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

Doesn't it strike you as odd that nobody....and I mean NOBODY who criticizes or 'blows the whistle' on or accuses anyone in the Bush administration is ever criticized or touted as anything other than 'honest', 'courageous', etc. by many here on A2K? But whatever the Bush adminsitration says to defend themselves is inevitably declared hateful, dishonest, retalitory, smear tactics, etc. by those same people?

How much objectivity is at play here do you think?

Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel, told me that he would prefer that I not discuss the matter, and I suspect he said the same thing to White House officials who are now treating his request as a command and refusing to comment on the case.
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These grand jurors did not seem the types to passively indict a ham sandwich. I would say one-third of my 2 1/2 hours of testimony was spent answering their questions, not the prosecutor's, although he posed them on their behalf. I began to take notes but then was told I had to stop, so I'm reliant on memory.
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I told the grand jurors that I was curious about Wilson when I called Karl Rove on Friday, July 11...... But then, I recall, she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him. 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.
In fact, I told the grand jury, Rove told me the conversation was on "deep background." I explained to the grand jury that I take the term to mean that I can use the material but not quote it, and that I must keep the identity of my source confidential.
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Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings.
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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.
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Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it's not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much." 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.
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A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can't find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don't recall doing so.

So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? 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.

Cheney's Chief of Staff Was Another Source for Cooper on Valerie Plame Story

By Pete Yost Associated Press Writer
Published: Jul 17, 2005






WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

The White House refused last week to repeat those assertions when it was revealed that Rove had told Time reporter Matt Cooper that the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently works at the CIA and that she had authorized his trip to Africa. The CIA dispatched Wilson to check out a report that the government of Niger had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons.

Cooper said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he spoke to Libby after first learning about Wilson's wife from Rove.

According to Cooper, Libby and Rove were among the government officials referred to in Cooper's subsequent Time story that said Wilson's wife was a CIA official and that she was involved in sending her husband on a trip to Africa.

Cooper's article was headlined, "A War on Wilson?"

On Sunday, Cooper also said there may have been other sources for that information. He declined to elaborate.

In a first-person account in the latest issue of Time, Cooper said Rove ended their telephone conversation with the words, "I've already said too much." Cooper speculated that Rove could have been worried about being indiscreet or "it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

Republicans are responding to the revelations about Rove's role in the leak by saying that the deputy White House chief of staff first heard about Wilson's wife from a reporter.

The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, told NBC that the disclosure about getting the information from a reporter vindicates Rove and that Democrats who have called for Rove's dismissal should apologize.

But John Podesta, former White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, said the White House's assurance in 2003 that Rove was not involved in the leak "was a lie." Rove's credibility "is in shreds," said Podesta, who appeared with Mehlmen.

Wilson was the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

AP-ES-07-17-05 1128EDT

which would just prove once again that the easiest way to uncover corruption in Washington is to create it yourself by investigating nonexistent crimes.