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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (26571)	7/6/2005 3:02:54 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 360961

ROVE'S POTENTIAL LEGAL PROBLEMS by Bernard Weiner Let's forget for a second the hypocrisy of the GOP's going after President Clinton because of private, consensual sex. Clinton, the Republican pack finally came to spin, wasn't being impeached because of his erotic misbehavior but because he lied under oath in denying it. Now we're not quite there yet -- we don't know precisely what Karl Rove said, to whom and when -- but let's suppose that Rove lied to a grand jury and/or the FBI or other official investigators in connection with the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. (Reportedly, Rove has been named in the notes of Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper's as one of key White House officals with whom he talked about Plame just days before rightwing columnist Robert Novak revealed her name and job.) Again, just speculating here -- since we don't know if the special prosecutor is going after Rove because he may be one of the the Plame-leakers or because he participated in a grand cover-up of whoever did the leaking. But If Rove did indeed lie under oath or to the FBI, what are the chances that Bush didn't know? And will the upright moralists of the GOP demand Rove's head, will they urge he be removed from his White House position? You know the answer as well as I do: There will be a rally-'round-Karl chorus from the GOP, denying, delaying, smearing others, etc. And, if worse comes to worst in this scenario, Rove, if caught red-handed, may attempt to escape a probable felony indictment on the leaking charge by saying that he thought Plame's CIA status was well-known in Washington; that way, he'd be off the legal hook, since in order to fall afoul of the law, he would have to have KNOWINGLY revealed her secret identity. And if that doesn't work, and/or if Rove is indicted on a coverup charge, there's always the good ol' presidential pardon, a conflict-of-interest Republican speciality when the heat gets intense. (Ford pardoned Nixon in the Watergate scandal, Bush#1 pardoned Caspar Weinberger in the Irangate scandal -- before he'd even been charged with anything.) So, Rove -- one of the most hated but most feared politicos in America -- eventually may escape the legal noose currently locating itself around his neck. But, Washington politics being what it is, one can expect (as in the Watergate scandal decades ago) that, by turning over one rock, a whole lot of other smelly scandals will be revealed. Just think of it: Rove on trial, Kenneth Starr as his chief counsel, with a witness list that might well include Robert Novak, Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV (Plame's husband that Rove was angry at), Jeff Gannon/Guckert, Judith Miller, Chris Matthews (who reported that Rove told him that Plame "was fair game" after her husband criticized the Administration), Bill Frist, Scott McClellan, John McCain, Ken Mehlman, Ralph Reed, et al. What a show that would be! scoop.co.nz