Countdown to Rove Indictments...

I'm sorry, but this sounds like the same kind of rumor mogering that they now do with President Bush. Willingness to consider someone guilty based on accusation alone is the hallmark. If enough dirt is thrown, some will always stick. The only thing that I know of that was ever proved against President Clinton was in connection with the perjury trap they set deliberately for him in connection with his affair, and I do not regard that as significant.

Brandon9000 wrote:

snood wrote:

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"There's something wrong when your entire life can be under this kind of threat for two full years, you spend lots and lots of money on lawyers, lots of time going to the grand jury and there's nothing there," Gingrich said."

Amen.

Hallelujah. did you feel the same way after the tens of millions that netted zero on trumped-up counts against the Clintons(travelgate, whitewater, etc., etc., etc.)?

I don't know much about the details of Whitewater, but I thought every single subsequent direction of the Starr investigation was simply manufactured by Clinton enemies. Frankly, it made me sick. To try to find dirt on a president, in the absence of any indication that he's done anything significantly wrong, is flirting with treason.

Maybe you need to review the matter. Several Clinton associates were convicted and some went to prison as I recall. Not exactly manufactured.

To the A2K World,

See what happens when I try to lighten up ... it just confuses folks.

There were ZERO crimes associated with whitewater. All the crimes Starr charged were from activities completely unrelated to whitewater or the Clintons. The charges about whitewater were found to be completely without merit.

Top White House aide was under scrutiny over disclosure of agent's identity

Updated: 1 hour, 58 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Top White House aide Karl Rove has been told by prosecutors he won't be charged with any crimes in the investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity, his lawyer said Tuesday, lifting a heavy burden from one of President Bush's most trusted advisers.

Attorney Robert Luskin said that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald informed him of the decision on Monday, ending months of speculation about the fate of Rove, the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election now focused on stopping Democrats from capturing the House or Senate in this November's elections.

Fitzgerald has already secured a criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Bush called Fitzgerald "a very thorough person" who conducted the investigation in a dignified way.

"It's a chapter that has ended," Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from Baghdad. "I think it's going to be important for you all to recognize there's still a trial to be had. And those of us involved in the White House are going to be very mindful of not commenting on this issue ... because of the Libby trial."

The announcement cheered Republicans and a White House beleaguered by war and low approval ratings. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said Rove "is elated" and said that "we're done."

No comment on the investigation
Fitzgerald met with chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan before he notified Rove. Hogan has been overseeing the grand juries in the CIA leak case. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined comment. Asked if the CIA leak investigation is still continuing, Samborn said, "I'm not commenting on that as well at this time."

Maybe you should have read it before you posted the link okie.

Not a single one was convicted with anything to do with whitewater.

The crimes were found by Starr during his investigation of whitewater but they are not related to whitewater in any way. Starr put people under a microscope to try to get them to testify against Clinton. He found crimes not related to whitewater committed by some people. He prosecuted those crimes.

Most were convicted of fraud in other deals or personal bankruptcies. Not a single conviction had anything to do with whitewater.

I don't know much about the details of Whitewater, but I thought every single subsequent direction of the Starr investigation was simply manufactured by Clinton enemies. Frankly, it made me sick. To try to find dirt on a president, in the absence of any indication that he's done anything significantly wrong, is flirting with treason.

Not a single one was convicted with anything to do with whitewater.

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Not a single one was convicted with anything to do with whitewater.

Susan M was convicted of fraudulently obtaining the $300,000 fed backed loan, some of which went into Whitewater in an attempt to save the failing scheme.......er, project. So that had "something" to do with Whitewater........who cares?

Before I read this I had forgotten how much fun the 90's were!:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/whitewater.htm

Maybe you should have read it before you posted the link okie.

Not a single one was convicted with anything to do with whitewater.

The crimes were found by Starr during his investigation of whitewater but they are not related to whitewater in any way. Starr put people under a microscope to try to get them to testify against Clinton. He found crimes not related to whitewater committed by some people. He prosecuted those crimes.

Most were convicted of fraud in other deals or personal bankruptcies. Not a single conviction had anything to do with whitewater.

parados wrote:

Maybe you should have read it before you posted the link okie.

Not a single one was convicted with anything to do with whitewater.

The crimes were found by Starr during his investigation of whitewater but they are not related to whitewater in any way. Starr put people under a microscope to try to get them to testify against Clinton. He found crimes not related to whitewater committed by some people. He prosecuted those crimes.

Most were convicted of fraud in other deals or personal bankruptcies. Not a single conviction had anything to do with whitewater.

How about fraudulant loans for the land development? But who cares now anyway? I really don't. Forget it Parados. Just remember I won't be voting for Hillary if she ever gets on the ballot. But then again, maybe she could invest our tax money into cattle futures and wipe out the deficit overnight.

The Nation -- Early this morning, Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, told reporters that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald had sent him a letter stating that Rove would not be indicted in the CIA leak case. In a statement, Luskin declared, "We believe that the Special Counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct."

Bush administration (and Rove) advocates will spin this news as vindication for the mastermind of George W. Bush's presidential campaigns. But there is no need for baseless speculation to conclude that Rove was involved in the leak and that the White House misled the public about his participation and broke a pledge to fire anyone who had leaked information about Valerie Wilson, the CIA officer married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the administration.

Here is what is known about Rove and the leak.

