Rove Comes Under New Scrutiny in C.I.A. Disclosure Case

By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, July 11 - The White House went on the defensive today amid a barrage of questions from Democrats and reporters about the presidential adviser Karl Rove and whether he had disclosed the name of a covert intelligence operative in retaliation for criticism of the administration's Iraq policy.

President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, declined to repeat his earlier assertions that Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, had nothing to do with leaking the name of the operative, Valerie Plame of the Central Intelligence Agency, to get back at her husband, a former United States ambassador who had publicly challenged Bush administration policy.

Nor would Mr. McClellan repeat his earlier statements that any White House staff person who had leaked the name should be fired.

"The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren't going to comment on it while it is ongoing," Mr. McClellan said at a news briefing.

His comments came as Democrats began to intensify the pressure on the White House.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, said President Bush should follow his promise to preside over an ethical administration, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York demanded that Mr. Rove tell the public in detail what his role was.

Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said the intentional disclosure of a covert agency's identity amounted to an "act of treason," while Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called for a Congressional hearing.

The spotlight was focused on Mr. Rove over the weekend, when Newsweek reported on its Web site that Mr. Rove had spoken with at least one reporter about Ms. Plame's role at the C..I.A., although without identifying her by name, a few days before the columnist Robert D. Novak identified her in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Newsweek's weekend disclosure seemed, at the very least, to call into question Mr. Rove's own earlier statements, and the White House's, that he had nothing whatever to do with disclosing Ms. Plame's identity shortly after her husband wrote in a 2003 Op-Ed article in The New York Times that he had found no evidence that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger to further its nuclear ambitions.

The affair has been brewing in Washington for two years. It reached a new intensity this month with the jailing of a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, who never wrote an article about the affair but resisted demands from prosecutors to reveal whom she had talked to about it.

Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, avoided jail when his company yielded a demand to turn over his notes on the matter. Mr. Novak, meanwhile, has appeared to be under no threat of jail, for reasons that are not clear. He has said he will be able to clear things up one day.

Meanwhile, several Democratic lawmakers demanded action immediately.

"I agree with the president when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct," Mr. Reid said. "The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."

Mr. Schumer, in his letter to Mr. Rove, said it was time for him to tell all. "I urge you to come forward to honestly and fully discuss any and all involvement you have had with this incident," Mr. Schumer wrote to Mr. Rove. "I believe this is a very serious breach of trust with a woman who has spent her career putting her life on the line to protect our country's freedom."

Mr. Lautenberg said President Bush "should immediately suspend Karl Rove's security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions," Reuters reported. And Mr. Waxman told Reuters that "the recent disclosures about Mr. Rove's actions have such serious implications that we can no longer responsibly ignore them."

Mr. McClellan declined repeatedly, in response to hostile questions, to go beyond his statements that he could not discuss the Plame affair while the investigation into the disclosure of her name was continuing. Mr. McClellan would not budge even as he was reminded of his, and the president's, previous expressions of confidence in Mr. Rove.

Democrats are virtually certain to keep up the pressure, given the White House's earlier categorical denials about Mr. Rove, and given Mr. Rove's status as a key presidential adviser who helped to devise Mr. Bush's successful re-election strategy.

White House Won't Comment on Rove, Leak

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer


For the better part of two years, the word coming out of the Bush White House was that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a female CIA officer's identity and that whoever did would be fired.

But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan wouldn't repeat those claims Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledging the political operative spoke to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, one of the reporters who disclosed Valerie Plame's name.

McClellan repeatedly said he couldn't comment because the matter is under investigation. When it was pointed out he had commented previously even though the investigation was ongoing, he responded: "I've really said all I'm going to say on it."

Democrats jumped on the issue, calling for the administration to fire Rove, or at least to yank his security clearance. One Democrat pushed for Republicans to hold a congressional hearing in which Rove would testify.

"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."

The investigation into the 2003 leak had largely faded into the background until last week, when New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail rather than reveal who in the administration talked to her about Plame.

Cooper also had planned to go to jail rather than reveal his source but at the last minute agreed to cooperate with investigators when a source, Rove, gave him permission to do so. Cooper's employer, Time Inc., also turned over Cooper's e-mail and notes.

One of the e-mails was a note from Cooper to his boss in which he said he had spoken to Rove, who described the wife of former U.S. Ambassador and Bush administration critic Joe Wilson as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA, Newsweek magazine reported.

Within days of the July 11, 2003, e-mail, Cooper's byline was on a Time article identifying Wilson's wife by name — Valerie Plame. Her identity was first disclosed by columnist Robert Novak.

The e-mail did not say Rove had disclosed the name. but it made clear that Rove had discussed the issue.

That ran counter to what McClellan has been saying. For example, in September and October 2003, McClellan's comments about Rove included the following: "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," "It was a ridiculous suggestion," and, "It's not true."

Reporters seized on the subject Monday, pressing McClellan to either repeat the denials or explain why he can't now.

"I have said for quite some time that this is an ongoing investigation and we're not going to get into discussing it," McClellan replied.

Asked whether Rove committed a crime, McClellan said, "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation."

McClellan gave the same answer when asked whether the president has confidence in Rove.

Rove declined to comment Monday and referred questions to his attorney. Last year, he said, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name."

The Rove disclosure was an embarrassment for a White House that prides itself on not leaking to reporters and has insisted that Rove was not involved in exposing Plame's identity.

The disclosure also left in doubt whether Bush would carry out his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked the CIA operative's identity. Rove is one of the president's closest confidants — the man Bush has described as the architect of his re-election, and currently deputy White House chief of staff.

Rove's conversation with Cooper took place five days after Plame's husband suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. Wilson has since suggested his wife's name was leaked as retaliation.

The e-mail that Cooper wrote to his bureau chief said Wilson's wife authorized a trip by Wilson to Africa. The purpose was to check out reports that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson's subsequent public criticism of the administration was based on his findings during the trip that cast serious doubt on the allegation that Iraq had tried to obtain the material.

Luskin, Rove's lawyer, said his client did not disclose Plame's name. Luskin declined to say how Rove found out that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and refused to say how Rove came across the information that it was Wilson's wife who authorized his trip to Africa.

Rove's lawyer says his client has done nothing wrong.

"In the conversation, Karl is warning Cooper not to get too far out in front of the story," Luskin said. "There were false allegations out there that Vice President Cheney sent Wilson to Niger and that Wilson had reported back to Cheney about his trip to Niger. Neither was true."

"A fair-minded reading of Cooper's e-mail is that Rove was trying to discourage Time magazine from circulating false allegations about Cheney, not trying to encourage them by saying anything about Wilson or his wife."

