Technorati Jumps on Speculation Over Karl Rove Indictment

Posted on May 14, 2006

The political bloggers are busy discussing the possibility of a Karl Rove indictment. A post by Jason Leopold at Truthout says that Karl Rove has been indicted for perjury and possibly obstruction of justice.

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 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.

So far the mainstream media has not reported this story. Leopold is sitting out there all alone. He has basically put his reputation on the line. If he's right he will have the jump on everyone including the mainstream media. If he's wrong he is going to have to explain why he posted this story.

Technorati has set up a link for Karl Rove speculation from their homepage where people can follow the conversation. Technorati's note reads: "The blogosphere is bursting with speculation that Karl Rove will be indicted." It's not a big surprise that Technorati has set-up a homepage link for this. They receive traffic spikes when there are breaking news stories and blogbursts. "Karl Rove" is also the top search term on Technorati. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has been investigating the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name, also known as Plamegate, since December, 2003. Some bloggers hoping for indictments refer to day indictments are given as Fitzmas.

Update 5-15-06

There has still been no confirmation of Jason Leopold's story posted on Truth Out that says Karl Rove has been indicted. However, he continues to stand by the story. After a speech today Karl Rove was asked a question about the whole Plaim affair by David Corn who blogged about asking it.

On a different subject, Scott McClellan told the White House press corps--many are here today--that he had spoken to you and you were not involved in the CIA leak. Can you explain why the American public...two and a half years later hasn't been given an explanation? Don't you think it deserves one, for it does seem that you were to some degree--though it may be disputed--involved in that leak?
Rove replied:
My attorney, Mr. [Robert] Luskin, made a statement on April 26. I refer you to that statement. I have nothing new to add to it.
Then, with a half-smile on his face, he added,
Nice try, though.

So, the world keeps waiting. Meanwhile, Technorati continues to feature the blogosphere speculation over a Rove indictment on its homepage. CBS' Public Eye blog asks, "And just consider the possibility that Leopold's story could turn out to be accurate. What would that mean to the world of journalism?"

Update 5-16-06

The WSJ Online has a good article summarizing Truthout's post and what has happened since then. The article includes a mention of a post on Talk Left that says Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, claims Leopold's story is false. The WSJ says this fired up another round of blogging that even included discussion of Luskin's cat.

The denials set off a round of blogging. One site said Mr. Leopold was the victim of White House disinformation. Another cast doubt on whether Mr. Rove's attorney took his cat to the vet.

The Blog Herald has entered the discussion about Jason Leopold's post at Truthout. They point to this Wizbang post that says Leopold is not credible and lists many reasons why. The Blog Herald also writes, "The problem, of course, is that this all turned out to be untrue. Rove hasn't been indicted."

Truthout's story could turn out to be false and Karl Rove could still be indicted. The truth is no one knows what special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to do. Forbes.com says a meeting of the grand jury is scheduled for Wednesday.

Peter Daou is concerned that if Truthout's post is proven false it could be bad for bloggers in general.

My concern - and the reason I write this - is that Leopold's ubiquitous reporting has set expectations very high in the blog community. We're at a moment when blogs are under assault by prominent media and establishment figures. I wouldn't want to see him used as a cudgel to flog the progressive netroots as a bunch of conspiracy nuts. There's enough of that already. We don't need to provide ammo to our opponents.

Let's hope this isn't true, but there will probably be some in the media that use it as an example of why blogs can not be trusted. Hopefully most charges of false reporting that occur will be leveled at the individual bloggers involved and not the blogosphere in general. Bloggers that make up false stories are also likely to receive quite a drubbing from fellow bloggers.

Technorati has removed the link to the Karl Rove special link from their homepage. Technorati's Karl Rove news page now says, "Karl Over -- Indictment coming?"