The Post’s Mike Allen seems to have gotten a bit more off the record on the 5th Amendment question than he did at the gaggle.
“White House officials,” he writes at the end of his piece in tomorrow’s paper, “said that neither Bush nor Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had forbidden aides called by the grand jury from invoking the Fifth Amendment.”
The Times also has a less-detailed piece. But they do add that “lawyers [involved in the case] said that they believed, however, that the prosecutors were nearing a turning point when they would decide whether to charge anyone with a crime or drop the case.”
Finally, Newsday, which broke the story yesterday about the subpoenas, adds a hint about what that weird addition of the guest list for Gerald Ford’s birthday party might be about.
In two words, Andrea Mitchell, who may have been there with her husband Alan Greenspan.
Final point.
Lawyers note that having your lawyer send the message that you will take the fifth can often get you out of a grand jury appearance altogether or at least be the opening gambit in a negotiation with a prosecutor. So there’s probably various levels of wiggle room on this one.
