Bush Says He'll Fire Any Aide Who 'Committed a Crime'

By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, July 18 - President Bush said today that he would fire anyone in his administration who has broken the law in the unmasking of a C.I.A. officer two years ago.

Asked about his close adviser Karl Rove, who is at the center of an investigation into the disclosure of the officer's identity, Mr. Bush said: "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration. I don't know all the facts; I want to know all the facts."

The remarks appeared to shift the standard for dismissal that has been expressed repeatedly over many months by Mr. Bush's spokesmen - from promises to fire anyone who played a role in the disclosure, to Mr. Bush's statement today that criminal conduct would have to be involved.

The president's comment today, however, was similar to one he made in 2003, when he said that anyone in his administration who had "violated law" would be dismissed.

Democrats pounced on the remarks as a raising of the bar for dismissal. However, Mr. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, rejected the suggestion that Mr. Bush had added a "qualifier" to the standards for his aides' conduct.

For months, Mr. Bush's spokesmen have said that anyone involved in the disclosure of the C.I.A. officer's identity would be dismissed. Today's developments come amid mounting evidence that, at the very least, Mr. Rove provided backhanded confirmation of the C.I.A. officer's identity.

In the months after the name of the officer, Valerie Plame Wilson, was made public in July 2003, White House officials have said they believe that no one working for the administration was part of the disclosure, and that anyone found to have been "involved" in the disclosure would be dismissed.

Mrs. Wilson's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has asserted that his wife was unmasked, and her career consequently damaged, in retaliation for his criticism of the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq. He has also said he suspects that Mr. Rove, by all accounts one of the president's most trusted political advisers and an architect of his successful re-election strategy, had a role in the disclosure.

On Sept. 30, 2003, Mr. Bush said he was eager to find out if there had been "a leak" from his administration about Mrs. Wilson. "I want to know who it is," he said. "And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."

Just one day earlier, Mr. McClellan had stated a more categorical standard. "The president has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration," Mr. McClellan said. "He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."

Mr. Bush himself appeared to embrace a broader position on June 10, 2004, when he was asked whether he would fire anyone who had anything to do with leaking Mrs. Wilson's name.

"Yes," Mr. Bush replied, and his spokesmen have reiterated that stance repeatedly in the months since then.

Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, has said that Mr. Rove has been told he is not a target of a federal investigation into the leak.

Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, says in a first-person account in this week's issue that Mr. Rove was the first person to tell him that Mr. Wilson's wife was an officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Cooper writes that Mr. Rove used indirect language - not mentioning Mrs. Wilson by name, for instance - but that he supplied him information nonetheless.

The first journalist to disclose Mrs. Wilson's identity was the columnist Robert Novak, who has declined for two years to say whether he has testified to a federal grand jury investigating the leak.

Some Democrats have called for Mr. Bush to fire Mr. Rove, who is now the deputy White House chief of staff. The Democrats assert that Mr. Rove may have violated a federal law that bars the deliberate disclosure of the name of a C.I.A. agent.

Republicans have countered that Democrats are prejudging the results of the investigation - and may be eager to do so, for political reasons - and that any conversations Mr. Rove had with reporters might have been for the purpose of steering them away from unreliable rumors.

The questions about Mr. Rove and the unmasking of Mrs. Wilson have dominated the political conversation in the sweltering capital, so much so that the issue came up today as President Bush was appearing with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India at the White House.

Mr. Bush did not respond directly when he was asked whether he was "displeased" that Mr. Rove had discussed Mr. Wilson's wife with a reporter. "We have a serious ongoing investigation here, and it's being played out in the press," Mr. Bush said. He said he hopes the investigation will be over "very soon" and that people should reserve judgment until then.

The president's message was echoed later today by Mr. McClellan, who responded to repeated questions about Mr. Rove by urging people not to prejudge the outcome of the investigation.

"I think that the president was stating what is obvious when it comes to people who work in the administration: that if someone commits a crime, they're not going to be working any longer in this administration," Mr. McClellan said.

But Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York and Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, both Democrats, said they were disappointed in Mr. Bush's comments and what they believed was his shifting stance. "The standard for holding a high position in the White House should not simply be that you didn't break the law," Mr. Schumer said.

Mr. Waxman wrote a letter to the president in which he said Mr. Bush had "significantly changed" his position, and that a president had "an affirmative obligation" to take quick action to protect national security secrets without waiting for a prosecution to run its course.

The controversy over Mr. Rove comes as President Bush is preparing to nominate a candidate to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. A reporter began a question today by alluding to rumors that the president was close to a choice.

"Really?" Mr. Bush replied, to laughter. He went on to say that he was reviewing a number of candidates, that he would be "thorough and deliberate" in choosing a name, and that he hoped a new justice could be confirmed by the Senate in time for the court term that begins in October.

"And thank you for your question, and thank you for telling me how close I am," Mr. Bush said, "or at least indicating what others think."



Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

REPUBLICANS MUST CHOOSE: BUSH OR AMERICA?

By Ted Rall

NEW YORK--"Karl Rove is loyal to President Bush," a correspondent wrote as Treasongate broke. "Isn't that a form of patriotism?" Not in a representative democracy, I replied. Only in a dictatorship is fealty to the Leader equal to loyalty to the nation. We're Bush's boss. He works for us. Unless that changed on 9/11 (or 12/20/00). Rove had no right to give away state secrets, even to protect Bush.

Newly loquacious Time reporter Matt Cooper has deflated half a dozen Rove-defending talking points since we last visited. Republicans, for instance, have argued that Rove had merely confirmed what Cooper already knew: that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. That claim evaporated in Cooper's piece in the magazine's July 25 issue: "This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife."

"I've already said too much," Cooper quotes Rove as he ended their 2003 conversation.

Rove may avoid prosecution under the Intelligence Identities and Protection Act, says John Dean, counsel at the Nixon White House. "There is, however, evidence suggesting that other laws were violated," he says, alluding to Title 18, Section 641 of the U.S. Code. The "leak of sensitive [government] information" for personal purposes--say, outting the CIA wife of your boss' enemy--is "a very serious crime," according to the judge presiding over a similar recent case. If convicted under the anti-leak statute, Rove would face ten years in a federal prison.

Even if Rove originally learned about Plame's status from jailed New York Times journalist Judith Miller, Dean continues, "it could make for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute (which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate)." Conspiracy will get you five years at Hotel Graybar.

Rove's betrayal of a CIA WMD expert--while the U.S. was using WMDs as a reason to invade Iraq--is virtually indistinguishable from Robert Hanssen's selling out of American spies. Both allowed America's enemies to learn the identities of covert operatives. Both are traitors. Both are eligible for the death penalty.

And he's not the only high-ranking Bush Administration traitor.

In last week's column I speculated that Treasongate would almost certainly implicate Dick Cheney. Now, according to Time, Cheney chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby is being probed as a second source of leaks to reporters about Plame.

We already know that Rove is a traitor. So, probably, is Cheney. Since George W. Bush has protected traitors for at least two years; he is therefore an accomplice to the Rove-Libby cell. We are long past the point where, during the summer of 1974, GOP senators led by Barry Goldwater told Richard Nixon that he had to resign. So why aren't Turd Blossom and his compadres out of office and awaiting trial?

Democrats are out of power. And, sadly, Republicans have become so obsessed with personal loyalty that they've forgotten that their first duty is to country, not party or friend. Unless they wake up soon and dump Bush, Republicans could be permanently discredited.

Bush sets the mafia-like tone: "I'm the kind of person, when a friend gets attacked, I don't like it." His lieutenants blur treason with hardball politics--"[Democrats] just aren't coming forward with any policy positions that would change the country, so they want to pick up whatever the target of the week is and make the most out of that," says GOP House Whip Roy Blunt--and blame the victim--Rove, absurdly argues Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, was innocently trying to expose Wilson's "lies."

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds Bush's credibility at 41 percent, down from 50 in January. Given events past and present, that's still a lot higher than it ought to be.

We don't need a law to tell us that unmasking a CIA agent, particularly during wartime, is treasonous. Every patriotic American--liberal, conservative, or otherwise--knows that.

Special Prosecutor's Probe Centers on Rove, Memo, Phone Calls

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The fate of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove may rest with the old Watergate question: What did he know and when did he know it?

