“As his investigation nears a conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has returned his attention to White House adviser Karl Rove, interviewing a Rove colleague with detailed questions about contacts that President Bush’s close aide had with reporters in the days leading up to the outing of a covert CIA officer,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“Indictments in the CIA leak investigation case are expected to be handed down by a grand jury on Wednesday, bringing to a head a criminal inquiry that threatens to disrupt seriously President George W. Bush’s second term,” the Financial Times reports.

From the CBS Evening News, to air at 6:30PM:

CBS’ JOHN ROBERTS: Lawyers familiar with the case think Wednesday is when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make known his decision, and that there will be indictments. Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy. But they insisted today the two are secondary players, that it was an unidentified Mr. X who actually gave the name of CIA agent V alerie Plame to reporters. Fitzgerald knows who Mr. X is, they say, and if he isn’t indicted, there’s no way Rove or Libby should be. But charges may not focus on the leak at all. Obstruction of justice or perjury are real possibilities. Did Rove or Libby change statements made under oath? Did they deliberately leave critical facts out of their testimony or did they honestly forget? Some Republicans urged Rove to step down if indicted. Not a happy prospect for president Bush.

Any guesses on the identity of Mr. X?

UPDATE: This bit from the CBS segment is also interesting –

SCHIEFFER: John, I am very interested in Mr. X. Is there any clue or hint as to whether he be – maybe someone who outranks Libby and Rove or would he be a lower-ranking official?

ROBERTS: The best guess is that Mr. X, even though his name is not known and some people are just speculating on who he might be or she might be, is somebody who is actually outside the White House, and in that case would be of a lower rank that both Rove and Libby.

hears that up to 5 indictments will be issued tomorrow, and that target letters have already been received.

After the 2000 and 2004 elections, voters and monitors nationwide reported problems with electronic voting machines.

These allegations of impropriety came amongst assurances by electronic voting machine manufacturers, such as Diebold, that the machines were fine (9/23/04):

But a Diebold spokesman insisted that the system is secure despite “incessant” criticism from organizations such as Black Box Voting…Even if the system could be hacked, he said, it could only be done by a person with “unfettered access to the system.”… “Quite honestly it’s somewhat insulting to elections officials and volunteers,” he said.

Diebold’s assurances weren’t true then and aren’t true now. A new GAO report finds significant problems with electronic voting machines:

While electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election process, numerous entities have raised concerns about their security and reliability, citing instances of weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and vague or incomplete voting system standards.

Some highlights from the report: Read more

Conservative defenders of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby claim that the grand jury investigation into the CIA leak scandal represents the “criminalization of politics.”

On Friday, HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher aired a ThinkProgress video showing how Fox News pundits have pushed this talking point across the country.

Maher calls the montage “the smoking gun that proves that the fax machine at the White House is connected directly to the fax machine at Fox News. It goes right from the White House into the teleprompter.” Check it out over at Crooks & Liars.

“Texas Gov. George W. Bush said Tuesday that he would have voted to impeach President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. ‘I would have voted for it. I thought the man lied,’ he said.” (Via TalkLeft)

A significant moment during today’s White House Press Briefings:

QUESTION: Scott, a couple of years ago you told us that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove had nothing to do with the CIA leak. It appears that you may have gotten bad information before you made that statement.

Now today we learn through extrapolation that, when the vice president said in September of 2003 that he didn’t know who sent Joe Wilson to Niger to investigate the claims that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake, that he was not speaking the truth.

My question is: Can we be confident that when we hear statements from the White House in public that they are truthful?

MCCLELLAN: I think you can be, because you know that our relationship is built on trust. And I have earned that trust with you all.

As you pointed out, you pointed back to some past comments that I made, and I’ve talked to you about the assurances that I had received on that.

McClellan is emphasizing to the reporter that he was just relaying the assurances he received from Rove and Libby. In other words, they lied to me.

McClellan’s answer differs significantly from when he was asked the same question back on July 11, 2005: Read more

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks today at the Center for American Progress. Watch it live at 1:30 pm ET.

Here’s what Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) had to say this morning on Fox & Friends:

I was sort of misconstrued the other day, and I certainly think that if someone has lied to an investigator, of course that is a crime. It is a terrible crime.

With that statement, Hutchison has completed the flip-flop-flip.

First, during the Clinton impeachment, she said perjury was important to prosecute because “our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth.”

Over the weekend, she dismissed perjury as a “technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime.” (That was when she was “misconstrued.”)

And today, she says it’s “a terrible crime.”

So what will she say if and when an indictment is actually handed down? We report, you decide.