Posted on 07/11/2006 10:51:06 PM PDT by brain bleeds red
WASHINGTON — Columnist Robert Novak said publicly for the first time Tuesday that White House political adviser Karl Rove was a source for his story outing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
In a column, Novak also says his recollection of his conversation with Rove differs from what the Rove camp has said.
"I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection," Novak wrote. Novak did not elaborate.
A spokesman for Rove's legal team, Mark Corallo, said that Rove did not even know Plame's name at the time he spoke with Novak, that the columnist called Rove, not the other way around, and that Rove simply said he had heard the same information that Novak passed along to him regarding Plame.
"There was not much of a difference" between the recollections of Rove and Novak, said Corallo.
Novak said he is talking now because Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told the columnist's lawyer that after 2 1/2 years his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to Novak has been concluded.
(Story continues below)
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Triggering the criminal investigation, Novak revealed Plame's CIA employment on July 14, 2003, eight days after her husband, White House critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of manipulating prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
Novak's secret cooperation with prosecutors while maintaining a public silence about his role kept him out of legal danger and had the effect of providing protection for the Bush White House during the 2004 presidential campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
bttt
Novak already knew when he called Rove; Rove just said he had heard the same thing.
The CIA confirmed her employment to Novak when he called them. If the CIA reveals your employment over the phone, you are not covert. Period.
The whole investigation was a hoax, from the beginning. If they give you up over the phone, you aren't covert.
Who cares? Don't people have anything better to spend their time on? The investigation is over, move on, if the liberals want to waste their time on this, more power to them. This is one of those baffling nobody-cares issues that never dies because too many people are getting some kind of notoriety out of it that they crave.
Novak really is being cute on this. He gives up Rove because Rove's attorney talked about Rove's conversation with Novak to third parties but Novak won't disclose the name of his original source even though Novak has said that that source did the exact same thing that Rove's attorney did (i.e. talk to third parties about the source's off the record conversation with Novak). I guess the lesson is -- don't take any chances and don't talk to Novak anymore.
Egads....will someone put a bullet into this freaking story? It would be nice if the MSM would move on...after all isn't that the name of the organization they get their orders from - Move On?
They just keep beating a dead horse. No one cares about this tripe. It's been going on for over a year and nothing has come of it yet. Note to libs: Try something else, you idiots!
Novak is a JOURNALIST. Get it?
?
This story is actually bigger than you think, and not because Novak supposedly "named" Rove, a typically AP headline that misses the real story. There are a lot of good points made on this thread. A lot of people made interesting contributions, but let me refer you to my posts: Why this is a big story, and
why Rove has testified so often. Just because they're mine, and I don't feel like retyping, not because they're more insightful than anyone else's.
Here's the deal:
1. Novak found out about "Wilson's wife" setting him up for the trip to Niger from a yet-unnamed source, who Novak repeats is NOT in the White House and NOT a political gunslinger. He goes on to say this source did not intend to "leak" anything.
2. Novak called Karl Rove for confirmation that "Wilson's wife" set up his trip and he did not go at Dick Cheney's request as he had told everyone.
3. Novak says Rove answered "oh, you know that too" while Rove told the investigators and the grand jury he said "oh, I heard that too."
4. Novak then looked up Joe Wilson in "Who's Who in America" and found his wife's name right there in print.
5. Novak called Harlow at CIA to confirm Valerie Plame worked there. Harlow confirmed.
6. Novak had his story and ran it.
Novak goes on to say that Fitzgerald already knew about all three of his sources before he was questioned by investigators or the grand jury. In other words, Fitz knew this whole story was a crock very early on, but carried on for two years anyway and spent millions of our dollars for nothing. And the whole "White House War on Wilson" and nefarious plot by Karl Rove to "retaliate" against Wilson by "outing" his wife was a complete fiction peddled by the Kerry campaign and bought by Matt Cooper, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the rest of the MSM.
"It would be nice if the MSM would move on."
Is Fox news considered to get its orders from Move On? I'm confused. Also when and to whom did the CIA give up Plame on the phone? Whether she was currently active, none the less outing her exposes all her contacts in her previous overseas posts to scrutiny and possible danger or death.
Is Novak trying to get a job with the New York Times?
Those were excellent posts.
Did you sign up last December just to tell us that exposing Valerie Plame was a serious breach of security? Get real.
That sound you hear is the last thread of the limb you liberals have walked out on breaking. The White House did not orchestrate any leaks, and the leaks that were made weer inadvertent and did not damage anything but Joe Wilson's credibility, which deserved damaging.
Fox is hardly the MSM....not in the vein of CBS, CNN, New York Times, NBC, ABC....they ARE the whimpering subjects that obey Move On..
The operative issue is she was NOT active...now repeat that 1000 times til something sinks in. That's a good lil libnut...say aren't you up past your bed time?
Ah...please forgive me. Aunt Hillary didn't give you warm milk and read to you from all the stolen FBI files she and Bill kept eh? It's understandable then that you are so fidgety.
Look, there isn't now and hasn't been for yonks, anyone anywhere, who would be danger, if Plame's name were outed. For crying out loud, her own husband introduced them as THE AMBASSADOR AND THE SPY, at every social gathering they've gone to for years.
Any reporter who leaks information from the anonymous sources should be spit on for the human excrement they are.
Report the facts and who told them to them or shut the hell up.
These people went to college for this crappy writing and trashy information.
what does "off the record" mean now?