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leaking of a Central Intelligence Agency agent's name is now focused on how Rove, one of President George W. Bush's closest advisers, and other administration officials dealt with a key fact in an equally key memo.

The memo, prepared by the State Department on July 7, 2003, informed top administration officials that the wife of ex-diplomat and Bush critic Joseph Wilson was a CIA agent. Seven days later, Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was publicly identified as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

On the same day the memo was prepared, White House phone logs show Novak placed a call to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, according to lawyers familiar with the case and a witness who has testified before the grand jury. Those people say it is not clear whether Fleischer returned the call, and Fleischer has refused to comment.

The Novak call may loom large in the investigation because Fleischer was among a group of administration officials who left Washington later that day on a presidential trip to Africa. On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who was also on the trip.

In addition, on July 8, 2003, the day after the memo was sent, Novak discussed Wilson and his wife with Rove, who had remained in Washington, according to the New York Times.

The Times quoted an attorney familiar with Fitzgerald's probe as saying that when Novak mentioned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, Rove said, ``Yeah, I've heard that too.''

Mission to Niger

Three days after that, on July 11, Rove also discussed Wilson and his wife with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, Cooper said yesterday. Rove told the reporter that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and had a hand in having Wilson sent to Niger in 2002 to check out reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium for a nuclear weapons program, Cooper said during an appearance on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' program.

Cooper, who recently testified before the grand jury after a long legal battle to keep his sources secret, said Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, told him the same thing. Cooper said neither Rove nor Libby mentioned Wilson's wife by name.

Bush, in Sept. 30, 2003, comments to reporters, said that ``if somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.'' His remarks echoed those of his spokesman, Scott McClellan, who had said the day before, ``If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.''

On June 10, 2004, Bush answered ``Yes'' when asked whether he whether he would fire anyone who leaked Plame's name.

Not by Name

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has said that Rove mentioned to Cooper that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent but did not identify her by name.

In Time's July 18 edition, Cooper writes that Rove ended their brief telephone conversation by saying, ``I've already said too much.'' Cooper added that he was unsure whether that indicated Rove knew he had revealed information he should not have mentioned, or whether Rove was simply indicating he was pressed for time and had to end the call.

As a result of these facts, the State Department memo has become a central element in Fitzgerald's investigation of how Plame came to be publicly identified as a CIA agent and whether that violated a 1982 law making it a federal crime to divulge the identity of a covert intelligence operative.

The memo was prepared by the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the request of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to current and former government officials familiar with Powell's request.

Wilson's Article

Powell asked for it on July 6, 2003, the same day Wilson published an opinion article in the New York Times revealing his trip to Niger and his conclusion that there was no evidence to support the claim that Hussein was seeking uranium there. Wilson went on to accuse the Bush administration of ignoring his findings and similar intelligence to make a case for war in Iraq.

The current and former government officials say that the report reached Powell sometime on July 7. It said Wilson had been approved for the Niger trip by mid-level CIA officials on the recommendation of his wife, a counter-proliferation expert at the spy agency.

A key question will be which officials received the report and when. The special prosecutor has subpoenaed telephone and fax records from Air Force One and the White House.

Inner Circle

Fleischer, who saw the July 7 memo, wasn't part of Bush's inner circle during his tenure as press secretary, while Rove was at the heart of it. Given those facts, it seems highly doubtful that Fleischer would have acted on the information in the memo without the knowledge or approval of Rove and other top-level White House officials.

The July 7 memo was largely a reproduction of an earlier State Department report prepared around June 12. Another key question that Fitzgerald is interested in, according to the grand jury witness and the lawyers familiar with the case, is whether Rove or Libby learned of this earlier report and, if so, shared its content with reporters.

Rove's defenders say the recent revelations in the case -- some of which have emanated from his camp -- serve to exonerate rather than implicate him.

They say those revelations show that Rove was not the original source of Plame's identity for either Novak or Cooper. They note that the 1982 law sets a high bar for prosecution: Fitzgerald would have to prove that the person outing Plame did so knowingly and in awareness that the government was trying to conceal her identity.

Five-Year Window

In addition, the law only makes it illegal to divulge the identity of an agent who worked overseas within the past five years; Plame has lived in the U.S. since 1997.

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman said yesterday on ``Meet the Press'' that recent newspaper stories ``have the effect of exonerating and vindicating Mr. Rove, not implicating him. That information says Karl Rove was not Bob Novak's source, that Novak told Rove, not the other way around, and it says that Karl warned Matt Cooper about Joe Wilson.''

Others see difficulties in these arguments. They note the inherent contradiction between Rove's testimony to the grand jury that he learned Plame's name from Novak and his statement to Novak during the July 8 phone call that ``I've heard that, too.''

Potential Problem

This points toward a potential problem for Rove in the direction of Fitzgerald's investigation. It now has expanded beyond its original mission -- to determine if the 1982 law was violated -- to encompass whether any White House officials, including Rove and Fleischer, have testified falsely about the case or obstructed justice by trying to cover up their involvement in the leak, according to people familiar with the case who cite a pattern of questioning by Fitzgerald.

In addition, there is strong reason to believe that Fitzgerald is hunting big game, according to several legal experts. They say that is demonstrated by the fact that he has done something that no federal prosecutor has done in 30 years: send a reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, to jail for refusing to divulge with whom she spoke about the Wilson-Plame case.

``You wouldn't expect him to go to these lengths unless he thought he had something serious to look at,'' said Randall Eliason, the former chief of the public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington. ``You don't compel reporters to testify or jail reporters unless you have a pretty good reason.''

Tatel's Opinion

That ``pretty good reason'' was highlighted by U.S. Appellate Judge David Tatel in his Feb. 15 opinion concurring that Miller and Cooper must testify in the Plame case.

Tatel noted that the vast majority of the states, as well as the Justice Department, ``would require us to protect reporters' sources as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less harmful or more newsworthy.''

However, he added, ``just as attorney-client communications made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime serve no public interest and receive no privilege, neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate.''

Top Aides Reportedly Set Sights on Wilson

Rove and Cheney chief of staff were intent on discrediting CIA agent's husband, prosecutors have been told.

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writers

07/18/05 "Los Angeles Times" - - WASHINGTON — Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said.

The disclosures about the officials' roles illustrate White House concern about Wilson's July 6, 2003, article, which challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear materials. Wilson's article appeared as Rove and other Bush aides were preparing the 2004 reelection campaign strategy, which was built largely around the president's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

It is not surprising that White House officials would be upset by an attack like Wilson's or seek to respond aggressively. But special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is examining whether they or others crossed the legal line by improperly disclosing classified information, or whether they perjured themselves in testifying later about their actions. Both Rove and Libby have testified.

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.

Wilson, a career Foreign Service officer who served in Iraq and several African nations, was sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq had attempted to purchase nuclear materials from Niger. His New York Times article declaring that he had found no credible evidence of such an attempt despite the administration's continued claims that there had been one unleashed charges from White House officials that he was a partisan.

White House officials contended that he had wrongly indicated that he was sent on his mission by Cheney. In fact, Wilson had said in the article that the trip was inspired by questions raised by Cheney's office.

Eight days after Wilson's article was published, a syndicated column by Robert Novak questioned the credibility of Wilson's trip, suggesting that it had been arranged with the help of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, at the CIA.

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has cited recent news reports that Rove heard about Wilson's wife from reporters and that he was not an original source. Those reports said that Rove in fact sought to dissuade Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper — one of the journalists with whom he discussed Wilson's wife — from writing a piece about Wilson's charge.

"Based on the information that has come out over the last several days, the one thing that's absolutely clear is that Karl was not the source for the leak and there's no basis for any additional speculation," Luskin said.

A White House spokesman, David Almacy, declined to comment Sunday. "This is an ongoing investigation, and we will be happy to talk about this once it is completed, but not until then," he said.

Prosecutors' intense questioning of witnesses about Rove and Libby casts doubt on assertions that the president's longtime political guru was not — at least at some point — in Fitzgerald's sights.

Fitzgerald is expected to conclude his investigation this year with a detailed report.

