'Newsweek' Says It Has First Word on What Karl Rove Told Matt Cooper
By E&P Staff
Published: July 10, 2005 5:30 PM ET
NEW YORKThe first break in the case of what Karl Rove actually told Time magazine's Matt Cooper two years ago about Valerie Plame, if anything, appeared Sunday with a report in Newsweek by Michael Isikoff. He revealed the contents of an e-mail from Cooper to his bureau chief Michael Duffy on the morning of July 11, 2003, three days before columnist Robert Novak infamously outed Plame, the CIA operative.
"Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ...." Cooper typed. According to Isikoff, the e-mail describes Cooper's brief conversation with Rove, in which the reporter asked what to make of the controversy over former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's criticisms in an op ed piece about the Bush administration overstating the Saddam-nuclear link. (The e-mail was "authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story," Isikoff writes.)
Cooper wrote, according to Newsweek, that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson," whose trip to Africa to study the nuclear link was at the center of the dispute. Rove told Cooper that, surprisingly, it was "wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife, of course, is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA. Rove in the e-mail then went on to call Wilson's trip to Africa and his report flawed.
But Isikoff adds: "Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's [actual] name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. [Speical Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well."
A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified, told Isikoff that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case.
Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen, Isikoff notes. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak.
Time magazine, meanwhile, on its Web site Sunday, wrote: "And who was Cooper's source? A number of news organizations named Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser. Time's editors have decided not to reveal the source at this time."
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E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
Published: July 10, 2005 5:30 PM ET
NEW YORKThe first break in the case of what Karl Rove actually told Time magazine's Matt Cooper two years ago about Valerie Plame, if anything, appeared Sunday with a report in Newsweek by Michael Isikoff. He revealed the contents of an e-mail from Cooper to his bureau chief Michael Duffy on the morning of July 11, 2003, three days before columnist Robert Novak infamously outed Plame, the CIA operative.
"Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ...." Cooper typed. According to Isikoff, the e-mail describes Cooper's brief conversation with Rove, in which the reporter asked what to make of the controversy over former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's criticisms in an op ed piece about the Bush administration overstating the Saddam-nuclear link. (The e-mail was "authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story," Isikoff writes.)
Cooper wrote, according to Newsweek, that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson," whose trip to Africa to study the nuclear link was at the center of the dispute. Rove told Cooper that, surprisingly, it was "wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife, of course, is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA. Rove in the e-mail then went on to call Wilson's trip to Africa and his report flawed.
But Isikoff adds: "Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's [actual] name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. [Speical Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well."
A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified, told Isikoff that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case.
Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen, Isikoff notes. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak.
Time magazine, meanwhile, on its Web site Sunday, wrote: "And who was Cooper's source? A number of news organizations named Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser. Time's editors have decided not to reveal the source at this time."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
posted by Jamie @ 7:19 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:11 AM,
nikita demosthenes said…
We should remember where the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story started:
* * *
"... Joe Wilson's wife is not a foreign spy - she's a desk jockey at Langley (with a cushy place in Georgetown) who's responsible for ... wait for it ... tracking down WMD for our country!"
"Why on earth did someone with that very important responsbility pre-judge the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake story as "this crazy story"? I mean, its only our national security and stuff - no biggie."
"Someone let Val Plame know: the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake "crazy story" turned out to be true."
"How many other WMD leads has Ms. Plame given short shrift? Do you know about any more "crazy" WMD leads, Val? Maybe you should go look at those files again. Does her high security clearance prevent her from getting fired for not giving a whit about national security risks for which she's the responsbile agent?"
"Not only did Ms. Plame dismiss one of the key pieces of intelligence regarding Iraq potentially creating the Arab bomb - she successfuly recommended her gadfly husband to be the sole investigator to go check out the lead! How many millions of dollars go to the CIA for intelligence gathering each year? And yet the only person we have to send to Niger to see if Saddam is building a nuke is ... the house husband of an agent at Langley?"
"What's next? Will Valerie Plame send the family golden retriever to look for missle silos in North Korea?"
"This is the real story that the mainstream press won't touch with a ten foot pole. What heads should roll at Langley for entrusting our national security to the whims of the Wilson-Plame family travelogue?"
* * *
Unbelievable. Shameful. Typical Dem crap - putting politics (and nepotism) above national security - and then lying about it when they get busted.
Fire Valerie Plame now. She's a very real risk to our national security.
-nikita demosthenes
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