Explaining the delay: Could Fitzgerald be looking to deal?

Is the prosecutor buying time while working out a plea agreement with one of his targets?

Published October 26, 2005 4:14PM (EDT)

Here's one more theory to ponder as you process the news that there won't be any news from Patrick Fitzgerald today. We walked through some of the what-it-means possibilities a few minutes ago, but we neglected to mention another possibility: Is Fitzgerald buying himself some time in order to work out a deal with one of his would-be defendants?

As we noted earlier today, Fitzgerald was spotted Tuesday at the offices of the Washington law firm Patton Boggs, where Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, practices law. If Fitzgerald was just hours away from indicting Rove -- or if he'd already decided not to -- there wouldn't have been much of a need for a face-to-face meeting with his lawyer. But if the prosecutor was looking to cut a deal with Rove, or vice versa, then Fitzgerald and Luskin might have had all sorts of things still to discuss.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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