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said it is "disturbing that this high ranking Bush adviser is not only still working in the White House, but now has a significant role in setting our national security policy."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., and a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called on Bush to suspend Roves security clearances, shutting him out of classified meetings.

Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., asked the Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee to hold a hearing where Rove would testify.

Rove should resign or the president should fire him, said Tom Matzzie, Washington director of the liberal advocacy group, MoveOn PAC.

Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., asked Rove to detail any conversations he had about Plame before her name surfaced publicly in Novak's column.

Press Batters McClellan on Rove/Plame Link

By E&P Staff

Published: July 11, 2005 3:30 PM ET

NEW YORK At numerous press briefings last week, not a single reporter asked White House Press Secretary about emerging allegations that top presidential aide Karl Rove was a source, or the source, for Time magazine's Matthew Cooper in the Valerie Plame case. On Sunday, Newsweek revealed a Cooper e-mail from July 2003 that showed that Rove indeed had talked to him about Plame and her CIA employment, although he apparently did not mention that she worked under cover.

This development apparently freed the journalists to hit McClellan hard at this afternoon's briefing. Here is a partial transcript.

***

Q: Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in a leak of the name of a CIA operative?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked related to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point.

And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.

The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

Q: I actually wasn’t talking about any investigation. But in June of 2004, the president said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak to the press about information. I just wanted to know: Is that still his position?

MCCLELLAN: Yes, but this question is coming up in the context of this ongoing investigation, and that’s why I said that our policy continues to be that we’re not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation from this podium.

The prosecutors overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference to us that one way to help the investigation is not to be commenting on it from this podium....

QUESTION: Scott, if I could point out: Contradictory to that statement, on September 29th of 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one to have said that if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then, on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation, when the president made his comments that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved, so why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you’ve suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, We’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation?

MCCLELLAN: Again, John, I appreciate the question. I know you want to get to the bottom of this. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.
And I think the way to be most helpful is to not get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation. And that’s something that the people overseeing the investigation have expressed a preference that we follow.

And that’s why we’re continuing to follow that approach and that policy. Now, I remember very well what was previously said. And, at some point, I will be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete.

Q: So could I just ask: When did you change your mind to say that it was OK to comment during the course of an investigation before, but now it’s not?

MCCLELLAN: Well, I think maybe you missed what I was saying in reference to Terry’s question at the beginning. There came a point, when the investigation got under way, when those overseeing the investigation asked that it would be — or said that it would be their preference that we not get into discussing it while it is ongoing.
I think that’s the way to be most helpful to help them advance the investigation and get to the bottom of it.
Q: Scott, can I ask you this: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?

MCCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to a ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than: We're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.

Q: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this"?

MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time as well.

Q: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

Q: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

Q: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.
You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

MCCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization. And I think you are well aware of that.

We know each other very well. And it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation.

And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this. Because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.

I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.

Q: So you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore and since then you haven't.

MCCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation and I'm just not going to respond to them.

Q: When did they ask you to stop commenting on it, Scott? Can you pin down a date?

MCCLELLAN: Back in that time period.

Q: Well, then the president commented on it nine months later. So was he not following the White House plan?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your questions. You can keep asking them, but you have my response.

Q: Well, we are going to keep asking them. When did the president learn that Karl Rove had had a conversation with a news reporter about the involvement of Joseph Wilson's wife in the decision to send him to Africa?

MCCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions.

Q: When did the president learn that Karl Rove had been...

MCCLELLAN: I've responded to your questions.

Q: After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the president's word that anybody who was involved will be let go?

MCCLELLAN: Again, after the investigation is complete, I will be glad to talk about it at that point.

Q: Can you walk us through why, given the fact that Rove's lawyer has spoken publicly about this, it is inconsistent with the investigation, that it compromises the investigation to talk about the involvement of Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff, here?

MCCLELLAN: Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction.

Q: Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action...

MCCLELLAN: (inaudible)...

Q: Does the president continue to have confidence in Mr. Rove?

MCCLELLAN: Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this.

Q: So you're not going to respond as to whether or not the president has confidence in his deputy chief of staff?

MCCLELLAN: You're asking this question in the context of an ongoing investigation, and I would not read anything into it other then I'm simply going to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Q: Has there been any change, or is there a plan for Mr. Rove's portfolio to be altered in any way?

MCCLELLAN: Again, you have my response to these questions....

***

Q: There’s a difference between commenting publicly on an action and taking action in response to it. Newsweek put out a story, an e-mail saying that Karl Rove passed national security information on to a reporter that outed a CIA officer. Now, are you saying that the president is not taking any action in response to that? Because I presume that the prosecutor did not ask you not to take action and that if he did you still would not necessarily abide by that; that the president is free to respond to news reports, regardless of whether there’s an investigation or not.

So are you saying that he’s not going to do anything about this until the investigation is fully over and done with?

MCCLELLAN: Well, I think the president has previously spoken to this.

This continues to be an ongoing criminal investigation. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States. And we’re just not going to have more to say on it until that investigation is complete.

***

Q: When the leak investigation is completed, does the president believe it might be important for his credibility, the credibility of the White House, to release all the information voluntarily that was submitted as part of the investigation, so the American public could see what transpired inside the White House at the time?

MCCLELLAN: This is an investigation being overseen by a special prosecutor. And I think those are questions best directed to the special prosecutor.

Q: Have you or the White House considered whether that would be optimal to release as much information and make it as open…

MCCLELLAN: It’s the same type of question. You’re asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation and I’m not going to do that.

Q: I’d like you to talk about the communications strategies just a little bit there.

MCCLELLAN: Understood. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that’s what he expects people in the White House to do.

Q: And he would like to do that when it is concluded, cooperate fully with…

MCCLELLAN: Again, I’ve already responded.

Q: Scott, who in the investigation made this request of the White House not to comment further about the investigation? Was it Mr. Fitzgerald? Did he make a request of you specifically?

MCCLELLAN: You can direct those questions to the special prosecutors. I think probably more than one individual who’s involved in overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it’s ongoing.

Plame, By Any Other Name

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 11, 2005; 1:21 PM



There is no longer any question that top presidential adviser Karl Rove is a key player in the Valerie Plame case.

In fact, what Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame is apparently one of the last things special prosecutor Patrick J.Fitzgerald is trying to determine before he wraps up his investigation into whether Plame was illegally outed as a CIA agent.

Newsweek yesterday described e-mails from Cooper relating his July 2003 interview with Rove. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told The Washington Post yesterday that his client spoke to Cooper, but did not identify Plame by name. Luskin also said Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe.

