According to Raw Story, sources close to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation are saying that Fitzgerald has asked his grand jury to indict Karl Rove and Scooter Libby on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, and has also asked the grand jury to indict Libby for violating the now-famous Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. UPI has a similar report, though with fewer specifics on the charges involved. Raw Story’s sources are claiming that Rove was offered, and declined, a deal in which Rove would not contest a perjury charge in exchange for not being indicted for obstruction of justice. They also claim that two unnamed individuals not presently in the administration will also be indicted.
If this report is accurate (and that’s a big "if," though Raw Story has been pretty reliable on this story so far), it’s really quite remarkable. It means, for one thing, that Fitzgerald thinks he has enough evidence to show not only that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent, but that Libby knew she was covert, and outed her anyway. It also means that Fitzgerald thinks he can show that "the United States [was] taking affirmative measures" to keep Plame’s CIA work a secret (as required by the IIPA), which suggests that he may have testimony from the CIA to that effect. (Raw Story does note some doubt as to whether the grand jury will actually indict on the IIPA charge.) Also, the absence of any indication that Fitzgerald intends to rely on the Espionage Act suggests either that he thinks he doesn’t need it – because he thinks he’s got enough to use the harder-to-prove IIPA – or because he is worried that the broad wording of the Espionage Act could create legal problems down the road (such as being struck down by a court for being overbroad), or maybe both.
The UPI report also contains this potentially explosive nugget: "According to this reporter’s sources, Fitzgerald approached the judge in charge of the case and asked that a new grand jury be empaneled." If that’s right, then the interviews, the investigations, the questioning, the grand jury appearances, and all the rest of it, will drag on well into next year – and into the 2006 election season. So we could have parallel proceedings: criminal proceedings in whatever indictments are announced this week, plus ongoing investigations into other aspects of the case, perhaps involving the Italian intelligence documents related to the Niger forgeries into possession of which Fitzgerald has recently come.
Hold onto your hats – it’s gonna be a wild ride.
UPDATE: The grand jury has adjourned for today, apparently without taking any final action. No word on any announcement from Fitzgerald, or when the grand jury will meet again.
