Rove Spoke To Time Reporter Before CIA Agent's Name Leaked

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by academic punk
You ever get the feeling that this guy is something of a douche?

No.

[Big Train]

I try not to be, but when you have essentially repost your point 3-4 times for someone to get it, it gets frustrating.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Big Train
I try not to be, but when you have essentially repost your point 3-4 times for someone to get it, it gets frustrating.

Try to make your points a little less convoluted.

My point is that there a consequences to a free press if everybody is carted off to prison without careful deliberation of who is really guilty here.

And you contradicted yourself, a journalist should rot in jail when she never revealed, or wrote anything?

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Big Train


Rove should hang. OK? OK? Can I be ANY more clear? HE should H-A-N-G. Ok, we are clear on that.....

Are we CLEAR?

Crystal, Sir :D

[academic punk]

Originally posted by Big Train
I try not to be, but when you have essentially repost your point 3-4 times for someone to get it, it gets frustrating.

Uh...back up. I was talking about Rove being a douche. Just so we're all on the same page.

[Guitar Shark]

NY Times
July 15, 2005

Karl Rove's America

By PAUL KRUGMAN

John Gibson of Fox News says that Karl Rove should be given a medal. I agree: Mr. Rove should receive a medal from the American Political Science Association for his pioneering discoveries about modern American politics. The medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell.

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

I first realized that we were living in Karl Rove's America during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush began saying things about Social Security privatization and tax cuts that were simply false. At first, I thought the Bush campaign was making a big mistake - that these blatant falsehoods would be condemned by prominent Republican politicians and Republican economists, especially those who had spent years building reputations as advocates of fiscal responsibility. In fact, with hardly any exceptions they lined up to praise Mr. Bush's proposals.

But the real demonstration that Mr. Rove understands American politics better than any pundit came after 9/11.
Every time I read a lament for the post-9/11 era of national unity, I wonder what people are talking about. On the issues I was watching, the Republicans' exploitation of the atrocity began while ground zero was still smoldering.

Mr. Rove has been much criticized for saying that liberals responded to the attack by wanting to offer the terrorists therapy - but what he said about conservatives, that they "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war," is equally false. What many of them actually saw was a domestic political opportunity - and none more so than Mr. Rove.

A less insightful political strategist might have hesitated right after 9/11 before using it to cast the Democrats as weak on national security. After all, there were no facts to support that accusation.

But Mr. Rove understood that the facts were irrelevant. For one thing, he knew he could count on the administration's supporters to obediently accept a changing story line. Read the before-and-after columns by pro-administration pundits about Iraq: before the war they castigated the C.I.A. for understating the threat posed by Saddam's W.M.D.; after the war they castigated the C.I.A. for exaggerating the very same threat.

Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don't have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person's effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they'll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy.

And now we know just how far he was willing to go with these smear tactics: as part of the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson IV, Mr. Rove leaked the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.

But what we're getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven't just gone along with the diversionary tactics, like the irrelevant questions about whether Mr. Rove used Valerie Wilson's name in identifying her (Robert Novak later identified her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame), or the false, easily refuted claim that Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger. They're now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower.

Ultimately, this isn't just about Mr. Rove. It's also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush's father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Most of all, it's about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
NY Times
July 15, 2005

Karl Rove's America

By PAUL KRUGMAN
....

Most of all, it's about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

See MEZRO's comment, in the CHINA thread, regarding the WALMART crowd...

[bobgnote]

Originally posted by DLR'sCock
So isn't what Rove did, outing an active CIA operative an ACT OF TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?


I was curious, I think it is....

TREASON's in time of war, two witnesses to deliberate aid and comfort to the enemy, there were no witnesses, since the whole thing was a rumor by reporters who get paid to jerk the gullible, while they hide the energy inflation bubble, that standard inflation standards will not reveal, but hey, when all the funding dries up, the cities and service districts all fail, then somebody besides the Chinese and Al Queda can know about it from my YEARS of patient explaining to fans of rock, which is all there is in the USA, rockheads trying to think outside shows.