Bush said he would fire anyone responsible for any illegal leaks. Democrats have called on Bush to fire Rove, now a deputy White House chief of staff, or at least to revoke Rove's security clearance.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Rove and the White House deserved credit for cooperating with Fitzgerald. "Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate" was the policy, said Mehlman, who once was Rove's deputy at the White House.

Cooper, who testified last week before Fitzgerald's grand jury concerning his conversations with White House officials about Wilson, confirmed Sunday that prosecutors showed intense interest in the roles played by Rove and Libby in discussing Wilson's wife.

In an article in the latest issue of Time magazine titled "What I Told the Grand Jury," Cooper writes that the grand jurors investigated his interactions with Rove in "microscopic, excruciating detail."

He says he called Rove after Wilson's article appeared and asked about it. "I recall saying something like, 'I'm writing about Wilson,' before he interjected," Cooper writes. " 'Don't get too far out on Wilson,' he told me."

Cooper writes that his first knowledge of Wilson's wife came when Rove disclosed on "deep background" that she worked for the CIA, but that he did not learn her name until he read it in Novak's column several days later.

Novak was the first journalist to identify Plame by name, along with her role as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He wrote that two senior administration officials told him Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger.

"As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which," Cooper writes. "Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the 'agency' — by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on 'WMD' (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction)issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife."

In his article, Cooper also recalls that Rove ended their conversation with a cryptic caution: "I've already said too much."

"This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else," Cooper writes.

As for Libby, Cooper writes that he told investigators in 2004 about a conversation in which the Cheney advisor seemed to confirm the identity of Wilson's wife. But the conversation was "on background." It is not clear from Cooper's account whether Libby's response was based on original information or gossip he picked up from other journalists.

"On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger," Cooper writes. "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too,' or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name."

Based on what he was asked in the grand jury, Cooper speculates in his personal account that Fitzgerald might be pursuing Rove — or, perhaps just as likely, the person or document that provided the information to Rove and other administration officials.

Fitzgerald, Cooper writes, "asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.)"

The intensity of Fitzgerald's inquiry has picked up in recent weeks, particularly since Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller lost a court battle over shielding confidential sources. Cooper agreed to testify, but Miller refused to reveal her source and has been jailed for contempt of court.

Activities aboard Air Force One are also of interest to prosecutors — including the possible distribution of a State Department memo that mentioned Wilson's wife. Prosecutors are seeking to find out whether anyone who saw the memo learned Plame's identity and passed the information to journalists. Telephone logs from the presidential aircraft have been subpoenaed. Among those aboard was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who has testified.

One of the sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday that prosecutors had obtained a White House call sheet showing that Novak left a message for Fleischer the day after Wilson's op-ed article appeared and the day Fleischer left with the president for Africa. Fleischer declined to comment for this article but has flatly denied being the source of the leak.

Wilson said in an interview Saturday he had known that Novak was interested in him a week or so before the column appeared. He said a friend who saw Novak on the street reported that Novak told him, "Wilson is an asshole and his wife works for the CIA."

As for the intensity of White House interest in him after the column, Wilson said: "I am sorry that 6,900 American soldiers have been injured and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and injured all because these guys sent us to war under false pretenses."

Wilson speculated in a book he wrote last year that it was Libby who was "responsible for exposing my wife's identity." Libby has indicated to investigators that he learned the identity of Plame from journalists.

Rove has told investigators the same, although a person familiar with his testimony said that the possibility that Rove learned the information from the journalists indirectly — possibly even through Libby — could not be ruled out. The person said Rove simply had no firm recollection.

There have been other indications of a concerted White House action against Wilson. Two days before Novak's column, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus was told by an "administration official" that the White House was not putting much stock in the Wilson trip to Africa because it was "set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction," according to an account of the conversation Pincus wrote for this summer's Nieman Reports, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Pincus discussed the substance of the conversation with prosecutor Fitzgerald last fall under an arrangement where Pincus did not have to tell Fitzgerald who the administration source was.

And Fleischer also seemed attuned to a strategy of discrediting Wilson. Two days before Novak revealed Plame's identity, Fleischer questioned the former envoy's findings in remarks to reporters during a trip with Bush in Africa.

The transcript of that press gaggle (the term for an informal question-and-answer between reporters and the White House spokesman), which took place in the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, has been requested by the prosecutors.

Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt contributed to this report.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Poll: Many Doubt White House Cooperation in CIA Leak Probe

Most Say Rove Should Lose Job if He Leaked Classified Information
Analysis by GARY LANGER
Jul. 18, 2005 - Just a quarter of Americans think the White House is fully cooperating in the federal investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, a number that's declined sharply since the investigation began. And three-quarters say that if presidential adviser Karl Rove was responsible for leaking classified information, it should cost him his job.

Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll.

This view is highly partisan; barely over a tenth of Democrats and just a quarter of independents think the White House is fully cooperating. That grows to 47 percent of Republicans -- much higher, but still under half in the president's own party. And doubt about the administration's cooperation has grown as much among Republicans -- by 22 points since September 2003 -- as it has among others.

There's less division on consequences: 75 percent say Rove should lose his job if the investigation finds he leaked classified information. That includes sizable majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats alike -- 71, 74 and 83 percent, respectively.

At the same time, in September 2003 more Americans -- 91 percent -- said someone who leaked classified information should be fired. The question at that time did not identify Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and one of George W. Bush's closest advisers, as the possible source of the information. Should Karl Rove Be Fired If He Leaked Classified Information?
Yes No
All 75% 15%
Republicans 71 17
Independents 74 17
Democrats 83 12


A Time magazine reporter, Matthew Cooper, said this weekend that Rove told him that the wife of a former ambassador was a CIA officer, without giving her name. Cooper testified last week before the grand jury investigating the matter, saying his source had released him to do so.

Bush today appeared to raise the bar on a dismissable offense, saying he'd fire anyone who committed a crime. Previously the administration said anyone who'd disclosed the CIA agent's identify would be removed, without specifying a criminal act.


Miller
This poll finds majority support for another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, who's gone to jail rather than disclose her confidential source in the case. Sixty percent say she's done the right thing, ranging from 49 percent of Republicans to about two-thirds of Democrats and independents.

That view comports with an ABC News/Washington Post poll in May that found majority support for the use of confidential sources by news reporters -- 53 percent in general, rising to 65 percent if it's the only way to get an important story.


Serious
The leak investigation is seen as a meaningful issue: About three-quarters call it a serious matter, and just over four in 10 see it as "very" serious. These are down slightly, however, by five and six points respectively, from their level in September 2003.

Fifty-three percent are following the issue closely -- a fairly broad level of attention. Those paying close attention (who include about as many Republicans as Democrats) are more likely than others to call it very serious, to say the White House is not cooperating, to say Rove should be fired if he leaked, and to say Miller is doing the right thing.


Methodology
This ABC News poll was conducted by telephone July 13-17, 2005, among a random national sample of 1,008 adults. The results have a three-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa.


Click here for PDF version with full questionnaire and results.


Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

White House Denials in CIA Leak Probe

Associated Press

Previous denials by White House spokesman Scott McClellan that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and presidential political adviser Karl Rove were involved in leaking the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame. Reporters posed the questions during White House briefings.

Oct. 7, 2003

Q. Scott, you have said that you personally went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliott Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that? And can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked?

McClellan: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like this there are a lot of rumors and innuendo. There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They are good individuals. They are important members of our White House team. And that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

___

Oct. 10, 2003

Q. Yes, Scott. Earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliott Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak.

I wonder if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

McClellan: Those individuals — I talked — I spoke with those individuals, as I've pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Q. And none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

McClellan: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

Q. Scott, to follow up?

McClellan: Yeah, go ahead, Ed.

Q. Not involved in what?

McClellan: The leaking of classified information.

Q. Did you undertake that on your own volition, or were you instructed to go to these _

McClellan: I spoke to those individuals myself.

___

July 17, 2005

Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper's comments on NBC's "Meet the Press" about his conversation with Libby:

Cooper: On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that, too' or words to that effect.

Q. Did you interpret that as a confirmation?

Cooper: I did, yes.

Q. Did Mr. Libby say at any time that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?

Cooper: No, he didn't say that.

Q. But you said it to him?

Cooper: I said that she was involved in sending him, yes.

Q. And that she worked for the CIA?

Cooper: I believe so.

