The Luskin-Novak Conversation and the Rove-Hadley Email
In my previous post, I tried to spell out the potential significance of the Viveca Novak-Robert Luskin conversation to Karl Rove's defense. I wrote:
1) That he wasn't just spinning to Novak at the time (i.e, he really didn't know about the connection between Cooper and his client).
2) That the Rove-Hadley email was discovered and turned over within a reasonable period of time following this conversation.
As for #1--assuming David Corn is right--Novak's testimony is not likely to be sufficient for Luskin's purposes. After all, she apparently didn't believe Luskin at the time; that's why she was pushing back. Luskin clearly needs something else to prove that his ignorance at the time was genuine. He may have such evidence. For instance, he may have contemporaneous notes of this conversation that indicate he was genuinely surprised by Novak's revelation. If so, Luskin may be able to convince Fitzgerald that he really didn't know about the connection between Cooper and his client prior to this conversation (of course, for this to benefit Rove, Fitzgerald would also have to believe that Rove wasn't withholding key information from Luskin).
It's with respect to #2 that things really start to get strange. There appear to be at least three different accounts of when this conversation took place. The original story suggested that the Novak-Luskin conversation took place in May 2004, which would be after Rove's initial grand jury appearance but well before he turned over the Hadley email and corrected his testimony in Fall 2004. On Friday, however, the New York Times reported that the relevant conversation took place in "summer or early fall of 2004." If true, this would be much better for Rove because the window of time between the conversation and Rove's attempt to correct the record would be much shorter. But yesterday, the Washington Post offered a very different version of the timeline:
Clearly there are dueling sources on this issue, which means that we have to take everything with a grain of salt. It'll be interesting to see whether Viveca Novak's testimony ultimately helps or hurts Rove. Presumably she'll write a story (like Cooper did) after her deposition that will clear things up considerably.
On a tangential note, there has been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere lately that the Rove-Hadley email has somehow been doctored, backdated, or entirely fabricated in order to help Rove. This speculation is driven by, among other things, the fact that the email was discovered so late in the game (after Fitzgerald was very close to learning about the Cooper-Rove conversation on his own) and that it seems to back up Rove's claim that his conversation with Cooper was originally about welfare reform.
I don't buy this theory for a second. First, it makes very little sense to "create" and then turn over an email that should have been turned over in response to multiple prior document requests and subpoenas. That makes Rove and the White House Counsel's office look incompetent, or worse, guilty of obstruction. Second, such a move would be exceedingly difficult to get away with, and therefore, incredibly risky. For one thing, federal prosecutors generally ask that emails and electronic documents be produced in their native format (i.e. on a disk). They do this so that they have access to the meta-data, not just the visible text of the document. In the case of an email, they'll ask for a pst file (for example), not just a printout. This allows them to see, among other things, when a document was last edited and who it was edited by. This makes forgery/backdating/editing very hard to disguise. At the very least it would require the help of people with sophisticated computer skills, and therefore would imply the existence of a wide-ranging conspiracy to obstruct justice. Does it really seem credible that Rove would go to all that trouble to create a document that is only marginally, if at all, helpful to him? I think not.
What Rove desperately needed . . . wasIn his latest post, David Corn fleshes this out a little more:
an alternative explanation for why he
came forward when he did. If not fear of being
caught in a lie, what prompted him to finally
track down the Hadley email and correct his
original testimony? Luskin is hoping that his
conversation with Viveca Novak provides
such an explanation.
Luskin apparently is claiming that Rove hadSo what exactly did Novak say to Luskin? Corn writes:
forgotten about his conversation with Cooper
but that once Viveca Novak told Luskin about
the Rove-Cooper connection Rove then
requested a White House records search that
produced an email that supposedly refreshed
his memory of this talk with Cooper.
Consequently, Rove reappeared before the
grand jury and disclosed this conversation. In
this Rove-friendly account, the Luskin-Novak
conversation provides an exculpatory
explanation for the discovery of an email that
led Rove to change his story before the grand
jury.
Now, according to completely trustworthyFor this conversation to be helpful to Rove, Luskin has to establish at least two things:
sources close to Viveca Novak, this is what
happened. Novak wasn't trying to tip off
Luskin or to help him. During a conversation,
Luskin said to Viveca Novak that Rove had
never spoken to Cooper about Valerie Wilson.
Novak instinctively pushed back, in the way
many a reporter would challenge a source
whom he or she believes is spinning or lying.
"She assumed that Luskin was giving her BS,"
one close-to-Novak source says. "And she
replied with something along the lines of,
'This is not what I hear.' She assumed that
Luskin did know about the Rove-Cooper
conversation and that she was not telling
him anything he did not already know."
