Patrick Fitzgerald may have warned us all not to read “tea leaves,” but the political world wants to know whether Karl Rove is in the clear, and can move forward knowing that an indictment is a long shot, or whether Rove remains in legal jeopardy.<\/p>\n
The media gave mixed signals, based on thin sourcing, all weekend. The WaPo, meanwhile, reports today that Republicans are “express[ing] relief” over Rove’s success thus far, but their relief may be misplaced<\/a>.<\/p>\n [T]wo legal sources intimately familiar with Fitzgerald’s tactics in this inquiry said they believe Rove remains in significant danger. They described Fitzgerald as being relentlessly thorough but also conservative throughout this prosecution — and his willingness to consider Rove’s eleventh-hour pleading of a memory lapse is merely a sign of Fitzgerald’s caution. […]<\/p>\n Another warning sign for Rove was in the phrasing of Friday’s indictment of Libby. Fitzgerald referred to Rove in those charging papers as a senior White House official and dubbed him “Official A.” In prosecutorial parlance, this kind of awkward pseudonym is often used for individuals who have not been indicted in a case but still face a significant chance of being charged. No other official in the investigation carries such an identifier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n