Q. The piece that you finally ran in Time magazine on July 17th, it says, "And some government officials have noted to Time in interviews as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched to Niger."

Some government officials — that is Rove and Libby?

Cooper: Yes, those were among the sources for that, yes.

Bush qualifies pledge to fire CIA leaker

By Patricia Wilson / Reuters

President Bush on Monday shifted from a broad pledge to fire whoever leaked a covert CIA agent's identity, by vowing to dismiss any person found in federal probe to have committed a crime.
Bush, whose top political adviser Karl Rove has been caught up in the controversy, told reporters he did not know all the facts and urged them to wait until the inquiry was complete before "you jump to conclusions."
"I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts, and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration," Bush said at a news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Asked on June 10, 2004, whether he stood by his earlier pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked the officer's name, Bush replied: "Yes." On Monday, he added the qualifier that it would have to be shown that a crime was committed.
The Democratic Party accused Bush of lowering the "ethics bar" in his new comments.
Bush, saying there was a "serious ongoing" inquiry under way into who revealed the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, refused as he did last week to comment on specifics of the case.
"I want to know all the facts," he said. "The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who is spending time investigating it."
It is against the law for a government official to knowingly expose a covert CIA agent.
Rove has been named by a Time magazine reporter as one of the sources who identified the agent to the media, before she was named in a newspaper column in July 2003.
Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said his client "has been repeatedly assured he is not a target of the investigation" by a special prosecutor into the leak.
The Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, said Rove was the first person to tell him that the agent, who is married to a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, worked for the CIA.
Cooper said he told a grand jury last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the "agency," or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the call by saying "I've already said too much."
He said Rove did not disclose the woman's name, but told him information would be declassified that would cast doubt on the credibility of her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, who had charged the Bush administration with exaggerating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs in making its case for war.
Wilson accuses the Bush administration of leaking his wife's name in retribution.
Prominent Democrats have called on Bush to fire Rove, the architect of his two presidential election victories and now his deputy chief of staff, or block his access to classified information.
Some Republicans have sprung to Rove's defense, saying he did not break any laws because he did not reveal her name and may not have known she had undercover status.
"Faced with a question about whether or not he will keep his promise to fire those involved in leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent while we are at war, President Bush backed away from his initial pledge and lowered the ethics bar," Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said.
"Bush should be prepared to keep his word, and to enforce a high standard of ethics in the White House as he promised from the beginning of his administration."
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited

Bush: CIA leaker would be fired if crime committed

Reuters

President Bush said on Monday anyone in his administration who was found to have committed a crime in a federal investigation of the leak of a covert CIA agent's name would be fired.

Bush, whose top political adviser Karl Rove has been caught up in the investigation, told reporters he did not know all the facts and urged them to wait until the inquiry was complete before "you jump to conclusions."

"I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration," Bush said at a news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Bush: Any Criminals in Leak to Be Fired

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer


President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA-leak case, that person will "no longer work in my administration." At the same time, Bush yet again sidestepped a question on the role of his top political adviser, Karl Rove, in the matter.

"We have a serious ongoing investigation here and it's being played out in the press," Bush said at an East Room news conference.

Bush, appearing at a news conference with visiting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, spoke a day after Time magazine's Matthew Cooper said that a 2003 phone call with Rove was the first he heard about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently working for the CIA.

Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. On Monday, however, he added the qualifier that it would have be shown that a crime was committed.

Asked at a June 10, 2004 news conference if he stood by his pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's name, Bush answered, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. attorney to find the facts."

A tempest has swirled around the leak of the CIA agent's name, apparently by Bush administration officials, in July 2003.

Some Democrats have called for Rove, whose title is deputy chief of staff, to be fired. They have suggested that he violated a 1982 federal law that prohibits the deliberate exposure of the name of a CIA agent.

"It's best people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts," Bush said Monday. "I would like this to end as quickly as possible. If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

It was the second time that Bush, when asked specifically about Rove's involvement in the matter, passed up an opportunity to come to his adviser's defense.

Bush has appeared with Rove at his side several times over the past week, however. And White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said Rove — as well anyone who works now at the White House — continues to have the president's confidence.

The president did not respond directly to a reporter's question on whether he disapproved of Rove's telling a reporter that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues.

Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the agency. But he has insisted through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name, nor did he intend to "out" her.




Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press

Rove on the Ropes

Sure, let’s gloat: The president’s guru has been flirting with this kind of scandal for years. It’s time the bill came due.

By Joe Conason
Issue Date: 08.01.05

From the very beginning, the white house propaganda assault against former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, a longtime officer in the CIA, looked like the work of Karl Rove. The malicious leaks against the Wilsons -- which have led to the appointment of a special prosecutor and the imprisonment of a New York Times reporter -- displayed the style Rove has developed ever since his youthful apprenticeship with the Nixon gang: false information, whispered and broadcast, designed to damage reputations of “enemies” and to divert attention from substance, to further partisan advantage and to exact personal vengeance.

Throughout his adult life, the president’s chief political adviser and deputy chief of staff has escaped responsibility for the ugly and blatant tactics that have marked his career in campaigns and in public office. Awful things have happened to people foolish or unfortunate enough to fall within the shadow of his wrath, from the Alabama judge whose life was ruined by whispers of pedophilia to Senator John McCain, whose wife and child were smeared by anonymous calls during the South Carolina primary in 2000, to former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, whose decades of national service were erased by a sudden wave of baseless vilification -- and, of course, to Vietnam War hero John Kerry, who found his service record dirtied up just enough to neutralize the Democrat’s advantage as a combat veteran over George W. Bush during last year’s presidential election.

The man whom the president calls “Turd Blossom” and “Boy Genius” is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability -- until now…
Whether Rove faces legal consequences for his role here will hinge on whether any official, including Rove, violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which is carefully drawn to exclude prosecution of unintentional and innocent disclosures of an agent’s identity -- or whether any official lied or obstructed justice in the course of this investigation.

On the legal question, Rove deserves the presumption of innocence as much as any American. But he must also be judged according to a broader standard based on the values that Bush once promised would be paramount in this presidency: honor, integrity, and character. To understand how Rove smudged those values, it is necessary to review the essential facts of the case, and to clear away the disinformation broadcast by the White House and its media allies over the past two years.

The Facts
On July 10, Newsweek reported the contents of an e-mail turned over to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald by Time magazine, following a long legal battle over the testimony and notes of Time White House correspondent Matthew Cooper. That e-mail, sent by Cooper to bureau chief Michael Duffy on July 11, 2003, described Cooper’s brief “double super secret background” conversation with Rove about the Wilsons. Rove had told him that neither CIA Director George Tenet nor Vice President Dick Cheney had sent the former ambassador to the West African nation of Niger, where he sought information on supposed uranium sales to Iraq. Instead “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip.” Cooper’s e-mail went on to say “not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. [Rove] implied strongly there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... .” Thus did two years of White House denials of any role in the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity suddenly become defunct.

The matter under investigation by Fitzgerald can be traced back to the spring and summer of 2003. That was when Joseph Wilson decided that he could no longer keep quiet about the belligerent misinformation emanating from the Bush White House to justify the war against Iraq.

More than a year earlier, Wilson had traveled to Niamey, Niger’s capital, at the request of the CIA. The objective of his unpaid mission was to assess whether Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had secretly attempted to buy partially enriched uranium from the Nigerians in defiance of United Nations resolutions. If the intelligence suggesting such a deal turned out to be true, the argument for military action against a potential nuclear threat from Baghdad would be bolstered.

In the course of a long diplomatic career, Wilson had served as a junior officer in Niamey; as U.S. ambassador to Gabon, another uranium-producing country; and as senior officer for African affairs at the National Security Council. He had also weathered a harsh, dangerous posting in Baghdad as deputy chief of mission prior to the Gulf War in 1990, where his outstanding bravery led President George Bush Senior to praise him as a hero.

That résumé -- plus his personal familiarity with the political and diplomatic elite in Niger -- certainly qualified Wilson to inquire into allegations about that country’s uranium trafficking with Iraq. At the request of midlevel CIA officials in the Directorate of Operations, he went to Niger for eight days without compensation beyond his expenses. He reported back to the agency that he had found no significant evidence of any such deal with Iraq.