But let's look at what we can conclude from all this:

· The latest news reports indicate that Rove is the source who Cooper was trying to protect until last week -- and that Rove tipped Cooper about Plame three days before Robert Novak published his now-famous column exposing Plame's identity.

· Fitzgerald has asserted in his court filings that testimony from Cooper and now-jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller is all he needs to wrap up his investigation into whether a crime was committed. So what Rove said about Plame would therefore appear to be either one of two things -- or the only thing -- that Fitzgerald is still trying to nail down.

· Rove and his lawyer's denials that he was involved in telling reporters about Plame now appear to be at best based on Clintonian hairsplitting about whether he literally used her name and identified her as covert or he simply described her as the CIA-employed wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the administration critic that White House was eager to discredit at the time.

· President Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan's denials that Rove was involved in the Plame matter now appear to be at best based on the position that their responses to broad questions about Rove and Plame were met with narrowly constructed responses specifically about whether Rove leaked "classified information." Or is it possible Rove lied to them?

· And McClellan's frequent implication that, if Rove talked to reporters about Plame it was only after Novak's column had already come out, now appears suspect.

If Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, longtime friend and deputy chief of staff is actually indicted by Fitzgerald -- which now appears to be a possibility -- it would be an enormous blow to Bush's second term. Until Fitzgerald wraps up his highly secretive investigation, however, that's all just speculation.

So let's ask ourselves some more practical questions instead:

· Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?

· Taking into account Bush's previous statements about leaks, does this mean he now has no choice but to fire Rove?

· Did Rove keep all this from Bush?

· Or did Bush know, but chose to keep silent and do nothing?

For some quick background, here is what Rove has said directly about Plame:

As ABC News's The Note reported on Sept. 29, 2003, ABC News producer Andrea Owen and a cameraman approached Rove that morning as he walked toward his car.

Owen: "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?"

Rove: "No."

At which point, Rove shut his car door.

Then on August 31, 2004, Rove spoke to CNN's John King .

King: "Did someone in the White House leak the name of the CIA operative? What is your assessment of the status of the investigation, and can you tell us that you had nothing to do with. . . .

Rove: "Well, I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name."

Here is McClellan in a Sept. 16, 2003 briefing :

"Q Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover a CIA operative. . . . Did Karl Rove do it?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous."

On Sept. 30, 2003 , Bush himself was asked if Rove had a role in the CIA leak.

"Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information," he said. "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing."

And here is McClellan in an Oct. 7, 2003 briefing: "If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates, that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business. . . .

"If someone sought to punish someone for speaking out against the administration, that is wrong, and we would not condone that activity. No one in this White House would condone that activity. . . .

"It's absurd to suggest that the White House would be engaged in that kind of activity. That is not the way this White House operates."

This Just In

On MSNBC, Bob Kur reported out of this morning's off-camera gaggle with McClellan: "Well, they're being pummeled with questions here this morning. Very interesting turn of events. The White House spokesman just a few minutes ago was asked about the latest developments about Karl Rove and he says he can't comment because it's an ongoing criminal investigation -- and yet reporters went after him with questions saying that during this ongoing investigation at earlier stages, he was willing to stand at the podium and say flat out that Karl Rove was not involved in the leak of the C.I.A. operative's identity.

"Well, so those are some tough questions to be answered here at the White House today."

The News

Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek: "It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. 'Subject: Rove/P&C,' (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. 'Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . . ' Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, 'please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]' and suggested another reporter check with the CIA."

The White House, back in July 2003, was eager to discredit Wilson, who was publicly asserting that he had found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and had made that clear to administration officials before Bush included the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address.

Isikoff writes: "In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. . . . Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by 'DCIA' -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "

Isikoff was on MSNBC this morning and said: "Karl Rove has never before acknowledged that he had spoken to Matthew Cooper or anybody else about the Wilson matter prior to the Novak column. The White House initially dismissed claims that Karl Rove was involved, in any way involved, in the outing of Valerie Plame as totally ridiculous and even as recently as last week, Karl Rove's lawyer was saying that it was -- that Rove was never a confidential source for any reporter on this matter. The e-mail conclusively disproves those statements."

Joe Hagan writes in the Wall Street Journal: "After a week of seemingly contradictory reports, one fact appears to have solidified: Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's election victories, was a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper in his July 2003 article about a Central Intelligence Agency operative. . . .

"The unmasking of Mr. Rove marks an important milestone in the case. On the one hand, the details of Mr. Rove's discussion with Mr. Cooper -- especially if he didn't name Ms. Plame -- may exculpate him of the intentional, illegal disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA operative. Much will depend on whether Mr. Rove truthfully described any conversations in testimony before the grand jury. If he did, that would clear him of even a perjury charge and any criminal liability.

"That said, the disclosure that Mr. Bush's top political strategist discussed the CIA employment of Mr. Wilson's wife amounts to a political embarrassment for Mr. Rove and the White House. A presidential spokesman had previously given what appeared to be an unequivocal public assurance that Mr. Rove hadn't been involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame as a CIA operative. Discovery that earlier denials may have been carefully parsed would represent another blow to the administration's credibility, compounding damage from the underlying issue that initially brought Mr. Wilson into the spotlight."

Josh White writes in The Washington Post: "White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name. . . .

"Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.

"While the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm."

Adam Liptak writes in the New York Times: " 'A fair reading of the e-mail as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity,' Mr. Luskin said."

Over at Time, where they certainly know what's going on, Bill Saporito simply writes: "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."

On TV

ABC's Good Morning America show today reported that "Presidential adviser Karl Rove may be in hot water with his boss now that his lawyer admitted he gave sensitive info to a reporter -- a leak that's at the center of a federal investigation. Here's ABC's Jessica Yellin."

Yellin: "He is one of the president's most trusted advisors, credited as the architect of the Bush campaign but now Newsweek magazine is reporting that Karl Rove is also one of the people who leaked secret information about a covert C.I.A. Agent to the media.. . . .

"Since the beginning of the investigation, President Bush has taken the position he does not tolerate leaks. . . .

"Legal experts say based on these e-mails Rove did not break the law, he did not name the woman or reveal that she was an undercover agent. But Rove must still answer to the president. The White House has maintained that anyone who leaked the identity of a C.I.A. Operative is not welcomed in the administration."

CNN, which happens to be owned by the same people who own Time magazine, is being oddly silent on the Rove issue this morning.

And on Fox News, they're not taking it too seriously.

