How do we know he lied? What worries me is that Rove may have leaked the name not knowing she was undercover. He may have just heard she worked for the CIA, and told the reporters that for their background. I'd rather believe that than that he abused his security clearance. And before you guys jump on "undercover", the CIA issued a "crime report" stating her to be an undercover operative, working for "Brewster & Jennings", a dummy corp, and that is how we got us a special prosecutor..
I don't think Rove lied to the feds at all. I think someone else did. My point is that lying to the feds is an easier charge to prove than disclosure of a covert agent. I also personally think that any indictments are going to be a surprise. Rove is not the target. Someone else is.
Read today's Ann coulter. Anncoulter.com, or it's here in two places.
How do we know what Rove talked to any reporters other than Matt Cooper? Wouldn't they all be coming out of the woodwork now to say he leaked to them too? And how do we know what he really said to Cooper? All we know is what was in Cooper's email, which was conveniently leaked to Time magazine's biggest rival, and which only repeats his hasty recollection of what Rove hastily said. And we also know that Cooper called Rove, and called him on a pretext, as he was on his way out the door for vacation, and they supposedly talked about Joe Wilson at the very end of a two-minute conversation. I'm not convinced that any of it is true; more likely is that Cooper wrote the email and mde up the Rove comments to cover his ass before filing his fantasyland story about the supposed orchestrated White Hosue smear campaign against Joe Wilson. Who do you trust more, Karl Rove or Mandy Grunwald's husband?
BTW, I think it's pretty obvious that Novak's source was George Tenet. He had to have been pretty pissed when Joe Wilson's op-ed appeared and Wilson went on all the talk shows saying he was sent to Niger by the CIA. I think he never authorized Wilson's trip, he tried to bury his "report" because he knew it was bullshit, and when Wilson statted blabbing he had to do something. And guess what? He was fired! Does anyone else remember being puzzled at the timing of his resignation and the lack of plausible explanations? It's plausible that the President found out he told Novak about Plame and sacked him on the spot.
It's just as obvious that Judith Miller's source was Plame herself. She would never go to jail to protect Karl Rove, but she would sure go to jail to protect someone who had been feeding her classified information on WMD intelligence for years.