How Do You Get the Media Interested in the Tony Rezko Trial? Mention Karl Rove

This is like that dog who keeps chasing his tail. He gets bored at the fruitlessness of it all after awhile and goes back to sleep. Of course he always wakes up having forgotten how silly he looked and proceeds to resume the pointless activity.

Today's installment of Rove Derangement Syndrome comes courtesy of Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. This should make for interesting conversation at Newsweek since Karl Rove is on the payroll over there. Maybe Isikoff is annoyed about that. Who knows, but this seems incredibily flimsy to run with.

The trial of Chicago developer and political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko has been closely watched for any mention of the defendant's onetime friend, Barack Obama. But last week, prosecutors threw a curveball, telling the judge that one of their witnesses is prepared to raise the name of another prominent Washington hand: Karl Rove. Former Illinois state official Ali Ata is expected to testify about a conversation he had with Rezko in which the developer alleged Rove was "working with" a top Illinois Republican to remove the Chicago U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald.

The allegation, which Rove denies, quickly reverberated in Washington. Democrats in Congress now want to question Ata. They believe he can help buttress their theory that Rove played a key role in discussions that led to the firings of U.S. attorneys at the Justice Department in 2006. The House Judiciary Committee "intends to investigate the facts and circumstances alleged in this testimony," panel chairman Rep. John Conyers of Michigan said in a statement to NEWSWEEK.

Not a shred of evidence to back up the claim, but let's throw it out there and see what sticks.

Investigators are intrigued by the timing of the alleged conversation about Fitzgerald. According to the Rezko prosecutors, it took place in November 2004—weeks after Fitzgerald had subpoenaed Rove to testify for the third time in another matter he was aggressively investigating, the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. A source familiar with Ata's testimony (who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters) said that Ata was meeting regularly with Rezko that fall. The two men shared a concern about Fitzgerald's ongoing probe of Illinois public officials. In one of those conversations, the developer allegedly told Ata that Bob Kjellander, a prominent GOP state lobbyist, was talking to Rove about getting rid of Fitzgerald. The reason: to "get a new U.S. attorney" who would not pursue the Illinois corruption probe, the source said. Ata, who has pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges and is now cooperating with the Feds, has no evidence that the conversation took place other than what Rezko allegedly told him, the source says.

No evidence, just allegations.

But that's all you need for Michael Isikoff.

Shameless.

Kjellander denies that he told Rezko anything of the kind. "I never had a discussion with Karl Rove or any other person on the White House staff" about firing Fitzgerald, said Kjellander, now a top GOP official in charge of this summer's convention. Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, told NEWSWEEK that Rove "does not recall" a conversation with Kjellander about Fitzgerald. He added that Rove "never talked to anybody in the White House about removing Fitzgerald."

The dog has awoken and is ready to chase his tail again.

The Disgrace of Patrick Fitzgerald

Mark Steyn lays waste to Fitzgerald, who has really earned it.

As for Scooter Libby, he faces up to 25 years in jail for the crime of failing to remember when he first heard the name of Valerie Plame -- whether by accident or intent no one can ever say for sure. But we also know that Joe Wilson failed to remember that his original briefing to the CIA after getting back from Niger was significantly different from the way he characterized it in his op-ed in the New York Times. We do know that the contemptible Armitage failed to come forward and clear the air as his colleagues were smeared for months on end. We do know that his boss Colin Powell sat by as the very character of the administration was corroded.

And we know that Patrick Fitzgerald knew all this and more as he frittered away the years, and the ''political blood lust'' (as National Review's Rich Lowry calls it) grew ever more disconnected from humdrum reality. The cloud over the White House is Fitzgerald's, and his closing remarks to the jury were highly revealing. If he dislikes Bush and Cheney and the Iraq war, whoopee: Run against them, or donate to the Democrats, or get a talk-radio show. Instead, he chose in full knowledge of the truth to maintain artificially a three-year cloud over the White House while the anti-Bush left frantically mistook its salivating for the first drops of a downpour. The result is the disgrace of Scooter Libby. Big deal. Patrick Fitzgerald's disgrace is the greater, and a huge victory not for justice or the law but for the criminalization of politics.

Toensing Issues Indictments in CIA Case

Victoria Toensing goes nuclear. Fitz and Joe Wilson get frogmarched. Along with a whole lot of others.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES PATRICK J. FITZERALD with ignoring the fact that there was no basis for a criminal investigation from the day he was appointed, with handling some witnesses with kid gloves and banging on others with a mallet, with engaging in past contretemps with certain individuals that might have influenced his pursuit of their liberty, and with misleading the public in a news conference because . . . well, just because.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES THE CIA for making a boilerplate criminal referral to cover its derrière.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES JOSEPH C. WILSON IV with misleading the public about how he was sent to Niger, about the thrust of his March 2003 oral report of that trip, and about his wife's CIA status, perhaps for the purpose of getting book and movie contracts.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES THE MEDIA with hypocrisy in asserting that criminal law was applicable to this "leak" and with misreporting facts to wage a political attack on an increasingly unpopular White House.

Guilty.

It continues. Read it all.

UPDATE. Check out Byron York and What the CIA Leak Case is About. It's about as big a farce as one can imagine.

Libby and the Leak

Byron York wonders where this mess of a trial is headed, while the New York Post editorial rightly labels the prosecution of Scooter Libby curious.

So, just what is this trial all about, anyway?

More important: Why is Patrick Fitzgerald still investigating this case - after already wasting millions of taxpayer dollars looking into a "crime" that never happened?

It's a mystery.

Observers of the trial disagree as to who's scoring the most points. But this much is certain: Even if Libby is convicted, it won't have added one bit to the nation's knowledge of what happened in this case.

Fitzgerald, no doubt, is pushing forward in order to claim at least one scalp so that he can justify his out-of-control investigation.

But if any case should finally put to death the notion that there's a need for special prosecutors, this is it.

I'm all for that.