Brother Buzz]

4. Why rent a fancy lawyer when you own the prosecutor?

I'm just saying.

[MrCoffee]

10. We have a winner!

[gkhouston]

3. Rove is shooting his mouth off? Let him. Let him make as many incautious statements

as he pleases. I suspect there are still ears out there waiting for him to say something that will land him in the shit, once and for all.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

5. “I placed the receiver in its cradle and wept,”

That's because you know you're guilty as sin, Karl.

Vomitous, wretched maggot. I hope this guilt devours you alive.

[Demeter]

8. Rove Wasn't the Only One Crying

[glinda]

6. Don't ya love how they keep wagging this info in our face yet nothing is done?

[librechik]

7. Poor Rove suffered so much

unspeakable. There are a million corpses in Iraq on his head. Sorry he had to suffer ALMOST being righteously indicted, while a brave CIA agent and her family lost everything. What a douchemeister.

[malaise]

9. That scumbag Rove should be in prison

I wish him non-stop agony.

[onethatcares]

11. remember waiting for Fitzmas? I do.

and then it just fizzled out, gone, hasta la vista baby and all that.

We thought that finally someone in the bewsh administration was going to go to be indicted, have a trial and go to jail.

It didn't happen.

BTW, fuck karlrove

[Lasher]

13. Yes, I remember too.

What a joke that was.

[TexasObserver]

12. Fitzpatrick was too cowardly or too incompetent to do so.