[DLR'sCock]

Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on CIA Officer
By David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson
The New York Times

Friday 15 July 2005

Washington - Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a CIA officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the CIA officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

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."

The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.

Six days later, Mr. Novak's syndicated column reported that two senior administration officials had told him that Mr. Wilson's "wife had suggested sending him" to Africa. That column was the first instance in which Ms. Wilson was publicly identified as a CIA operative.

The column provoked angry demands for an investigation into who disclosed Ms. Wilson's name to Mr. Novak. The Justice Department appointed Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a top federal prosecutor in Chicago, to lead the inquiry. Mr. Rove said in an interview with CNN last year that he did not know the CIA officer's name and did not leak it.

The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson's identity.

On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, "Oh, you know about it."

That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove's account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was similar in its message although the White House adviser's recollection of the exact words was slightly different. Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson's name.

Robert D. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer, said Thursday, "Any pertinent information has been provided to the prosecutor." Mr. Luskin has previously said prosecutors have advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target in the case, which means he is not likely to be charged with a crime.

In a brief conversation on Thursday, Mr. Novak declined to discuss the matter. It is unclear if Mr. Novak has testified to the grand jury, and if he has whether his account is consistent with Mr. Rove's.

The conversation between Mr. Novak and Mr. Rove seemed almost certain to intensify the question about whether one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers played a role in what appeared to be an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's credibility after he challenged the veracity of a key point in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, saying Saddam Hussein had sought nuclear fuel in Africa.

The conversation with Mr. Novak took place three days before Mr. Rove spoke with Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, whose e-mail message about their brief talk reignited the issue. In the message, whose contents were reported by Newsweek this week, Mr. Cooper told his bureau chief that Mr. Rove had talked about Ms. Wilson, although not by name.

After saying in 2003 that it was "ridiculous" to suggest that Mr. Rove had any role in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's name, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, has refused in recent days to discuss any specifics of the case. But he has suggested that President Bush continues to support Mr. Rove. On Thursday Mr. Rove was at Mr. Bush's side on a trip to Indianapolis.

As the political debate about Mr. Rove grows more heated, Mr. Fitzgerald is in what he has said are the final stages of his investigation into whether anyone at the White House violated a criminal statute that under certain circumstances makes it a crime for a government official to disclose the names of covert operatives like Ms. Wilson.

The law requires that the official knowingly identify an officer serving in a covert position. The person who has been briefed on the matter said Mr. Rove neither knew Ms. Wilson's name nor that she was a covert officer.

Mr. Fitzgerald has questioned a number of high-level administration officials. Mr. Rove has testified three times to the grand jury. I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, has also testified. So has former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. The prosecutor also interviewed Mr. Bush, in his White House office, and Mr. Cheney, but they were not under oath.

The disclosure of Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak raises a question the White House has never addressed: whether Mr. Rove ever discussed that conversation, or his exchange with Mr. Cooper, with the president. Mr. Bush has said several times that he wants all members of the White House staff to cooperate fully with Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation.

In June 2004, at Sea Island, Ga., soon after Mr. Cheney met with investigators in the case, Mr. Bush was asked at a news conference whether "you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found" to have leaked the agent's name.

"Yes," Mr. Bush said. "And that's up to the US attorney to find the facts."

Mr. Novak began his conversation with Mr. Rove by asking about the promotion of Frances Fragos Townsend, who had been a close aide to Janet Reno when she was attorney general, to a senior counterterrorism job at the White House, the person who was briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Novak then turned to the subject of Ms. Wilson, identifying her by name, the person said. In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times on July 6, 2003, Mr. Wilson suggested that he had been sent to Niger because of Mr. Cheney's interest in the matter. But Mr. Novak told Mr. Rove he knew that Mr. Wilson had been sent at the urging of Ms. Wilson, the person who had been briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove's allies have said that he did not call reporters with information about the case, rebutting the theory that the White House was actively seeking to intimidate or punish Mr. Wilson by harming his wife's career. They have also emphasized that Mr. Rove appeared not to know anything about Ms. Wilson other than that she worked at the CIA and was married to Mr. Wilson.