1) That he wasn't just spinning to Novak at the time (i.e, he really didn't know about the connection between Cooper and his client).
2) That the Rove-Hadley email was discovered and turned over within a reasonable period of time following this conversation.
As for #1--assuming David Corn is right--Novak's testimony is not likely to be sufficient for Luskin's purposes. After all, she apparently didn't believe Luskin at the time; that's why she was pushing back. Luskin clearly needs something else to prove that his ignorance at the time was genuine. He may have such evidence. For instance, he may have contemporaneous notes of this conversation that indicate he was genuinely surprised by Novak's revelation. If so, Luskin may be able to convince Fitzgerald that he really didn't know about the connection between Cooper and his client prior to this conversation (of course, for this to benefit Rove, Fitzgerald would also have to believe that Rove wasn't withholding key information from Luskin).
It's with respect to #2 that things really start to get strange. There appear to be at least three different accounts of when this conversation took place. The original story suggested that the Novak-Luskin conversation took place in May 2004, which would be after Rove's initial grand jury appearance but well before he turned over the Hadley email and corrected his testimony in Fall 2004. On Friday, however, the New York Times reported that the relevant conversation took place in "summer or early fall of 2004." If true, this would be much better for Rove because the window of time between the conversation and Rove's attempt to correct the record would be much shorter. But yesterday, the Washington Post offered a very different version of the timeline:
One person familiar with the case said theThis timeline is potentially disastrous for Rove. If true, it would mean that Rove was put on notice about his conversation with Cooper BEFORE his initial grand jury appearance, the same appearance in which he testified that he had only spoken to one reporter (Bob Novak) about Plame. That would very much undercut the "I forgot" defense. It would also beg the question of why it took almost eight months to locate the Rove-Hadley email and correct his testimony.
Novak-Luskin conversation is not what
prompted Rove to change his testimony in
the case. In fact, this person said, Novak told
Luskin about the Rove-Cooper connection
before Rove's first appearance before the
grand jury in February 2004. In that
appearance, Rove testified that he did not
recall talking to Cooper about Plame. It was
not until October 2004 that Rove told the
grand jury he recalled the Cooper chat.
Clearly there are dueling sources on this issue, which means that we have to take everything with a grain of salt. It'll be interesting to see whether Viveca Novak's testimony ultimately helps or hurts Rove. Presumably she'll write a story (like Cooper did) after her deposition that will clear things up considerably.
On a tangential note, there has been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere lately that the Rove-Hadley email has somehow been doctored, backdated, or entirely fabricated in order to help Rove. This speculation is driven by, among other things, the fact that the email was discovered so late in the game (after Fitzgerald was very close to learning about the Cooper-Rove conversation on his own) and that it seems to back up Rove's claim that his conversation with Cooper was originally about welfare reform.
I don't buy this theory for a second. First, it makes very little sense to "create" and then turn over an email that should have been turned over in response to multiple prior document requests and subpoenas. That makes Rove and the White House Counsel's office look incompetent, or worse, guilty of obstruction. Second, such a move would be exceedingly difficult to get away with, and therefore, incredibly risky. For one thing, federal prosecutors generally ask that emails and electronic documents be produced in their native format (i.e. on a disk). They do this so that they have access to the meta-data, not just the visible text of the document. In the case of an email, they'll ask for a pst file (for example), not just a printout. This allows them to see, among other things, when a document was last edited and who it was edited by. This makes forgery/backdating/editing very hard to disguise. At the very least it would require the help of people with sophisticated computer skills, and therefore would imply the existence of a wide-ranging conspiracy to obstruct justice. Does it really seem credible that Rove would go to all that trouble to create a document that is only marginally, if at all, helpful to him? I think not.
posted by A.L. at 4:56 PM
11 Comments:
What is meta-data?
In the text above, I added a link to a wikipedia entry on meta-data. Meta-data is the non-textual information that a software program stores with respect to each file. For instance, when you edit a Word document, meta-data will be stored indicating, among other things, when the file was edited and by whom. That data is accessible to people who know how to look for it. That's why the Government typically asks for email and electronic documents to be produced in their electronic form, not just printed out on paper.
Well, it's nice to see that V. Novak got the "get Rove" memo and wants to ensure her leftist credentials are left in tact.
This nation's media has become a joke. They are just a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.
Quite frankly, I hope Fitzgerald does indict Rove. It will ignite the conservatives in this country and make them realize that the coordination between the media and the Democrats evident in the National Guard story was not a fluke. They are now working together, along with a naive and incompetent prosecutor, to destroy the White House.
Not to nitpick, but the whole world doesn't use Outlook and mail is not stored in pst files.
And meta-data can is almost always textual. The binary type would be a very small percentage. The meta-data concerning these emails would be textual for sure. It might be encrypted text, but would be text in its native format.
