Rove was the source of the Plame leak... so it appears

White House aide Karl Rove revealed the role, but not the name, of a CIA agent, his attorney says...

"Cooper, according to an internal Time e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine, spoke with Rove before Novak's column was published. In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a "big warning" that Wilson's assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip," according to a story in Newsweek's July 18 issue.

...

Rove did not mention her name to Cooper," Luskin said. "This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."

In particular, Rove was urging caution because then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was about to issue a statement regarding Iraq's alleged interest in African uranium and its inaccurate inclusion in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet took the blame for allowing a misleading paragraph into the speech, but Tenet also said that the president, vice president and other senior officials were never briefed on Wilson's report.

After the investigation into the leak began, Luskin said, Rove signed a waiver in December 2003 or January 2004 authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had previously engaged in discussion, which included Cooper.

"His written waiver included the world," Luskin said. "It was intended to be a global waiver. . . . He wants to make sure that the special prosecutor has everyone's evidence. That reflects someone who has nothing to hide."

Quote:

White House aide Karl Rove revealed the role, but not the name, of a CIA agent, his attorney says...

If one believes that bit of hokum they must also, believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

Quote:

White House aide Karl Rove revealed the role, but not the name, of a CIA agent, his attorney says...

If one believes that bit of hokum they must also, believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

The truth is inconvenient to those who do not wish to believe it.

So what is Bush doing about this? And again I ask, why aren't reporters camped out in front of Rove's home to try to get a statement. Why aren't the WH reporters demanding an answer from Bush? How did we come to this that we no longer have a free press in this country?

i think you have that backwards, au. it's more like believing that Santa doesn't exist. i mean, a high Bush administration taking advantage of a loophole to beat the rap on a technicality; that's positively Clintonesque. surely there's another explanation.

It's sounding like a well planned conspiracy at this point.

Rove reveals Wilson's wife works at the CIA and planned the trip but doesn't name her or say what she does.

Libby or someone else reveals that an undercover CIA agent, not named, planned the trip

and then a third person names Plame as Wilson's wife

All have plausable deniablity until the conspiracy falls apart. It is the concerted effort to attack Wilson that makes it hard to believe that the revelations were accidental or unplanned. A prosecutor that is used to the plausable deniability used in organized crime is probably seeing it as that conspiracy.

Vouching for Karl

QUESTION: The Robert Novak column last week . . . has now given rise to accusations that the administration deliberatively blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative, and in so doing, violated a federal law that prohibits revealing the identity of undercover CIA operatives. Can you respond to that?
McCLELLAN: Thank you for bringing that up. That is not the way this President or this White House operates. And there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
July 22, 2003

QUESTION: Scott, has there ever been an attempt or effort on the part of anyone here at the White House to discredit the reputations or reporting of former Ambassador Joe Wilson, his wife, or ABC correspondent Jeffrey Kofman?
McCLELLAN: John, I think I answered that yesterday. That is not the way that this White House operates. That's not the way the President operates . . . No one would be authorized to do that within this White House. That is simply not the way we operate, and that's simply not the way the President operates.

QUESTION: In all of those cases?

McCLELLAN: Well, go down -- which two?

QUESTION: Joe Wilson and his wife?

McCLELLAN: No.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
July 23, 2003

QUESTION: Wilson now believes that the person who did this was Karl Rove . . . Did Karl Rove tell that . . .

McCLELLAN: I haven't heard that. That's just totally ridiculous. But we've already addressed this issue. If I could find out who anonymous people were, I would. I just said, it's totally ridiculous.

QUESTION: But did Karl Rove do it?

McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
September 16, 2003

This morning, ABC News producer Andrea Owen happened to find herself near Karl Rove (who was walking to his car), and an ABC camera.
Owen: "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?"

Rove: "No."

At which point, Mr. Rove shut his car door as Ms. Owen asked, "What is your response to the fact that Justice is looking into the matter?"

ABC News
The Note
September 29, 2003
(courtesy of Think Progress)


QUESTION: Has the President either asked Karl Rove to assure him that he had nothing to do with this; or did Karl Rove go to the President to assure him that he . . .

McCLELLAN: I don't think he needs that. I think I've spoken clearly to this publicly . . . I've just said there's no truth to it.

QUESTION: Yes, but I'm just wondering if there was a conversation between Karl Rove and the President, or if he just talked to you, and you're here at this . . .

McCLELLAN: He wasn't involved. The President knows he wasn't involved.

QUESTION: How does he know that?

McCLELLAN: The President knows.

Scott McClellan
Press Gaggle
September 29, 2003


QUESTION: Weeks ago, when you were first asked whether Mr. Rove had the conversation with Robert Novak that produced the column, you dismissed it as ridiculous. And I wanted just to make sure, at that time, had you talked to Karl?

McCLELLAN: I've made it very clear, from the beginning, that it is totally ridiculous. I've known Karl for a long time, and I didn't even need to go ask Karl, because I know the kind of person that he is, and he is someone that is committed to the highest standards of conduct.

QUESTION: Can you say for the record whether Mr. Rove possessed the information about Mr. Wilson's wife, but merely did not talk to anybody about it?

McCLELLAN: I don't know whether or not -- I mean, I'm sure he probably saw the same media reports everybody else in this room has.

QUESTION: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, did you ever have this information?

McCLELLAN: We're going down a lot of different roads here. I've made it very clear that he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
September 29, 2003

QUESTION: Yesterday we were told that Karl Rove had no role in it. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

QUESTION: Have you talked to Karl and do you have confidence in him . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
September 30, 2003

McCLELLAN: Let me make it very clear. As I said previously, he [Karl Rove] was not involved, and that allegation is not true in terms of leaking classified information, nor would he condone it.

QUESTION: He does not condone people pointing reporters toward classified information that's been released; he would not condone that either? Is that what you're saying?

McCLELLAN: The President doesn't condone the activity that you're suggesting, absolutely he does not.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
October 1, 2003

QUESTION: Scott, you have said that you, personally, went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers . . . Why did you do that, and can you describe the conversations you had with them?

McCLELLAN: They're good individuals, they're 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 of 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.

QUESTION: So you're saying -- you're saying categorically those three individuals were not the leakers or did not authorize the leaks; is that what you're saying?

McCLELLAN: That's correct.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
October 7, 2003

QUESTION: Scott, 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?
McCLELLAN: 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.

QUESTION: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

McCLELLAN: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
October 10, 2003

Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column.

The American Prospect
Plugging Leaks
March 8, 2004

I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name.
Karl Rove
CNN Interview
August 31, 2004

Note the carefully used words here; 'I didn't say her name.' Nice try, Karl

"Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else . . . Who outed this woman? . . . It wasn't Karl." Luskin said Rove "certainly did not disclose to Matt Cooper or anybody else any confidential information."
Rove attorney Robert Luskin
CNN Interview
July 4, 2005

Luskin confirmed that Rove and Cooper had spoken prior to the publication of the original Time article, but said that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA" nor did he "knowingly disclose classified information."
Newsweek
Turning Up the Heat
July 6, 2005

Newsweek
Matt Cooper's Source
July 10, 2005


Posted by billmon at July 11, 2005 02:04 AM