Last night, I spoke to Jason Leopold on the phone for a half hour or so. Here's what he had to say about Byron York's article stating that Karl Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo told him that Jason's article Saturday reporting sources told him Fitzgerald met with Luskin Friday and told him Rove has been indicted is false.

1. Jason says he spoke with Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun and Gerstein told him Corallo called both York and Gerstein, not the other way around. In other words, Corallo reached out to a few select reporters to debunk Jason's article. Corallo told Gerstein, as he told York, Jason's article reporting Rove has been indicted is a baseless lie. A New York Sun article today reports Carollo's comments to the paper.

2. Before Jason published his article, he left messages with both Corallo and Luskin offering an opportunity to respond. Neither returned his calls.

3. Jason spoke to Corallo twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. The first time they spoke Saturday was after Jason's article was published. Corallo told Jason the article was lies and hung up. As I reported here, I e-mailed with Jason Saturday evening. Jason had provided me with two numbers each for Mark Corallo and Robert Luskin. After my non-conversation with Robert Luskin, I e-mailed Jason that I had also left a message for Corallo at his office, since no one answered at the other number he gave me.

NRO's Byron York reports he spoke to Rove publicist Mark Corallo who stated unequivocally that Fitzgerald did not go to Robert Luskin's law office Friday or tell Luskin Rove has been indicted. He said Jason Leopold's article was false.

Did Patrick Fitzgerald come to Patton Boggs for 15 hours Friday?
No.
Did he come to Patton Boggs for any period of time Friday?
No.
Did he meet anywhere else with Karl Rove's representatives?
No.
Did he communicate in any way with Karl Rove's representatives?
No.
Did he inform Rove or Rove's representatives that Rove had been indicted?
No.

So, is this Corallo spin? Larry Johnson, or someone pretending to be him at Democratic Underground says Joseph Wilson was told the same thing as Leopold. York concludes:

Tonight's episode is "Moe and Joe."

Tony leverages Johnny's misfortune into a domestic upgrade; Bacala suffers vision impairment.

Will Tony end up taking Johnny's house? Will Johnny flip for the feds? Does Bobby get beat up by his new associates and suffer eye damage? Will tonight be a Vito night?

Those are some of my questions, it starts in 15 minutes.

Team Libby has filed yet another memorandum (pdf) in support of his requests for documents pertaining to potential trial witnesses and others.

Libby begins by noting:

So far, the defense has identified by name the following current and former government officials as potential defense witnesses: (1) Richard Armitage; (2) Colin Powell; (3) Stephen Hadley; (4) Bill Harlow; (5) Karl Rove; (6) Joseph Wilson; and (7) Valerie Wilson. See Mot. at 15-16. All of these persons were discussed by Mr.
Libby during his grand jury testimony.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Al Gore was the lead act on Saturday Night Live last night giving an address to the nation as President, and Crooks and Liars has the video in both WMP and QT.

This is the self-effacing, plain talking Al Gore who was locked in a closet (or lockbox) during the 2000 campaign. In my view, he is the front runner for the Democratic nomination as President, if he can just be himself and not be controlled too much by handlers and focus groups. His outrage in past speeches to the excesses of this Administration touched a nerve.

A happy Mother's Day to all from TalkLeft. I'm taking the day off from blogging, but here's a space for those of you online.

And don't forget to call your Mom.

As TalkLeft readers know, I try to stick to analyzing news rather than breaking news. I'm just not that kind of journalist. But Jason Leopold's article today reporting Rove has been indicted was filled with such unique detail (analysis here) I wanted to know if it was true. Who better to ask than Robert Luskin, even though I don't know him from Adam. I got his phone number from Jason, and here's what happened. Shorter version: I doubt I'll ever do this again.

******
7:55 pm. I just got off the phone with Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin. I'm sure I made a new enemy. I called at 7:47 pm my time which is 9:47 his time. In a run-on sentence, I introduced myself as a criminal defense lawyer and said I was calling about Jason Leopold's article because if it wasn't true, I wanted to write that it wasn't true. He said, "Why are you calling me at 10:00 on a Saturday night. It's so inappropriate." I apologized and said because it's an important story and if it's not true I wanted to say so. I looked at the clock on my computer and saw it was 9:48 or so his time.

He said something like "It's completely not true and you shouldn't be calling me at 10:00 on a Saturday night. You should be calling Mark Corallo [Rove's media strategist.]

But here's the thing. I didn't even have a chance to explain which of Jason's articles I was writing about or that Jason had reported Rove was indicted. For all I know, Luskin hasn't seen that article and his denial pertained to an earlier article written by Jason.

Luskin continued to chastise me for calling so late on a Saturday night, saying "This is Washington, you don't call people at 10:00 on a Saturday night." I apologized again and said I was in Denver and it was two hours earlier and it hadn't occurred to me that it would be too late to call Washington. He said "Well it should have occurred to you." I asked if I could call him tomorrow. He said "No" and hung up.

The defense lawyers wouldn't say it, but ABC News has no such reservation: The DNA found on the vaginal swab of the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case belongs to her boyfriend.

I've been told (and this may be common knowledge, I have no idea) that the boyfriend drove her to the party and went to see her in the hospital the next day. What wasn't known when I got the information was whether the boyfriend went back to pick her up that night and whether he saw anything at the house.

So....score another point for the defense. Nonetheless, DA Nifong is expected to indict a third player Monday.

Huge breaking news from Jason Leopold just now at Truthout -- Karl Rove has been indicted.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning. Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment.

Leopold reports the charges include lying to investigators and perjury before the grand jury but it is not yet known if obstruction of justice is one of the charges.

Is Dick Cheney the next "Official A"?

Late Friday, Patrick Fitzgerald filed a new pleading in the Scooter Libby case. Empty Wheel at Next Hurrah posts the pleading and analyzes the contents, including this exhibit, a copy of Joseph Wilson's July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed with Cheney's handwritten notations.

In the notations, Cheney writes,

Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?

DLR Group

Zacarias Moussoui flew by private jet today from Alexandria, Virginia to the Supermax (AdMax) at Florence, Colorado, the most secure prison in the country.

He will spend his days alone in a 8 by 10 or 7 × 12 foot cell, in 23 hour a day isolation. His meals will be delivered through a slot in his cell door. The shower will be brought to his cell. His one hour a day of exercise will be with a guard, not other inmates. He will have no contact with other inmates.

The New York Times reports Sunday:

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials.