Posted on 07/17/2005 11:05:18 AM PDT by NathanBookman
EXCLUSIVE Matthew Cooper reveals exactly what Karl Rove told him--and what the special counsel zeroed in on By MATTHEW COOPER Posted Monday, Jul. 25, 2005 It was my first interview with the President, and I expected a simple "Hello" when I walked into the Oval Office last December. Instead, George W. Bush joked, "Cooper! I thought you'd be in jail by now." The leader of the free world, it seems, had been following my fight against a federal subpoena seeking my testimony in the case of the leaking of the name of a CIA officer. I thought it was funny and good-natured of the President, but the line reminded me that I was, very weirdly, in the Oval Office,...
So, anything illuminating there?
The excerpts are interesting because it discusses, at a high level, the people on the grand jury. But after seeing some juries, I find this scarey. I think the article uses the old line that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
"As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.
Perhaps most notable, is one line Cooper recalls that he said 'has been in my memory for two years.'
"I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, 'I've already said too much,'" he wrote. "This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don't know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years."
This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversations with Scooter Libby. Libby had also given me a specific waiver, and I gave a deposition in the office of my attorney. I have never discussed that conversation until now. In that testimony, I recounted an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew about or played any role in the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name."
--It sure looks like Libby heard from Miller. And maybe Rove heard from Libby.
In any case, it doesn't look like anything that would fall under the law in question.
Funny how Cooper now remembers--two years later--Rove saying he probably said more than he should have. How very convenient.
Here is a chunk of the excerpts:
"I was curious about Wilson when I called Karl Rove on Friday, July 11. As I told the grand jury--which seemed very interested in my prior dealings with Rove--I don't think we had spoken more than a handful of times before that."
He called Rove.
"I recall saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected. "Don't get too far out on Wilson," he told me. I started taking notes on my computer, and while an e-mail I sent moments after the call has been leaked, my notes have not been.
Double-secret background? Cooper says it's from 'Animal House' -- not top-secret journalistic lingo.
"The grand jury asked about one of the more interesting lines in that e-mail, in which I refer to my conversation with Rove as being on "double super secret background," a line that's raised a few eyebrows ever since it leaked into the public domain. I told the grand jury that the phrase is not a journalistic term of art but a reference to the film Animal House, in which John Belushi's wild Delta House fraternity is placed on "double secret probation."
"Rove went on to say that Wilson had not been sent to Niger by the director of the CIA and that Dick Cheney didn't send him either. Indeed, the next day the Vice President's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, told me Cheney had not been responsible for Wilson's mission."
Cooper fills in what we already know about his conversation with Rove.
"As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.
Perhaps most notable, is one line Cooper recalls that he said 'has been in my memory for two years.'
"I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, 'I've already said too much,'" he wrote. "This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don't know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years."
This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversations with Scooter Libby. Libby had also given me a specific waiver, and I gave a deposition in the office of my attorney. I have never discussed that conversation until now. In that testimony, I recounted an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew about or played any role in the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name.
Where's the case going?
"Did Fitzgerald's questions give me a sense of where the investigation is heading? Perhaps," he pens. "Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties through a person or through a document."
And he sums up.
"So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert?" he scores. "No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the "agency" on "WMD"? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I'm as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has."
"Funny how Cooper now remembers--two years later--Rove saying he probably said more than he should have. How very convenient."
I thought that stood out as well. Of course as soon as the grand jury heard that they are thinking the worst possible of meanings (i.e. Rove reading from a classified document)
Cooper is making the most of this from a professional standpoint. Next there will be a book and a movie.
It's not like Cooper doesn't have a financial interest in keeping this story alive.
How do we know he is telling us NOW, is what was said to the Grand Jury?
BTW, how did Podesta's greasy @ss keep from sliding off that chair?
That leaves only a few other entities that could have sent him. His book publisher, the New York Times or the DNC.
Something REALLY stinks with Joey and his Nigerian junket.
Funny, there's no mention of his OTHER SOURCES. Remember, his article said "sources." And he called Rove "A" source.
I guess that wasn't part of his agenda.
"So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No."
Case closed.
I remember Joe Wilson speculating as to who would play him and his wife in the movie adaptation of their lives.......exactly who WAS in Dumb and Dumber?
I don't like Cooper's revelation that the majority of the jury is African American.
The Grand Jury will return the indictments the prosecutor asks for. It's up to Fitzgerald. No one will be prosecuted for blowing Plame's "cover".
MATTHEW COOPER Posted Monday, Jul. 25, 2005
This isnt the onion is it?
"I've already said too much"
This line that Cooper so vividly remembered will probably get Karl another trip to the Grand Jury. Cooper's memory is about as good as Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia...it's seared, seared in his memory.
Yep!
I wish someone would leak something to me.
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?
It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.
Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:
He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.
Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.
Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.
I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.
However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair. (Or was it Vogue? No, probably too crass for Vogue, n'est pas?)
Russert asked him about other sources today. He "didn't want to go into it." From what little he will say in the interview transcript, one surmises Cooper is saying there were other sources who may or may not have been in government positions.
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