This is not the first time Mr. Rove has been linked to a leak reported by Mr. Novak. In 1992, Mr. Rove was fired from the Texas campaign to re-elect the first President Bush because of suspicions that he had leaked information to Mr. Novak about shortfalls in the Texas organization's fund-raising. Both Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove had been the source.

Mr. Novak's July 14, 2003, column was published against a backdrop in which White House officials were clearly agitated by Mr. Wilson's assertion, in his Op-Ed article, that the administration had "twisted" intelligence about the threat from Iraq.

But the White House was also deeply concerned about Mr. Wilson's suggestion that he had gone to Africa to carry out a mission that originated with Mr. Cheney. At the time, Mr. Cheney's earlier statements about Iraq's banned weapons were coming under fire as it became clearer that the United States would find no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons and that Mr. Hussein's nuclear program was not far advanced.

Mr. Novak wrote that the decision to send Mr. Wilson "was made at a routinely low level" and was based on what later turned out to be fake documents that had come to the United States through Italy.

Many aspects of Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation remain shrouded in secrecy. It is unclear who Mr. Novak's other source might be or how that source learned of Ms. Wilson's role as a CIA official. By itself, the disclosure that Mr. Rove had spoken to a second journalist about Ms. Wilson may not necessarily have a bearing on his exposure to any criminal charge in the case.

But it seems certain to add substantially to the political maelstrom that has engulfed the White House this week after the reports that Mr. Rove had discussed the matter with Mr. Cooper, the Time reporter.

Mr. Cooper's e-mail message to his editors, in which he described his discussion with Mr. Rove, was among documents that were turned over by Time executives recently to comply with a subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald. A reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, who never wrote about the Wilson case, refused to cooperate with the investigation and was jailed last week for contempt of court. In addition to focusing new attention on Mr. Rove and whether he can survive the political fallout, it is sure to create new partisan pressure on Mr. Bush. Already, Democrats have been pressing the president either to live up to his promises to rid his administration of anyone found to have leaked the name of a covert operative or to explain why he does not believe Mr. Rove's actions subject him to dismissal.

The Rove-Novak exchange also leaves Mr. McClellan, the White House spokesman, in an increasingly awkward situation. Two years ago he repeatedly assured reporters that neither Mr. Rove nor several other administration officials were responsible for the leak.

The case has also threatened to become a distraction as Mr. Bush struggles to keep his second-term agenda on track and as he prepares for one of the most pivotal battles of his presidency, over the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice.

As Democrats have been demanding that Mr. Rove resign or provide a public explanation, the political machine that Mr. Rove built to bolster Mr. Bush and advance his agenda has cranked up to defend its creator. The Republican National Committee has mounted an aggressive campaign to cast Mr. Rove as blameless and to paint the matter as a partisan dispute driven not by legality, ethics or national security concerns, but by a penchant among Democrats to resort to harsh personal attacks.

But Mr. Bush said Wednesday that he would not prejudge Mr. Rove's role, and Mr. Rove was seated conspicuously just behind the president at a cabinet meeting, an image of business as usual. On Thursday, on the trip with Mr. Bush to Indiana, Mr. Rove grinned his way through a brief encounter with reporters after getting off Air Force One.

Mr. Bush's White House has been characterized by loyalty and long tenures, but no one has been at Mr. Bush's side in his journey through politics longer than Mr. Rove, who has been his strategist, enforcer, policy guru, ambassador to social and religious conservatives and friend since they met in Washington in the early 1970's. People who know Mr. Bush said it was unlikely, if not unthinkable, that he would seek Mr. Rove's departure barring a criminal indictment.

