MSNBC Analyst and a Newsweek Reporter Say Karl Rove Named in Matt Cooper Documents

[RBA]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1000972841

MSNBC Analyst and a Newsweek Reporter Say Karl Rove Named in Matt Cooper
Documents

By Greg Mitchell

Published: July 02, 2005 1:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to a federal judge, revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source or sources in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant. Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, now claims that at least two authoritative sources have confirmed that one name is top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

This afternoon, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff confirmed that Cooper did indeed talk to Rove for his story, but Rove's lawyer denied he was the key leaker in the case.

"The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House," Isikoff writes on the Newsweek web site. "Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with Newsweek, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove."

According to Isikoff, Luskin told Newsweek that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He noted that Rove had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him.

"He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else," Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told Newsweek that there was growing "concern" in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove.

MSNBC's O'Donnell first offered the Rove revelation Friday night on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show. Today, he went beyond that, writing a brief entry at the Huffington Post blog:

"I revealed in yesterday's taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine's e-mails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. I have known this for months but didn't want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury.

"McLaughlin is seen in some markets on Friday night, so some websites have picked it up, including Drudge, but I don't expect it to have much impact because McLaughlin is not considered a news show and it will be pre-empted in the big markets on Sunday because of tennis.

"Since I revealed the big scoop, I have had it reconfirmed by yet another highly authoritative source. Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week. I know Newsweek is working on an 'It's Rove!' story and will probably break it tomorrow."

Here is the text of what O'Donnell said on Friday:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury--the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Other McLaughlin Group panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

Besides his career at a TV journalist, O'Donnell has served as a producer and writer for the series "The West Wing."

According to published reports, Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the case, has interviewed President Bush and Vice President Cheney and called Karl Rove, among others, to testify before the grand jury.

"The breadth of Fitzgerald's inquiry has led to speculation that it has evolved into an investigation of a conspiracy to leak Plame's identity," the Chicago Tribune observed on Friday, "or of an attempt to cover up White House involvement in the leak."

Not the Key leaker? There was more than one?. Isn't more than one a conspiracy?

[Dom Heffner]

Should be interesting to see what happens with this. We'll all be here to talk about it when it breaks, I am sure.

[Falls City Beer]

Should be interesting to see what happens with this. We'll all be here to talk about it when it breaks, I am sure.

I don't know, Americans didn't seem to give a rat's behind that Robert Novak committed treason by revealing the identity of a CIA agent. I'm not sure they'll be moved by this.

[RedsBaron]

If there is sufficient evidence that Rove broke the law, he should be indicted and prosecuted. If convicted, he should be punished within federal sentencing guidelines.

[Unassisted]

I don't know, Americans didn't seem to give a rat's behind that Robert Novak committed treason by revealing the identity of a CIA agent. I'm not sure they'll be moved by this.

The difference is the employer (Federal government vs. newsgathering entities) and the motivation (political gain vs. looking to break a big story). Going after Novak would have been an ugly, bloody legal slugfest with his attorneys claiming his First Amendment rights trump the need for secrecy.

I would question whether the reporters' notes constitute enough evidence for a case against Rove. That's what I see as the weakness that ultimately keeps Rove out of the courtroom and prison. Rove is at least 4 moves ahead of any of us in this chess game. He has had months to develop plausible deniability, and I'm sure we'll hear about that soon.

[RFS62]

If there is sufficient evidence that Rove broke the law, he should be indicted and prosecuted. If convicted, he should be punished within federal sentencing guidelines.

Yep, I totally agree.

[Unassisted]

Now I wonder if Rove's controversial remarks were designed and timed to motivate potential donors to his legal defense fund.

[PickOff]

If there is sufficient evidence that Rove broke the law, he should be indicted and prosecuted. If convicted, he should be punished within federal sentencing guidelines.

If the President knew of the plan to reveal the identity of a CIA operative, should he be held to account as well?

[RFS62]

If the President knew of the plan to reveal the identity of a CIA operative, should he be held to account as well?

Absolutely. If that's found to be the case, this is much worse than Watergate.

But don't lick your chops yet. Let's see how it plays out.

[PickOff]

Absolutely. If that's found to be the case, this is much worse than Watergate.

But don't lick your chops yet. Let's see how it plays out.

I'm sure if Rove is prosecuted Bush will be well insulated. What I think is interesting though were his comments.



"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job.

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."

Bush said he has told his administration to cooperate fully with the investigation and asked anyone with knowledge of the case to come forward.



Not exactly tough talk here. Not putting himself in any corners as to punishment for the offender.

[RFS62]

I'm sure the lessons of Watergate are well known.

The breakin didn't bring Nixon down, it was the coverup. He thought he was being a good soldier and protecting his people. Plus, he never dreamed it would turn into the witch hunt it became.

"What did you know, and when" became permanently etched in political history.

[RedsBaron]

Absolutely. If that's found to be the case, this is much worse than Watergate.

But don't lick your chops yet. Let's see how it plays out.

Yep, I totally agree.

[RBA]

Rove's Lawyer goes on the defense for Kriminal Karl.........

Lawyer says Rove talked to reporter, did not leak name


By Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post



WASHINGTON — Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, spoke with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper during a critical week in July 2003 when Cooper was reporting on a public critic of the Bush administration who was also the husband of a CIA operative, his lawyer confirmed today.

Rove is identified in Cooper's notes from that time period, which Time turned over Friday to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald — under court order. Fitzgerald is investigating whether senior administration officials leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporters in July 2003 as retaliation after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq.

Rove's lawyer said Rove never identified Plame to Cooper in those conversations. More significantly, Robert Luskin said, Fitzgerald assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation.

"Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else," Luskin said. Luskin said the question remains unanswered: "Who outed this woman? ... It wasn't Karl."

Cooper has said that more than one confidential source is identified in his e-mails and the notes of interviews he conducted in July 2003 after Wilson's opinion piece appeared in the New York Times. Reporters were calling the White House with questions about Wilson's assertions, which senior government officials tried to discredit.

Plame's name first appeared in Robert D. Novak's syndicated column in July 2003, eight days after Wilson's opinion piece critical of the Bush administration appeared in the Times. Wilson was sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger, and he reported that he found no proof. His opinion piece accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify going to war with Iraq

After the Novak column, Wilson said the White House had damaged his wife's career and had put all her contacts in jeopardy. He initially accused Rove of being behind the leak, then retracted that statement. It is a felony to knowingly identify a covert operative.

Rove answered questions under oath for about two hours before a grand jury on Oct. 15 as part of the special prosecutor's investigation. According to Luskin, the prosecutor said he believes Rove was candid and forthcoming about his contact with reporters.

"I've been assured by the prosecutor they have no reason to doubt the honesty of anything he's said," Luskin said. Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller face four months in jail as early as Wednesday for defying Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan's order to cooperate with Fitzgerald's investigation. The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the reporters' appeals of Hogan's order.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi...&date=20050702

[BUTLER REDSFAN]

if this is mainly a cincinnati based website-and cincy being known for being conservative how do so many bush haters get on here--someone says something remotely bad but honest about adam dunn and you would've thought you shot someone but bash bush all you want and that is fine????

[GAC]

Regardless of whether or not this is found out to be true about Rove or not - this bothers me more then anything else...

Bad choice: Giving up source or giving up freedom

By Paul K. McMasters
First Amendment Center

Last week, the courts delivered a one-two punch to journalists' ability to protect their sources — and to the public's right to know about federal officials abusing a public trust in one instance and the disappearance of nuclear secrets in another.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to review a lower court's jail sentence for two reporters who refused to give up confidential sources. A day later, a federal appeals court put four other reporters in a different case on the same path to incarceration.

Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times had asked the nation's court of last resort to review their contempt convictions for refusing to reveal their confidential sources. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald sought their names as part of his investigation into the leaking of a covert agent's identity to columnist Robert Novak by senior White House officials.

In the other case, four reporters refused to divulge their sources in a civil lawsuit by former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, seeking to find out who in the federal government leaked information about the scientist to the press in possible violation of the Privacy Act. The leaks occurred during an investigation of whether Lee mishandled nuclear-weapons information.

None of the reporters in these two cases actually committed a crime. Instead, jail time — or the threat of it — is viewed by prosecutors, plaintiffs' attorneys and judges as a way to coerce information from reluctant journalists.

The Supreme Court's rejection of the reporters' petitions for review was particularly dismaying for press advocates and others for a number of reasons.

The relevant Supreme Court decision on this subject, Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), though quite clear to some, created a muddle. The sharply divided opinion essentially left press lawyers and courts to parse the brief and somewhat inscrutable concurring opinion by Justice Lewis Powell for guidance.

Not surprisingly, lower courts have come up with differing interpretations on the scope of the reporter's privilege.

On their own, 49 states developed common-law or statutory shields to help reporters protect their sources. There is no federal law providing such protection, however.

The Justice Department developed guidelines that for some time helped balance the administration of justice and the First Amendment rights of the public and press, but in recent years the DOJ appears to have come unhinged from those guidelines.

As a result, more than two dozen journalists are now caught up in criminal and civil cases at the federal level. Whistleblowers with vital information to share with the public are more leery of confiding in journalists who may be forced to choose between protecting their identities and going to jail.

Rather than embrace the opportunity to reconcile and clarify this field strewn with conflict, confusion and contradictions, however, the Supreme Court turned away.

That leaves journalists with a wrenching choice: Go to jail, or give up their sources, thus violating one of journalism's most urgent principles, driving away future sources and depriving the public of something other than the official version of government policy and actions.

The Cooper and Miller case would be a travesty even if it had been clear that a federal crime had been committed, that all the relevant facts were known, and that two journalists really did stand in the way of justice. But none of that is clear.

In a hearing for Cooper and Miller on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said from the bench that the case was getting "curiouser and curiouser."

Indeed.

A federal investigation stretching over two years and costing taxpayers millions of dollars apparently found no violation of the 1983 Intelligence Identities Act of 1983. That part of the investigation apparently ended last October. Then the investigation appears to have morphed into a quest to put the thumbscrews on two journalists, but not the one who actually outed the agent. That journalist, Novak, who wrote the column where it all began, remains silent and, as far as we know, untouched.

Further, in court, Cooper and Miller and their lawyers were at a real disadvantage. The law was a muddle. The special prosecutor was on a mission. The judge was sympathetic. And much of the legal communication between the prosecutor and the judge was secret.

Finally, this wrinkle: Over Cooper's objections, his employer, Time Inc., announced Thursday that it would turn over documents, including the reporter's notes, to the court — a remarkable move, apparently without precedent in modern press history.

It wasn't immediately clear how that development would affect Miller's case.

As compelling as the plight of the journalists in such cases may be, many Americans might be inclined to greet all this with a sneer or a yawn. That would be curious, indeed.

In fact, ordinary citizens have more of a stake in the issue than they might imagine. At risk is their ability to fully and effectively monitor government policy, hold public officials accountable, and participate more knowledgeably and effectively in civic affairs.