***SCROLL FOR UPDATES***

A sad day for liberals... It appears they won't be seeing a perp walk from Karl Rove in, what I hate to call the "CIA leak" case because that's so misleading about what really went down, and what the investigation really was about... So let's just refer to it as "Plamegate" instead.

Fox News just reported, and the NY Times already has the story as well:

WASHINGTON, June 13 — The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove.

The decision by the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, announced in a letter to Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, lifted a pall that had hung over Mr. Rove who testified on five occasions to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the disclosure of an intelligence officer's identity.

In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, "On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove."

more...

I can almost hear deranged liberals crying all around the country right now. I'm curious to see the liberal reaction, particularly the KOS kids, many of whom claimed a few days ago that the Zarqawi kill was just a timed political move to take attention away from a looming Rove indictment. Many agreed that it was at least a timed plan by President Bush to distract from his sagging polls, etc.

Beyond the Kosnuts, I'm on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what TruthOut.org has to say about this. If you aren't familiar with TruthOut.org, they are the lefty loon site that claimed 4 weeks ago that Rove was indicted. Background here, here, and here.

I'm not back up to full blogging capacity yet, so I doubt this will get many hits... but if you're a liberal and you're reading this quick post, please leave a comment... I'm interested to hear your reaction. (Hint: Say something about Bush lying about WMDs, Halliburton, and tax cuts for the rich... that'll get me good!)

***UPDATE***
A lot of the KOS commenters are seeking to distance themselves from Truthout.org/Jason Leopold's bogus story, even though 4 weeks ago the left side of the internet was screaming "gotcha!" Interestingly, while I didn't personally get a reply to my email to Truthout.org, someone did get them on the phone, and they are still clinging to the story!

Drudge has more on the reponse, much of which is extremely slow, of the left.

***UPDATE***
Today wasn't short on the civility we've come to expect from the modern Democratic Party. A John Kerry spokesman attacked Karl Rove for looking like a pig:

"The closest Karl Rove ever came to combat," said Kerry spokesman David Wade, "was these last months spent worrying his cellmates might rough him up in prison. This porcine political operative can't cut and run from the truth any longer."

That's nice, isn't it? Of course, what should we expect from a party that made Howard Dean their chairman!? Click to read a few examples of his civility in action.

(h/t Michelle Malkin, who has more Rove coverage here)

***UPDATE***
Expose the Left notices yet another odd Reuters photograph:

Yup just another coincidence, right lefties/Reuters? Like the Cheney Photo, or the picture of the shrinking President? Or countless others.

***UPDATE***
HotAir has excellent link roundups in their three posts, some of which I may directly link to as well once I've had the chance to view it all myself:
HotAir 1
HotAir 2
HotAir 3

 

***SCROLL FOR UPDATES***

Yesterday we discussed the left side of the blogosphere's "Rove has been indicted" campaign, in which rumors initially flew Friday that Rove told the White House he was going to be indicted, and later that the indictments had come down on Saturday. These rumors were sparked by nothing more than two "articles" by Jason Leopold at the extreme left site TruthOut.org (here and here). I've become fond of calling them TruthOutOnALimb.org, because they've really gone out there on this one, and if they're wrong they've lost any credibility they may have had. I mean, these weren't some ambiguous articles that said "rumors are swirling in the beltway that Rove has been indicted"... The articles flat out stated it as fact, citing (you guessed it) unnamed "high level sources".

Well, as I mentioned later yesterday, Rove was in the news speaking confidently about the the upcoming 2006 midterm elections, but there was no news of these indictments. I noted in that post (via a hat tip from Hot Air) that other bloggers have all but debunked TruthOut's claims. I just checked that post out again and see AllahPundit has made a few updates, including a link to Johnny Dollar's Place, where you can listen to audio of Matt Drudge from Sunday's Drudge Radio, tearing Jason Leopold a new one.

Drudge partly takes it personally because breaking news on the internet is his life, and Jason Leopold is essentially hurting what is arguably an "industry" now, but flat out lying. And if he's not lying, the Vast Righ Wing Conspiracy strike again, by leaking false information just to make this guy look like the tool he is. I don't like having to eat my words though, so I'm still not going to go out on the limb and say that this guy is lying. As much as that seems like the case, he would have to be a complete idiot to run with this story, without any confirmation. Perhaps he is just that big of an idiot, but I'm just not willing to go that far just yet. As I said before, I give him the rest of the week to deliver.

Michelle Malkin is now weighing in on all of this, and points first to this New York Sun article. Rove's spokesman denies the rumors, and I could be wrong, but I think it would be stupid to lie about this if it were going to come out in a couple days:

A spokesman for a top White House aide under scrutiny in a criminal leak probe, Karl Rove, yesterday vigorously denied an Internet report that the political adviser to President Bush was told that he had been indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

"The story is a complete fabrication," the spokesman for Mr. Rove, Mark Corallo, told The New York Sun. "It is both malicious and disgraceful."