On Fox News's Fox and Friends this morning, Kelly Wright reported: "Amid the difficult task of choosing a candidate for the Supreme Court and waging the war on terror, the White House is also dealing with a report about top White House adviser Karl Rove."

But, he concluded: "Bottom line here, guys, when you read between the lines, Karl Rove never mentioned anyone's name. "

Steve Doocy had a follow-up question: "Kelly, did I hear you right? Matthew Cooper wrote that the information that he had received was on double supersecret background ?

Wright: "That's right. According to this report that we're getting. . . .

Doocy: "Well, it must not be too double supersecret because we know about it now!"

Hairsplitting . . . From Cooper?

Adam Liptak in the Times attempts to reconstruct the events of Wednesday morning, when Cooper announced: "A short time ago, in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."

Sounds like a phone call directly from his source, doesn't it?

But Liptak writes: "Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

"The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. . . .

"Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word 'personal' to mean specific."

But what Cooper said he got -- and what Miller says she hasn't gotten from her source -- is an explicit assurance that he was no longer bound by his confidentiality pledge. And Liptak writes: "Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald."

Liptak, by the way, also raises the question of whether Cooper got an explicit assurance before he testified in August about his conversations with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.

Previous Statements

Blogger Billmon has put together an excellent collection of previous White House statements vouching for Rove, so I don't have to.

Questions for the Media

Here are some questions for my fellow journalists:

· For those covering the latest developments: How does it matter whether Rove literally used Plame's name or not?

· Why, as the Think Progress blog has been asking, did no one in the White House press corps ask McClellan even one question about Rove's involvement last week as the story was starting to unfold?

· Has Karl Rove routinely hidden behind confidentiality to spread damaging information about the White House's enemies?

· Should there maybe be a new category of "I'll-go-to-jail-for-you" on background reserved exclusively for whistle-blowers?

· Will any of you ever grant Karl Rove confidentiality again?

The Wild, Wild Web

The left side of the Web is in a state of near ecstasy. And the right side is enraged -- primarily by the left side's ecstasy and the media's presumed feeding frenzy.

On the left:

The Nation's David Corn writes: "There now is clear-cut evidence that Rove was involved in -- if not the chief architect of -- the actions that led to the outing of Plame/Wilson. If he's not in severe legal trouble, he ought to be in political peril. . . .

"[T]his is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson -- even classified information related to national security -- to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that?"

Here's Tim Grieve on Salon.com: "It's plainly no defense to the crime of leaking the identity of a CIA agent to say that you didn't actually use her name: Federal law prohibits the intentional disclosure of 'any information identifying' a covert agent."

On Huffingtonpost.com, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) writes: "Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that President Bush was going to 'restore honesty and dignity to the White House?' How's that going?"

On the right:

Blogger Tom Maguire writes: "This Newsweek revelation may create some political heat for Karl, but it is far from clear that, if these notes accurately describe the conversation, Karl Rove had the intent and knowledge that are also elements of a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act."

A post on the Powerline blog suggests: "The media feeding frenzy will, indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and other pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food. This isn't a top presidential aide accepting an expensive gift, or engaging in lewd sexual conduct. It's a top aide providing truthful information to journalists in response to lies told to embarrass the administration and our government."

Blogger Hugh Hewitt says its all particularly unseemly in the wake of the London transit bombings. "[T]he president values and trusts Rove, and the assault on Rove has nothing to do with outrage over injury to the national security and everything to do with bleeding Bush. The idea that the forces that defended Clinton's bald lies under oath are now 'outraged' over spun-up pretend perjury charges would be wildly amusing but for the fact that the tragic losses of the past few days have not interrupted the vendettaists for even a decent interval."

Rove Speaks

Rove was in Nebraska on Friday, talking about . . . Social Security.

In town primarily for a fundraiser, Rove also stopped by the offices of Ameritrade.

Nate Jenkins writes in the Lincoln Journal Star: "Rove spoke for about 15 minutes at the online brokerage firm, answered a few written questions from employees, and then left without taking questions from reporters. He stuck solely to the Social Security message, not mentioning the bombings that left at least 50 dead in London. Nor did he address the pending investigation into whether Bush administration officials in 2003 illegally leaked the name of a CIA agent to reporters after the agent's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly criticized the Bush administration's arguments for going to war in Iraq. . . .

"The event Friday was closed to the public, and Rove's message was delivered to a company that Ameritrade Chief Operating Officer J. Peter Ricketts said would not directly benefit from partially privatizing Social Security but that he said could 'in the grand scheme of things.' "

Why Bush Has To Fire Rove

David Corn


The Nation -- In a weekend posting I asked if it was time to get ready for the Karl Rove frog-march? The question was prompted by a Newsweek article by reporter Michael Isikoff that disclosed the first documentary evidence showing that Rove revealed to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. In a July 11, 2003 email that Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent to his bureau chief, Cooper noted he had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." "Agency" means CIA. This is not good news for Rove and the White House.

The email--which Time had turned over to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the Plame/CIA leak--may not be enough to prompt Fitzgerald to indict Rove. Under the narrowly written Intelligence Identities Protect Act, Fitzgerald would have to show that Rove knew Valerie Wilson (a.k.a. Valerie Plame) was working at the CIA under cover--that is, as a secret employee--which she was. But Fitzgerald still could build such a case upon other evidence. And Rove also could be in legal peril if his previous testimony to Fitzgerald is contradicted by this email--or the other material Time surrendered, over Cooper's objections, to Fitzgerald or by Cooper's forthcoming testimony to Fitzgerald's grand jury. (Last week, Cooper declared his source, presumably Rove, had given him permission to testify before the grand jury.)

But let's put aside the legal issues for a moment. This email demonstrates that Rove committed a firing offense. He leaked national security information as part of a fierce campaign to undermine Wilson, who had criticized the White House on the war on Iraq. Rove's overworked attorney, Robert Luskin, defends his client by arguing that Rove never revealed the name of Valerie Plame/Wilson to Cooper and that he only referred to her as Wilson's wife. This is not much of a defense. If Cooper or any other journalist had written that "Wilson's wife works for the CIA"--without mentioning her name--such a disclosure could have been expected to have the same effect as if her name had been used: Valerie Wilson would have been compromised, her anti-WMD work placed at risk, and national security potentially harmed. Either Rove knew that he was revealing an undercover officer to a reporter or he was identifying a CIA officer without bothering to check on her status and without considering the consequences of outing her. Take your pick: in both scenarios Rove is acting in a reckless and cavalier fashion, ignoring the national security interests of the nation to score a political point against a policy foe.

This ought to get Rove fired--unless he resigns first.

