[Ninong]

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, spoke with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper during a critical week in July 2003 when Cooper was reporting on a public critic of the Bush administration who was also the husband of a CIA operative, his lawyer confirmed yesterday.

Rove is identified in Cooper's notes from that time period, which Time turned over Friday to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald -- under court order. Fitzgerald is investigating whether senior administration officials leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporters in July 2003 as retaliation after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq.

Rove's lawyer said Rove never identified Plame to Cooper in those conversations.

I guess the special prosecutor really does need testimony from both Cooper and Miller to make his case. (Perjury requires two witnessess, right?) No matter what's in the notes and emails that Time turned over to Fitzgerald Friday, Rove can still claim that he didn't say that. It was all a misunderstanding on the part of Cooper.

[Ninong]

07.04.2005 Lawrence O'Donnell

Rove's I-did-not-inhale Defense

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years. The next day, Luskin was forced to open the first hole in the Rove two-year wall of silence about the case. In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Luskin then launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute ( U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

So, Rove's defense now hangs on one word—he "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Does that mean Rove simply didn't know Valerie Plame was a covert agent? Or does it just mean that Rove did not know that the CIA was "taking affirmative measures" to hide her identity?

In Luskin's next damage control session with the press, let's see if any reporter can get him to drop the word 'knowingly' from the never-disclosed-classified-information bit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblo...inha_3637.html

[Ninong]

Conyers is preparing a letter demanding that Rove fess up or resign: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Democr...ting_0705.html

[Ninong]

A man who taught with Karl Rove, and considers him a friend, writes that in the Valerie Plame case, Rove is using journalists, and the First Amendment, "to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1000973352

[schrocat]

...and that's coming from HIS FRIEND.


Somebody turn the yacht around!

Karl just fell overboard!!

[Ninong]

I find it hard to believe that the mainstream media is buying Rove's spin on this story without bothering to question it. He even showed up at the Washington Post (aka Pravda on the Potomac) yesterday for a little sit down chat with the editors (what a joke they are since Katie Graham died) and politely refused to discuss the Plame case. "Oh, OK, Karl. Sorry we asked. Please forgive us. Did you have a nice 4th. of July?"

His attorney is making a big deal about the fact that, according to him, the special prosecutor told him that "Rove is not a target of the investigation." Is he a subject of the investigation? Is he still a witness or has his status changed from witness to subject? Is it possible that his status could have changed from subject to target since that last conversation with the special prosecutor?

The prosecutor recently said that the "focus of his investigation has shifted." Somehow I think that's a very important disclosure. He has also said that his investigation is complete except for testimony from Cooper and Miller.

They're making a big deal of the claim that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Did Rove ever unknowingly disclose classified information?

[Ninong]

Matt Cooper has just informed the court that he has changed his mind and is now willing to testify.

Judy Miller has just informed the court that she still refuses to testify. She has been taken into custody and the court has ordered her jailed.

[Ninong]

The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sources is the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects the Bush White House from top to bottom. President Bush’s refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point. Clearly, the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa.

The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush’s folly.

[Ninong]

Valerie Plame still works for the CIA, she's just no longer undercover. She was an undercover agent for 20 years until "someone" in the administration decided to out her to their loyal mouthpiece, Robert Novak, in an attempt to discredit both her and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. They were upset with Wilson because of his report that the documents they were using to claim Saddam had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium in Niger were fraudelent and they were upset with his wife, Valerie, because she was one of the CIA's WMD experts who claimed that there was no persuasive evidence that Saddam still had WMD.

So "someone" in the administration decided to get even by outing Valerie to Robert Novak. I guess we will find out "who did it" soon. I wonder if it's the same guy who called Chris Matthews a year ago and told him it was OK to publicly trash Valerie Plame?

I'm sure the President will be relieved to finally learn the truth. He's been diligently searching for the source of this leak for a year now. He spoke with Cheney and Rove and all the other important people in the administration and they told him they had no idea who could have done it. This could prove embarrassing for the President. People might think that he knew what was going on and has been less than truthful in his statements or they might think that he was kept in the dark and is therefore not in control of things.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Valerie Plame still works for the CIA, she's just no longer undercover.

I almost forgot to post the original item written by that notorious scumbag Robert Novak:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me. -- Robert Novak, "Mission to Niger," July 14, 2003.

Not satisfied that he had outed a covert CIA agent, he later decided to out the CIA front company that she worked for during an appearance on CNN.

On October 3, 2003, Novak said the following in a conversation with Judy Woodruff:

"That very day, according to his records, his wife, the CIA employee gave $1,000 to Gore, and she listed herself as an employee of Bruster, Jennings and Associates."

"There is no such firm, I'm convinced."

He was "convinced." The administration subsequently admitted that, yes, Brewster-Jennings was a CIA front firm.

Obviously "someone" in the administration really hates the CIA a lot and they were willing to stoop so low as to get a filthy little rat like this to do their dirty work for them. It was a clear message that anyone who dared to disagree with the administration's view of Iraq would be dealt with by their enforcer.

