Just saw John King on CNN a few minutes ago, relating the significance of today’s testimony. According to those in Karl Rove’s camp, who apparently have King’s ear, today’s appearance, Rove’s 5th before Fitzpatrick’s grand jury, really is good news – since Rove is being provided the opportunity to “tie up a few loose ends.”
Transcript below.
That testimony should begin this hour. Karl Rove arrived in Washington about 30 minutes or so ago. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald strolled in just a few minutes ago. The grand jury–we are told–is back from its lunch break, ready to get back to work.
And on the agenda today, as you noted, the fifth time Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff and the President’s most trusted political advisor, to go before the grand jury to answer questions about his role in what has become known as the CIA leak investigation.
Now significantly, sources sympathetic to Rove say that this could be quite a turning point. They believe what he is there to do today is to clean up what one source called “a few loose ends,” to tie up a few loose ends, a few remaining questions that the special prosecutor has about Karl Rove’s role in a White House effort to discredit critics about the case to go to war in Iraq.
And the Karl Rove side believes that after this testimony today there could be a quick resolution to this. I should note, though, they have voiced such confidence before, the Special Prosecutor has said he wanted to keep a grand jury in place to try to get new evidence, but sources sympathetic to Karl Rove say that they believe if he cleans up the loose ends as they say, the few remaining questions they say the prosecutor has, that this soon could be put behind him.