AL
As one of those peddling the altered email theory, I think you raise a good point.
To what degree is the email--as we know it--helpful to Karl?
Positively, I think it allows Karl to do two things. Provide a reason why he wanted to update his testimony such that he might still get off on the perjury charge. And spin the meeting with Cooper to be one about welfare reform and not Plame, which would support the notion that he wasn't engaged in a systematic planned leak.
But I also think you need to consider the negative damage that the email that I suppose Karl to have really written would have caused. Even if you just assume Karl had been more forward about his seeding Cooper with the leak in a "real" email, the altered email is hugely beneficial. It means the email doesn't come up on searches until you want it to (which, importantly, allows you to get beyond the election). And it allows you to create doubt about Cooper's story (although, for the record, I bet Cooper also testified that he told the switchboard operator he was writing a story on Wilson and that's why he got put through--in other words, there are still critical details Cooper is withholding, which make Karl's behavior much more incriminating.
In any case, you could argue that altering the email, if Karl did it (and if he did it with this one, I'd bet he did it with a few others) allowed Karl to hide the evidence of an organized conspiracy to out Plame. And it allowed him to put off getting "discovered" until after the election. Pretty compelling reasons to alter the evidence.
emptywheel
First, a technical point. When I was talking about meta-data, I used the term "non-textual" to mean information not available from the four corners of the printed document. I realize meta-data is often composed of text, so perhaps it was a poor choice of words on my part. Second, although it's not clear from my post, I realize not everyone uses Outlook for email. I believe, however, the principle is the same for all email systems.
EW,
I see your point. You do sketch out a plausible motive for altering the email. But I still find it very hard to believe that this is what actually happened. Such an plan would seem to necessarily involve Rove, Hadley, the White House Counsel's office, and possibly Rove's attorney in a conspiracy to obstruct justice (and a risky one at that). That just doesn't strike me as very plausible.
Just a point about editors. Not all editors leave traces. In fact, editors used by software engineers to patch code must NOT leave traces. The kind of data your talking about in word is part of the word document content architecture.
Also, a slew of techies would not be neccessary to alter the COPY of the email sent to the investigators. Someone trusted on Rove's behalf might ask a techie a question about altering a COPY of an email. Such a techie might say, leave the meta-data intact and edit the content using such and such an editor while keeping the number of characters the same. The techie thinks she helped about a criminal investigation.
I'm actually working on a response to your point (which is a really important one) now.
But my response is this. The question isn't whether Rove weighed obstructing justice or not obstructing justice. We know, given the fact that the email is responsive to the second subpoena and would have come up on any computer search that was really responsive to that subpoena, that justice was obstructed SOMEHOW, even if only to do the second subpoena search in such a way as to exclude this email or to simply withhold the email. Add in the weirdness with Cooper's call not getting logged, and it seems possible several steps to obstruct justice occured. So the question is not "should I obstruct justice or not?" the question is, "which method of obstructing justice brings me the greatest benefit with the least risk?"
I'm not convinced the altered email does that. Check back with me in a bit to see what I've decided.
emptywheel
Couldbetrue:
That's a good point. I suppose only the copy of the email submitted (by disk) to Fitzgerald's office would have had to be altered. If the content of the email could be altered while preserving the meta-data, then really only one techie would be required. Somehow it still seems a little far-fetched to me, but perhaps less so than I originally thought.
I am sorry if this is a repeat, but I did not see my comment posted.
I am pushing the altered Hadley email because all other explanations don't fit the facts available - late, goofy and doesn't match what Cooper testified to.
My basic assumption is that the original email was a smoking gun. So bad that for Rove, that it is straight to jail.
Here are my assumptions:
1. The original email is a smoking gun.
2. Rove has the choice of turning the email over, hiding the email or altering it. Rove first hides the email and then alters it.
3. Rove assumes that Gonzales et al will help him by not passing on emails that Rove doesn't like. [We have been told that the Hadley email WAS not turned over by Gonzales]
4. Rove hopes that the investigators will not go to the archives to search for emails themselves. If the investigators had gone to the archives themselves, the investigators would have the Hadley email before Rove gave them his copy. [I do believe that the investigators did look for themselves. But just because Rove's plan would or would not work, doesn't mean that he didn't try it anyway. This would not be the first Rove Hail Mary pass.]
5. Rove changes the contents of the COPY of the email sent to the investigators, but leaves the meta-data alone. The changes to the copy leave the character count the same as the original. There are editors available that do not leave traces. Now the real email logs match the altered email. The archived email does not match.
6. Rove gets a trusted person to ask a techie how a criminal might alter a COPY of an email. Gonzales, for example, as an attorney might well ask this sort of question.
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