Ten months later, in his State of the Union address, President Bush alluded to Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Africa as evidence of the mounting threat from Baghdad. Wilson listened to the president in disbelief; he even wrote in his autobiography, The Politics of Truth, that perhaps the president had been referring to “an African country other than Niger,” so at odds was the assertion with what Wilson found. Over the next few months, the former ambassador quietly tried to urge the White House to end the growing controversy over the false “16 words” by taking responsibility.

When those quiet efforts failed, Wilson wrote an op-ed article for the July 6, 2003, edition of The New York Times, recounting his mission to Niger, headlined “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” Wilson’s sharp debunking of the Niger fabrication caused severe embarrassment to the president, then–National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and other White House officials responsible for highlighting the bogus Niger allegation -- which turned out to be based on documents forged in Italy.

Eight days later, syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported that “senior administration officials” had denigrated Wilson and revealed that “his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” Novak quoted those officials as saying that Wilson’s wife “suggested sending him to Niger to investigate … .” Time magazine published a similar report online on July 17 under Cooper’s byline.
The Spin
Ever since the story broke, and certainly since the investigation was launched, the White House and its defenders have turned to methods that have become all too familiar: attack the critics, make it seem as if they have hidden agendas and secret motives, and if their loyalty to flag and country can be impugned, all the better.

The first tack was to discredit the Wilsons. By inventing a phony suspicion of “nepotism” on their part, the leakers sought to divert attention away from the actual issues of distorted intelligence, to discredit a critic with professional stature and inside knowledge, to intimidate present and former government officials who might consider blowing the whistle, and -- most crucially -- to give war a chance, evidence or not.

But, in fact, the former ambassador’s trip was no “boondoggle” authorized by his wife. Valerie Plame Wilson lacked the authority to send her husband to Niger, and he profited in no way from his unpaid, weeklong sojourn in one of the poorest desert countries on earth, thousands of miles from his wife and 2-year-old twins. She did not even need to suggest his name to her colleagues or superiors because he had completed a similar mission for the agency four years earlier. But there would have been nothing wrong with such a suggestion anyway. The CIA officers who sent Joseph Wilson to Niger knew he was more than qualified to undertake that task.

Plame, for her part, had worked undercover in Europe and the United States to prevent weapons proliferation, earning professional accolades and promotions. Prior to the leak, her closest friends and neighbors believed that she was an “energy analyst” for a fictional company called Brewster-Jennings Associates.

By disclosing her actual job, Novak ended her career -- and potentially endangered her and every contact known to have done business with her. The uproar over her “outing” led to public and editorial demands for an investigation to discover which “senior administration officials” were responsible for this outrageous and arguably illegal act. Rove was an obvious suspect. For one thing, Rove and Novak had a history: Rove was fired from George Bush Senior’s 1992 re-election campaign for supposedly leaking a story about a close Bush Senior confidant -- to Novak (Rove and Novak deny it). Such suspicions reflected more than mere speculation. Shortly after the Novak column appeared, Rove had reportedly called Hardball host Chris Matthews with the message “Wilson’s wife is fair game.” The stunned Matthews, who has since refused to comment on the incident, apparently had the decency to call Wilson and inform him of Rove’s ominous remark.

Plame was indeed “fair game,” according to the Republican pundits and politicians who have participated in the years-long assault on the Wilsons, because she wasn’t truly an undercover agent. Various writers, publications, and Web sites have claimed, without proof, that her identity was well-known. Her regular presence at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, they have argued, indicates that she wasn’t undercover. The CIA differed with those amateur assessments, as the agency made clear in statements to the press as well as in its official letter seeking a probe of the leak, requesting “an investigation into the disclosure earlier that year of the identity of an employee operating under cover.”

Her undercover status was again confirmed during the struggle over Fitzgerald’s subpoenas to Cooper and Judith Miller of The New York Times. When a three-judge appellate panel upheld those subpoenas and rejected arguments that the reporters were entitled to protect their sources, they noted that Fitzgerald had provided voluminous -- but still secret -- grand-jury evidence that he was seeking to prosecute a serious crime against national security. An unhindered prosecution, wrote Circuit Judge David Tatel, “appears essential to remedying a serious breach of public trust.” That could not be true unless the prosecutor believes and can prove that Plame was undercover -- and that leaking her identity jeopardized national-security sources and methods.

Another tack has been to go after Fitzgerald. He took over the case at the end of 2003, after questions arose about long-standing political connections between Rove and then–Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft recused himself, and Deputy Attorney General James Comey named Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for northern Illinois and a prosecutor with a reputation as tough, straight, and nonpartisan.

The Washington Times editorialized recently that Fitzgerald has spent $2 million and “can’t supply value for the government’s money.” But in truth, having cheered on Kenneth Starr for five years in his rambling, highly partisan (and $70 million) Whitewater investigation, the right has no credible complaint against Fitzgerald. He is a Bush appointee, chosen to investigate this case by another Bush appointee, at the behest of a Bush-appointed attorney general and with the acquiescence of the president himself -- who has declared, sincerely or not, his desire to “get to the bottom” of this matter, according to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Bearing those credentials, Fitzgerald has tried to uncover the leakers’ identity for two years, enduring jeers from The Wall Street Journal editorial page and the rest of the Republican noise machine. Unlike Starr, his office hasn’t leaked, and the targets of his investigation remain unknown.

Decision Time
It is certainly possible that Karl Rove committed no crime and that he is not, as his attorney insists, a “target” of Fitzgerald’s investigation. He may have spoken truthfully during his three reported appearances before the grand jury and in his earlier interviews with the FBI. The prosecutor could be seeking instead to indict the person or persons who may have violated the intelligence-identities law by revealing Plame’s identity to Rove and others in the White House -- and to squeeze Rove into providing names, dates, and details of the plot against the Wilsons.

Yet whether he trespassed a single narrowly drawn statute or not, he deserves to be held accountable for his irresponsible and cowardly attack on a woman who has devoted her life to her country, exemplifying the patriotism he and the president so often extol for their own partisan purposes. Rove may never be indicted, but he certainly revealed Plame’s identity -- and encouraged the vile campaign against her and her husband.

As for Bush, he must be held responsible for the misconduct of his staff, even (or perhaps especially) the cherished “Boy Wonder” who propelled him into the Oval Office. In an unrehearsed moment during the early days of the scandal, Bush talked about how difficult it might be to locate the “evildoers” in this case.

“I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official,” he said on October 7, 2003. “Now, this is a large administration, and there’s a lot of senior officials. I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth. That’s why I’ve instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators -- full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we’ll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we’ll find out.”

At a press conference on June 10, 2004, a reporter asked Bush two questions about the case: “Do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent’s name? … And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?” The president replied: “Yes. And that’s up to [Fitzgerald] to find the facts.”

Contrary to expectations, Fitzgerald is finding those facts, and the day is approaching when Bush must confront their implications -- or turn away, and finally prove that his rhetoric of honor and integrity has no meaning. No doubt he has been reminded more than once of what his father said in April 1999, when the former president and ex-CIA director attended a ceremony dedicating the agency’s headquarters in his name:

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narco-trafficking, people killing each other, fundamentalists killing each other in the name of God … . As our analysts know, as our collectors of intelligence know, these are our enemies. To combat them we need more intelligence, not less. We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.

Even though I’m a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.

Joe Conason is the Prospect’s investigative editor.
Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect

Leak Probe Was Told of White House Interest in Wilson

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten / Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether White House officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.

While lower-level White House staff members typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said.

The disclosures about the officials' roles illustrate the concern in the White House following the July 6, 2003, publication of Wilson's article, which challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear materials. Wilson's article appeared as Rove and other Bush aides were preparing the 2004 re-election campaign strategy, which was built largely around the president's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

It is not surprising that White House officials would be upset by an attack like Wilson's or seek to respond aggressively. But special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is examining whether they or others crossed the legal line by improperly disclosing classified information or perjured themselves in testifying later about their actions. Both Rove and Libby have testified.

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identify of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the naming of Wilson's wife and suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.

