Posted on 07/03/2005 8:25:16 PM PDT by CHARLITE
A lawyer for presidential adviser Karl Rove has disclosed that his client spoke with a Time magazine reporter just days before the name of a CIA operative was leaked to the media, but he did not leak the confidential information.
Rove attorney Robert Luskin said that Rove did not reveal any secrets, and, furthermore, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has assured him that the adviser is not a target of his investigation.
According to Luskin, Rove spoke to Time reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003 - a week before media reports revealed the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic and former special U.S. envoy Joseph Wilson.
"What I can tell you is that Cooper called Rove during that week between the Wilson article and the Novak article, but that Karl absolutely did not identify Valerie Plame," Luskin said.
Wilson has in the past said he suspected Rove played a role in revealing his wife's cover. Wilson believes the White House leaked her name in retaliation for a July 6, 2003 article in the New York Times written by Wilson, accusing the administration of using bogus intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Cooper is one of two reporters who have been held in contempt of court for not cooperating with a federal investigation into who revealed Plame's identity. Cooper and another reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, face jail terms that could start as early as Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in a bid to keep its reporter out of jail, Time Inc. turned over e-mail and other documents to a special prosecutor on Friday.
Reportedly, these documents identify sources Cooper used in his report, but thus far Time has refused to comment on whether or not the documents out Rove as among the sources who were revealed.
Rove has testified before a grand jury investigating the Plame case on three occasions. That grand jury is probing the alleged outing of Plame by syndicated columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003.
Luskin said, "It is certainly my understanding that Karl has testified absolutely truthfully about all his conversations about everybody that he has been asked about during that week."
"Nobody has suggested to us ever that they think that there are any problems about whether they think he is being candid."
The Italian document may have been forged but saddam was trying to buy uranium from niger, where he had gotten it before. BTW does anyone know why iraq was trying to buy uranium? They had plenty at al-tuwaitha and a mine near the syrian border. I had heard that what niger had access to was more highly enriched.
Howlin knows how much time I spent on this issue and I truly believe the only person who needs to fear the Special Prosecutor is Joe Wilson himself.
There is no doubt in my mind that Joe Wilson is a fraud and if his past gets 10% of the scrutiny George W. Bush's has. Joe Wilson might find himself behind bars.
Joe Wilson was who coordinated that 1000 person 6 week vacation to Africa that the Clinton's and all of their friends went on. That trip cost almost 100 million dollars and Joe Wilson was the person who made all the arrangements and the contracts...... The Clinton's own him
IMO, Wilson fancies himself a modern day James Angelton.
He doesn't have the class or the breeding to pull it off though.
That document was never cited and the Brit's have never backed away from their claim. That document was purchased by our Embassy in Italy for $200.00 and was written off as a fake from day one. I believe that the Joe Wilson trip was arranged by whoever put that bogus document into the report given to the U.N. in order to damage the Bush Administration. Keep in mind, the U.N. was neck deep in the Oil for Food scandal, and nobody can convince me that the State Department didn't know about it. I believe Joe Wilson knew it as well, and his wife was conveniently working for the Non Proliferation Dept of the CIA.
I truly believe that the UN's Oil For Food scandal and those on the take in our State Department were doing everything they could to deflect away from the real criminals
I have followed this non-story for far too long.
Please kill it -- and take a 2 x 4 to O'Donnell's backside as you walk out the door with this garbage.
Uh huh, and this is coming out now as a payback for Rove's comments about Liberal's reaction to 9/11.
When leftist scum revealed information about CIA operatives they were hailed as heroes--even when those operatives were killed. Why the sanctimonious reaction now? That's liberalism for you.
Makes a lot of sense. Very hard to win a war when the enemies within work without fear and the msm and the dems aid and abet.
Me, too! Talk about an @$$clown jumping up and down waving his arms for attention when it suits him....
BINGO! I even knew a guy who ran a deli who kept telling everyone he was really an intelligence operative but to PLEASE not to tell anyone. He told that to EVERYONE.
Gratuitous? Joe Wilson was known as a rabidly anti-Bush and anti-War critic and it was a service Novak provided by reporting why he would have been sent to Niger at the behest of the CIA.
If I am not mistaken, he expressed surprise (mock surprise?) at the time, wondering at the fact that anyone thought it unusual, since "everybody inside the Beltway knows that Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, works as a CIA undercover agent."
You are completely mistaken.
Bob Novak explicitly said he was under the impression she was NOT an undercover agent. The public evidence to date continues to point in the direction of analyst, not covert, too.
Novak did a very good thing by revealing what he did and that is why the left has attacked so hard.
The question is, why did Plame want her husband sent on this errand and what was he really doing there.
We have known almost since Wilson trumped up his charge that naming his wife was some kind of bizarre "retaliation" that Rove spoke with reporters (plural, including Cooper) but we also have known he was not the source (he couldn't have been) in the Plame name part.
We also know now for sure that he, like Scooter Libby, has signed a confidentiality waiver allowing reporters to completely disclose the content of any conversations they had with him.
First of all, Novak is not an idiot and he did not "blow her cover".
The only cover he blew was Wilson trying to claim some kind of higher ground in his representation of his trip to Niger and the scope of what he claims to have learned and who was privy to these "findings" (barely anybody).
Novak did a public service by providing this angle, that Wilson was sent because his wife worked at the CIA.
Add me to the "Alan Foley was probably one of the sources" gang.
Your post #19:
BRAVO!
Not to mention the forged documents were given to our embassy in Rome in October, 2002---8 months AFTER Wilson's trip. Our CIA headquarters didn't come into possession of the forgeries until February 2003---AFTER the President's SOTU and the "sixteen words". Wilson's deliberate attempt to link the forgeries to his trip and "findings" is another suspicious circumstance.
Novak was not smart enough to figure out how this would play out. Even an idiot could have forseen it.
By "play out", I take it you would rather not have learned why the pompous blowhard Joe Wilson was sent to Niger and then wrote a gross misrepresentation about it?
I prefer an airing of the facts. I'm sorry you find truth offensive. Perhaps you are in the wrong place.
Novak did not have to finger her as a CIA operative in order to trash Wilson. In fact, Novak later stated that he did not understand the significance of the term "operative" and thought she was not undercover. Well, DUH!
Novak wasn't trying to "trash Wilson". He was explaining how it came to be that Wilson was sent to Niger and it turns out the reason was his wife was what he called a "CIA operative", which he later clarified as an analyst.
He also said she was not undercover.
I fail to see what your point is with the "DUH" except you seem gullible for Wilsonian talking points.
I am no fan of Wilson. I am also no fan of Novak. Novak is an idiot. Anyone who does not know what the term "CIA operative" means, but writes a nationally published article using the term and ends up errantly disclosing the name of a covert CIA operative is an idiot. And the fact that he only intended to do us a service by exposing the jackass, Wilson, really does not mollify me. It merely buttresses my conclusion that he's an idiot.
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