Can George W. Bush countenance such conduct within the White House? Consider what White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on September 29, 2003, after the news broke that the Justice Department was investigating the leak. McClellan declared of the Plame/CIA leak, "That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing."

Apparently, it is how the White House operated--or at least how Rove operated. If he violated White House rules (and presidential expectations) that prohibit such skullduggery, he should be booted.

******

Don't forget about DAVID CORN's BLOG at www.davidcorn.com. Read recent postings on Rove and the Plame/CIA leak, Blair's poodle problem, and other in-the-news subjects.

*******

McClellan also maintained at the time that "the president knows" that Rove wasn't involved in the leak. And he said that the allegation that Rove was involved in this leak was "a ridiculous suggestion" and "it is simply not true."

McClellan was wrong. Did that mean that Rove had lied to McClellan about his role in this? That Rove had also lied to Bush? Or was McClellan knowingly misinforming the public? If the latter, then there should be two resignations.

Days later, Bush took a clear stand on the Plame/CIA leak. He said:

There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. If there's leaks out of my administration, I want to know who it is, and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.

According to Cooper's email, Rove did leak classified information, wittingly or not. Did he share that fact with Bush? If McClellan can be believed, Rove did not. If that's true, Bush should dismiss Rove for holding out on him. But it Rove did talk to Bush about his participation in the leak, what did he tell Bush? And what actions did Bush take? Did Rove tell Bush how he had come to know about Valerie Wilson's position at the CIA? Did he disclose to Bush who else knew about it? Did he tell his boss whether anyone else was passing this information to reporters? In the first column that disclosed Valerie Wilson's CIA identity, Bob Novak referred to "two" senior administration officials? So who in addition to Rove might have revealed this information to Novak?

Bush also said at the time that any government official with knowledge of the leak should "come forward and speak out." Rove certainly did not follow that presidential order. He should be pink-slipped for that, too.

But before Rove is cast out of the White House, Bush ought to demand that he come clean and--if he has not done so--tell Bush everything that happened with this leak. Then Bush should "come forward and speak out" and share the details with the American public. And an apology to Valerie and Joseph Wilson would be a nice touch.

Fitzgerald is handling the Plame/CIA leak as a criminal matter, as he should. That's his job. But the leak--whether a crime or not--was serious wrongdoing. The White House has taken no steps to address that in the two years since the leak occurred. But it need not wait for Fitzgerald to conclude his investigation. Rove may end up not guilty of a crime, but he is guilty of significant misconduct. With the disclosure of this smoking email, Bush has no excuse for inaction. Newspaper editorial boards and members of Congress (okay, Democratic members of Congress) ought to be howling for a White House response to the news that its current deputy chief of staff revealed national security information to a reporter in order to discredit a critic. The only appropriate response for such a thuggish infraction of White House policy and common decency would be to send Rove back to Texas.

*******************

IT REMAINS RELEVANT, ALAS. SO DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An UPDATED and EXPANDED EDITION is AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK. The Washington Post says, "This is a fierce polemic, but it is based on an immense amount of research.... [I]t does present a serious case for the president's partisans to answer.... Readers can hardly avoid drawing...troubling conclusions from Corn's painstaking indictment." The Los Angeles Times says, "David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the current president. He compares what Bush said with the known facts of a given situation and ends up making a persuasive case." The Library Journal says, "Corn chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations.... Corn has painstakingly unearthed a bill of particulars against the president that is as damaging as it is thorough." And GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS, "I'd like to tell you I've read [ The Lies of George W. Bush], but that'd be a lie."

For more information and a sample, go to www.davidcorn.com. And see his WEBLOG there..

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Copyright © 2005 The Nation

MoveOn joins call for Rove resignation

MoveOn issued a statement calling for Bush adviser Karl Rove's resignation, RAW STORY has learned. It follows.
#
Questions President’s Failure to Act
Michael Isikoff reports in the July 18 issue of Newsweek that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove revealed to Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper that Valerie Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson, worked for the CIA.
Statement by Tom Matzzie, Washington Director, MoveOn PAC:
“This report makes two things clear: First, in revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent, Rove either knowingly broke the law, or committed an act of gross negligence. In either case he should resign or the President should fire him.
Second, the President failed to act upon learning that his chief political adviser blew the cover of a CIA agent.
These facts raise several questions to which the President owes the American people answers: What did he know? When did he know it? And why did he fail to act?
Clearly Rove sought to retaliate against Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, for correctly refuting Administration claims that Saddam Hussein sought to acquire ‘yellowcake’ uranium in Africa, part of the case the President was attempting to make for invading Iraq. Clearly, Rove put the protection of President Bush's political agenda ahead of national security when he disclosed Plame’s identity. He jeopardized the safety of an under cover intelligence agent who was working to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Clearly Rove’s and the President's willingness to remain silent about this until the very last minute caused significant pain and anguish to two journalists, one of whom is now in jail, for refusing to reveal Rove as their source.”

Bush's adviser Rove revealed as exposing CIA agent

By Mark Coultan Herald Correspondent in New York
July 12, 2005

The US President's closest political adviser has been revealed to be the source that Time magazine tried to keep secret from an inquiry into who revealed the identity of the CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Time's rival, Newsweek, has obtained the internal emails between the journalist who was threatened with prison last week and his bureau chief, Michael Duffy, that named Karl Rove as the source.

Matthew Cooper narrowly avoided imprisonment for refusing to reveal his source when Mr Rove released him from his promise of confidentiality hours before a court hearing. A reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, is serving up to four months in jail for refusing to reveal her source for the same story.

In his email, Cooper wrote: "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation."

Newsweek says Cooper asked Rove what to make of the controversy over an op-ed article by Ms Plame's husband, the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, which revealed that the Administration had been warned that a crucial claim in the case for war with Iraq - that it had tried to buy uranium from Niger - was false.

In what appears to be a classic case of spinning the story, Mr Rove gave Mr Cooper a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson".

Mr Rove alleged that Mr Wilson's investigative visit to Niger had not been authorised by the director of the CIA, George Tenet, or the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.

The email recounts: "it was, KR [Karl Rove] said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip". (sic)

The email is significant because it refers to a conversation before Ms Plame was publicly named by the conservative columnist Robert Novak a few days later.

Mr Rove's lawyer has already admitted that Mr Rove spoke to Cooper. He has also said that Mr Rove has revealed everything about his contacts with journalists about Ms Plame, but claimed that he was not the target of an investigation by the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.

Mr Rove is on the record as denying he named the CIA agent. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," he once told CNN.

In a case about journalistic sources, the Newsweek article adds another layer of intrigue. How did it get its rival's internal emails? The story says the email was authenticated by an unnamed source "intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents".