Such a pity that politics is more important to some people than the good of the country.

[Ninong]

Here's what the former CIA Director and 41st. President of the United States has to say about anyone who would out a covert CIA agent:

"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," he remarked. "They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."

"We need more human intelligence," he said in 1999. "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."

--George H. W. Bush

[Ninong]

Let's not forget that on October 10, 2003, the official White House spokesman was asked directly if "Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters."

In early October 2003, NEWSWEEK reported that immediately after Novak's column appeared in July, Rove called MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and told him that Wilson's wife was "fair game." But White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters at the time that any suggestion that Rove had played a role in outing Plame was "totally ridiculous." On Oct. 10, McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."

[Ninong]

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post is now claiming that he was told by a White House official on July 12, 2003 (two days before Novak wrote his article) that Amb. Wilson's wife, who was a CIA WMD expert, had set up the trip to Niger. http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index....howcaseid=0019

According to Newsweek's reporting of Cooper's email, Rove told him that Wilson's wife authorized the trip to Niger.

Of course those claims by Rove and the "other" White House official are lies. Valerie Plame did not "set up" anything and she did not "authorize" anything. She merely suggested to her superiors that her husband be considered for the assignment. This was obviously a case of "fixing" the intel around the plan to invade Iraq and Wilson's report had to be discredited.

And, here's a really good one they would like us to swallow: The President didn't know anything about Wilson's report when he recited that line about Saddam trying to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address. He didn't know anything about it even though everyone around him was calling everybody in Washington to try to knock it down. He didn't know anything about it even though he had been persuaded to remove the exact same comment from an earlier speech he delivered in Ohio. He didn't know anything about it even though Colin Powell was telling him that the State Department's intelligence experts did not agree with the hand picked spies working out of the newly formed Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense who reported directly to Cheney and Rumsfeld. That new spy agency was set up because Cheney and Rumsfeld weren't satisfied with the reports coming out of the career CIA and State Department spies. The Office of Special Plans worked with Ahmed Chalabi and all of the "defectors" he provided who would say anything for the right amount of money and a new home in L.A. or Miami. (Coincidentally, all of Judy Miller's WMD articles in the New York Times prior to the war seem to have been sourced from the same people who reported to Cheney and Rumsfeld.)

You know what this smells like? It smells like Watergate.

Here are a few more points to consider. Rove knew all along that he was the one who outed Valerie Plame. The President of the United States announced that he wanted to know the truth of what happened. Did Karl Rove withhold the truth from the President? Or did he explain everything to the President who then withheld the truth from the American people and pretended to be searching for the source of the leak? We wouldn't have had to go to all the trouble of hiring a special presecutor to investigate this matter if Rove and the "other" White House official had simply explained exactly what happened from the beginning.

Too bad they took out the recording equipment that Nixon had in the Oval Office.

[Ninong]

Josh Marshall has some interesting background on Rove's attorney, Robert D. Luskin: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._10.php#006045

[schrocat]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Josh Marshall has some interesting background on Rove's attorney, Robert D. Luskin: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._10.php#006045

Ninong,
When do you think the prosecutor will release his findings...
I'm thinking of throwing a "Watergate" themed party.

...I hope to have time to get a caterer.

[Ninong]

I would imagine that the prosecutor is waiting to see if July Miller will decide to talk. Even though she's sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor of a jail cell, I would imagine that she can hold out until October. Personally, I agree with the court's decision ordering her to testify. I think that once all appeals have been exhausted, it's time to submit to the judicial process. And this is not just because she was an obvious tool of the administration. I think she may be hiding someone else besides Rove and I think that's what the prosecutor is trying to get at. What if the revelation of her "sources" would contradict the "interviews" the presecutor has had with certain very high level administration officials? That would amount to obstruction of justice charges.

I found this on-camera denial by Rove that he had any knowledge whatsoever of the Valerie Plame affair:

Reporter: Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?
Rove: No. [ABC, 9/29/03]

[Ninong]

If the eunuchs in the White House press corps ever remember where they misplaced their professional courage, and decide to ask Scotty McClellan a few questions about Karl Rove's role in the outing of Valerie Plame, this digest of past statements on the subject might come in handy.

QUESTION: The Robert Novak column last week . . . has now given rise to accusations that the administration deliberatively blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative, and in so doing, violated a federal law that prohibits revealing the identity of undercover CIA operatives. Can you respond to that?







McCLELLAN: Thank you for bringing that up. That is not the way this President or this White House operates. And there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step.

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
July 22, 2003

QUESTION: Scott, has there ever been an attempt or effort on the part of anyone here at the White House to discredit the reputations or reporting of former Ambassador Joe Wilson, his wife, or ABC correspondent Jeffrey Kofman?



McCLELLAN: John, I think I answered that yesterday. That is not the way that this White House operates. That's not the way the President operates . . . No one would be authorized to do that within this White House. That is simply not the way we operate, and that's simply not the way the President operates.

QUESTION: In all of those cases?

McCLELLAN: Well, go down -- which two?

