Obsession is a nasty disease, and it has a cohort: Denial. Truthout (what an oxymoronic title) has posted a ‘report to their readers‘ (all ten of them) which outlines a clear case of not moving on. This will be a long fisking, so be prepared.

Let’s start with their sources – which they have not made public as promised, but with the information they did provide I suspect will now be under an internal investigation. In fact, the possibility of an internal investigation seems to have never crossed Truthout’s radar – since they cannot fathom what occured with the Rove indictment as on of the worst breaches of trust and the laws one can imagine. Worse than anything Rove and Libby were supposedly charged with.

Here are the sources:

Our primary sources for this report are career federal law enforcement and federal government officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

We have two sources here in reality. This is interesting since an earlier posting by Truthout claimed Leapold had only one ‘reliable’ source. Seems consistency is not a quality of Truthout proganda.

But back to the sources. We have Federal Law Enforcement (which means people associated with Fitzgerald’s team) and we have Federal Government Officials (which are people who side with Grossman and Wilson and Plame – and may very well be these very same people). So the sources are not unbiased and have stakes in the outcome.

What needs to be underscored is the rules of the Department of Justice regarding investigations, as well as the edicts laid down by the Judge overseeing this investigation. It is illegal and against court orders to leak information to the news media. And it is a huge stretch to label Truthout ‘news media’ since it is more like a PAC or Partisan PR Group. This sets a general condition Truthout ignores at its own peril.

Now, onto the key sequence of events:

In essence, we found out something we were not supposed to find out, and things exploded from there. We were not prepared for the backlash.

On Tuesday, June 13, when the mainstream media broke their stories that Karl Rove had been exonerated, there were frank discussions amongst our senior editors about retracting our stories outright. The problem we wrestled with was what exactly do we retract? Should we say that Rove had not in fact been indicted? Should we say that our sources provided us with false or misleading information? Had Truthout been used? Without a public statement from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald we felt that it was premature to retract our report.

Truthout admits they have nothing from Fitzgerald. They have nothing at all but sources with suspect intentions and motivations.

After spending the past month retracing our steps and confirming facts, we’ve come full circle. Our sources continue to maintain that a grand jury has in fact returned an indictment. Our sources said that parts of the indictment were read to Karl Rove and his attorney on Friday, May 12, 2006. Last week, we pointed to a sealed federal indictment, case number “06 cr 128,” which is still sealed and we are still pointing to it. During lengthy conversations with our sources over the past month, they reiterated that the substance of our report on May 13, 2006, was correct, and immediately following our report, Karl Rove’s status in the CIA leak probe changed. In summary, as we press our investigation we find indicators that more of our key facts are correct, not less.

The substance of the reporting was correct? So was it Rove that was possibly indicted on such a pathetically weak charge that Fitzgerald did not have the stomach to lose two cases (Rove and Libby)? The grand jury process sometimes concludes they cannot conclude – so send it to court to find out. That is why there are so many ham sandwiches being prosecuted in courts. The key here is something happened when the Truthout story came out – not when the indictment supposedly came out. My guess is this grand jury report may not equate to an indictment, so we have no idea what is under seal. But that doesn’t stop Truthout!

What is important to know is, if there was a weak indictment and Fitzgerald decided to cut his losses, who ever leaked this to the media is in serious, serious trouble. So yes, it would make sense Rove’s situation would change from potential indictee to wronged citizen the minute Truthout’s story came out.

So what does Truthout do when faced with nothing new and thin resources? They fantasize of course:

If our sources maintain that a grand jury has returned an indictment – and we have pointed to a criminal case number that we are told corresponds to it – then how is it possible that Patrick Fitzgerald is reported to have said that ‘he does not anticipate seeking charges against Rove at this time?’ That is a very troubling question, and the truth is, we do not yet have a definitive answer.

…

What appears to have happened is that – and this is where Truthout blundered – in our haste to report the indictment we never considered the possibility that Patrick Fitzgerald would not make an announcement. We simply assumed – and we should not have done so – that he would tell the press. He did not. Fitzgerald appears to have used the indictment, and more importantly, the fear that it would go public, to extract information about the Plame outing case from Rove.

They don’t know what happened, but they are sure Fitzgerald used it to get something out of Rove on something bigger! And it is the Vice Holy Grail (not to be confused with the ultimate Holy Grail) of liberal fantasies:

Our sources provided us with additional detail, saying that Fitzgerald is apparently examining closely Dick Cheney’s role in the Valerie Plame matter, and apparently sought information and evidence from Karl Rove that would provide documentation of Cheney’s involvement. Rove apparently was reluctant to cooperate and Fitzgerald, it appears, was pressuring him to do so, our sources told us.

Want to know how Truthout ‘apparently’ came to this ‘apparent’ conclusion? This is laughable, but it does illustrate how denial and obssession can blind people completely and totally. The rest of the sequence of events:

From all indications, our reports, first on May 13 that Rove had been indicted, and then on June 12 when we published case number “06 cr 128,” forced Rove and Luskin back to the table with Fitzgerald, not once but twice. They apparently sought to avoid public disclosure and were prepared to do what they had to do to avoid it.

The electronic communication from Fitzgerald to Luskin, coming immediately on the heels of our Monday morning, June 12 article “Sealed vs. Sealed” that became the basis for the mainstream media’s de facto exoneration of Karl Rove was, our sources told us, negotiated quickly over the phone later that afternoon. Luskin contacted Fitzgerald, reportedly providing concessions that Fitzgerald considered to be of high value, and Fitzgerald reportedly reciprocated with the political cover Rove wanted in the form of a letter that was faxed to Luskin’s office.

Wild theory. Here is mine. The bolded items make clear the Truthout story caused Fitzgerald and Luskin to meet. But that is more likely because of a threat by Luskin to haul Fitzgerald into a IG investigation of him and his team. Fitz has a zealot on his team someplace. And this zealot has created the perfect myth for the far left and wrapped it around normal proceedings. I doubt Fitz is ready to hurt his career for this zealot or Truthout. The obvious answer is to investigate the leak inside his team – or else he loses all credibility in the Libby case.

Moreover, o prosecutor is going to give ‘political cover’ to Rove. In any plea deal there is an admission of guilt, there is no declaration of innocence because the prosecutor needs leverage on the ‘informant’ to testify to the arrangement later. So for Rove to turn he would have no political cover whatsoever because he would have to admit to being part of the conspiracy.

What is more likely is that the judge blew his stack at the leak and directed Fitzgerald to fish or cut bait and let Rove know one way or the other. Truthout cannot even fathom this possibility as to why there was a flurry of activities, and why Rove is still smiling and Fitzgerald is not commenting. Because if there is an investigation into his team – he is not allowed to comment!

I will end this with a ‘watch what you ask for, you just might get it’ item from the Truthout ‘Report’:

‘…we call upon the Special Counsel to consider the right of the American people to know what has happened.’

Indeed. Let’s get the Truth Out. For real fun, read the lunatic comments attached to the ‘article’.