Against the wishes of its journalist, Time management turned over his notes and emails to the special prosecutor.

"A source close to Karl Rove" tried to spin the Newsweek story, claiming to the magazine that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's email and what Mr Rove has testified during his three grand-jury appearances in the case.

Newsweek quotes this source as saying: "A fair reading of the email makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organised effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false." The falsehoods, the source says, were claims at the time that the Vice-President and high-level CIA officials arranged for Mr Wilson's trip to Africa.

Although Mr Rove has now been named as identifying Mr Wilson's wife as a CIA official, it is unclear if he faces prosecution. It is illegal for someone with a security clearance to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

The email, on its own, does not make it clear if Mr Rove knew she was an undercover agent or if he had the necessary security clearance.

Newsweek: Rove gave Time reporter OK to testify

July 11, 2005







Top presidential adviser Karl Rove was the anonymous source who released a Time reporter from his promise of confidentiality, allowing the journalist to avoid jail, Newsweek says.

In a story published today, Newsweek reveals more details about the celebrated case stemming from the leak of an undercover CIA agent's name in 2003.

The publication of Valerie Plame's name by Chicago Sun-Times syndicated columnist Robert Novak set off an investigation because it's a crime to knowingly identify an undercover CIA official.

Prosecutors trying to find who leaked Plame's name wound up issuing a subpoena to Time reporter Matthew Cooper. He also was working on a story involving Plame in 2003 and wound up facing jail because he wouldn't reveal his secret source.

At the 11th hour last week, Cooper got permission to talk from his source -- identified by Newsweek as Rove.

The magazine said Rove's lawyer confirmed that he gave Cooper the OK to testify before a grand jury.

Newsweek quoted an e-mail from the reporter to his boss that showed Rove had discussed Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, with Cooper.

It was Wilson who went on a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa to learn about Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium there.

He subsequently criticized the Bush administration on the Iraq war, a move that critics think led the administration to leak his wife's name as punishment.

Newsweek says that while the e-mail shows that Rove talked to Cooper about the couple, the e-mail doesn't suggest that Rove revealed Plame's name or CIA status.

The Newsweek article quotes Cooper's e-mail as saying, "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."

Staff and wire reports

For Time Reporter, Decision to Testify Came After Frenzied Last-Minute Calls

By ADAM LIPTAK

This article was reported by David Johnston, Jacques Steinberg and Adam Liptak and was written by Mr. Liptak.


WASHINGTON, July 10 - Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, stood before a federal judge on Wednesday, facing up to four months in jail for refusing to testify about a confidential source. But he told the judge that he had just received a surprising communication from his source that would allow him to testify before a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative.

"A short time ago," Mr. Cooper said, "in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."

But the facts appear more complicated than they seemed in court. Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. And the calls were the culmination of days of anxiety and introspection by a reporter who by all accounts wanted to live up to his pledge to protect his confidential source yet find a way to avoid going to jail as another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, was about to do.

Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word "personal" to mean specific. Representatives of Mr. Fitzgerald did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the days before, Mr. Cooper viewed his situation as in many ways different from Ms. Miller's.

While Ms. Miller had consistently refused to testify, Mr. Cooper had already given testimony once in the investigation, in August 2004, describing conversations he had had with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

And while Ms. Miller had the support of her employer, Time had handed over documents that identified Mr. Rove as one of Mr. Cooper's sources, after the United States Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from the reporters and the magazine last month. "The question that was on his mind," said Steven Waldman, a college classmate and former national editor at U.S. News and World Report, "and this is my words, is: do you go to jail to protect the confidentiality of a source whose name has been revealed, and not by you but by someone else?"

Mr. Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet, a religion and spirituality Web site, exchanged several e-mail messages with his friend in the days leading to Mr. Cooper's decision to end his resistance.

"I remember saying to him," Mr. Waldman continued, " 'Look, there are two principles you're trying to balance. One is the confidentiality of sources. The other is an obligation to your family. They're both moral principles. It's totally appropriate to view that as a balance.' "

Mr. Cooper was resistant to that notion, Mr. Waldman said.

Later, Mr. Waldman asked whether Time's disclosures and a blanket waiver form his source had signed were enough to allow him to testify. In an e-mail message on Tuesday night, Mr. Cooper said he believed the forms could have been coerced and thus worthless.

The only thing that would do, Mr. Cooper wrote, was a "certain, unambiguous waiver" from his source.

Around 7:30 on Wednesday morning, Mr. Cooper had said goodbye to his son, resigned to his fate. His lawyer, Mr. Sauber, called to alert him to a statement from Mr. Luskin in The Wall Street Journal.

"If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source," Mr. Luskin told The Journal, "it's not Karl he's protecting."

That provided an opening, Mr. Cooper said. "I was not looking for a waiver," he said, "but on Wednesday morning my lawyer called and said, 'Look at The Wall Street Journal. I think we should take a shot.' And I said, 'Yes, it's an invitation.' "

In court shortly after 2, he told Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington that he had received "an express personal release from my source."

That statement surprised Mr. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer. Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald.

"Karl was not afraid of what Cooper is going to say and is clearly trying to be fully candid with the prosecutor," Mr. Luskin said.

A report on Newsweek's Web site on Sunday, that the magazine said was based on a document Time produced to the special prosecutor, added other elements to the puzzle. While Mr. Rove did identify the operative in a conversation with Mr. Cooper, Mr. Rove did not use her name - Valerie Plame, as she has been called in news accounts, or Valerie Wilson, as she prefers - or refer to her covert status, Newsweek said. Lawyers involved in the negotiations did not dispute the accuracy of the document Newsweek cited.

The information may bear on whether Mr. Rove violated the 1982 law forbidding the knowing identification of covert agents, the basis of Mr. Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation.

"A fair reading of the e-mail as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity," Mr. Luskin said.

Mr. Cooper was never shy about telling friends that he desperately wanted to avoid jail, for his own sake and because his absence would be so confusing to his son. But they say he was resolute in the last days and hours, though hoping for a satisfactory waiver from his source.

A look at the last time Mr. Cooper testified in the investigation suggests that how to determine whether a source's waiver is authentic can be a judgment call.

Mr. Cooper's statements on Wednesday echoed his rationale for testifying last summer. "Mr. Libby," a statement issued by the magazine at the time said, "gave a personal waiver of confidentiality for Mr. Cooper to testify."

In an interview Friday, Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, disputed that.

"Mr. Libby signed a form," Mr. Tate said. "He gave it back to the F.B.I. End of story. There was no other assurance."

