When the president's political guru landed in hot water, he turned to a flamboyant Democrat for help
'When Karl Rove emerged after four grueling hours before a federal grand jury in Washington last Friday, his lawyer Robert Luskin made one more attempt to figure out just where his client stood. He approached special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald outside the hearing room and asked if Rove's fortunes had changed in the two-year-old inquiry of who leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame. But Fitzgerald, ever tight-lipped, wasn't giving anything up. He curtly told the lawyer that "no decisions" had been made, Luskin says.
That left Luskin, the brainy battle-tested Washington litigator hired to represent the most powerful of the president's men, in a bind. All over Washington, impatient reporters were waiting to be fed. So Luskin—whose shaved head, gold earring and Ducati Monster motorcycle make him something of an odd duck among Washington's A-list attorneys—did what any savvy trial lawyer would do: he tried to spin Fitzgerald's nonanswer to Rove's advantage. In a carefully worded statement, Luskin said, "The special prosecutor has not advised Mr. Rove that he is a target of the investigation." The part he glided over: Fitzgerald hadn't ruled out indicting Rove, either.
A Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who vacations on Martha's Vineyard, Luskin appears the antithesis of Rove and the Bush culture'.
Monday, October 17, 2005
RIGHT UP UNTIL YOU NEED ONE
When the president's political guru landed in hot water, he turned to a flamboyant Democrat for help
'When Karl Rove emerged after four grueling hours before a federal grand jury in Washington last Friday, his lawyer Robert Luskin made one more attempt to figure out just where his client stood. He approached special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald outside the hearing room and asked if Rove's fortunes had changed in the two-year-old inquiry of who leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame. But Fitzgerald, ever tight-lipped, wasn't giving anything up. He curtly told the lawyer that "no decisions" had been made, Luskin says.
That left Luskin, the brainy battle-tested Washington litigator hired to represent the most powerful of the president's men, in a bind. All over Washington, impatient reporters were waiting to be fed. So Luskin—whose shaved head, gold earring and Ducati Monster motorcycle make him something of an odd duck among Washington's A-list attorneys—did what any savvy trial lawyer would do: he tried to spin Fitzgerald's nonanswer to Rove's advantage. In a carefully worded statement, Luskin said, "The special prosecutor has not advised Mr. Rove that he is a target of the investigation." The part he glided over: Fitzgerald hadn't ruled out indicting Rove, either.
A Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who vacations on Martha's Vineyard, Luskin appears the antithesis of Rove and the Bush culture'.
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