Rove Leaked, Rove Confirmed

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 8:23am

Dont fall for Republican obfuscation.

The facts from last week's Newsweek article and today's Times article are that Rove LEAKED to Matt Cooper and CONFIRMED to Robert Novak:

LEAK: "Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by 'DCIA'--CIA Director George Tenet--or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' [Newsweek]

CONFIRMATION: "After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: 'I heard that, too.'" [New York Times]

[BT]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 8:40am

I found this morning's Washington Post editorial compelling. They call for less finger pointing and more investigation. I think it would be a wise thing.

------------------
Mr. Rove's Leak

Friday, July 15, 2005; Page A22

THE UPROAR over Karl Rove's involvement in the leak of a CIA agent's identity makes this the third consecutive Washington summer to feature a tempest over what should have been a long-forgotten visit to the African nation of Niger by retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. There are serious questions about Mr. Rove's behavior, as well as his misleading public accounting for it during the past two years. Certainly, the revelation that Mr. Rove discussed Mr. Wilson's wife with at least one reporter undermines the White House's highhanded pronouncements that it was "just totally ridiculous" to think that Mr. Rove had anything to do with the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.

But much is still unknown, and Democratic demands that Mr. Rove be fired immediately seem premature given the murky state of the evidence. While we await more facts, it's worth remembering some from the previous episodes of this strange story -- including a few that have been mangled or forgotten.


Mr. Wilson made his trip in 2002 to look into reports that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger. A year later, he publicly surfaced and loudly proclaimed that the Bush administration should have known that its conclusion that Iraq had sought such supplies, included in the president's 2003 State of the Union address, was wrong. He said he had debunked that theory and that his report had circulated at the highest levels of government.

One year after that, reports by two official investigations -- Britain's Butler Commission and the Senate intelligence committee -- demonstrated that Mr. Wilson's portrayal of himself as a whistle-blower was unwarranted. It turned out his report to the CIA had not altered, and may even have strengthened, the agency's conclusion that Iraq had explored uranium purchases from Niger. Moreover, his account had not reached Vice President Cheney or any other senior official. According to the Butler Commission, led by an independent jurist, the assertion about African uranium included in Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech was "well-founded."

That brings us to this year's dust-up, which concerns whether Mr. Rove or other administration officials should be held culpable for leaking to journalists the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. Reporters were told that Ms. Plame recommended Mr. Wilson for the Niger trip -- a fact denied by Mr. Wilson but subsequently confirmed by the Senate investigation. A federal prosecutor is conducting a criminal probe that has, among other things, unearthed an e-mail from Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper revealing that Mr. Rove told him about Ms. Plame's role in her husband's trip.

This gives the lie to White House denials that Mr. Rove was involved in the leak. Mr. Rove and White House spokesman Scott McClellan can fairly be accused, at the very least, of responding to questions about the affair with the sort of misleading legalisms and evasions that Republicans once rightly condemned President Bill Clinton for employing. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Mr. Rove told CNN last year. Technically true, perhaps, but hardly a model of straightforwardness and probity. Asked about the leak, Mr. McClellan waxed indignant: "That is not the way this White House operates," he said. Or is it?

At the same time, Mr. Rove and other administration officials had a legitimate interest in rebutting Mr. Wilson's inflated claims -- including the notion that he had been dispatched to Niger at Mr. Cheney's behest. It's in that context, judging from Mr. Cooper's e-mail, that Mr. Rove appears to have brought up Ms. Plame's role. Whether Mr. Rove or others behaved in a way that amounted to criminal, malicious or even merely sleazy behavior will turn on what they knew about Ms. Plame's employment. Were they aware she was a covert agent? Did they recklessly fail to consider that before revealing her involvement? How they learned about Ms. Plame also will matter: Did the information come from government sources or outside parties?

It may be that Mr. Rove, or someone else, will turn out to be guilty of deliberately leaking Ms. Plame's identity, knowing that it would blow her cover. Or officials may have conspired to cover up a leak or lied about it under oath. For now, however, it remains to be established that such misconduct occurred.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 8:50am

I disagree, BT. A source in Rove's camp has now leaked selective information to the NY Times, the Washington Post and the AP. It's important to refute that spin or the public will shrug and say, "On this is nothing."

Keep talking this up, folks!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 8:55am

so who told novak, since the ny times reoprts that he already knew when he called rove? oh, this is gonna get better and better...


the fever swamp gets warmer

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 10:19am

Well, we know for sure who the first leaker was NOT:

"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."

--George H. W. Bush

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 10:21am

Which puts me in mind of one of my all-time favorite Simpsons episodes in which George and Barbara Bush retire to Springfield and buy a house next door to the Simpsons. The entire episode becomes a note-perfect parody of Dennis the Menace with George as the bumbling Mr. Wilson character.

Posted: 7/15/05 at 10:26am

That is indeed the question Papa. My hunch is that it has to be someone higher up than Rove or they wouldn't bother putting Judy Miller in jail to find out.

And as to the Wash Post editorial-- I had to scroll up and make sure it wasn't the Washing Times I was reading. When I was young and naive, I used to think there was truth and lies and no one (especially not a newspaper) would want to spread a lie. But this editorial is so full of spin, half truths and total falsehoods I'm not sure what to think any more. I'll just focus on one, because I've read it so many times now:

"Mr. Rove and other administration officials had a legitimate interest in rebutting Mr. Wilson's inflated claims -- including the notion that he had been dispatched to Niger at Mr. Cheney's behest."

Nothing could be further from the truth-- Here is how it goes down, and everyone ivolved has agreed: Cheney wanted to get confirmation of the Niger story and told the CIA director to send someone to get the goods. At some point Plame suggested Wilson, who turned out to come back empty handed and eventually went public with that info. Did Cheney send Wilson to Niger? No, but he started the process in motion. Wilson has never said "Cheney Sent me." He has always said he was sent by the CIA, in response to Cheney's request for intel, which is the truth.

What a mess!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 10:26am

"here's a little trick we learned in c.i.a.!"

and joe, who's higher than rove? and who could have coerced that higher source into giving judy the ok to testify?

Updated On: 7/15/05 at 10:26 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 10:35am

Daniel Schorr brings us back to reality.

==

from the July 15, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0715/p09s02-cods.html

Rove leak is just part of larger scandal

By Daniel Schorr

WASHINGTON - Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war.

In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the Italian information was "fragmentary and lacked detail."

Prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more conclusive information, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in Niger possibly involved and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium and, anyway, Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for many years to come.

No news is bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring Wilson's report, Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address no less, pronounced: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wilson declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people that the president was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth. Finally Wilson directly challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed headlined, "What I didn't find in Africa," and making clear his belief that the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to justify an invasion.

One can imagine the fury in the White House. We now know from the e-mail traffic of Time's correspondent Matt Cooper that five days after the op-ed appeared, he advised his bureau chief of a supersecret conversation with Karl Rove who alerted him to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and may have recommended him for the Niger assignment. Three days later, Bob Novak's column appeared giving Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, and the fact she was an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Novak has yet to say, in public, whether Mr. Rove was his source. Enough is known to surmise that the leaks of Rove, or others deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone who had the temerity to challenge the president of the United States when he was striving to find some plausible reason for invading Iraq.

The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough to justify a war.

• Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio.
Rove leak is just part of larger scandal