[thome]

Its something to do i guess?

[Big Train]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Try to make your points a little less convoluted.

My point is that there a consequences to a free press if everybody is carted off to prison without careful deliberation of who is really guilty here.

And you contradicted yourself, a journalist should rot in jail when she never revealed, or wrote anything?

Again with subtley Nick. The word IF was in my original post.

A journalist should rot in jail for not cooperating after a crime she has intimate knowledge of has occured, yes. It's obstuction. The information obviously reached her, so she is somewhat involved in all of this.

If she was never involved in any way with the suspects in this case, then no, she should not be in jail.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Big Train
Again with subtley Nick. The word IF was in my original post.

A journalist should rot in jail for not cooperating after a crime she has intimate knowledge of has occured, yes. It's obstuction. The information obviously reached her, so she is somewhat involved in all of this.

If she was never involved in any way with the suspects in this case, then no, she should not be in jail.

She "should rot in prison?" On what charge? She hasn't been charged with anything, she's never been tried or convicted of any crime. It's the only way to go to jail in the US without being tried and convicted. Your ignorance is endemic of that which is meant to silence an independent, free press in this country and foster more government control. Again, if WATERGATE happened today, WOODWARD and BERNSTEIN would be in jail right now, and the real criminals get off. BULLSHIT!

And the words "implications for a free press" were in my original post. And she's still in jail, yet NOVAK is still free. You're attacking the message bearer...

[LoungeMachine]

Hello undefined
Lawyers Secured Rove's Waiver
Executives Hear Reporters' Anger

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 16, 2005; Page A06

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, facing a jail term in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, never asked White House political adviser Karl Rove to release him from a pledge of confidentiality because Cooper's attorney believed that any conversation between the two men could be construed as obstruction of justice.

"I forbid Matt to call him," Richard Sauber said yesterday. "I cringed at the idea. These two witnesses would have to explain their discussion before the grand jury."



Matthew Cooper, right, avoided jail after attorney Richard Sauber, left, brokered a deal with counsel for Karl Rove. (By Kevin Wolf -- Associated Press)
Cooper's last-minute avoidance of imprisonment, on the day that New York Times reporter Judith Miller was taken into custody, capped an intense period of backstage maneuvering that turned as much on coincidence as on a prominent journalist and his high-level informant struggling through intermediaries to protect their reputations.

Cooper testified Wednesday after Sauber worked out a waiver of confidentiality with Rove's attorney in the case, which began with columnist Robert D. Novak revealing in July 2003 that Plame, the wife of an administration critic, was a covert CIA operative. Cooper's story was posted online days later.

The fallout continues to cause turmoil at the nation's oldest newsmagazine, where two reporters this week presented their bosses with evidence that confidential sources are wary of dealing with them because Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine surrendered Cooper's notes in the case. That decision, after Time had exhausted its legal appeals, was "probably the most difficult moment," said Cooper's wife, Democratic consultant Mandy Grunwald.

"Did it make sense to still go to jail when his company had already broken his confidence to his sources? His lawyer and many friends said, 'Are you crazy? Don't go to jail now when they've already handed over your notes.' He just decided he had made the commitment and only the source could break the commitment," she said.

Sauber said that on July 3, two days after the notes were turned over, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald told him that he still needed Cooper's testimony and that the reporter could face criminal contempt charges, which would be likely to carry a substantially longer jail sentence. Sauber said he warned Cooper: "You could have a felony on your record."

Despite the threat, Sauber said, Cooper insisted he would "never be able to work" in journalism if he accepted the general waiver that Rove and other White House officials had given journalists. "I just thought those blanket waivers handed out essentially by one's boss are hard to consider uncoerced," Cooper said in an interview yesterday.

