shit hits Karl Rove's fan
Fatback
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fucker bitch. you goin' DOWN!!!
YES!!!
Plame, By Any Other Name
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 11, 2005; 1:21 PM
There is no longer any question that top presidential adviser Karl Rove is a key player in the Valerie Plame case.[/b]
In fact, what Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame is apparently one of the last things special prosecutor Patrick J.Fitzgerald is trying to determine before he wraps up his investigation into whether Plame was illegally outed as a CIA agent.
Newsweek yesterday described e-mails from Cooper relating his July 2003 interview with Rove. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told The Washington Post yesterday that his client spoke to Cooper, but did not identify Plame by name. Luskin also said Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe.
But let's look at what we can conclude from all this:
?? The latest news reports indicate that Rove is the source who Cooper was trying to protect until last week -- and that Rove tipped Cooper about Plame three days before Robert Novak published his now-famous column exposing Plame's identity.
?? Fitzgerald has asserted in his court filings that testimony from Cooper and now-jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller is all he needs to wrap up his investigation into whether a crime was committed. So what Rove said about Plame would therefore appear to be either one of two things -- or the only thing -- that Fitzgerald is still trying to nail down.
?? Rove and his lawyer's denials that he was involved in telling reporters about Plame now appear to be at best based on Clintonian hairsplitting about whether he literally used her name and identified her as covert or he simply described her as the CIA-employed wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the administration critic that White House was eager to discredit at the time.
?? President Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan's denials that Rove was involved in the Plame matter now appear to be at best based on the position that their responses to broad questions about Rove and Plame were met with narrowly constructed responses specifically about whether Rove leaked "classified information." Or is it possible Rove lied to them?
?? And McClellan's frequent implication that, if Rove talked to reporters about Plame it was only after Novak's column had already come out, now appears suspect.
If Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, longtime friend and deputy chief of staff is actually indicted by Fitzgerald -- which now appears to be a possibility -- it would be an enormous blow to Bush's second term. Until Fitzgerald wraps up his highly secretive investigation, however, that's all just speculation.
So let's ask ourselves some more practical questions instead:
?? Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?
?? Taking into account Bush's previous statements about leaks, does this mean he now has no choice but to fire Rove?
?? Did Rove keep all this from Bush?
?? Or did Bush know, but chose to keep silent and do nothing?
For some quick background, here is what Rove has said directly about Plame:
As ABC News's The Note reported on Sept. 29, 2003, ABC News producer Andrea Owen and a cameraman approached Rove that morning as he walked toward his car.
Owen: "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?"
Rove: "No."
At which point, Rove shut his car door.
Then on August 31, 2004, Rove spoke to CNN's John King .
King: "Did someone in the White House leak the name of the CIA operative? What is your assessment of the status of the investigation, and can you tell us that you had nothing to do with. . . .
Rove: "Well, I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name."
Here is McClellan in a Sept. 16, 2003 briefing :
"Q Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover a CIA operative. . . . Did Karl Rove do it?
"MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous."
On Sept. 30, 2003 , Bush himself was asked if Rove had a role in the CIA leak.
"Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information," he said. "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing."
And here is McClellan in an Oct. 7, 2003 briefing: "If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates, that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business. . . .
"If someone sought to punish someone for speaking out against the administration, that is wrong, and we would not condone that activity. No one in this White House would condone that activity. . . .
"It's absurd to suggest that the White House would be engaged in that kind of activity. That is not the way this White House operates."
This Just In
On MSNBC, Bob Kur reported out of this morning's off-camera gaggle with McClellan: "Well, they're being pummeled with questions here this morning. Very interesting turn of events. The White House spokesman just a few minutes ago was asked about the latest developments about Karl Rove and he says he can't comment because it's an ongoing criminal investigation -- and yet reporters went after him with questions saying that during this ongoing investigation at earlier stages, he was willing to stand at the podium and say flat out that Karl Rove was not involved in the leak of the C.I.A. operative's identity.
"Well, so those are some tough questions to be answered here at the White House today."
The News
Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek: "It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. 'Subject: Rove/P&C,' (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. 'Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . . ' Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, 'please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]' and suggested another reporter check with the CIA."
The White House, back in July 2003, was eager to discredit Wilson, who was publicly asserting that he had found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and had made that clear to administration officials before Bush included the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address.
Isikoff writes: "In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. . . . Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by 'DCIA' -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass
destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "
Isikoff was on MSNBC this morning and said: "Karl Rove has never before acknowledged that he had spoken to Matthew Cooper or anybody else about the Wilson matter prior to the Novak column. The White House initially dismissed claims that Karl Rove was involved, in any way involved, in the outing of Valerie Plame as totally ridiculous and even as recently as last week, Karl Rove's lawyer was saying that it was -- that Rove was never a confidential source for any reporter on this matter. The e-mail conclusively disproves those statements."
Joe Hagan writes in the Wall Street Journal: "After a week of seemingly contradictory reports, one fact appears to have solidified: Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's election victories, was a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper in his July 2003 article about a Central Intelligence Agency operative. . . .
"The unmasking of Mr. Rove marks an important milestone in the case. On the one hand, the details of Mr. Rove's discussion with Mr. Cooper -- especially if he didn't name Ms. Plame -- may exculpate him of the intentional, illegal disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA operative. Much will depend on whether Mr. Rove truthfully described any conversations in testimony before the grand jury. If he did, that would clear him of even a perjury charge and any criminal liability.
"That said, the disclosure that Mr. Bush's top political strategist discussed the CIA employment of Mr. Wilson's wife amounts to a political embarrassment for Mr. Rove and the White House. A presidential spokesman had previously given what appeared to be an unequivocal public assurance that Mr. Rove hadn't been involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame as a CIA operative. Discovery that earlier denials may have been carefully parsed would represent another blow to the administration's credibility, compounding damage from the underlying issue that initially brought Mr. Wilson into the spotlight."
Josh White writes in The Washington Post: "White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name. . . .
"Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.
"While the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm."
Adam Liptak writes in the New York Times: " 'A fair reading of the e-mail as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity,' Mr. Luskin said."
Over at Time, where they certainly know what's going on, Bill Saporito simply writes: "And who was Cooper's source? A number of news organizations named Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser. Time's editors have decided not to reveal the source at this time."
On TV
ABC's Good Morning America show today reported that "Presidential adviser Karl Rove may be in hot water with his boss now that his lawyer admitted he gave sensitive info to a reporter -- a leak that's at the center of a federal investigation. Here's ABC's Jessica Yellin."
Yellin: "He is one of the president's most trusted advisors, credited as the architect of the Bush campaign but now Newsweek magazine is reporting that Karl Rove is also one of the people who leaked secret information about a covert C.I.A. Agent to the media.. . . .
"Since the beginning of the investigation, President Bush has taken the position he does not tolerate leaks. . . .
"Legal experts say based on these e-mails Rove did not break the law, he did not name the woman or reveal that she was an undercover agent. But Rove must still answer to the president. The White House has maintained that anyone who leaked the identity of a C.I.A. Operative is not welcomed in the administration."
CNN, which happens to be owned by the same people who own Time magazine, is being oddly silent on the Rove issue this morning.
And on Fox News, they're not taking it too seriously.
On Fox News's Fox and Friends this morning, Kelly Wright reported: "Amid the difficult task of choosing a candidate for the Supreme Court and waging the war on terror, the White House is also dealing with a report about top White House adviser Karl Rove."
But, he concluded: "Bottom line here, guys, when you read between the lines, Karl Rove never mentioned anyone's name. "
Steve Doocy had a follow-up question: "Kelly, did I hear you right? Matthew Cooper wrote that the information that he had received was on double supersecret background ?
Wright: "That's right. According to this report that we're getting. . . .
Doocy: "Well, it must not be too double supersecret because we know about it now!"
Hairsplitting . . . From Cooper?
Adam Liptak in the Times attempts to reconstruct the events of Wednesday morning, when Cooper announced: "A short time ago, in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."
Sounds like a phone call directly from his source, doesn't it?
But Liptak writes: "Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.
"The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. . . .
"Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word 'personal' to mean specific."
But what Cooper said he got -- and what Miller says she hasn't gotten from her source -- is an explicit assurance that he was no longer bound by his confidentiality pledge. And Liptak writes: "Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald."
Liptak, by the way, also raises the question of whether Cooper got an explicit assurance before he testified in August about his conversations with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Previous Statements
Blogger Billmon has put together an excellent collection of previous White House statements vouching for Rove, so I don't have to.
Questions for the Media
Here are some questions for my fellow journalists:
?? For those covering the latest developments: How does it matter whether Rove literally used Plame's name or not?
?? Why, as the Think Progress blog has been asking, did no one in the White House press corps ask McClellan even one question about Rove's involvement last we
ek as the story was starting to unfold?
?? Has Karl Rove routinely hidden behind confidentiality to spread damaging information about the White House's enemies?
?? Should there maybe be a new category of "I'll-go-to-jail-for-you" on background reserved exclusively for whistle-blowers?
?? Will any of you ever grant Karl Rove confidentiality again?
The Wild, Wild Web
The left side of the Web is in a state of near ecstasy. And the right side is enraged -- primarily by the left side's ecstasy and the media's presumed feeding frenzy.
On the left:
The Nation's David Corn writes: "There now is clear-cut evidence that Rove was involved in -- if not the chief architect of -- the actions that led to the outing of Plame/Wilson. If he's not in severe legal trouble, he ought to be in political peril. . . .
"[T]his is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson -- even classified information related to national security -- to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that?"
Here's Tim Grieve on Salon.com: "It's plainly no defense to the crime of leaking the identity of a CIA agent to say that you didn't actually use her name: Federal law prohibits the intentional disclosure of 'any information identifying' a covert agent."
On Huffingtonpost.com, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) writes: "Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that President Bush was going to 'restore honesty and dignity to the White House?' How's that going?"
On the right:
Blogger Tom Maguire writes: "This Newsweek revelation may create some political heat for Karl, but it is far from clear that, if these notes accurately describe the conversation, Karl Rove had the intent and knowledge that are also elements of a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act."
A post on the Powerline blog suggests: "The media feeding frenzy will, indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and other pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food. This isn't a top presidential aide accepting an expensive gift, or engaging in lewd sexual conduct. It's a top aide providing truthful information to journalists in response to lies told to embarrass the administration and our government."
Blogger Hugh Hewitt says its all particularly unseemly in the wake of the London transit bombings. "[T]he president values and trusts Rove, and the assault on Rove has nothing to do with outrage over injury to the national security and everything to do with bleeding Bush. The idea that the forces that defended Clinton's bald lies under oath are now 'outraged' over spun-up pretend perjury charges would be wildly amusing but for the fact that the tragic losses of the past few days have not interrupted the vendettaists for even a decent interval."
Rove Speaks
Rove was in Nebraska on Friday, talking about . . . Social Security.
In town primarily for a fundraiser, Rove also stopped by the offices of Ameritrade.
Nate Jenkins writes in the Lincoln Journal Star: "Rove spoke for about 15 minutes at the online brokerage firm, answered a few written questions from employees, and then left without taking questions from reporters. He stuck solely to the Social Security message, not mentioning the bombings that left at least 50 dead in London. Nor did he address the pending investigation into whether Bush administration officials in 2003 illegally leaked the name of a CIA agent to reporters after the agent's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly criticized the Bush administration's arguments for going to war in Iraq. . . .
"The event Friday was closed to the public, and Rove's message was delivered to a company that Ameritrade Chief Operating Officer J. Peter Ricketts said would not directly benefit from partially privatizing Social Security but that he said could 'in the grand scheme of things.' "
Rove Comes Under New Scrutiny in C.I.A. Disclosure Case
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, July 11 - The White House went on the defensive today amid a barrage of questions from Democrats and reporters about the presidential adviser Karl Rove and whether he had disclosed the name of a covert intelligence operative in retaliation for criticism of the administration's Iraq policy.
President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, declined to repeat his earlier assertions that Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, had nothing to do with leaking the name of the operative, Valerie Plame of the Central Intelligence Agency, to get back at her husband, a former United States ambassador who had publicly challenged Bush administration policy.
Nor would Mr. McClellan repeat his earlier statements that any White House staff person who had leaked the name should be fired.
"The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren't going to comment on it while it is ongoing," Mr. McClellan said at a news briefing.
His comments came as Democrats began to intensify the pressure on the White House.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, said President Bush should follow his promise to preside over an ethical administration, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York demanded that Mr. Rove tell the public in detail what his role was.
Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said the intentional disclosure of a covert agency's identity amounted to an "act of treason," while Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called for a Congressional hearing.
The spotlight was focused on Mr. Rove over the weekend, when Newsweek reported on its Web site that Mr. Rove had spoken with at least one reporter about Ms. Plame's role at the C..I.A., although without identifying her by name, a few days before the columnist Robert D. Novak identified her in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Newsweek's weekend disclosure seemed, at the very least, to call into question Mr. Rove's own earlier statements, and the White House's, that he had nothing whatever to do with disclosing Ms. Plame's identity shortly after her husband wrote in a 2003 Op-Ed article in The New York Times that he had found no evidence that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger to further its nuclear ambitions.
The affair has been brewing in Washington for two years. It reached a new intensity this month with the jailing of a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, who never wrote an article about the affair but resisted demands from prosecutors to reveal whom she had talked to about it.
Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, avoided jail when his company yielded a demand to turn over his notes on the matter. Mr. Novak, meanwhile, has appeared to be under no threat of jail, for reasons that are not clear. He has said he will be able to clear things up one day.
Meanwhile, several Democ
ratic lawmakers demanded action immediately.
"I agree with the president when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct," Mr. Reid said. "The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."
Mr. Schumer, in his letter to Mr. Rove, said it was time for him to tell all. "I urge you to come forward to honestly and fully discuss any and all involvement you have had with this incident," Mr. Schumer wrote to Mr. Rove. "I believe this is a very serious breach of trust with a woman who has spent her career putting her life on the line to protect our country's freedom."
Mr. Lautenberg said President Bush "should immediately suspend Karl Rove's security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions," Reuters reported. And Mr. Waxman told Reuters that "the recent disclosures about Mr. Rove's actions have such serious implications that we can no longer responsibly ignore them."
Mr. McClellan declined repeatedly, in response to hostile questions, to go beyond his statements that he could not discuss the Plame affair while the investigation into the disclosure of her name was continuing. Mr. McClellan would not budge even as he was reminded of his, and the president's, previous expressions of confidence in Mr. Rove.
Democrats are virtually certain to keep up the pressure, given the White House's earlier categorical denials about Mr. Rove, and given Mr. Rove's status as a key presidential adviser who helped to devise Mr. Bush's successful re-election strategy.
YES!!!
Plame, By Any Other Name
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 11, 2005; 1:21 PM
There is no longer any question that top presidential adviser Karl Rove is a key player in the Valerie Plame case.[/b]
In fact, what Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame is apparently one of the last things special prosecutor Patrick J.Fitzgerald is trying to determine before he wraps up his investigation into whether Plame was illegally outed as a CIA agent.
Newsweek yesterday described e-mails from Cooper relating his July 2003 interview with Rove. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told The Washington Post yesterday that his client spoke to Cooper, but did not identify Plame by name. Luskin also said Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe.
But let's look at what we can conclude from all this:
?? The latest news reports indicate that Rove is the source who Cooper was trying to protect until last week -- and that Rove tipped Cooper about Plame three days before Robert Novak published his now-famous column exposing Plame's identity.
?? Fitzgerald has asserted in his court filings that testimony from Cooper and now-jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller is all he needs to wrap up his investigation into whether a crime was committed. So what Rove said about Plame would therefore appear to be either one of two things -- or the only thing -- that Fitzgerald is still trying to nail down.
?? Rove and his lawyer's denials that he was involved in telling reporters about Plame now appear to be at best based on Clintonian hairsplitting about whether he literally used her name and identified her as covert or he simply described her as the CIA-employed wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the administration critic that White House was eager to discredit at the time.
?? President Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan's denials that Rove was involved in the Plame matter now appear to be at best based on the position that their responses to broad questions about Rove and Plame were met with narrowly constructed responses specifically about whether Rove leaked "classified information." Or is it possible Rove lied to them?
?? And McClellan's frequent implication that, if Rove talked to reporters about Plame it was only after Novak's column had already come out, now appears suspect.
If Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, longtime friend and deputy chief of staff is actually indicted by Fitzgerald -- which now appears to be a possibility -- it would be an enormous blow to Bush's second term. Until Fitzgerald wraps up his highly secretive investigation, however, that's all just speculation.
So let's ask ourselves some more practical questions instead:
?? Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?
?? Taking into account Bush's previous statements about leaks, does this mean he now has no choice but to fire Rove?
?? Did Rove keep all this from Bush?
?? Or did Bush know, but chose to keep silent and do nothing?
For some quick background, here is what Rove has said directly about Plame:
As ABC News's The Note reported on Sept. 29, 2003, ABC News producer Andrea Owen and a cameraman approached Rove that morning as he walked toward his car.
Owen: "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?"
Rove: "No."
At which point, Rove shut his car door.
Then on August 31, 2004, Rove spoke to CNN's John King .
King: "Did someone in the White House leak the name of the CIA operative? What is your assessment of the status of the investigation, and can you tell us that you had nothing to do with. . . .
Rove: "Well, I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name."
Here is McClellan in a Sept. 16, 2003 briefing :
"Q Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover a CIA operative. . . . Did Karl Rove do it?
"MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous."
On Sept. 30, 2003 , Bush himself was asked if Rove had a role in the CIA leak.
"Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information," he said. "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing."
And here is McClellan in an Oct. 7, 2003 briefing: "If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates, that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business. . . .
"If someone sought to punish someone for speaking out against the administration, that is wrong, and we would not condone that activity. No one in this White House would condone that activity. . . .
"It's absurd to suggest that the White House would be engaged in that kind of activity. That is not the way this White House operates."