QUESTION: Joe Wilson and his wife?





McCLELLAN: No.

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
July 23, 2003

QUESTION: Wilson now believes that the person who did this was Karl Rove . . . Did Karl Rove tell that . . .



McCLELLAN: I haven't heard that. That's just totally ridiculous. But we've already addressed this issue. If I could find out who anonymous people were, I would. I just said, it's totally ridiculous.

QUESTION: But did Karl Rove do it?





McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous.

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
September 16, 2003

QUESTION: Has the President either asked Karl Rove to assure him that he had nothing to do with this; or did Karl Rove go to the President to assure him that he . . .



McCLELLAN: I don't think he needs that. I think I've spoken clearly to this publicly . . . I've just said there's no truth to it.

QUESTION: Yes, but I'm just wondering if there was a conversation between Karl Rove and the President, or if he just talked to you, and you're here at this . . .

McCLELLAN: He wasn't involved. The President knows he wasn't involved.

QUESTION: How does he know that?





McCLELLAN: The President knows.

Scott McClellan


Press Gaggle
September 29, 2003

QUESTION: Weeks ago, when you were first asked whether Mr. Rove had the conversation with Robert Novak that produced the column, you dismissed it as ridiculous. And I wanted just to make sure, at that time, had you talked to Karl?



McCLELLAN: I've made it very clear, from the beginning, that it is totally ridiculous. I've known Karl for a long time, and I didn't even need to go ask Karl, because I know the kind of person that he is, and he is someone that is committed to the highest standards of conduct.

QUESTION: Can you say for the record whether Mr. Rove possessed the information about Mr. Wilson's wife, but merely did not talk to anybody about it?

McCLELLAN: I don't know whether or not -- I mean, I'm sure he probably saw the same media reports everybody else in this room has.

QUESTION: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, did you ever have this information?





McCLELLAN: We're going down a lot of different roads here. I've made it very clear that he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
September 29, 2003

QUESTION: Yesterday we were told that Karl Rove had no role in it. . .



THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

QUESTION: Have you talked to Karl and do you have confidence in him . . .





THE PRESIDENT: Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

George W. Bush


Remarks to Reporters
September 30, 2003

McCLELLAN: Let me make it very clear. As I said previously, he [Karl Rove] was not involved, and that allegation is not true in terms of leaking classified information, nor would he condone it.



QUESTION: He does not condone people pointing reporters toward classified information that's been released; he would not condone that either? Is that what you're saying?





McCLELLAN: The President doesn't condone the activity that you're suggesting, absolutely he does not.

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
October 1, 2003

QUESTION: Scott, you have said that you, personally, went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers . . . Why did you do that, and can you describe the conversations you had with them?



McCLELLAN: They're good individuals, they're 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 of 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.

QUESTION: So you're saying -- you're saying categorically those three individuals were not the leakers or did not authorize the leaks; is that what you're saying?





McCLELLAN: That's correct.

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
October 7, 2003

QUESTION: Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?



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

QUESTION: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?





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

Scott McClellan


Press Briefing
October 10, 2003

Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column.

The American Prospect


Plugging Leaks
March 8, 2004

I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name.

Karl Rove


CNN Interview
date unknown

"Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else . . . Who outed this woman? . . . It wasn't Karl." Luskin said Rove "certainly did not disclose to Matt Cooper or anybody else any confidential information."

Rove attorney Robert Luskin


CNN Interview
July 4, 2005

Luskin confirmed that Rove and Cooper had spoken prior to the publication of the original Time article, but said that Rove “did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA” nor did he “knowingly disclose classified information.”

Newsweek


Turning Up the Heat
July 6, 2005

Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division . . . Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published

Newsweek


Matt Cooper's Source
July 10, 2005

[schrocat]

October....

That means oyster roast.

ummm, you cook... any ideas for "turd blossom" canapes?



Leftcoaster just tore Dailyhowler a new one btw...check it out.

[schrocat]

Just this tripe:


ALBANY, N.Y. — Republicans took aim at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (search) on Monday for comparing President Bush to Mad magazine's freckle-faced, "What, me worry?" kid, Alfred E. Neuman.




The horror...

[Ninong]

... continues to publish the "he didn't inhale" defense put out by Rove's attorney:

Rove told reporter about Plame’s role at CIA

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

In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a "big warning" that Wilson's assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized the trip," according to a story in Newsweek's July 18 issue. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8504290/


Oh, I see. He didn't actually name her by name. It could have been any one of Ambassador Wilson's many wives. What if he's an unreformed Mormon and has 80 wives? So saying that it was "Wilson's wife, who works at the CIA on WMD issues," is not the same as leaking the name of a covert CIA agent because it could have been any one of Wilson's wives. And saying that she "authorized" the trip is not really a lie because she did suggest to her superiors that they consider her husband for the assignment and it is now known that this mission was authorized at a level below DCIA. Why, even the man in charge of everything, Vice President Cheney, was not informed in advance.

And besides, if the reporter was able to find out on his own the name of Amb. Wilson's wife, then it was the reporter who outed her, not the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.