On July 9, 2003--three days after Joe Wilson published a New York Times op-ed piece disclosing that he had been sent to Niger by the CIA to check out the allegation that Iraq had been seeking to purchase uranium there and had reported back that such a transaction was highly unlikely--Rove confirmed to columnist Robert Novak that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. By this point in time, the White House--particularly Dick Cheney's office and Scooter Libby--had been gathering information on Wilson, his wife, and his trip for weeks. (In May and June, stories had appeared in the media quoting an unnamed ambassador who had gone to Niger and found nothing to substantiate the uranium-buying charge, which Bush had alleged in his 2003 State of the Union address.) And when Rove spoke to Novak--who had first heard about Valerie Wilson from another administration official--the White House was engaged in an effort to discredit Wilson. Cheney and others believed that if Wilson's mission to Niger could be depicted as a junket or boondoggle arranged by Wilson's wife, Wilson and his findings would be undermined. Spending a week in one of the poorest countries in the world for no pay would hardly qualify as a junket, but the White House was trying to use whatever they could.

Two days after Rove spoke to Novak and gave the columnist the confirmation he needed to proceed with a piece that would out Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer working on weapons of mass destruction, Rove spoke to Matt Cooper of Time. According to an email Cooper wrote immediately after this conversation, Rove told him that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had sent Wilson to Niger. This conversation occurred three days before the Novak article appeared.

So Rove spoke to two reporters about Valerie Wilson. Her employment status at the CIA was classified. Rove was not merely gossiping, he was disseminating secret information, whether he realized it or not.

After the leak appeared in Novak's column on July 14, 2003, Scott McClellan, who had just taken over as White House press secretary, said of the leak, "That is not the way this President or this White House operates."

He was wrong. It was precisely how the White House had operated. Scooter Libby--according to Fitzgerald's legal filings, Cooper's account, and the account of New York Times reporter Judy Miller--had also discussed Valerie Wilson's CIA connection with Cooper and Miller before the Novak column was published.

After the news broke in late September 2003 that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation of the leak, McClellan declared that he had spoken to Rove and that "he was not involved" in the leak. McClellan also asserted that the vice president's office had not leaked the information about Valerie Wilson. He noted, "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." Bush affirmed that Rove was uninvolved and said, "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."

Rove--with or without the knowledge of the president and other White House aides--kept his leading role in the leak a secret for almost two years. In the summer of 2005, Newsweek revealed the Cooper email. And Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby months later disclosed that Rove had told Libby that he had spoken to Novak about Joe Wilson's wife.

The White House responded to these revelations by stonewalling, claiming that it could not answer any questions about Rove and the leak while a criminal investigation was underway. And it maintained that it could not even explain its previous--and false--statements about Rove and Libby.

McClellan's promise--made on behalf of the president--that anyone involved in the leak would be booted from the administration--was not honored. Nor was Bush's statement that action would be taken against anyone who leaked classified information. The evidence was clear. Rove had conveyed classified information about Valerie Wilson to two reporters as part of a White House effort to undercut Joe Wilson.

Fitzgerald had a high burden of proof in the Rove case. To win a prosecution under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act--which makes it a felony to disclose identifying information about a covert officer--Fitzgerald would have had to prove that Rove definitely knew that Valerie Wilson was not just a CIA employee but an undercover CIA employee. If Rove could raise doubt about his state of knowledge on that point, he would be able to mount an effective defense. Fitzgerald had kept Rove in the crosshairs for so long because he suspected that Rove had lied to FBI agents and his grand jury when Rove said at first that he had not spoken with Cooper about Valerie Wilson. It was only after a Rove email emerged--under somewhat puzzling circumstances--that noted that he had talked to Cooper that Rove acknowledged that he had a conversation with Cooper (though he still said he did not recall it).

Fitzgerald spent over a year-and-a-half trying to determine if he could prosecute Rove for perjury or obstruction of justice, as Rove's lawyer tried mightily to explain the delay in producing that one email. In the end, Fitzgerald concluded his case was not strong enough. Given his pursuit of Libby and the time he kept Rove hanging, it's reasonable to assume that Fitzgerald rendered a good-faith judgment based on the law and the facts he had in hand.

Which brings us back to the Democrats' early mistake. From the start, they called for a special counsel--as if that would get to the bottom of the controversy. But Fitzgerald's mission was to investigate possible crimes and then mount prosecutions if he had the evidence to do so. His job was not to be a fact-finder for the public. He is not compelled to release any report detailing what he discovered about the leak and the White House role. Independent counsels in the past were required to write public reports. But the law establishing independent counsels expired years ago, with the consent of Democrats angry at Kenneth Starr. A special counsel has no obligation to report on what he or she discovered. Congress was the body that should have investigated the leak--not as a criminal matter but as an issue of White House conduct--and it did not. Senior congressional Democrats did not push that point when they had the chance.

That means now that the whole story of the leak has yet to be disclosed. And it may never be--in an official sense. (Stay tuned for a book I am writing that will be out in the fall.) But several essentials are well-established: Rove leaked classified information that may have harmed national security; the White House said he hadn't and that leakers would be fired; Rove remains at the president's side today.

Not all wrongdoing--not all lying--in Washington is illegal. Rove escaped prosecution. But the episode has revealed the way the Bush White House really operates.

Most of those convicted were NOT involved financially in whitewater.

The loans had NOTHING to do with the whitewater development. Most of those convicted were NOT involved financially in whitewater.

Go look at what they were for.....

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Most of those convicted were NOT involved financially in whitewater.

Having given ground from "Not a single one" to "most", you have admitted your mistake parados. Does your knee cramp up when it jerks?