This Just In
On MSNBC, Bob Kur reported out of this morning's off-camera gaggle with McClellan: "Well, they're being pummeled with questions here this morning. Very interesting turn of events. The White House spokesman just a few minutes ago was asked about the latest developments about Karl Rove and he says he can't comment because it's an ongoing criminal investigation -- and yet reporters went after him with questions saying that during this ongoing investigation at earlier stages, he was willing to stand at the podium and say flat out that Karl Rove was not involved in the leak of the C.I.A. operative's identity.
"Well, so those are some tough questions to be answered here at the White House today."
The News
Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek: "It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. 'Subject: Rove/P&C,' (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. 'Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . . ' Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, 'please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]' and suggested another reporter check with the CIA."
The White House, back in July 2003, was eager to discredit Wilson, who was publicly asserting that he had found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and had made that clear to administration officials before Bush included the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address.
Isikoff writes: "In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. . . . Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by 'DCIA' -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass
destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "
Isikoff was on MSNBC this morning and said: "Karl Rove has never before acknowledged that he had spoken to Matthew Cooper or anybody else about the Wilson matter prior to the Novak column. The White House initially dismissed claims that Karl Rove was involved, in any way involved, in the outing of Valerie Plame as totally ridiculous and even as recently as last week, Karl Rove's lawyer was saying that it was -- that Rove was never a confidential source for any reporter on this matter. The e-mail conclusively disproves those statements."
Joe Hagan writes in the Wall Street Journal: "After a week of seemingly contradictory reports, one fact appears to have solidified: Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's election victories, was a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper in his July 2003 article about a Central Intelligence Agency operative. . . .
"The unmasking of Mr. Rove marks an important milestone in the case. On the one hand, the details of Mr. Rove's discussion with Mr. Cooper -- especially if he didn't name Ms. Plame -- may exculpate him of the intentional, illegal disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA operative. Much will depend on whether Mr. Rove truthfully described any conversations in testimony before the grand jury. If he did, that would clear him of even a perjury charge and any criminal liability.
"That said, the disclosure that Mr. Bush's top political strategist discussed the CIA employment of Mr. Wilson's wife amounts to a political embarrassment for Mr. Rove and the White House. A presidential spokesman had previously given what appeared to be an unequivocal public assurance that Mr. Rove hadn't been involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame as a CIA operative. Discovery that earlier denials may have been carefully parsed would represent another blow to the administration's credibility, compounding damage from the underlying issue that initially brought Mr. Wilson into the spotlight."
Josh White writes in The Washington Post: "White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name. . . .
"Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.
"While the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm."
Adam Liptak writes in the New York Times: " 'A fair reading of the e-mail as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity,' Mr. Luskin said."
Over at Time, where they certainly know what's going on, Bill Saporito simply writes: "And who was Cooper's source? A number of news organizations named Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser. Time's editors have decided not to reveal the source at this time."
On TV
ABC's Good Morning America show today reported that "Presidential adviser Karl Rove may be in hot water with his boss now that his lawyer admitted he gave sensitive info to a reporter -- a leak that's at the center of a federal investigation. Here's ABC's Jessica Yellin."
Yellin: "He is one of the president's most trusted advisors, credited as the architect of the Bush campaign but now Newsweek magazine is reporting that Karl Rove is also one of the people who leaked secret information about a covert C.I.A. Agent to the media.. . . .
"Since the beginning of the investigation, President Bush has taken the position he does not tolerate leaks. . . .
"Legal experts say based on these e-mails Rove did not break the law, he did not name the woman or reveal that she was an undercover agent. But Rove must still answer to the president. The White House has maintained that anyone who leaked the identity of a C.I.A. Operative is not welcomed in the administration."
CNN, which happens to be owned by the same people who own Time magazine, is being oddly silent on the Rove issue this morning.
And on Fox News, they're not taking it too seriously.
On Fox News's Fox and Friends this morning, Kelly Wright reported: "Amid the difficult task of choosing a candidate for the Supreme Court and waging the war on terror, the White House is also dealing with a report about top White House adviser Karl Rove."
But, he concluded: "Bottom line here, guys, when you read between the lines, Karl Rove never mentioned anyone's name. "
Steve Doocy had a follow-up question: "Kelly, did I hear you right? Matthew Cooper wrote that the information that he had received was on double supersecret background ?
Wright: "That's right. According to this report that we're getting. . . .
Doocy: "Well, it must not be too double supersecret because we know about it now!"
Hairsplitting . . . From Cooper?
Adam Liptak in the Times attempts to reconstruct the events of Wednesday morning, when Cooper announced: "A short time ago, in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."
