Posted on 07/14/2005 9:32:15 PM PDT by blake6900
Source: Rove Got CIA Agent ID From Media By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
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.
On Thursday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada pressed for legislation to strip Rove of his clearance for classified information, which he said President Bush should already have done. Instead, Reid said, the Bush administration has attacked its critics: "This is what is known as a cover-up. This is an abuse of power."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Democrats were resorting to "partisan war chants."
Across the Capitol, Rep. Rush Holt (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., introduced legislation for an investigation that would compel senior administration officials to turn over records relating to the Plame disclosure.
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," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
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Associated Press special correspondent David Espo contributed to this story.
Probably from Wilson himself. For the most part, they're on the same team.
Miller?
Looks like this "scandal" is about to go the way of the Delay "scandal." Funny that's all but disappeared. But of course the correction of the record won't be blared from the headlines like the original smear was. The media will just move on to some other attack angle on Bush. Look for the headlines next week to resume the usual "nothing but negative" from Iraq. Everytime someone trips and falls in Iraq, it will be screamed from the headlines. And Bush will be to blame.
The media conspiracy in this country has reached its absolute maximum depths in terms of craveness and utter bias. It is not enough to describe the media as liberal or biased. It is utterly activist.
Yep! Back and ready for action! How ya been? Stirrin' the pot, I hope. This whole Rove/Plame/Wilson/CIA thing is hilarious. These dumb asses never learn. It's almost too easy bi!ch-slappin' 'em. But I never tire of hearing the slapping sound that comes with it!
Measure me for my foil hat, but I've got a mental image of the Joe Wilsons and the Mandy Grunwalds sitting around the bridge table cooking this scheme up...
We really need to start calling it a "Rove-a-Dope".
Anything that increases their paranoia that he is demonically invincible.
I just want to know, if all the Media seemed to know this detail about his wife, and the administration didn't, who the MSM got the news from?
Valarie Plame? Mandy Grunwald(spel?)?
Isn't it also interesting how both this AP story as well as the NYT version omit that Senator Frist's response to Reid's amendment was one of his own proposing that any office holder who discloses classified FBI information on the Senate floor and uses it to denigrate the U.S. military should have HIS security clearence removed. It was nice to see the Republican Senators showing some actual backbone without having to have their emails and phone lines flooded first! Let's just hope they liked their taste of victory so much that they're willing to fight for the upcoming judicial nominee(s)!
yer not kiddin' ,"for the most part"!! The MSM hacks and other assorted news gatherers aren't journalists , they're PROPAGANDISTS , but we knew that [sorry,I just had to say it out loud after today's shenanigans w/UpChuck & Wilson]hey, sounds like a comedy team , Upchuck & Wilson
Here is the spoon she uses.
Yeah...which might explain why it didn't work. LOL! God, these people really are "the gang that couldn't shoot straight"!
I heard Rush Limbaugh discussing the New York Times and Karl Rove today. He was tearing @ssholes left and right. One of the best Limbaugh programs ever ! He said that the cover up was by the NYT who asked own journalist to fall on her sword. The NYT is guilty, not Karl Rove!
This whole absurdity was wholly created & driven by the media and their counterparts in the DemoncRAT party & LIAR Wilson.
I am not sure, but he obviously had another one who told him before he spoke to Rove.
This is from Joe Wilson's book (remember he's a liar) but it gives some added information:
Chapter 17: A Strange Encounter with Robert Novak
by Ambassador Joseph Wilson
Late on Tuesday afternoon, July 8, six days before Robert Novak's article about Valerie and me, a friend showed up at my office with a strange and disturbing tale. He had been walking down Pennsylvania Avenue toward my office near the White House when he came upon Novak, who, my friend assumed, was en route to the George Washington University auditorium for the daily taping of CNN's Crossfire. He asked Novak if he could walk a block or two with him, as they were headed in the same direction; Novak acquiesced. Striking up a conversation, my friend, without revealing that he knew me, asked Novak about the uranium controversy. It was a minor problem, Novak replied, and opined that the administration should have dealt with it weeks before. My friend then asked Novak what he thought about me, and Novak answered: "Wilson's an asshole. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She's a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him." At that point, my friend and Novak went their separate ways. My friend headed straight for my office a couple of blocks away.
Once he related this unsettling story to me, I asked him to immediately write down the details of the conversation and afterwards ushered him out of my office. Next, I contacted the head of the news division at CNN, Eason Jordan, Novak's titular boss, whom I had known for a number of years. It took several calls, but I finally tracked him down on his cell phone. I related to him the details of my friend's encounter with Novak and pointed out that whatever my wife might or might not be, it was the height of irresponsibility for Novak to share such information with an absolute stranger on a Washington street. I asked him to speak to Novak for me, but he demurred— he said he did not know him very well—and suggested that I speak to Novak myself. I arranged for him to have Novak call me and hung up.
Novak called the next morning, but I was out, and then so was he. We did not connect until the following day, July 10. He listened quietly as I repeated to him my friend's account of their conversation. I told him I couldn't imagine what had possessed him to blurt out to a complete stranger what he had thought he knew about my wife.
Novak apologized, and then asked if I would confirm what he had heard from a CIA source: that my wife worked at the Agency. I told him that I didn't answer questions about my wife. I told him that my story was not about my wife or even about me; it was about sixteen words in the State of the Union address.
(If you think you can stomach the rest of it, here's the URL: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=58668 )
And Valerie Plame. Girls like to talk when they get together.
Next comes Judith Miller, more girl talk over lunch.
I liiiike it....
"Rove-a-dope: A half-baked scheme worthy of Wyle E. Coyote, cooked up by crazed moonbats and their media running dog lackeys to discredit Republicans who foil their agenda. Usually blows up in their faces like a cheap Acme cigar."
Now wouldn't that be wonderful.....if after all this, it was Valerie herself who outted herself............ROFLMAO.
This story gets better and better. Okay, I'll bite: how did Novak find out Plame's identity? Obviously he didn't get it from Rove. And I think he has said he didn't get it from anyone else in the Bush Admistration. Meanwhile, Judith Miller refuses to testify about what she knows. Hmm...
A birdie tells me that Novak's ultimate source is either Joe Wilson (through intermediaries) or Mandy Grunweld (Matt Cooper's wife and Democratic Party hack). Now wouldn't that be sweet?
Miller?
And leaving aside intermediaries (other NYT reporters), who was her source? Wilson? a Democratic hack? Matt Cooper is married to one: Mandy Grunweld.
That was hilarious.
It's been a great day, all in all!
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