Posted on 07/14/2005 9:13:31 PM PDT by HAL9000
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.
Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and the intelligence it used to justify the war, the source said.
The person said Rove testified that Novak told him he had learned and planned to report in a weekend column that Wilson's wife, Plame, had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims of alleged nuclear material sales to Iraq.
Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle.
Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another reporter but had no recollection of which reporter had told him about it first, the source said.
When Novak inquired about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, Rove indicated he had heard something like that, according to the source's recounting of the grand jury testimony.
Rove told the grand jury that four days later, he had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and _ in an effort to discredit some of Wilson's allegations _ told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though he never used her name.
An e-mail Cooper recently provided the grand jury shows Cooper reported to his magazine bosses that Rove had described Wilson's wife in a confidential conversation as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA.
Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said Thursday his client truthfully testified to the grand jury and expected to be exonerated.
"Karl provided all pertinent information to prosecutors a long time ago," Luskin said. "And prosecutors confirmed when he testified most recently in October 2004 that he is not a target of the investigation."
Rove's conversation with Cooper took place five days after Wilson suggested in a New York Times opinion piece that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Novak's column identifying Wilson's wife as a CIA employee and Cooper's magazine piece came out a few days later.
Pressed to explain its statements of two years ago that Rove wasn't involved in the leak, the White House refused to do so this week.
"If I were to get into discussing this, I would be getting into discussing an investigation that continues and could be prejudging the outcome of the investigation," McClellan said.
The thing is that it appeared a coordinated setup between the media and the Democrats. The Republicans will have to be more careful next time.
THEY WILL!!! I can see it now. "If X is confirmed to the Supreme Court, Roe will be overturned and MILLIONS of women will die in the streets in a pool of blood with hangers hanging out of them. We MUST stop this confirmation!"
I'm with you Howlin..this has gone beyond political sport...they're making it up on the fly now.
Here's his first column on the Wilson trip...
Here's his follow-up column 3 months later:Mission to Niger
Robert Novak
July 14, 2003
October 1, 2003WASHINGTON -- The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.
Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly, President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the Union address, when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government. That the British relied on forged documents made Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious Democratic accusations of burying intelligence though the report was forgotten by the time the president spoke.
Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war. Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing between Bush administration agencies continued. Messages between Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed over the mission to Niger.
Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.
That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.
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.
After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains classified.
All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken a measured public position -- viewing weapons of mass destruction as a danger but considering military action as a last resort. He has seemed much more critical of the administration since revealing his role in Niger. In the Washington Post July 6, he talked about the Bush team "misrepresenting the facts," asking: "What else are they lying about?"
After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television and radio interviews. "The story was never me," he told me, "it was always the statement in (Bush's) speech." The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and in the public's interest.
So, there you have it. Novak had 2 sources. One was a senior administration official who is "no partisan gunslinger"...NOT Rove. We now know Rove was the 2nd source Novak referenced because of the "Oh, you heard that" quote. But there's a problem with that first column: it says those officials "told" Novak about Plame. Current news reports have it the other way around...Novak TOLD Rove. Novak has some splainin' to do about that wording.The CIA leak
Robert Novak
October 1, 2003WASHINGTON -- I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.
The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.
The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.
This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.
During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger . When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.
At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.
How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.
A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.
The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the Agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last weekend, the request ignited anti-Bush furor.
That leaves us to figure out who was the senior administration official who first tipped off Novak. I still think this furor was started by a reporter, but someone in the administration passed it along. I'm leaning toward someone at the Company.
I don't think that British Intelligence ever backed off of their position that this was indeed the case.
For those interested, a copy of the Wilson bio formerly on the Middle East Institute website is archived here: Wilson bio outing Valerie Plame as his wife's name
And her campaign contributions outed her CIA front group- Brewster-Jennings...
Wilson, Joseph C. Mr. IV
4/22/1999 -$1,000.00
Washington, DC 20007
J. C. Wilson Intl. Ventures/Strateg -[Contribution]
GORE 2000 INC
Wilson, Valerie E. Ms.
4/22/1999 $1,000.00
Washington, DC 20007
Brewster-Jennings & Assoc. -[Contribution]
GORE 2000 INC
These two records show that GORE 2000 INC refunded $1,000.00 of the $2,000 he contributed on 3/26/99; the limit at the time was $1,000. On the same darn date of the refund, Wilson's wife was credited with a $1K contribution. Perfectly legal as far as campaign finance law goes, but note the employer listed for his wife. As we all should now know, Brewster-Jennings & Assoc was a CIA front company (see below). According to D&B, it was established in Boston, MA in May 1994.
According to NYT Nicholas Kristoff, himself suckered by Ambassador Wilson, in a 10/11/03 column:
First, the C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given Mrs. Wilson's name (along with those of other spies) to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994. So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons.
Ames was arrested in February, 1994. B-J,A was established in May of the same year? Does it seems likely that B-J,A was set up as cover for Ms. Plame and others in her situation? So did the good ambassador spill some of the beans in order to keep the $1k with Gore? Did he know she was covert, when she was covert, and when did he know it?
BTW, I should add that it was the FEC record and Wilson’s bio at the Saudi-funded Middle East Institute that allowed enterprising journalists to connect “Ms. Valerie E. Wilson” with Valerie Plame and B-J,A, exposing the latter as a CIA front as easy as 1-2-3, A-B-C.
from http://www.justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/07/the_wsj_apprais.html
heh heh heh
Listening to RUSH is #1 on my list of things to do today.
It would be sweet if Lawrence O'Donnell got to testify too.
That tells me all I need to know . . .
Pass the popcorn, this one's just getting started. HA!
Bingo!
Times have changed . . .
My sentiments exactly.
I'm writing to my Congressman today (Weldon). This needs to stop. These types of allegations are insidious and it needs to be stopped. While their ultimate goal is to bring down a presidency (which they cannot do), the sheer amount of time (and taxpayer $$) that goes into chasing all of this crap is a huge distraction on what this administration is trying to accomplish.
I did read somewhere that that was likely -- that Valerie and Miller had been pretty chummy right along.
I don't think any MS reporter would do that much work to find the truth. If they did we would never even have this story to talk about.
Actually, this fits perfectly with what we've now heard about Rove's testimony. Just because Novak's first column said "two senior administration officials told me..." could very well mean that "one told me and another confirmed..." He just might not have thought this article was going to set off the firestorm that he did, so he wasn't so careful to make it clear who told who, but then when given the opportunity to clarify, he did so quickly and publicly.
I still think this furor was started by a reporter, but someone in the administration passed it along. I'm leaning toward someone at the Company.
Could it have been Tenet? See my post about this here: Freeper Thoughts on the Plame Kerfuffle
Pop goes the weasel.
I guess some of the Dems-on-a-limb are hearing the whishing sound of falling.
LOL
Rush will have fun today!
Here he says that Plame is a CIA "operative," but doesn't source that -- in the second column, he notes that it was pretty common knowledge.
The "two senior administration officials" told him Plame suggested sending Wilson to Niger. (Would that even be covered under the act? Her identity was out there; his sources just told him something she had done.)
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