Sounds like a phone call directly from his source, doesn't it?
But Liptak writes: "Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.
"The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. . . .
"Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word 'personal' to mean specific."
But what Cooper said he got -- and what Miller says she hasn't gotten from her source -- is an explicit assurance that he was no longer bound by his confidentiality pledge. And Liptak writes: "Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald."
Liptak, by the way, also raises the question of whether Cooper got an explicit assurance before he testified in August about his conversations with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Previous Statements
Blogger Billmon has put together an excellent collection of previous White House statements vouching for Rove, so I don't have to.
Questions for the Media
Here are some questions for my fellow journalists:
?? For those covering the latest developments: How does it matter whether Rove literally used Plame's name or not?
?? Why, as the Think Progress blog has been asking, did no one in the White House press corps ask McClellan even one question about Rove's involvement last we
ek as the story was starting to unfold?
?? Has Karl Rove routinely hidden behind confidentiality to spread damaging information about the White House's enemies?
?? Should there maybe be a new category of "I'll-go-to-jail-for-you" on background reserved exclusively for whistle-blowers?
?? Will any of you ever grant Karl Rove confidentiality again?
The Wild, Wild Web
The left side of the Web is in a state of near ecstasy. And the right side is enraged -- primarily by the left side's ecstasy and the media's presumed feeding frenzy.
On the left:
The Nation's David Corn writes: "There now is clear-cut evidence that Rove was involved in -- if not the chief architect of -- the actions that led to the outing of Plame/Wilson. If he's not in severe legal trouble, he ought to be in political peril. . . .
"[T]his is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson -- even classified information related to national security -- to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that?"
Here's Tim Grieve on Salon.com: "It's plainly no defense to the crime of leaking the identity of a CIA agent to say that you didn't actually use her name: Federal law prohibits the intentional disclosure of 'any information identifying' a covert agent."
On Huffingtonpost.com, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) writes: "Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that President Bush was going to 'restore honesty and dignity to the White House?' How's that going?"
On the right:
Blogger Tom Maguire writes: "This Newsweek revelation may create some political heat for Karl, but it is far from clear that, if these notes accurately describe the conversation, Karl Rove had the intent and knowledge that are also elements of a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act."
A post on the Powerline blog suggests: "The media feeding frenzy will, indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and other pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food. This isn't a top presidential aide accepting an expensive gift, or engaging in lewd sexual conduct. It's a top aide providing truthful information to journalists in response to lies told to embarrass the administration and our government."
Blogger Hugh Hewitt says its all particularly unseemly in the wake of the London transit bombings. "[T]he president values and trusts Rove, and the assault on Rove has nothing to do with outrage over injury to the national security and everything to do with bleeding Bush. The idea that the forces that defended Clinton's bald lies under oath are now 'outraged' over spun-up pretend perjury charges would be wildly amusing but for the fact that the tragic losses of the past few days have not interrupted the vendettaists for even a decent interval."
Rove Speaks
Rove was in Nebraska on Friday, talking about . . . Social Security.
In town primarily for a fundraiser, Rove also stopped by the offices of Ameritrade.
Nate Jenkins writes in the Lincoln Journal Star: "Rove spoke for about 15 minutes at the online brokerage firm, answered a few written questions from employees, and then left without taking questions from reporters. He stuck solely to the Social Security message, not mentioning the bombings that left at least 50 dead in London. Nor did he address the pending investigation into whether Bush administration officials in 2003 illegally leaked the name of a CIA agent to reporters after the agent's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly criticized the Bush administration's arguments for going to war in Iraq. . . .
"The event Friday was closed to the public, and Rove's message was delivered to a company that Ameritrade Chief Operating Officer J. Peter Ricketts said would not directly benefit from partially privatizing Social Security but that he said could 'in the grand scheme of things.' "
Rove Comes Under New Scrutiny in C.I.A. Disclosure Case
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, July 11 - The White House went on the defensive today amid a barrage of questions from Democrats and reporters about the presidential adviser Karl Rove and whether he had disclosed the name of a covert intelligence operative in retaliation for criticism of the administration's Iraq policy.
President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, declined to repeat his earlier assertions that Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, had nothing to do with leaking the name of the operative, Valerie Plame of the Central Intelligence Agency, to get back at her husband, a former United States ambassador who had publicly challenged Bush administration policy.
Nor would Mr. McClellan repeat his earlier statements that any White House staff person who had leaked the name should be fired.
"The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren't going to comment on it while it is ongoing," Mr. McClellan said at a news briefing.
