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.
Mornin' from the west coast. Should we start a list of the usual suspect Senators?
Liberals hiding behind the misnomer, Progressives:
Schumer
Leaky Leahy
Mrs. Clinton
Kerry
Kennedy
Durbin, D. Middle Name "Head" (naughty I know, but we heard it on the radio and it fits!)
RINOS who love to bask in the glow of the MSM lights:
McCain
DeWhine
Hagle
see post 191
Talk about getting hoisted by their own petard.
Good list. I am sure that there willbe a couple embarasing names coming out soon.
By then, the Dims will say, "Lets put this all behind us!"
ROFL!!
What a Dunce!
Or maybe Rove read the report from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Niger like Noval did. Like I did. It's in the Federal Register.
And don't forget that before Novak wrote his article, he says he contacted the CIA and they didn't tell him not to publish her name or her connection.
So it would be remarkably hard to blame him now, if the CIA itself didn't want to protect her identity.
Novak isn't a classified source, so Rove would have no reason to think that Plame's employment with the CIA was a secret. The only way you could think he should have would be if you already believe the story that Rove did all this on purpose, and therefore had already studied her files and knew she was a secret undercover agent.
October 19, 2003
THE PLAME AFFAIR: HOW MUCH DAMAGE?....Time magazine keeps us up to date on the potential damage from the exposure of Valerie Plame:
Officials with two foreign governments told Time that their spy catchers are quietly checking on whether Plame had worked on their soil and, if so, what she had done there. Which means if one theme of the Administration leak scandal concerns political vengeance — did the White House reveal Plame's identity in order to punish Wilson for his public criticism of the case for war with Iraq? — another theme is about damage. What has been lost, and who has been compromised because of the leak of one spy's name? And who, if anyone, will pay for that disclosure?
And how secret was Plame's CIA role? Apparently she was an undercover NOC (non-official cover), but not a deep undercover NOC:
Fred Rustmann, a former CIA official who put in 24 years as a spymaster and was Plame's boss for a few years, says Plame worked under official cover in Europe in the early 1990s — say, as a U.S. embassy attache — before switching to nonofficial cover a few years later. Mostly Plame posed as a business analyst or a student in what Rustmann describes as a "nice European city." Plame was never a so-called deep-cover NOC, he said, meaning the agency did not create a complex cover story about her education, background, job, personal life and even hobbies and habits that would stand up to intense scrutiny by foreign governments.
....Though Plame's cover is now blown, it probably began to unravel years ago when Wilson first asked her out. Rustmann describes Plame as an "exceptional officer" but says her ability to remain under cover was jeopardized by her marriage in 1998 to the higher-profile American diplomat.
Now that it's falling apart it is #6 on CNN and not even listed on MSNBC.
Unreal. You can almost hear the ratings falling for these guys by the hour.
If true, it fits more with the WH and rove's behavior in recent weeks and months on this topic. They simply have not acted the way pols act when they are guilty of something.
It fits that the media would try to paint him as the leak, when the actual source is still being protected by Miller.
And, the timing of the story falling apart and dying is PERFECT for a "proper church burial" on Sunday morning talking head shows sandwiched between live worship broadcasts (at least that's how it is on my local networks).
Irony is not dead!
Yes I wish some of those reporters yesterday had asked Wilson about Rock Creek and his other little companies afer he made his little speach about how he made his "bones".
Thing is, once again the MSM is trying to make a BIG story out of nothing. I am willing to bet that 60% of the people in this country doesn't even know, or care, who Karl Rove is.
I think I'll let things play out a little more. If I'm right, others will also put it together. We'll see....OTH, we may never know.
Has Joe Wilson simply called for Rove's "firing" or Rove's "indictment"? That would make a big difference as to whether he simply dislikes Rove or truly thinks a crime was perpetrated.
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