I am interpreting your post as saying Prosecutor Fitzgerald perpetrated a fraud upon the court, and the judge winked at, suborned really, perjury.
This whole Plame thing was such a crock of crap, it's turned into just another divorce court circus.
An honest judge is supposed to halt a proceeding when it goes off the rails, which explains why this has been in the news this many years.
Could the AP have come up with a headline that was anymore bias?
Great analysis!
Quite right. It would be interesting to perform a name recognition test concerning Plame and her lying b------ of a husband with the American public. I would bet that less than ten percent could recognize their names. Heck, I'll bet most Americans don't know who Karl Rove is. Most people aren't news junkies much less political news junkies.
That's the way Matthews & Schuster 'splained it last night... ;)
Four Scourges of the World:
1. Liberal Media
2. Democrats
3. Islamofacists
4. Communists
Good analysis, especially the parts concerning the "Prosecutor's prosecutor".
Novak should keep his flap shut.
He goes on to say---and AP left this out---that he got Plames name from "Who's Who." Now, IMHO, that does NOT even qualify as a "source."
Oh for cryin in a beer...Novak getting desperate for some attention or something? It is LONG past time that this stupid PLame thing got put to bed.
Novak is a jerk. Just tell us who your source is and let the Country go on. He acts like this is Deep Throat when it is small potatoes. Come on Novak, clean up your mess!!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Novak will also be appearing on Brit Hume today at 6PM eastern.
"The investigation is over, move on, if the liberals want to waste their time on this, more power to them."
I awakened for a time early this morning and was listening on my radio, looking for something decent. While searching for news, I ran across Democrat Hate Radio--some call it Air America. The guys were re-hashing the whole thing, taking it apart piece by piece, as if it happened yesterday.
No wonder they're all so hate-filled. They keep losing.
(Isn't this done by losers?"
They will not move beyond this thing until Fitzgerald re-opens the investigation and kills someone.
What's the point of being sarcastic, & rude?
Novak called Bill Harlow, the CIA public information officer, and asked if Vallery Plame worked at the CIA.. Harlow replied that she did work at the CIA!
Novak reasoned that if the Bill Harlow of the CIA PUBLIC information office told him Plame worked at the CIA she could not be covert.
Harlow also told Novak Plames job title....
How could Plame be covert if the public information office of the CIA first confirms she works at the CIA and then tells a reporter her job title.
Novak called Bill Harlow, the CIA public information officer, and asked if Vallery Plame worked at the CIA.. Harlow replied that she did work at the CIA!
Novak reasoned that if the Bill Harlow of the CIA PUBLIC information office told him Plame worked at the CIA she could not be covert.
Harlow also told Novak Plames job title....
How could Plame be covert if the public information office of the CIA first confirms she works at the CIA and then tells a reporter her job title.
The "Fitzgerald perpetrated a fraud upon the court" line of thinking is a good one to pursue - I wonder why Libby's lawyers are not going over Fitzgerald's statements to the judge justifying the expansion of his mission (and others) with a fine-toothed comb to find and highlight knowingly false statements that Fitzgerald has likely made to the court. Maybe that is the ace up their sleeve that they will pull out at the appropriate time if their other gambits fail. Fitzgerald has got to be sweating about that - and maybe a good deal of his bluster and his determination to continue the farcical prosecution of Libby is to distract attention from Fitz's own misdeeds. (with apologies for the mixed metaphors)
The simple answer is I have lost all respect for liberals. Why, oh why should we be respectful to those that have chosen to engage in behavior that could easily classify them as traitors. They have, at almost every turn, made an attempt to misinform and lie about every aspect on the war on terror. In doing so they have endangered our troops abroad and all of us here at home. I recognize that not every liberal is an enemy of America, but the ones that continue to attempt to sew seeds of lies, such as the libnut I was addresssing, have more than earned every drop of sarcasm and rudeness I can muster.
Actually, this would be plagiarism as the left now defines it for conservative commentary.
Matthews has spent the past 2 years kicking aroud Bush by kicking around Rove, even going to declare that the person identified in the Fitzgerald indictment as Government official A as Rove. Now Novak reveals that it is not Rove. Who is going to ask Chris Matthews when he will apologize for libeling Rove and spewing his filthy lies. I want to hear that son-of-a-bitch answer for his caprice. Mr. Fitzgerald has a few questions he needs to answer, such as "Why, once he discerned who leaked Plames name and that it was not a violation of law, did he continue on his fishing expedition?" He simply took his forum to expand his own personal agrandizement. Now he will look like the partisan monkey that he is. Fitzgerald is only a hairs-breath away from joining the Wisconsin professors and loons who assert that Bush attacked New York and the Pentagon. The liberal have gone off of the ledge and are in freefall, and the pathetic pricks cannot see because of their hate of Bush.
"Did you sign up last December just to tell us that exposing VP was a serious breach of security?"
No, I sign up last December because after a long debelitating illness from which my husband died that summer, I finally had the will and strength to get my first computer and reach out to the world. Also because my son was leaving for Iraq or Afghanistan in a few weeks, and I discovered FR would be a supportive location.
Brit Hume hosts Special Report. They're the same show...
We are supportive, and sympathize with you on your family situation. Thank you for your son's service. Now, with respect to Valerie Plame, I think she and her husband were the ones responsible for blowing her cover, and the CIA used her in an effort to attack an administration with which they disagree. It was a setup all along--"if they go after Joe, we're going to refer it to Justice." Too bad Ashcroft's minion fell for it, and referred it to that toad, Fitzgerald.
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