Newsweek’s Isikoff Breaks More on Rove/Cooper Connection
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, The War On TerrorismWell, it looks like Rove talked to Cooper even before somebody talked to Novak. In his latest column, Michael Isikoff tells us how the whole thing may have gone down.
Rove’s words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. “I didn’t know her name. I didn’t leak her name,” Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove didâ€â€?and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper’s lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.
So what did Karl say and when did he say it?
In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson’s criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time’s editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine’s corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a “big warning” not to “get too far out on Wilson.” Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by “DCIA”â€â€?CIA Director George Tenetâ€â€?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.” Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.)
And then this bombshell.
Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame’s name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak’s column appeared; in other words, before Plame’s identity had been published. Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well. “Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper,” Luskin told NEWSWEEK.
We’re getting closer to finding out the truth people. The signs are pointing to a reality where Rove could get off on a technicality, which would be classic Rove.
The thing that we all must remember is that after Plame name was leaked, Rove spread the information around Washington like wildfire, making sure that her identity was written about time and time again in the national press.
And while that may not be technically illegal it’s incredibly greasy and I’d hope conservatives would understand what caliber of person is Bush’s right hand man.
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