Cooper testified last year about his conversations with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, under what he considered a personal waiver from Libby. But Cooper faced contempt again when Fitzgerald demanded to know who his other source was, and Sauber said they were "unwilling" to contact Rove "based on a fishing expedition."

On July 6, the day Cooper expected to be jailed, Sauber was taking a red-eye flight back from a family vacation in Alaska and changed planes in Chicago. He bought a Wall Street Journal and saw Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, quoted as saying: "If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it's not Karl he's protecting."

After checking with Cooper, Sauber called Luskin and asked if Rove would approve a waiver that mentioned Cooper by name. They hammered out a statement that said Rove "affirms his waiver . . . concerning any conversation he may have had with Matthew Cooper" in July 2003.

Cooper left the impression he had talked to Rove that day when he said his source had released him in "somewhat dramatic fashion." He said yesterday that "I definitely should have been more clear."

Luskin has said that he merely reaffirmed the blanket waiver by Rove, who is the president's deputy chief of staff, and that the assurance would have been available at any time. He said that Cooper's description of last-minute theatrics "does not look so good" and that "it just looks to me like there was less a desire to protect a source."

On Monday, two Time correspondents, upset about Pearlstine's decision to release Cooper's notes, showed top company officials e-mails from sources who said they would now have trouble trusting the magazine. The tense meeting in the Washington bureau with Pearlstine, Time Inc. Editorial Director John Huey and Managing Editor Jim Kelly was "angry" and filled with "bile," said several participants who requested anonymity because the meeting was confidential.

One reporter, Mark Thompson, circulated copies of an e-mail from a woman who deals regularly with whistle-blowers, saying that she would not turn over a confidential source to Time and that the magazine had slid to the bottom of her media list. He told Pearlstine the Cooper decision had "made our job a heck of a lot tougher." Another, Brian Bennett, displayed a similar note from a source with the name blacked out.

When Huey told the staff that they were in a conservative judicial environment, Michael Weisskopf, who lost an arm in Iraq, accused him of a "cop-out."

Kelly said the meeting "accomplished what it set out to do, to have all 18 correspondents tell Norm their concerns and fears about his decision and have Norm explain his decision maybe a little differently than it had been explained initially in the press."

Kelly said "the biggest issue" was the argument that "I can't count on the company to stand behind me when I make a promise to a potential source." But he said Pearlstine argued that the Plame case was unique and that "there are many instances in which the editor in chief would stand behind you and defy the Supreme Court," even if that meant paying fines and going to jail.

The staff is frustrated, Kelly said, because "it's an emotional thing for journalists. It's baked in all our bones that we will protect our sources."

[Big Train]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
She "should rot in prison?" On what charge? She hasn't been charged with anything, she's never been tried or convicted of any crime. It's the only way to go to jail in the US without being tried and convicted. Your ignorance is endemic of that which is meant to silence an independent, free press in this country and foster more government control.

And the words "implications for a free press" were in my original post. And she's still in jail, yet NOVAK is still free. You're attacking the message bearer...

She is obstructing a federal investigation by refusing to name her source. THAT is what she did/is doing. THey are trying to get to the bottom of who did/did not have the information in order to plug the hole. Will this have a "chilling effect" because of this unique situation. Highly unlikely. How often does a source come out and say "Yea I did it"? NEVER. Should this should be considered a unique set of circumstances that had to be acted upon. BTW, which party do you think is leading the charge on this one? The dems couldn't sit idly by on this, the biggest break they have had in eons. If you want to talk about killing the messenger, free speech etc...look who's trampling over people at the gates to get what they want.

Novak should be in custody too, I have never had a problem with that argument. I'm wondering why he isn't myself at this point.

What is the implication for a free press? It's not a felony to have confidential information. It's not a felony to print confidential information in a "sourced form", as they are mere accusations without names.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
See MEZRO's comment, in the CHINA thread, regarding the WALMART crowd...

Yes....the Walmart crowd.

Gotta love 'em.

They DO fucking vote.

Not for you guys, though.