Karl Rove Indicted?!?!?!?!?

Karl Rove has been indicted. This is the latest report from Jason Leopold.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

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.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the special prosecutor was unavailable for comment. In the past, Samborn said he could not comment on the case.

The grand jury hearing evidence in the Plame Wilson case met Friday on other matters while Fitzgerald spent the entire day at Luskin's office. The meeting was a closely guarded secret and seems to have taken place without the knowledge of the media.

The mechanics described here by Jason sound odd to me, so wait for confirmation from another source before you do your happy dance. (Talkleft seems to think the process is quite reasonable, and postulates that if Obstruction is off the table that Rove could do no jailtime. Also postulates that a 15 hour meeting(2 days?) with Rove's attorneys indicates a failed plea deal. I agree. definitely one was discussed. But, if a plea deal was discussed, as I said earlier today, the investigation goes on! On to Cheney as the final target?)

Almost all of the mainstream Plame reporters, Schuster, Vandehei, Isikoff, have been keeping an eye on Jason's reporting, so, I would expect that they would be working the hell out of their contacts tonight, and, if it's true, we should be seeing some kind of confirmation over the next 24 hours. Maybe tonight. (by the Sunday shows?)

Also, this is what I was saying about the indictment being under seal, that Rove could be indicted and we wouldn't even know it. It will be very telling whether the indictment is sealed or not. If it is sealed, that would certainly indicate that there is information in it that Fitzgerald doesn't want public until he's finished. Which would mean he's not finished.

I will be doing alot of writing about what's in it, what's not, and especially how Fitzgerald refers to other officials in and around this investigation. If someone is referred to obliquely(ala "Official A"), that probably means that they may be next under Fitzgerald's microscope. Lots of possibilities right now, and not too many answers.

And, don't draw too much of a conclusion from Luskin not offering a comment, he has not commented in almost all of Jason Leopold's stories.

So, probably get some confirmation tonight/tomorrow. Then, on Monday morning we'll get an announcement of a press conference. I wonder about the timing of a Rove resignation or a Bush statement.

(Oh, and huge congratulations to Jason Leopold on the political scoop of the year. I couldn't be happier for him.)

Update: Talkleft seems to be the only other Plame focused place that's carrying this right now. There was an interesting bit in the comments by emdee. "Karl is scheduled to speak at the AEI on Monday at 11am (I know this because CNN Pipeline has it in their Monday webcast schedule). If we don't have confirmation on this by Monday it will be very telling if the speech is canceled."

There's a second statement that the appearance has already been cancelled, but that seems to be simply a matter of confusion by the commenter, (Following the thread over to Kos, there is a link showing there certainly is/was a policy speech planned for Rove at the AEI on Monday per the WSJ blog. So, if nothing else, we can watch to see if he shows up.)

I know I'm grabbing at straws here, but there's been nothing else, yet.