Michelle also directs our attention to this piece from the Detroit Free Press about how this internet rumor made it to the top of the Democratic party. Can you believe these clowns?

Was it an improbable outside-the-Beltway scoop on the ultimate inside-the-Beltway story? A criminal leak concerning the grand jury investigation of a criminal leak? Or just a red-hot rumor that caught fire in the dry tinder of too many trial attorneys?

Whatever it was, the news that White House adviser Karl Rove had been indicted for perjury electrified the 700 or so lawyers, judges and elected officials (including featured speakers Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.) gathered at the Dearborn Hyatt Regency for Saturday night's annual banquet of the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association.

Until they found out that maybe he hadn't been.

MTLA Vice President Robert Raitt was heading toward the podium to introduce Clinton, the banquet's keynote speaker, when Gerald Acker, a Southfield trial attorney and prominent Democratic fund-raiser, mentioned Rove's indictment.

Raitt didn't question the report. "Gerry is pretty connected," he explained Sunday, "and I thought, well, that'll get this crowd going."

A couple of minutes later, Raitt brought the heavily Democratic audience to its feet with the, um, news.

Among those who declined to join the standing ovation was Michigan Court of Appeals Chief Judge William Whitbeck, one of the few Republican officeholders in attendance. He said it struck him as odd that federal prosecutors had chosen to announce such a significant development on a Saturday night, but he left the banquet convinced that Rove's indictment was a fait accompli.

Twenty-four hours later, that was still in doubt. A few Democrat-friendly Web sites, including www. truthout.org, reported as early as Saturday afternoon that Rove's arrest was imminent. But by Sunday evening no reputable broadcast or print outlet had published the rumor.

Sunday, an embarrassed Acker told me he'd passed along the report of Rove's indictment after hearing it from Mark J. Bernstein, an Ann Arbor lawyer whose resume includes a stint in the Bill Clinton White House.

Bernstein told me he was meeting with Hillary Clinton and several members of her staff in a Hyatt Regency reception room early Saturday evening when "everybody began reaching for their BlackBerrys at roughly the same time."

He insisted that simultaneous e-mails reporting Rove's indictment were based on Internet speculation, not unauthorized disclosures of grand jury proceedings.

"Did anyone speak to the special prosecutor? No. Would I have published the report? No," Bernstein said Sunday. He learned the rumor had been disseminated only when his father, prominent personal injury lawyer Sam Bernstein, phoned from the banquet hall downstairs with an excited bulletin: "Karl Rove has just been indicted!"

Even if it had been true, look at how excited these weasels were! Failure and controversy by Republicans is the only way Democrats see victory. They know that the country doesn't agree with their ideas, so they just have to hammer Republicans through their media and hope to win by default. This is nothing new, and I say it all the time. But the image of all of these giddy Democrats drooling on their BlackBerrys with ear to ear grins just sickens me. I wish the Democrats took half as much pride, and put in half as much energy in to doing what is right for the country as they put in to attacking President Bush and the GOP.

Today's Vent with Michelle Malkin at HotAir.com, focuses on what has now been deemd "Rovemania". This is definitely the best "Vent" yet, make sure you check it out. Equally hilarious is Move On and Shut Up's sarcastic live blogging of the Rove indictment.

Others:
Seixon 1, Seixon 2, Seixon 3, Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Stop the ACLU, Decision '08, Outside the Beltway, SuperFun PowerHour, Protein Wisdom, IMAO, The Sandbox, Suitably Flip, The Moderate Conservative, Freedom Watch, RightWing NutHouse, Expose the Left

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Rove Confident Midterms, No Mention Of Any Indictment.
Left Claims Karl Rove Indicted For Perjury And Lying To Investigators. Show Me The Money.

 

Karl Rove expressed confidence for the GOP in this year's elections, in a speech give at the American Enterprise Institute. There was no mention, however, of the indictments that TruthOut and the left have been claming came down this weekend.

Drudge Flash

ROVE: 'WE'RE IN A SOUR TIME. I READILY ADMIT IT.' THU May 15 2006 12:29:11 ET

Ater speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. on Monday Morning Karl Rove took questions:

QUESTION: It's clear that the position that the administration's in now is not where it would have liked to have been with a few months to go before the mid-term elections. I wonder if you could just say what has gone wrong and how do you turn things around before November.

ROVE: Look, we're in a sour time. I readily admit it.

I mean, being in the middle of a war where people turn on their television sets and see brave men and women dying is not something that makes people happy and optimistic and upbeat.

But I'm absolutely confident that -- I heard this same kind of language about the 2004 elections in roughly the March, April, May, June period of June 2004.

We're going to be just fine in the fall elections.