At most, Mr. Tate said in a separate interview last year, he had answered entreaties by lawyers for Mr. Cooper and other reporters by repeating what was in the waivers.

"I told them they had nothing to hide and could rely upon the waiver," Mr. Tate said last year.

Mr. Cooper was one of four reporters who testified in the investigation last summer. All of them said they were satisfied that Mr. Libby had given them earnest and uncoerced permission to talk.

"I personally called Libby about a waiver," Mr. Cooper said, "and he said that if it was O.K. with his lawyer it was O.K. with him."

But the other three reporters - Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC - all said afterward that they had not discussed Ms. Wilson with Mr. Libby. Mr. Cooper was more cryptic. According to a statement from Time, the earlier testimony focused "entirely on conversations Mr. Cooper had with Mr. Libby."

Ms. Miller has been jailed for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury subpoena directing her to testify about "a specified executive branch official" whose identity is known to the special prosecutor in the case, according to court papers. But Ms. Miller refuses to rely on the waiver the source signed or the sort of assurances that have satisfied other reporters.

After testifying about Mr. Libby, Mr. Cooper was surprised to receive a second subpoena, in September of last year. That subpoena was focused, it now appears, on a single conversation with Mr. Rove on July 11, 2003.

Mr. Cooper was not an obvious vehicle for a sensitive leak. He had become one of the magazine's White House correspondents only the month before the conversation and is married to a prominent Democratic strategist, Mandy Grunwald.

The conversation took place a few days before Ms. Wilson's identity became public in the form of her maiden name, Valerie Plame. Robert Novak first disclosed it in a syndicated column published on July 14, 2003, attributing the information to "two senior administration officials." Mr. Novak has refused to say whether he cooperated with Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation.

Three days later, Mr. Cooper and two other reporters wrote that "some administration officials have noted to Time in interviews" that "Valerie Plame is a C.I.A. official."

Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat, had written an opinion article for The New York Times critical of the Bush administration based on a trip he had taken for the Central Intelligence Agency to Africa. The disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity was, the Time article said, either retaliation for the article or an effort to undermine its conclusions, by suggesting that his trip was his wife's idea.

The widely divergent outcomes of Mr. Cooper's case and Ms. Miller's case reflected an evolving split in their legal strategies. At first the two reporters shared a legal team, led by Floyd Abrams, a noted First Amendment lawyer.

But after a federal appeals court refused to block Mr. Fitzgerald's subpoenas, Time and Mr. Cooper replaced Mr. Abrams with a team led by Theodore B. Olson, a former United States solicitor general in the Bush administration who is now with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.

In an interview on Friday, Norman Pearlstine, the editor in chief of Time Inc., which is owned by Time Warner, said he hired new lawyers to bring a fresh perspective and complementary talents, not to seek a deal.

George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company, said the organizations' lawyers worked well together in the months before the Supreme Court's refusal of their appeals.

Unlike Time, however, The New York Times was not held in contempt.

When Mr. Pearlstine told Mr. Cooper that Time was turning over his documents, Mr. Cooper did not make a scene or threaten to quit.

"I don't think Matt's a screamer," Mr. Pearlstine said. "He was pretty resolute. He thought we should resist this."

Even in the final hours, Mr. Pearlstine said: "I did not know whether Matt was going to testify or not. No matter what he did our comment was going to be that we respect him as a journalist and we respect his decision."

David Johnston and Adam Liptak reported from Washington for this article, and Jacques Steinberg from New York.

Is Karl Rove Screwed, or Not?

By Jan Frel, AlterNet
Posted on July 11, 2005, Printed on July 11, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23451/
A week ago, what Karl Rove may have done to expose the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame was just another gone-nowhere, 2-year-old, dusty Bush scandal on the shelf, relegated to languish among the lies that got us into the war in Iraq and the doctored FDA reports that suppressed the risks of Big Pharma's moneymakers.

Today, What Karl Rove Said is the story. And there's every indication that for the first time, he is in deep shit. That's really what everyone wants to confirm: Is Karl Rove screwed, or not? And luckily for us, for the first time he's going to have to answer some questions on terms other than his.

Kenneth Lerer, a former top exec for AOL-TimeWarner, nailed in the Huffington Post how times have suddenly changed for Bush's Svengali advisor. Here's the world Karl Rove until now has lived in:


[When] Rove says he can't be quoted, he's not quoted. Period. He knows what he says will never ever come back to haunt him. Talk to the reporter. Say what he wants to. Move on to the next call. It's like talking to your psychiatrist or rabbi/priest: It's a private conversation never to be repeated.

And now in the present:

But now imagine if some of the things you said to your psychiatrist, rabbi/priest all of a sudden were to become public. Shit. Now you understand Rove's problem.

But, considering the fact that not one of the seven hairs on Rove's balding head has been so much as singed since Bush took office, it's worth looking at what it is that will take the man down. Is it the court case, or will it be political damage?

David Corn points out that Rove doesn't need to go jail for this incident to do grievous harm to the White House -- and that's what we all care about anyway, right? That for once, Bush or Rove or somebody in the administration gets an uppercut that keeps them down on the mat, or at least out for an eight-count. It's about seeing that you can hurt these folks, who have been miraculous untouchables in their first four-and-a-half years.

Corn writes, "This is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson -- even classified information related to national security -- to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that?"

Corn reminds us that in George Bush's statements on the leak scandals of 2003, Bush threatened to "take care of" anyone behind the leak. And that he ordered anyone with knowledge about the Plame affair to come forward. Corn writes, "Has Rove done so? No. So it seems he violated a presidential command. Would Bush be obliged to fire him for insubordination?"

Rove is certainly nailed for that. His firing would certainly approach the political damage so many have waited years for.

But it will take media bullying and a concerted effort by all the progressive bully pulpits to turn the Rove's role in the Plame affair into the Question That Bush Must Answer. Oddly enough if it comes down to a political and media battle, Karl Rove is screwed only if a convincing public case is made that what Rove Did Was Wrong, and that Karl Rove Is Screwed.

Reading all the articles and analyses out there, it's pretty clear that no one has a clue if the court case will bring down Rove; with the possible exception of Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in charge of the case, and even then, he probably doesn't have a clue, either. Not very satisfying, is it? Imagine that despite all this frenzy, no one has even got a solid lead so far on whether on not Karl Rove will be indicted, and if you consider that the stretch between being indicted and going to jail for something is longer than Tom DeLay's list of ethical scandals, there's no point in waiting to find out if Rove will plea-bargain for parole before he turns 60.

