Karl Rove's Moment of Truth
Murray Waas' has once again out-scooped the major news outlets. His latest piece in the National Journal is a fascinating read and is chocked-full of new information regarding Karl Rove's involvement in the Plame affair. The story begins with this bombshell:
So what's Rove's explanation for all this? According to his lawyer, Robert Luskin, Rove simply forgot about his conversation with Matt Cooper. It wasn't until he found his email to Hadley (presumably during the White House's effort to comply with a subpoena from Fitzgerald's office) that Rove realized that he had forgotten to mention this key conversation. As for Novak, Rove claims that he did not at first realize that Novak considered him to be a corraborating source. Rove claims that it was not until after his conversations with the President and the FBI that he learned (presumably from Novak himself) that he was indeed the second source cited in Novak's column. How did Rove first learn about Plame? According to Waas:
Make that one VERY faulty memory. Is Rove's story entirely implausible? No. Are there some good reasons to be skeptical of it? Certainly.
First of all, there was not much of a time lag between these events. Rove's conversations with Cooper and Novak took place in July 2003. His conversations with the President, McClellan, and the FBI took place only a few months later, in early Fall 2003. Could Rove's memory have really faded so thoroughly, so quickly? Moreover, there had to have been a number of relevant discussions in the interim. After all, just two days after Novak's column was published, David Corn broke the news that Valerie Plame was a covert agent and suggested that the administration sources who leaked her name might have committed a felony. You would think that an accusation of that sort would have gotten the attention of those involved in the leak, that perhaps it would have prompted Rove to think about who he talked to about Plame and when. He couldn't possibly have forgotten about those conversations in less than a week. And as for Matt Cooper, it's not as if he just sat on the information that Rove gave him. Quite the contrary. Cooper used Rove's tip to write a story for TIME entitled "The War on Wilson" which named Plame and cast the White House in a very negative light. Surely Rove read that story and understood that it was based, in large part, on a conversation he had with Cooper the week before. And surely, in light of Corn's article, Rove understood that his conversation with Cooper was potentially significant. So how could Rove have totally forgotten about that conservation two months later? And perhaps most inexplicably, how could Rove have forgotten how he first learned about Plame? He can't even remember the reporter's name? Or whether they spoke on the phone or in person? That's hard to believe.
If I were Fitzgerald (or a member of the grand jury), I'd at least be considering the following alternative scenario: Fearing that he may have done something illegal, but not anticipating that the fledgling Ashcroft-run investigation would ever get anywhere, Rove decided he was going to play dumb when questioned by the FBI, McClellan, and the President. After all, his conversation with Cooper was on deep background, so his secret was relatively safe (in the extreme version of this scenario, Rove actually has his call log doctored to remove any record of his conversation with Cooper). But then Ashcroft recused himself, Fitzgerald took over, and a whole bunch of subpoenas were issued. It was at that point that Rove remembered the email to Hadley (emails can't be deleted) and realized that he would soon be caught by Fitzgerald in a significant lie/omission. Then, and only then, did he come clean. And if you are a grand juror, you have to be wondering why Rove can't seem to remember how he first heard about Plame.
Rove's 11th hour testimony before the grand jury, therefore, is undoubtedly an attempt on his part to convince the grand jurors that his memory lapses were genuine, that he never intentionally misled investigators. If he can do that, he may well avoid indictment. But it certainly seems like he has his work cut out for him.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl RoveBut that's not all. According to Waas' source(s):
personally assured President Bush in the early
fall of 2003 that he had not disclosed to anyone
in the press that Valerie Plame, the wife of an
administration critic, was a CIA employee,
according to legal sources with firsthand
knowledge of the accounts that both Rove and
Bush independently provided to federal
prosecutors.
Rove also assured the president that he had notIn addition, Rove apparently told the President that he was not one the two administration officials cited by Robert Novak in his now infamous column outing Plame. According to Waas, Rove gave substantially the same account to Scott McClellan (prompting his public denial of Rove's involvement in the leak) and to FBI investigators in his initial interview. Waas writes:
leaked any information to the media in an effort
to discredit Plame's husband, former ambassador
Joe Wilson. Rove also did not tell the president
about his July 2003 a phone call with Time
magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, a
conversation that touched on the issue of Wilson
and Plame.
Sources close to the leak investigation being runLet's give Tom Maguire some credit for correctly predicting that sequence of events.
by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald say
it was the discovery of one of Rove's White
House e-mails-in which the senior Bush adviser
referred to his July 2003 conversation with
Cooper-that prompted Rove to contact
prosecutors and to revise his account to include
the Cooper conversation.