And we're going to be fine because we stand for things that are important. We stand for strong natural defense abroad and complete victory in the war on terrorism which involves victory in Iraq.

We stand for a strong national defense. We stand for economic policies that are pro-growth, involving tax cuts and free trade. We are strongly for fiscal restraint in the budget process.

And our opponents, at this point, stand for little or nothing, except mere obstructionism. Whether it is the nomination of superbly qualified men and women to the judiciary, or our policies to reauthorize the Patriot Act to keep America safe in a time of global terror, the other party seems to stand for little except obstructionism.

And ultimately, the American people are a center-right country, who, presented with a center-right party with center-right candidates, will vote center-right.

Developing...

 

So Friday night I decided to cruise by a couple of my favorite blogs to see if anyone had any new updates or anything I hadn't heard about, and the first thing that caught my attention was this short post from Allahpundit at Hot Air: Truthout.org: Rove has told WH he will be indicted.

Yeah, I know. I feel dirty linking them, but there’s really no downside. If they’re right, you heard it here first, and if they’re not, we get to mock them for being wrong.

Here’s the report.

The "report" is by far left outfit Truthout.org, and opens with this:

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

read on...

I feel the same way as Allahpundit. I don't know if it's right, but here's the information, you can make what you will of it. But if they're wrong, boy do they deserve a thorough trashing.

Again, that was Friday night, so my assumption was that if these Truthout jokers got the info, and the story is true, then certainly the leakers would be leaking to others as well and it would be known throughout all of the media by Saturday night. Seeing as it's now early Monday morning, that was not the case. So while we all still "wait and see", I've got to question the credibility here. Again, why would they be the only ones leaked to?

Of course that Friday post claimed that Rove had warned the White House that he would be indicted. TruthOut (again, by themselves) posted on Saturday that the indictments had been served! Their post, unde the headline: Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators begins:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the special prosecutor was unavailable for comment. In the past, Samborn said he could not comment on the case.

read on...

So again, no confirmation from any other media about getting any similar leaks. Just this web site that I assume is unknown to virtually any non-blogger or far lefty. So I'll still be open to the possiblity that they were leaked to, but question why if that's true, that being such small timers, that anyone would choose to leak to them only?

So Allahpundit tossed up his own quick post to notify the masses that Truth(maybe)Out is now claiming that indictments have been brought down, and links to Rick Moran's round-up which all but seems to debunk TruthOut's claims. This isn't with absolute certainty, but it seems just short of it. Check it out now.

Rick links to an American Thinker piece by Clarice Feldman, that argues not only that Rove was probably not indicted, but that the case against libby may be falling apart. Rick says that Clarice has been spot on in Plamegate so far, and I'll have to take his word on it and not pretend to have been following Clarice's coverage.

Rick also links to a piece by the National Review's Byron York that makes an even more convincing case, that Rove hasn't been indicted.

So did I. I talked with Rove defense spokesman Mark Corallo, who told me the story was completely baseless. Part of our conversation:

Did Patrick Fitzgerald come to Patton Boggs for 15 hours Friday?
No.
Did he come to Patton Boggs for any period of time Friday?
No.
Did he meet anywhere else with Karl Rove's representatives?
No.
Did he communicate in any way with Karl Rove's representatives?
No.
Did he inform Rove or Rove's representatives that Rove had been indicted?
No.

So there seems to be nothing to the story, certainly nothing which any other reporter has seen fit to report. Which raises a question: What is going on here? The journalists who checked out the story, quite properly, did not repeat Leopold's bad information. But for some media blogger out there, it might be reasonable to ask: Where are these reports coming from?

read the rest...

Hmm... Seems that TruthOut might change their name to TruthOut..OnALimb, because if they are totally wrong here, it's going to look pretty bad, especially after all of the left's minions ran with the story, despite a lack of any confirmation.

Check out the Yahoo! and Google blog search results for 'rove indicted'. Also, check out this Technorati search on the same term.

It's hard to say what search results you'll see because the left has been running wild with this one, so posts continue to roll in ever since TruthOut started this whole thing on Friday. They all posted without a single confirmation from anyone. I'm happy to see a question mark in some post titles that say "Karl Rove Indicted?", but those with question marks are few and far between. I'm expecting Dan Rather to break in on TV with a special report: "I was down at the pond looking for a frog with side pockets to come down to the shooting range with me, when one of my unimpeachable sources told me that Karl Rove has been indicted. If this turns out that this source lied after a few weeks of me denying it, I'll then still have to ask whether the information was still true.. Stay tuned."

Again, I have no inside information here, but I'm not claiming to. I'm just saying that if these TruthOut folks don't deliver in one week or less, this political pizza is going straight to their thighs. I'm sorry, I don't even know what that's suppost to mean, it just came out. What I meant to say is that if this turns out to not be true, TruthOut and all of their followers deserve an internet beating from the rest of us in the blogosphere.

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