A story in the upcoming issue of Newsweek confirms that Karl Rove was the source who talked to Time's Matthew Cooper before Novak's infamous column ran (he had previously confessed only to moving the story around after the column came out) -- a fact Rove has confirmed through his attorney. Here's the bottom line:
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.
I think it's safe to say Lawrence O'Donnell is vindicated...
Rob at SayAnything argues that since Rove apparenlty didn't mention Plame by name, and didn't appear to know she was a covert operative, ipso, facto no crime was committed. But Rove's real problem might be of the Martha Stewart variety: namely, whether he really said the following to the FBI:
President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel's investigation of the matter.
But 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. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
So Rove has two problems: one big one if he fudged his story to the FBI, and one huge one if he did the same in front of the grand jury. Remember, Ms. Stewart wasn't jailed for the stock sale, she was jailed for the lying to investigators... So when those on the right see no frog march in Rove's future, they could very well be wrong.
That still leaves open the question of who the other "high level White House official" who tipped Novak might have been, with growing suspicion that it could be Scooter Libby (see previous post).
It is highly unlikely that Rove (or any other as-yet-unidentified source) violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That statute applies when:
1) a person having access to classified information that identifies a "covert agent" discloses the agent's identity to a person not authorized to receive the information, where the person making the disclosure knows that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States";
2) same thing, only the person making the disclosure "learns the identity of a covert agent" through his access to classified information; or
3) a person discloses the identity of a covert agent "in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States."
One and three don't seem to fit Colonel Karl, but according tot he International Herald Tribune in an April 3, 2004 story:
Fitzgerald is said to be investigating whether the disclosure of Plame's identity came after someone discovered her name among classified documents circulating at the upper echelons of the White House.
Remember the WHIG? The group, including Rove, who were charged with marketing the war? The logical conclusion is that Fitzgerald is zeroing in on a person or persons who obtained classified information that was circulating around the White House, disclosed it, and then possibly lied about it to investigators. Sounds like count 2 of the statute to me...
Links: Craig Crawford on Rove's accidental genius in possibly outing Rove, sparing himself the indictment on revealing classified info, and stifling the media all in one fell swoop. Joho the blog says "kiss your assrove goodbye" Kerfuffles says "not so fast"
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