His comments came as Democrats began to intensify the pressure on the White House.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, said President Bush should follow his promise to preside over an ethical administration, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York demanded that Mr. Rove tell the public in detail what his role was.
Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said the intentional disclosure of a covert agency's identity amounted to an "act of treason," while Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called for a Congressional hearing.
The spotlight was focused on Mr. Rove over the weekend, when Newsweek reported on its Web site that Mr. Rove had spoken with at least one reporter about Ms. Plame's role at the C..I.A., although without identifying her by name, a few days before the columnist Robert D. Novak identified her in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Newsweek's weekend disclosure seemed, at the very least, to call into question Mr. Rove's own earlier statements, and the White House's, that he had nothing whatever to do with disclosing Ms. Plame's identity shortly after her husband wrote in a 2003 Op-Ed article in The New York Times that he had found no evidence that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger to further its nuclear ambitions.
The affair has been brewing in Washington for two years. It reached a new intensity this month with the jailing of a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, who never wrote an article about the affair but resisted demands from prosecutors to reveal whom she had talked to about it.
Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, avoided jail when his company yielded a demand to turn over his notes on the matter. Mr. Novak, meanwhile, has appeared to be under no threat of jail, for reasons that are not clear. He has said he will be able to clear things up one day.
Meanwhile, several Democ
ratic lawmakers demanded action immediately.
"I agree with the president when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct," Mr. Reid said. "The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."
Mr. Schumer, in his letter to Mr. Rove, said it was time for him to tell all. "I urge you to come forward to honestly and fully discuss any and all involvement you have had with this incident," Mr. Schumer wrote to Mr. Rove. "I believe this is a very serious breach of trust with a woman who has spent her career putting her life on the line to protect our country's freedom."
Mr. Lautenberg said President Bush "should immediately suspend Karl Rove's security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions," Reuters reported. And Mr. Waxman told Reuters that "the recent disclosures about Mr. Rove's actions have such serious implications that we can no longer responsibly ignore them."
Mr. McClellan declined repeatedly, in response to hostile questions, to go beyond his statements that he could not discuss the Plame affair while the investigation into the disclosure of her name was continuing. Mr. McClellan would not budge even as he was reminded of his, and the president's, previous expressions of confidence in Mr. Rove.
Democrats are virtually certain to keep up the pressure, given the White House's earlier categorical denials about Mr. Rove, and given Mr. Rove's status as a key presidential adviser who helped to devise Mr. Bush's successful re-election strategy.
Comments
honestly though, some sort of lewinskyesque scandal and investigation would make my fucking year...but if any less attention is devoted to the intl and domestic front, dohhhhh...so yeah in theory i'd like to see some shit blow up in this admins face, but no, would not be a good look for the country.
If this were to happen on the streets homie would be found in a dark alley w/ a hole in the head.
theory it is a possibility. reality hell no
it should be that one event that has marred our past two or three sitting lame duck presidents
if there was any justice theyd all be slow burned at the stake
(well, i wouldnt like to see that happen, but a country club prison is a little docile a fate)
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Scotty_Rove.mov
This is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time... It's not only funny, but beautiful.
Peace...
FNM
i seriously cannot stop laughing when he keeps repeating his little catchphrases.
nice! Dave Gregory. Even the dude from Fox gets him.
he sucks
PS--Please to stop killing my family.
What's great is when the camera does a closeup, and you can almost hear scottie gulp... you can defnitely see it. Classic... dude is nevous as hell...
And do they think that repeating that over and over DOES NOT make them look like lying criminals?
CIA Leak Quotes
Monday July 11, 2005 10:31 PM
By The Associated Press
Some of the denials, other comments, at media briefings by White House spokesman Scott McClellan when asked by reporters whether President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was involved in the leak of a CIA officer's identity:
^Sept. 29, 2003
Q: You said this morning, quote, ``The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved.'' How does he know that?
A: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. ... I've said that it's not true. ... And I have spoken with Karl Rove.
Q: It doesn't take much for the president to ask a senior official working for him, to just lay the question out for a few people and end this controversy today.
A: Do you have specific information to bring to our attention? ... Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper? We'd spend all our time doing that.''
Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, ``Did you ever have this information?''
A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.
^---
^Oct. 7, 2003
Q: You have said that you personally went to Scooter Libby (Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff), Karl Rove and Elliott Abrams (National Security Council official) to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that? And can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked?
A: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like this there are a lot of rumors and innuendo. There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They are good individuals. They are important members of our White House team. And that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.
^---
^Oct. 10, 2003
Q: Earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?
A: I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.
Q: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?
A: They assured me that they were not involved in this.
Q: They were not involved in what?