Wilson, a career Foreign Service officer who served in Iraq and several African nations, had been sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq had attempted to purchase nuclear materials from the African country of Niger. His New York Times article, which declared he had found no credible evidence of such an attempt -- despite the administration's continued claims to the contrary -- unleashed charges from White House officials and Republicans that he was a partisan. White House officials contended that he had wrongly indicated that he was sent on his mission by Cheney. In fact, Wilson had said in the article only that the trip was inspired by questions raised by Cheney's office.

Eight days after Wilson's article was published, a syndicated column by Robert Novak questioned the credibility of Wilson's trip, suggesting that it had been arranged with the help of his wife, Valerie Plame, at the CIA.

Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, cited news reports in recent days noting that Rove heard about Wilson's wife from reporters and that he was not an original source. Those reports said that Rove, in fact, sought to dissuade Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper -- one of the journalists with whom he discussed Wilson's wife -- from writing a piece about Wilson.

"Based on the information that has come out over the last several days, the one thing that's absolutely clear is that Karl was not the source for the leak, and there's no basis for any additional speculation," Luskin said.

A White House spokesman, David Almacy, declined on Sunday to comment. "This is an ongoing investigation, and we will be happy to talk about this once it is completed, but not until then," he said.

The disclosure of prosecutors' intense questioning of witnesses about Rove and Libby casts doubt on assertions that the president's longtime political guru was not in Fitzgerald's sights, at least at some point.

Fitzgerald is expected to conclude his inquiry this year with a detailed report.

Bush has said he would fire whoever was responsible for the leak. Democrats have called on Bush to fire Rove, now a deputy White House chief of staff, or at least revoke his security clearance.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," said Sunday that Rove and the White House deserve credit for cooperating with Fitzgerald. "Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate" was the policy, said Mehlman, who once worked as Rove's deputy at the White House.

Cooper, who testified last week before Fitzgerald's grand jury concerning his conversations with White House officials about Wilson, confirmed Sunday that prosecutors showed intense interest in the roles played by Rove and Libby in discussing Wilson's wife.

In an article for this week's issue of Time entitled "What I Told the Grand Jury," Cooper wrote that the grand jurors probed his interactions with Rove in "microscopic, excruciating detail."

He said he called Rove after Wilson's article appeared and asked about it. "I recall saying something like, `I'm writing about Wilson,' before he interjected," Cooper wrote. " `Don't get too far out on Wilson,' he told me."

Cooper wrote that his first knowledge of Wilson's wife came when Rove disclosed on "deep background" that she worked for the CIA, but that he did not learn her name until he read it in Novak's column several days later.

Novak was the first journalist to identify Plame by name, along with her role as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," citing two senior administration officials as his sources for that information.

"As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which," Cooper wrote. "Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the `agency' -- by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on `WMD' (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife."

Cooper also recalled in his article that Rove ended their conversation with a cryptic caution: "I've already said too much."

"This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else," Cooper wrote.

As for Libby, Cooper wrote that he told investigators in 2004 about a conversation in which the Cheney adviser seemed to confirm the identity of Wilson's wife. But the conversation was "on background." It is not clear from Cooper's account that Libby's response was based on original information or gossip he picked up from other journalists.

"On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger," Cooper wrote. "Libby replied, `Yeah, I've heard that too,' or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name. ..."

Based on the questions he was asked, Cooper speculated in his personal account that Fitzgerald might be pursuing Rove -- or, perhaps just as likely, the person or document that passed the information to Rove and other administration officials.

Fitzgerald, Cooper wrote, "asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.)"

The intensity of Fitzgerald's probe has picked up in recent weeks, particularly after Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller lost a court battle over shielding confidential sources. Cooper agreed to testify, but Miller refused to reveal her source and was sent to jail for contempt of court.

Activities aboard Air Force One are also of interest to prosecutors -- including the possible distribution of a State Department memo that mentioned Wilson's wife. Prosecutors are seeking to find out whether anyone who saw the memo learned Plame's identity and passed the information to journalists. Telephone logs from the presidential aircraft have been subpoenaed; among those aboard was former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who has testified before the grand jury.

The source familiar with the investigation said Saturday that prosecutors had obtained a White House call sheet showing that Novak left a message for Fleischer on the afternoon of July 7, 2003, the day after Wilson's op-ed article appeared and the day that Fleischer left with the president for Africa. Fleischer declined to comment for this article, but has flatly denied that he was the source of the leak.

Wilson said in an interview Saturday that he had known that Novak was interested in him a week or so before the column appeared. He said that a friend who saw Novak on the street reported that Novak told him, "Wilson is an (expletive) and his wife works for the CIA."

As for the intensity of White House interest in him after the column, Wilson said: "I am sorry that 6,900 American soldiers have been injured and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and injured all because these guys sent us to war under false pretenses."

Wilson speculated in a book he wrote last year that it was Libby who was "responsible for exposing my wife's identity." Libby has indicated to investigators that he learned the identity of Plame from journalists.

Rove has told investigators the same, although a person familiar with his testimony said that it cannot be ruled out that Rove may have learned the information from the journalists indirectly, possibly even through Libby. The person said that Rove simply had no firm recollection of the events.

There have been other indications of a concerted White House action against the former envoy. Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus has said that two days before Novak's column, he was told by an "administration official" that the White House was not putting much stock in the Wilson trip to Africa because it was "set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction," according to an account of the conversation Pincus wrote for the Summer 2005 issue of Nieman Reports, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Pincus discussed the substance of the conversation with Fitzgerald last fall under an arrangement where he was not required to reveal the source's identity.

And Fleischer also seemed attuned to a strategy of discrediting Wilson, questioning his findings in response to queries from reporters while accompanying Bush on the Africa trip days before Novak published Plame's identity.

The transcript of that press "gaggle," the term for an informal question-and-answer between reporters and the White House spokesman which in this case took place in the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, has been requested by the prosecutors.

Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt contributed to this report.

White House Mum on Disclosure in CIA Leak

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer


The White House is maintaining silence over the leak of a CIA officer's identity despite a journalist's disclosure that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was a source for a story about the intelligence agent.

A role for Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby is among details revealed Sunday by Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, who wrote a first-person account in this week's issue.

Recounting a July 11, 2003, conversation with senior Bush political adviser Karl Rove, Cooper recalled that Rove told him, "I've already said too much" after revealing that the wife of administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently worked at the CIA.

Cooper speculated that Rove could have been "worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

"I don't know, but that signoff has been in my memory for two years," Cooper wrote.

Until it refused to issue more denials last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that Libby and Rove had no connection to the leak of the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

On Sunday, Bush administration spokesman David Almacy declined to comment about Libby, citing an independent counsel's ongoing investigation of the case.

Cooper said the 2003 phone call with Rove was the first time he had heard anything about Wilson's wife.

He said he had a subsequent conversation about Wilson and his wife with Libby.

According to Cooper, "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too' or words to that effect" when Cooper asked if Libby had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to the African nation of Niger to investigate the possible sale of uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons.

As part of Patrick Fitzgerald's criminal probe of the identity leak, Cooper testified about his conversation with Libby in a deposition at his lawyer's office in August 2004. Libby, as Rove did this month, provided a specific waiver of confidentiality. In a grand jury appearance last Wednesday, Cooper gave his account of what Rove told him.

Cooper also said there may have been other government officials who were sources for his article. Time posted "A War on Wilson?" on its Web site on July 17, 2003.

In an effort to quell a chorus of calls to fire Rove, Republicans said Sunday that he first learned about Plame's identity from the news media.

"The information exonerates and vindicates, it does not implicate" Rove, Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Folks involved in this, frankly, owe Karl Rove an apology."

There were no takers.

The White House's assurance in 2003 that Rove was not involved in the leak of the CIA officer's identity "was a lie" and Rove's credibility "is in shreds," said John Podesta, who was chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

It is unclear whether a journalist first revealed the information to Rove, as Mehlman said.

A lawyer familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony said Rove learned about the CIA officer either from the media or from someone in government who said the information came from a journalist. The lawyer spoke on condition of anonymity because the federal investigation is continuing.

Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," Wilson said, "I believe that using the West Wing of the White House to be engaged in a smear campaign is an outrageous abuse of power."

The CIA sent Wilson to check out intelligence that the government of Niger had a deal for the sale of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. Wilson did not find that such a deal took place.

