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Karl Rove: Uncovered

by Open-Publishing - Friday 8 July 2005
8 comments

Media-Network Secret Services USA

BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

News from the DNC:

Until recently, Karl Rove had denied even knowing Valerie Plame’s name. Now, after the release of emails from Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper revealing the name of the White House source, Rove’s lawyer confirmed that Rove did speak with reporters about the case. With his history of questionable campaign tactics and his penchant for leaking information critical of his rivals, Rove should come clean with the American people: Did he endanger our national security by leaking a CIA operative’s name?

First, Rove Denied Any Involvement

August of 2004: Rove Claimed He Did Not Know Who Plame Was. In August of 2004, facing questions of his role in the Plame leak scandal, Rove denied his involvement, saying that he did not even know who Plame was at the time of the leak. "Well, I’ll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name." [CNN, 7/4/05]

McClellan Said Rove Never Told Reporters that Plame Worked for CIA. In October of 2003 White House Press Secretary, Scott McCllelan was asked during a White House Briefing, "Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?" McClellan responded by noting that Rove and the others had assured him that they had not leaked any classified information. "Those individuals - I talked - I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that’s where it stands." [WH Briefing, 10/10/03]

McClellan Said He Knew Karl Rove, and Karl Rove Would Never Do Something Like Leaking. White House Spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that, "I’ve known Karl for a long time, and I didn’t even need to go ask Karl, because I know the kind of person that he is, and he is someone that is committed to the highest standards of conduct...It is not something I needed to ask him, but I like to, like you do, verify things and make sure that it is completely accurate. But I knew that Karl would not be involved in something like this." [WH Briefing, 9/29/03]

But Now That the Heat Is On, Rove Changes His Story

Rove’s Lawyer Confirmed He Had Contact with Reporters About Plame. During interviews with the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek magazine, Rove’s personal lawyer, Robert Luskin, revealed that Rove had spoken to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper days before Bob Novak ran his column outing Valerie Plame, and that Cooper interviewed Rove for his story on Plame. The same Newsweek article also contained quotes from "lawyers representing clients sympathetic to the White House" that said internal Time magazine emails between Cooper and his editors, identify Rove as Cooper’s source. These admission contradicted earlier statements by White House staff that Rove had not revealed Plame’s identity to any reporters. [Los Angeles Times, 7/3/05; Newsweek, 7/11/05]

White House "Concerned" That Rove is Focus of Prosecutor’s Investigation. According to Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, Rove has testified before the Grand Jury "two or three times." According to a lawyer "representing clients sympathetic to the White House", Rove’s repeated visits to the Grand Jury has begun to make the administration "concerned" that Rove is a target of the special prosecutor. [Newsweek, 7/11/05]

Not The First Time: Rove and Novak

Rove Was Fired For Leaking A Damaging Story About GOP Fundraiser. Esquire’s Ron Suskind reported that, "Sources close to the former president [George H.W. Bush] say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted." [White House Briefing, 9/29/03; Esquire, 1/2003 Issue]

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/07/ale05093.html

Forum posts

  • "White House "Concerned" That Rove is Focus of Prosecutor’s Investigation...." That’s the least they should be concerned about. Treason, lieing to the Grand Jury (otherwise known as perjury), aiding and abetting in high crimes and misdemeanours; the list just keeps getting longer.

    This might be the first card that brings the whole house of cards tumbling down. At least, let us pray that it is...

    • The House of cards will not tumble...Rove will be somehow promoted, as this Administration rewards negative behaviour!

  • my guess is it went something like this. novak says to rove "look, everybody in town knows plame is married to wilson and that plame used to be undercover cia. so was plame involved in getting wilson the niger job?". so rove is like ’uh, ok, i guess she’s cia, i didnt know that, novak says she isnt undercover etc’, or maybe he knew she was cia, and also that she wasnt undercover anymore, so he says something about plame perhaps being involved in getting wilson the job, and maybe no comment re: whether she’s married to him or that she is/was cia. now at that point rove did not divulge any information to novak becasue novak alreadys knew it, at least rove thought he knew it casue thats what novak said. he told him he knew. you cant divulge something to someone if they know it already. now rove could have maybe should have said "i didnt know plame was cia, i cant confirm or deny that, and i know they are married, and yeah, she did help him get the job". if thats the case, then rove seems pretty innocent, of this anyway. i mean life is pretty mundane ya know. think about mis-communications that happen inside your own house. somebody says something, someone assumes they mean something else, etc etc. its human nature. i just think all the conspiracy theorist are quite entertaining. creating a fantasy in your head is always more exciting than boring old real life, but real life is what happens 99.9% of the time in the real world. not very sexy. we’ll see, but my guess is now noted, we’ll see who is closewr to what actually happened. i am betting on me.

    • Boy are you an idiot. I love loyal scheisterers who come up with — maybe, like ,you know - your mental reshapings are pathertic. The ASS got caught - deal with it - you know w will kill the story. Actions speak louder than words - and you Pubs are full of the same old BS - pure hot air, you know.

  • You know, we can still hang people for treason in this country (not that I’m pro-death penalty).

  • Please let this be the start of the unravelling. Truth is stranger than fiction---and the fictions the Bush group have force-fed us may begin leaking out. It will take a big enough event---I remember Watergate too well---to stop the engines of this Adminstration from spinning things until they disappear, or seem to. Nixon Admin were complete amateurs compared to this current group. Let this be the start—go Fitzgerald go.

  • I am a very dissatisfied American. I see this latest revelation about Karl Rove as just another example of executive malfiesence from the bush Whitehouse. I suspect they will use all the tricks in their bag to put this to rest. The "liberal media" (HA! ) will find itself in the regular malaise — protecting the secrets of the most pathetic Presidency ever witnessed. I can only hope and pray that this example of the integrity of w and his cronies - a classic case of treason - will be the first piece to actually fall from this war-mongering administration.

  • I’m curious about the citation of "White House Briefing, 9/29/03" in the last paragraph. I’ve checked the transcript of that briefing and can’t figure out what aspect of this paragraph that citation was supposed to document. Can you elaborate?