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.
Man I hope this finishes O'Donnell. And I hope he is involved in a big way to destroy Rove with this story.
I would think scooping a scoop would be the one thing which would put him on the outside with his DC buddies. I cannot imagine him blurting that out unless he was supposed to.
I hope Mr. Fitzgerald wants some info from him.
As someone elsewhere has repeatedly pointed out, Karl Rove was not in a position to confirm the info about Wilson's wife.
The key word is confirm.
All he could do, and seemingly did, is pass along to Novak(AFTER NOVAK TOLD HIM FIRST!) that he had heard this info(FROM ANOTHER REPORTER!) about Wilson's wife...that she worked at the agency and got him the trip to Niger.
It is not accurate, although it may have been inadvertent, if Novak is saying that Rove was a confirmer of what another official had told Novak.
I think it is absolutely delicious, to switch topics, that the headlines now read that the media told Rove about this stuff, not the other way around.
And all info points to that Novak initiated the talk with Rove, and Matt Cooper initiated the talk with Rove...in the latter case, Cooper purported to talk to Rove about Welfare Reform, then changed the subject at the very end of the conversation.
So every word about Rove supposedly shopping around a story to the Media about Valerie Plame has been a baldfaced LIE!
Go back to DU.
When is it never not a coordinated effort by the mainstream media and the Democrats? They have always been incestuous.
Ha. Ha ha.
Sssssh. He's working deep undercover to gleen information here and pass it on to DU operatives. You know, people like Tah-ray-zuh Kerry and Arianna Huffington. Pretend you don't notice he's a troll and watch him operate. By the time this hits DU, the story will be Rove has a uranium factory in the WH basement. And Plame accidentally discovered it at a cocktail party.
LOL!
Yep. Looks like that's all this boils down to.
Your post needed a visual, I thought. Guess who's the Road Runner and who's the Coyote?
Hey Hal, can you do an offical thread for CSPAN or ask the admin to insert thread here for the sidebar? It's going to be mighty interesting today in the house and senate.
Leak, leak, leak. Sounds kinda like a Leahy thing.
But, I digress... Anyway, is this being done to discredit the grand jury work? Or is it just SOP these days?
The huge irony is, of course, that the MSM couldn't survive without anonymous sources. Few news stories these days are 100% attributed to named individuals. (Even when they are, you can't be sure the reporter got the quotes right, but that's another issue for another day.)
The demise of the dems and this ridiculous story makes me laugh, but there has been massive lying done by top Dems (they ALL knew that Plame wasn't undercover and still claimed Rove was endangering her life).
They ALL called for his firing, they ignored the fact that Wilson lied about everything he ever said, they lied about what the President said in order to take him down. And that presser yesterday was beyond belief......
This one has gone WAY too far, and it has to be stopped.
Although it's unlikely I could ever find the post, a long time ago I said this was the likely scenario. As a former reporter myself, in my FR "rants" about the media through the years, I've tried to educate folks to how reporters work.
They get a tidbit of info here, then run over there and get another tidbit. They snoop, eavesdrop, sneak peaks at what's on people's desks, and otherwise steal info never meant for them. Then they weave a STORY -- as in tale -- about what they find. The STORY may be accurate in whole or in part, or may not. But they rarely are held accountable for it either way. If a reporter ruins peoples lives and careers with false info, the reporter will callously shrug it off.
What if:
What if two reporters wanted to set up Karl Rove because they needed a source for their article. Reporter 1 tells Rove about a rumor that a wife who worked for the CIA who pulled strings for her hubby.
Reporter 2, knowing what reporter 1 said calls Karl Rove and repeats the rumor seeking a confirmation. When Rove agrees he heard the same rumor reporter 2 uses him as a source.
Interesting way to create an administrative source to information. I bet its been used before.
(I know I was fooled by this stealth undercover troll. I had NO clue until you pointed it out to me.......hehe......)
But hey..........he IS more clever than most of them. A couple more years of DU training, and he might actually be smart enough to pull it off..................or not.
The only reliable person in the legal profession who would know what Rove said that would be free to share it is Rove's attorney. Even then it would be second hand from Rove.
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