Five days before Cooper's conversation with Rove, an op-ed piece by Wilson had appeared in The New York Times suggesting the Bush administration had manipulated pre-war intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq.

In 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the idea that Rove was involved in leaking information about Wilson's wife was "ridiculous."

"There's no evidence that (Rove has) done anything criminally wrong," Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., said on CBS. He said the American people are taking the controversy "for what it is — politics."

Rove's role, fate in CIA scandal just a sideshow

Dawn Turner Trice/Chicago Tribune

July 18, 2005

I'm considering printing up T-shirts that say: It's the war, stupid!

If we look at the story about Karl Rove and the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame in the narrow scope of whether special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be able to indict Rove, we miss a bigger story.

That's the one about how the Bush administration consistently has used questionable tactics (paying "journalists," prepackaging news stories, disparaging adversaries) to promote its policies, seemingly at any cost.

If administration officials merely were peddling "No Child Left Behind" or the privatization of Social Security to the party faithful, we probably would tune it out as we would an infomercial.

But this is war, and the truth about our involvement in it has to trump toeing the policy line. Soldiers, civilians and their families are paying the ultimate price daily. The war continues to raise the question of whether, as the Downing Street Memo says, "intelligence and facts were fixed around the policy."

No Iraqi election or constitution, no Saddam Hussein conviction should ever shake our resolve to obtain the answer to that question.

As of Sunday, the official number of American soldiers who have died in the Iraq war was 1,761, according to the Department of Defense. (That doesn't include the death toll from a weekend of violence in Iraq.) More than 13,000 of our soldiers have been wounded. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fallen on the battlefield that has no bounds.

Despite more than 500 suicide bombings since the U.S.-led invasion, the upbeat spin from Washington has been unrelenting.

With public discontent about the war rising, last month President Bush delivered his prime-time pep rally on Iraq, standing amid troops from the nation's largest Army base. I was amazed at how he continued to justify the war based on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

It doesn't matter that the assertions that Iraq was amassing WMDs have been proved unfounded. It doesn't matter that there has been no connection between Iraq and Sept. 11. The administration has taken a "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" stance that's bordering on shameful.

But the marketing of this war hasn't happened without the media and the public being willing consumers.

We, the media, faced with our own scandals, have been skittish about ferreting out missteps in Washington. The media get hot on the trail of something gone awry in this administration, but have cooled by the time the spin doctors do their thing. Consider Newsweek's speedy retraction of its story about accusations of prison guards mutilating the Koran at Guantanamo Bay.

We, the public, haven't been clamoring for more information about whether we were misled about invading Iraq. In part, we can blame our short-term memory and attention deficits. But there's also our fear, which this administration has been adept at parlaying into big-time political capital.

Each new terrorist attack reminds us of our own vulnerability. And we seem happiest knowing that the administration is doing something to keep us secure. The question is whether being in Iraq really makes us more secure or just makes us feel more secure.

We can't forget that this war also has been effectively marketed because of what has been hidden from view: the bodies of our solders returning home in their flag-draped coffins.

The administration isn't unfamiliar with questionable marketing tactics. We've seen "journalists" getting paid a lot of money to plug Bush's initiatives. We've seen fake journalists given entree to presidential news conferences to lob the easy questions.

But when it comes to the war, the truth shouldn't be glossed over or distorted to fit into sound bites.

Whether Rove is indicted in the Plame scandal or not shouldn't cloud our getting to the bottom of whether this whole ordeal began as a way to get revenge on Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. He accused the administration of twisting facts to justify an Iraq war. Were the facts really twisted?

The line from the White House is that we're safer from terrorist attacks now that Iraq is "sovereign."

If you buy that, maybe I'll have a T-shirt I could sell you.

----------

From Mark Felt to Karl Rove

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 18, 2005; 6:21 AM



Thirty-three years after Bob Woodward first met Mark Felt in an Arlington parking garage, echoes of the Watergate era seem to be everywhere.

But the comparisons for the press are not all that flattering.

Liberal critics of the media, who believe journalists abysmally failed to challenge the president's WMD claims during the Iraq war buildup, feel vindicated by news that two reporters were granting Karl Rove anonymity as he tried to undermine a prominent debunker of those claims, Joe Wilson, by mentioning his wife's CIA role. Some even fault Judith Miller for her act of conscience in going to jail, saying the New York Times reporter is merely protecting Rove (though no one knows whether her source was the White House political adviser or someone else).

For those who see the secretive Bush administration as a reincarnation of the Nixon regime, the disclosure that Rove served as a source for Time's Matt Cooper and columnist Robert Novak looks like the slow unraveling of a scandal that has now reached the top level of the White House. Scott McClellan is cast in the Ron Ziegler role, refusing to answer a barrage of reporters' questions about Rove after his previous answers were rendered inoperative.

Even the media's preferred narrative -- built around the sanctity of anonymous sources -- comes up short. Unlike Deep Throat, who was risking his FBI career by telling Woodward about the Nixon spying operation and cover-upRove and whoever else leaked Valerie Plame's CIA connection to Novak and other journalists were doing partisan dirty work, and some may have been committing a crime. Cooper and others have argued that they can't make a distinction between "good guy" and "bad guy" sources -- a promise is a promise -- but helping White House officials finger a covert operative is not exactly the kind of work that builds public support for the Fourth Estate.

Time Inc. has come under a barrage of journalistic criticism for caving to pressure -- and ignoring Cooper's objections -- in surrendering the reporter's notes and e-mails to a special prosecutor, thus announcing to all potential sources that a pledge of confidentiality could crumble. (Cooper, who describes his grand jury testimony in the new issue of Time, says he was "upset" by the company's decision.) Woodward was never subpoenaed during Watergate, but Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham withstood enormous pressure from the White House, including threats against the company's television licenses.

The New York Times, unlike Time, is standing firm despite losing in the courts, and Miller chose to change her address to the Alexandria Detention Center rather than betray her sources. But since she never wrote a story about any of this, it's hard to argue that her source cultivation produced important journalism.

In short, we have the unusual spectacle of a nationally known, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter being jailed and little public outcry. Not even journalists are unanimous about Miller; in his brief demanding her imprisonment, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald cited a Los Angeles Times editorial and a Chicago Tribune column by Steve Chapman challenging the media's absolutist stance on sources.

This is a tangled tale in which no one looks good. And that goes double for Novak, the syndicated columnist and CNN commentator who disclosed Plame's CIA connection in July 2003, based on "two senior administration officials."

Novak's refusal to say whether he was subpoenaed or has cooperated with Fitzgerald is starting to draw fire from other journalists. William Safire wrote in the Times that "Mr. Novak should finally write the column he owes readers and colleagues perhaps explaining how his two sources, who may have truthfully revealed themselves to investigators, managed to get the prosecutor off his back." Jay Rosen, chairman of New York University's journalism department, wrote on his PressThink blog that other media people should shun Novak and that if he "says he can't talk until the case is over, then he shouldn't be allowed to publish or opine on the air until the case is over."

Novak told CNN it is "very ridiculous" to describe him as "the cause" of Miller going to jail but that he cannot discuss the case on his lawyer's advice.

The Miller case has already had an impact on at least one other newspaper. Doug Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote recently that he is sitting on "two stories of profound importance," but that both are based on leaked documents and publication "would almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail."

Reporter-source relationships are complicated affairs, as Woodward makes clear in his new book "The Secret Man." He and Felt had contentious dealings, and to this day Woodward says he is not sure whether his informant was outraged by Nixon White House corruption or also trying to protect the turf of what had been J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Felt even signed a find-the-leakers memo denigrating the stories by Woodward and Carl Bernstein as containing "much fiction and half truths."

Woodward's career skyrocketed after the Watergate book and movie in which Deep Throat was a key character, while Felt's declined. He was convicted (and later pardoned) of authorizing break-ins and had to live with his betrayal of his colleagues, albeit for a just cause. Woodward admits he didn't always behave admirably, even lying to a colleague, Post columnist Richard Cohen, in an effort to protect Felt's identity.

Whatever mixed motives Felt may have had, he was helping a newspaper expose criminal wrongdoing. But in the intervening 33 years, journalists have so badly overused unnamed sources on routine stories that they have come to be seen as too cozy with political insiders. And sometimes, as in Newsweek's retracted story about U.S. prison guards abusing the Koran, a single source is just wrong (although other instances of Koran desecration were later confirmed).

