Fitzgerald catches Rove in a lie!

In several hours of testimony, Rove was again asked how he learned three years ago that Plame worked for the CIA, and the circumstances of how he relayed that information to Cooper, according to people familiar with his testimony.

Rove also testified to the grand jury that when he told Cooper that Plame worked at the agency, he was only passing along unverified gossip.

In contrast, Cooper has testified that Rove told him in a phone conversation on July 11, 2003, that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in having the agency select her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, to make a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002.

Cooper has also testified that Rove, as well as a second source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney -- portrayed the information about Plame as accurate and authoritative. Cooper has testified that based on his conversations with Rove and Libby, he felt confident enough about the information to identify Plame as a CIA officer in a July 17 Time story.

It has been widely reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fizgerald has been trying to determine whether Rove tried to mislead the FBI and the grand jury in the early stages of the leak probe when he failed to disclose that he had talked to Cooper about Plame three days before she was outed as a CIA officer. But it has not been previously known that much of the questioning of Rove on Wednesday also focused on the contradictions between Cooper's and Rove's accounts of their crucial July 11 conversation.

Rove did not disclose the conversation with Cooper when he was first interviewed in the early stages of the leak probe by the FBI in October 2003, and again during his first appearance before the grand jury in February 2004. Later, Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury and testified about the Cooper conversation, saying he had forgotten about it in his earlier statements to the FBI and in his first grand jury appearance.

Just how stupid does Rove think Fitzgerald is? I know that Karl is used to being the smartest person in the room because he has been dealing with Bush and his administration for five years, but Fitzgerald is "scary smart" according to his fellow prosecutors. You do not lie to a guy who is "scary smart", that is legal suicide.

I think it is clear that Patrick Fitzgerald has Rove by the short hairs, and is going to hang him out to dry unless he starts hemorrhaging information.

So does Rove avoid jail by given up Bush and Cheney? Or does he tighten his cheeks and do the time?

Oooh, ooh pick the first one! Pick the first one!