The Daily Background

Top Presidential aide and top Republican political strategist Karl Rove may be indicted within 2-3 weeks, the New York Times is reporting. This is consistent with other, separate rumors that Rove might be indicted within a month’s time, maybe a bit sooner. We’re looking at a least multiple counts of perjury, and, I wouldn’t be surprised, at least one count of obstruction of justice (both are felonies). If charged, he’d likely resign immediately, although the President would probably make statements about how he believes Rove is innocent of all charges (similar to the statements the President made about DeLay after his indictments).

It’d just be too difficult to have Rove in the White House post-indictment. Even if he resigns immediately (or if they pull any kind of suspension bullshit), it’ll still be a PR nightmare for the White House, and perhaps former Fox anchor turned White House Press Secretary Tony Snow’s first big challenge.

As for me, I do expect Rove to be indicted, based on what I’m hearing and reading. The question for me is which counts, how many of them, and when it will happen. I can tell you one thing for sure though: it’s going to be one hell of an interesting midterm election year. Rove just took the job of helping congressional Republicans with their midterm election races, and that’ll make things much more interesting if/when he’s indicted– and what congressional Republican’s response to this might be.

Filed under: Plame Leak, Z-TDB Blog