A: The leaking of classified information.
^---
July 11, 2005:
Q: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove, Karl Rove, was not involved in the Valerie Plame expose?
A: I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this point. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.
Q: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was definitely involved.
A: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Q: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?
A: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be commenting on it nor is ... .
Q: Any remorse?
A: Nor is the White House, because the president wanted us to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that's what we're doing.
Guardian UK
Again, after the investigation is complete
I will be glad to talk about it at that point.
I'm not a robot without emotions-I'm not what you see
I've come to help you with your problems, so we can be free
I am the modern man, who hides behind a mask
So no one else can see my true identity
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo...domo
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For doing the jobs that nobody wants to
And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For helping me escape just when I needed to
Thank you-thank you, thank you
I want to thank you, please, thank you
has the world already forgotten ari fleischer???
redneckheartland backbone of this country would raise their white fists in jubilation and say "fuck his ass for Jesus!"Security breach? Pfft. Fuck a security breach, because it's time for American Idol. Or maybe some dishy, dirty celeb news (LiLo's uncle's nephew's dog can't get it up). Really, though: It must be hard to be in the spotlight 24/7. And ghetto kids shooting ghetto kids again as the lead story. Blood and guts all over that empty lot. Thank god we don't live in that neighborhood, honey. But say: how's that new superhero/drama/raunchy teen sex comedy going to be? I really want to see that one. I hope it makes me feel good for an hour and a half, after all this stress at work lately. And what's the weather going to be like tomorrow? Maybe rain. Maybe sun. Maybe not. Did you see my new cell phone? It's shiny silver and takes pictures and takes video and takes your number so I can call you with two buttons instead of seven. The service sucks, though - I might change providers. And speaking of cell phones, wow: did you hear about the dog who dialed 9-1-1 and saved his owner's life? NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MAN'S BEST FUCKING FRIEND. HA HA HA.
(extra, extra, motherfuckers.)
How do you pronounce "Cymande," by the way? My friend swears it's "command" and I think he's wrong. (no hijack)
this hits the average american thought process right on the head. I couldn't have explained it better.
The end is nigh!!! This is the point in a civilization life when it starts to fall to shit... Just watch.
Let's see, in watergate a president ordered former CIA operatives to break into the democratic party headquarters, lied about it, fired two attorney generals who tried to investigate the case and committed a series of other crimes leveraging federal authority against his political enemies.
In Plamegate, you have a possible violation of the Intelligence Idenities Protection Act, a law passed by Nixonian conservatives in the early 1980s to stifle CIA whistleblower Phillip Agee from further talking to reporters or testifying before Congress. It is rich irony that over twenty years after this stupid law was passed, the dogged defenders of the public's right to know about the CIA are from the party that for years sought to keep its activities shrouded from the public eye. And the Democrats and Bush haters are the ones insisting that as fatback says, the outing of a CIA analyst is a crime worse that watergate. As Hitchens has written, America made it through world war two and most of the cold war without this hindrance on freedom of speech.
Make no mistake, McLellan, Rove and others lied when they said thay they had nothing to do with the leak. But given the agency's hostility towards the liberation of Iraq, I certainly think it's relevant that one of the Iraq war's first alleged whistleblowers had an axe to grind and a wife with one too. Furthermore, as I understand it, Cooper's notes will say that Rove said that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and recommended him for the Niger mission, not Valerie Plame is an undercover agent. Splitting hairs? perhaps. But a relevant distinction, lawyers say, as it regards the law.
Furthermore, while Plame had been undercover, she was not undercover at the time. Her life was not in danger. And just a question. Why in the world would the CIA send someone undercover into the field with their real name? Isn't that why there are aliases?
My point is that this is not watergate. If progressives are suddenly going to get up in high dudgeon about these matters, perhaps they should press for a special prosecutor to investigate the case against Senators Kerry and Lugar, who in March at an open Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, outed Fulton Armstrong--an undercover CIA analyst attached to the National Intelligence Council for Latin America. Haven't heard a peep about that.
Watergate is a hotel in Washington DC. Ms. Plane was an undercover CIA operative gathering important information to keep Americans safe from terrorists. She was outed as political retaliation because her husband called bullshit in Bush???s yellow cake assertion in the State of the Union leading up the War. I think that was the same one where he talked about Sadam???s links to Osama and 911 and his advanced WPM programs and mushroom clouds and shit? Anyhow, thanks to legislation signed by Diddy HW, outing an undercover agent is a felony. Maybe you should look up felony (no jayo) while you???re still figuring out what ???throws??? are? Because last I heard it was a pretty bad thing.