Consider Sunday's Big Revelation, which comes from Michael Isikoff in Newsweek. Isikoff published a copy of an email by Time's Matt Cooper in his report that names Rove as the source who leaked Valerie Plame's identity. Here's the money-shot sentence pulled whole-cloth from the email: "It was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip."

Not only this, Rove is now known to have leaked this information before Bob Novak wrote about it in his infamous column of 2003, a loophole of Rove's potential defense now sealed. Potential defense, because of course, if Rove hadn't talked about Plame until Novak published his column, then Rove would be able to say that he learned about Plame reading the column.

So he's screwed, right?

Well, there's no proof that Rove lied about this yet, because in what has become his central public testimony is that he didn't know or leak her name. By saying "she" or "Wilson's wife," or whatever, he's not necessarily lying. Whether Rove lied under oath is still a private matter between Fitzgerald and the grand jury. And then the only other way Rove goes to jail is if he "knowingly" blew Plame's cover, and of course, whether or not someone knowingly did something is one of the hardest things to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

There is one thing causing a distraction from the wave of reports on the Rove scandal, and that is much of the reporting itself. All the big breaking stories on the Rove scandals carry a tone that makes it clear that each word tapped out by every journalist from Michael Isikoff of Newsweek to Dan Balz at the Washington Post was produced in an atmosphere where the authors were judging their work against the giant stories of journalism: the Pentagon Papers, the discovery of Mai Lai massacre, Watergate. Same with the TV analysts and their pronouncements.

The vanity of these these power-hungry hacks swarming around Karl Rove's fate is, I think, revealed perfectly in the very same email from Time's Matt Cooper that confirmed Karl Rove as his source. Cooper writes with boyish glee that Rove told him these things about Valerie Plame on the condition that they use the Tree-House Gang's highest security clearance: "double super secret background." Cooper of course agreed, but only on the condition that Rove would supply the chocolate bars.

But that's another distraction from the real story here, which is that for the first time, there is real blood in Bush's political waters -- and that Karl Rove Is Screwed.

Jan Frel has worked as an editor for AlterNet and TomPaine.com, and is a contributing editor to Personal Democracy Forum.


© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Rove Told Reporter of Plame's Role But Didn't Name Her, Attorney Says

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 11, 2005; A01



White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name.

Rove had a short conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, three days before Robert D. Novak publicly exposed Plame in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson had come under attack from the White House for his assertions that he found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that he reported those findings to top administration officials. Wilson publicly accused the administration of leaking his wife's identity as a means of retaliation.

The leak of Plame's name to the news media spawned a federal grand jury investigation that has been seeking to find the origin of the disclosure. Cooper avoided jail time last week by agreeing to testify before the grand jury about conversations with his sources, while New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to discuss her confidential sources.

To be considered a violation of the law, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that the government was actively concealing the covert agent's identity.

Cooper, according to an internal Time e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine, spoke with Rove before Novak's column was published. In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a "big warning" that Wilson's assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip," according to a story in Newsweek's July 18 issue.

Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.

Although the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm.

Instead, Luskin said, Rove discussed the matter -- under the cloak of secrecy -- with Cooper at the tail end of a conversation about a different issue. Cooper had called Rove to discuss other matters on a Friday before deadline, and the topic of Wilson came up briefly. Luskin said Cooper raised the question.

"Rove did not mention her name to Cooper," Luskin said. "This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."

In particular, Rove was urging caution because then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was about to issue a statement regarding Iraq's alleged interest in African uranium and its inaccurate inclusion in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet took the blame for allowing a misleading paragraph into the speech, but Tenet also said that the president, vice president and other senior officials were never briefed on Wilson's report.

After the investigation into the leak began, Luskin said, Rove signed a waiver in December 2003 or January 2004 authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had previously engaged in discussion, which included Cooper.

"His written waiver included the world," Luskin said. "It was intended to be a global waiver. . . . He wants to make sure that the special prosecutor has everyone's evidence. That reflects someone who has nothing to hide."

Cooper had indicated he would go to jail rather than expose a confidential source, but he agreed last week to cooperate with the grand jury after getting clearance from his source to testify. Luskin said Cooper had been clear to testify all along -- because of the waiver signed 18 months ago -- but that the waiver was "reaffirmed" on Wednesday, the day of a hearing to decide whether he and Miller would go to jail.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Rove told reporter about Plame’s role at CIA

But Bush aide didn’t identify covert agent by name, attorney says

By Josh White
The Washington Post
Updated: 5:21 a.m. ET July 11, 2005


White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name.

Rove had a short conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, three days before Robert D. Novak publicly exposed Plame in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson had come under attack from the White House for his assertions that he found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that he reported those findings to top administration officials. Wilson publicly accused the administration of leaking his wife's identity as a means of retaliation.

Outing a federal case
The leak of Plame's name to the news media spawned a federal grand jury investigation that has been seeking to find the origin of the disclosure. Cooper avoided jail time last week by agreeing to testify before the grand jury about conversations with his sources, while New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to discuss her confidential sources.

To be considered a violation of the law, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that the government was actively concealing the covert agent's identity.

Cooper, according to an internal Time e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine, spoke with Rove before Novak's column was published. In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a "big warning" that Wilson's assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip," according to a story in Newsweek's July 18 issue.


White House link to leak?
Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.

Although the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm.

Instead, Luskin said, Rove discussed the matter — under the cloak of secrecy — with Cooper at the tail end of a conversation about a different issue. Cooper had called Rove to discuss other matters on a Friday before deadline, and the topic of Wilson came up briefly. Luskin said Cooper raised the question.

"Rove did not mention her name to Cooper," Luskin said. "This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."

‘Nothing to hide’
In particular, Rove was urging caution because then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was about to issue a statement regarding Iraq's alleged interest in African uranium and its inaccurate inclusion in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet took the blame for allowing a misleading paragraph into the speech, but Tenet also said that the president, vice president and other senior officials were never briefed on Wilson's report.

After the investigation into the leak began, Luskin said, Rove signed a waiver in December 2003 or January 2004 authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had previously engaged in discussion, which included Cooper.

"His written waiver included the world," Luskin said. "It was intended to be a global waiver. . . . He wants to make sure that the special prosecutor has everyone's evidence. That reflects someone who has nothing to hide."

Cooper had indicated he would go to jail rather than expose a confidential source, but he agreed last week to cooperate with the grand jury after getting clearance from his source to testify. Luskin said Cooper had been clear to testify all along — because of the waiver signed 18 months ago — but that the waiver was "reaffirmed" on Wednesday, the day of a hearing to decide whether he and Miller would go to jail.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company
© 2005 MSNBC.com