A bit more parsing

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

A bit more parsing of Ronald “GB” Luskin’s remarks on whether Karl Rove is a ‘target’ of the Fitzgerald investigation — under the known bamboozler’s standard of ‘strict scrutiny’ (KB-triple-S) noted below.

First off, is it a legal requirement that you get a ‘target letter’ before you get indicted? Many press outlets are claiming that it is. For instance, CNN says, “Rove would first have to receive what is known as a target letter if he is about to be indicted.”

As near as I can tell, though, that is simply false. There’s no legal requirement that you get a letter before you get indicted. Standard procedure, yes. A requirement, no.

As for parsing of Luskin’s remarks and the significance of a letter (see below), several sources confirm that for a known bamboozler like Luskin, his statements are basically meaningless. Notification that you’re a target can be oral. And the letter probably wouldn’t be sent to Rove himself but rather to Luskin. So even if Fitzgerald sent a letter Karl Rove wouldn’t have received it. Suffice it say that Luskin’s statement gives him plenty of wiggle room.

As for what this all means, basically what we have here is Rove’s attempt to go in and make his own case directly to the grand jury, going over Fitzgerald’s head, as it were. My sources tell me that such a strategy is the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, the sort of choice that only makes sense as one source told me, in situations “where the indictment is as bad as the conviction” — something that certainly applies to Rove.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: