New York Times:

Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

“The [second-term exodus of senior staff] and incapacity were inevitable; replacing Bush’s stand-up guys and gals with suck-ups and sycophants was not… Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush’s personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers’ cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.

“And so they wait. And they sniff the royal throne. They tell the Beloved Leader he’s the victim of a partisan plot (although how the Bush CIA, which referred the Plame case for prosecution, became ground zero of Democratic liberalism escapes me). They assure him all is well. But all is not well. People are looking over their shoulders. The smart ones have stopped taking notes in meetings. The very smart ones have stopped using email for all but the most pedestrian communications. And the smartest ones have already obtained outside counsel. ”

— Paul Begala

One day before nomination Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court is withdrawn, we learn this:

A U-S Senate panel may seek testimony from a former Texas lottery official during hearings on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers of Dallas.

Another lottery official has claimed Miers let a company keep its contract because one of its lobbyists helped President Bush get into the National Guard in the 1960’s.

Miers, who’s now the White House counsel, chaired the three-person Texas Lottery commission from 1995 to 2000.

Another lottery official has claimed Miers let a company keep its contract because one of its lobbyists helped President Bush get into the National Guard in the 1960’s.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on November seventh will begin hold hearings on the Miers nomination.

Committee members recently asked lottery contractor G-TECH whether it would object to testimony from Lawrence Littwin.

Littwin, who was the lottery’s second executive director, was fired in 1997 after just four months on the job.

He sued G-TECH, but late settled.

Littwin, who signed a confidentiality agreement, declined to comment other than to say he would agree to testify if subpoenaed.

A G-TECH official says the confidentiality agreement allows Littwin him to discuss the issues with government authorities.

G-TECH, which denies wrongdoing, says it will provide any additional information the senators need.

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court. Now we can expect the new nominee to be troglodyte of epic proportions.

Let the games begin.

The term of service of the current grand jury investigated the Bush CIA Leak expires tomorrow. There is speculation that the current phase of the investigation will wrap up then:

[After] grand jurors left the federal courthouse before noon yesterday, it was unclear whether [special counsel Patrick] Fitzgerald had spelled out the criminal charges he might ask them to consider, or whether he had asked them to vote on any proposed indictments. Fitzgerald’s legal team did not present the results of a grand jury vote to the court yesterday, which he is required to do within days of such a vote.

Yesterday’s three-hour grand jury session came after agents and prosecutors this week conducted last-minute interviews with Adam Levine, a member of the White House communications team at the time of the leak, about his conversations with Rove, and with Plame’s neighbors in the District.

Should he need more time to finish the investigation, Fitzgerald could seek to empanel a new group of grand jurors to consider the case. But sources familiar with the prosecutor’s work said he has indicated he is eager to avoid that route. The term of the current grand jury has been extended once and cannot be lengthened again, according to federal rules.

The Washington Note:

Patrick Fitzgerald’s intermediaries denied that there was any significance to the establishment of a new website, minimalist as it is, for the Office of the Special Counsel which is investigating the “outing” of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA responsibilities to the media.

Fitzgerald’s people said that the investigation coming to a close and the website going up was just coincidence.

Well, news has just reached TWN that Patrick Fitzgerald is expanding not only into a new website — but also into more office space.

Fitzgerald’s office is at 1400 New York Avenue, NW, 9th Floor in Washington.

What I have learned is that the Office of the Special Counsel has signed a lease this week for expanded office space across the street at 1401 New York Avenue, NW.

Another coincidence? More office space needed to shut down the operation?

I think not. Fitzgerald’s operation is expanding.

Associated Press:

ConocoPhillips, the nation’s third-largest integrated oil and gas company, said Wednesday its third-quarter profit surged 89 percent, reflecting strong prices for crude oil and natural gas.

Earnings for the quarter ended Sept. 30 rose to $3.8 billion, or $2.68 per share, topping the average Wall Street estimate of $2.57 per share, according to a Thomson Financial survey of analysts. A year ago, the company earned $2 billion, or $1.43 per share.

Quarterly revenue rose 43 percent to $49.66 billion from $34.74 billion

“During the quarter, our U.S. Gulf Coast operations were significantly impacted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Dennis,” said Jim Mulva, chairman and chief executive. “Despite these impacts, our overall operating performance for the quarter was good, and we continued to benefit from the strong commodity price environment.”

“Strong commodity price environment” means “Bush controlled economy.”