So what's Rove's explanation for all this? According to his lawyer, Robert Luskin, Rove simply forgot about his conversation with Matt Cooper. It wasn't until he found his email to Hadley (presumably during the White House's effort to comply with a subpoena from Fitzgerald's office) that Rove realized that he had forgotten to mention this key conversation. As for Novak, Rove claims that he did not at first realize that Novak considered him to be a corraborating source. Rove claims that it was not until after his conversations with the President and the FBI that he learned (presumably from Novak himself) that he was indeed the second source cited in Novak's column. How did Rove first learn about Plame? According to Waas:
Rove has told federal investigators that he firstIn other words, Rove's defense is, as his attorney tells Waas, "that any misstatements that his client might have made to the president, the FBI, or other public officials, were not purposeful and were due to incomplete records and faulty memories."
learned that Plame worked for the CIA from
a journalist, though he could not recall the
name of the journalist. Rove also told
investigators he could not recall whether he
had spoken to the journalist in person or over
the telephone.
Make that one VERY faulty memory. Is Rove's story entirely implausible? No. Are there some good reasons to be skeptical of it? Certainly.
First of all, there was not much of a time lag between these events. Rove's conversations with Cooper and Novak took place in July 2003. His conversations with the President, McClellan, and the FBI took place only a few months later, in early Fall 2003. Could Rove's memory have really faded so thoroughly, so quickly? Moreover, there had to have been a number of relevant discussions in the interim. After all, just two days after Novak's column was published, David Corn broke the news that Valerie Plame was a covert agent and suggested that the administration sources who leaked her name might have committed a felony. You would think that an accusation of that sort would have gotten the attention of those involved in the leak, that perhaps it would have prompted Rove to think about who he talked to about Plame and when. He couldn't possibly have forgotten about those conversations in less than a week. And as for Matt Cooper, it's not as if he just sat on the information that Rove gave him. Quite the contrary. Cooper used Rove's tip to write a story for TIME entitled "The War on Wilson" which named Plame and cast the White House in a very negative light. Surely Rove read that story and understood that it was based, in large part, on a conversation he had with Cooper the week before. And surely, in light of Corn's article, Rove understood that his conversation with Cooper was potentially significant. So how could Rove have totally forgotten about that conservation two months later? And perhaps most inexplicably, how could Rove have forgotten how he first learned about Plame? He can't even remember the reporter's name? Or whether they spoke on the phone or in person? That's hard to believe.
If I were Fitzgerald (or a member of the grand jury), I'd at least be considering the following alternative scenario: Fearing that he may have done something illegal, but not anticipating that the fledgling Ashcroft-run investigation would ever get anywhere, Rove decided he was going to play dumb when questioned by the FBI, McClellan, and the President. After all, his conversation with Cooper was on deep background, so his secret was relatively safe (in the extreme version of this scenario, Rove actually has his call log doctored to remove any record of his conversation with Cooper). But then Ashcroft recused himself, Fitzgerald took over, and a whole bunch of subpoenas were issued. It was at that point that Rove remembered the email to Hadley (emails can't be deleted) and realized that he would soon be caught by Fitzgerald in a significant lie/omission. Then, and only then, did he come clean. And if you are a grand juror, you have to be wondering why Rove can't seem to remember how he first heard about Plame.
Rove's 11th hour testimony before the grand jury, therefore, is undoubtedly an attempt on his part to convince the grand jurors that his memory lapses were genuine, that he never intentionally misled investigators. If he can do that, he may well avoid indictment. But it certainly seems like he has his work cut out for him.
posted by A.L. at 10:52 PM
3 Comments:
Anon:
Look closely at Waas' piece. He doesn't say whether Karl remembered the email or whether Fitz found it through some other means.
In any case, though, Rove almost certainly had turned over the big document dump before he testified the first time. In spite of the 2 day then two week delay, the document dump happened at the same time the FBI was beginning its investigation.
And one more thing. You'll recall that Rove leaked a story about that email right before Cooper testified. Waas doesn't tell us when whoever found that email (and I suspect that's because his FBI sources with the investigation would like to leave it ambiguous). But there's a strong possibility Fitz found it on his own, then Karl "remembered" it around the time Cooper was first subpoenaed.
In other words, Rove may have withheld that email. Potentially with the assistance of Abu Gonzales.
You're right, it's not clear from Waas' article whether Rove or Fitzgerald discovered the Hadley email first. If the latter, that would certainly be worse for Rove. But I think it's far more likely that the White House counsel's office discovered the email first. The most likely scenario is that after Fitzgerald issued his January 2004 set of subpoenas, the White House counsel's office collected all the potentially responsive emails and reviewed them for privilege prior producing them to Fitzgerald. During this review process, they would have found the Hadley email and alerted Rove.
Speaking of things being worse for Rove, it's not just David Corn's article that should have tipped him off about the significance of his conversation with Cooper.
Within a week of Cooper's Time article, Joseph Wilson had silenced the Rove-mastermind barrage of phone calls to reporters by explaining the relevance of "Plame" to his wife's covert CIA work.
And the day after that, Scott McClellan was asked in a WH news briefing: "... it appears as though a federal crime may have been committed. Would the President support an investigation into the blowing of the cover of an undercover CIA operative?" I guarantee you Rove heard about that.
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