As more journalists have been fired for plagiarism and fabrication, and as television has often been consumed by accused celebrities, runaway brides and missing white women, the profession has seemed demoralized. The reports of Judith Miller sleeping on a foam mattress on a jailhouse floor have added to that sense of depression.

When a 91-year-old man came forward as Deep Throat a few weeks ago, many journalists took one last wallow in the era when they were seen as ferreting out wrongdoing. Now, as they try to protect the secret sources who outed Valerie Plame, journalists themselves are often being depicted as the wrongdoers.

On Wednesday morning, after Scott McClellan's morning "gaggle" with White House reporters, CBS's John Roberts taped a little piece on how Karl Rove had become a distraction and the administration needed something else to say beyond no comment.

Roberts's words weren't meant for the evening news but for CBSNews.com. The Web site is launching a "Public Eye" blog, to be supervised by Hotline editor Vaughn Ververs, that is being touted as "a candid and robust dialogue" with the public.

Cable anchors, such as Fox's Greta Van Susteren and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, have become regular bloggers, and now CBS -- which is offering plenty of free video online, matching a recent move by CNN -- is trying to get in on the action.

Roberts says he will "probably use a lot more edge than in writing for a television audience, but you have to walk the line between reporting analysis and opinion." For his White House colleague Mark Knoller, the greatest advantage is speed: "If it's 8:20 in the morning, I won't have to wait until the 9 o'clock radio spot."

The Rove story, meanwhile, has clearly become Washington's summer scandal, with cover stories in Newsweek and Time, which features the firsthand Cooper account. Cooper begins: "It was my first interview with the President, and I expected a simple 'Hello' when I walked into the Oval Office last December. Instead, George W. Bush joked, 'Cooper! I thought you'd be in jail by now.'"

An accompanying Time cover piece says: "In the long and lively mythology of Karl Rove, whom Republicans see as a fearless gladiator and Democrats view as the kind of operative who would put a tarantula under an opponent's pillow, it is entirely plausible that he would try to discredit an adversary by any means necessary. But outing a spy? Compromising national security in wartime?"

My story on Cooper's piece, along with Ken Mehlman demanding that Democrats apologize for smearing Rove, is here, and there are similar pieces in in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and USA Today. For those who can't get enough, here are weekend pieces I wrote or co-wrote on Judy Miller facing the possibility of criminal contempt, how Matt Cooper got Rove to provide a get-out-of-jail card, and a WashPost tick-tock on the whole sprawling mess.

Top Bush and Cheney aides were "intensely focused on discrediting" Wilson after the criticized the administration on Iraq, the Los Angeles Times reports.

"A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: 'He's a Democrat.' Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said."

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dick Polman joins the can-Rove-survive sweepstakes:

"President Bush may soon face the ultimate loyalty test: whether to jettison the principal architect of his political career in order to reverse his sagging public support and salvage his imperiled second-term agenda.

"It would be a tough call. He and Karl Rove have been tight ever since their first encounter on Nov. 21, 1973, back when Bush was a college kid clad in an Air National Guard flight jacket and cowboy boots and Rove was a young Republican operative who, by his own recent recollection, was instantly smitten. . . .

"Legalities aside, the Rove saga could spell political trouble for a president who already has been experiencing a rocky second term (as most lame-duck presidents do). Charlie Cook, a Washington analyst who runs the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said Friday: 'This is about discrediting people on the taxpayer's dime. It's an embarrassment for Bush at a time when people increasingly don't like the way the economy is going, and the way Iraq is going. For him, this is an ugly political environment right now.'"

Jonathan Alter contrasts the behavior of the president and his dad:

"Was Plame 'fair game,' as Karl Rove told Chris Matthews? George H.W. Bush didn't think so. Even after Wilson embarrassed the president publicly, Bush Sr. wrote Wilson--whom he had appointed to various ambassadorial posts--to congratulate him for his service and sympathize with him over the outing of his wife. The old man was head of the CIA in the 1970s and knows the consequences of blowing the identities of covert operatives.

"But does his son? A real leader wouldn't hide behind Clintonian legalisms like 'I don't want to prejudge.' Even if the disclosure was unintentional and no law was broken, Rove's confirmed conduct--talking casually to two reporters without security clearances about a CIA operative--was dangerous and wrong. As GOP congressman turned talk-show host Joe Scarborough puts it, if someone in his old congressional office did what Rove unquestionably did, that someone would have been promptly fired, just as the president promised in this case.

"Scarborough, no longer obligated to toe the pathetic Republican Party line, says it's totally irrelevant if Joe Wilson is a preening partisan who misled investigators about the role his wife played in recommending his Niger trip. The frantic efforts of the GOP attack machine to change the subject to Wilson shows how scared Republicans are that the master of their universe will be held accountable for Rove's destructive carelessness."

An accompanying Howard Fineman piece in Newsweek puts it this way: "In a familiar Washington twist of fate, Rove's theory of politics is being turned against him--and he is being forced to deploy the Republican machine, which he built on Bush's behalf, for a more personal task: his own defense."

Frank Rich goes a bit over the top, in my view, with this Rove slam:

"Well, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and Senator McCain was rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race, Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication that Mr. Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this time Mr. Rove got caught."

Rove does have a long history, but there is no clear evidence tying him to the two other disgraceful smears Rich cites.

In National Review, John Podhoretz pours cold water on the story after the NYT says Novak mentioned Plame to Rove and that Rove confirmed it:

"This surely qualifies as one of the 'hey, big whoop' stories of all time. And I am not saying this because I am some partisan gunslinger. Simple fairness says that an official called by a journalist who volunteers a piece of gossip and then responds, 'I heard that too,' is not retailing a piece of incendiary information intended to destroy lives and place CIA assets in harm's way."And I'm going to be blunt here. Anybody who says different has an agenda that has nothing whatever to do with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, or much of anything else besides doing damage to the Bush administration and character-assassinating Karl Rove."

John Hinderaker of Power Line is troubled by the direction of the Supreme Court debate:

"Ideas have consequences, as we often say, and I'm afraid that the idea that President Bush should consult with the Senate -- or with anyone at all -- about his Supreme Court nominations could get out of hand. I assume that Bush's meetings with key Senators were intended to be cosmetic, and were considered harmless. I'm not so sure that will turn out to be true. Everyone seems to be getting into the free advice business, even Laura Bush, who publicly said that she thought her husband should appoint a woman.

"Thursday's USA Today . . . contains evidence that the whole consultation thing may have gotten out of hand, in a report on a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll that is subtitled: 'Preferred in poll: A Hispanic woman who wouldn't alter Roe v. Wade.'. . . .

"President Bush opened himself up to the pressure by encouraging input and, to some degree, carrying out his deliberations in public.

"The poll results contain something for everyone. An astonishing 86% of respondents said that the Senate Democrats are 'likely to try to block Bush's nominee for inappropriate political reasons.' On the other hand, nearly two-thirds said that Bush is 'likely to appoint someone who would let religious beliefs inappropriately influence legal decisions.' . . . These numbers are consistent with what seems to be an emerging trend: the Democrats' vicious and unprincipled attacks on the President do, indeed, have an impact; but they hurt the Democrats even more than the Republicans."

The Boston Globe looks at its home-state senator and concludes that the upcoming court fight may not be perfectly suited to Ted:

"Even as Kennedy pounds the lectern, there is an awareness throughout the Capitol that this may not be the moment for a vintage Kennedy liberal crusade. There are now only 44 Democratic senators -- the low point in Kennedy's 42-year Senate career -- and Republicans are poised to lob charges of obstructionism if the party is too quick to oppose Bush's pick . . .

"Some grass-roots Democrats worry that a Kennedy-led protest over issues like abortion and gay rights could sink the party in many corners of the country.

"In recognition of these changed circumstances, there has been a different tone to Kennedy's public comments and his behind-the-scenes preparations. The senator who ripped into Bork within an hour of his nomination in 1987 -- describing the 'back-alley abortions' and 'segregated lunch counters' of 'Robert Bork's America' -- is saying that this time, he's unlikely to take a public position on the nominee until his or her record is vetted by the Judiciary Committee."

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