Now yet another White House official has been named as an alleged source in the stories that revealed the identify of a CIA officer whose husband was in a political tiff with the administration.
And, as in the case of the already-steeped-in-controversy Bush political Svengali Karl Rove, the White House had also reportedly long denied that this aide — the Vice President’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby — was involved:
The vice president’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was a source along with the president’s chief political adviser for a Time story that identified a CIA officer, the magazine reporter said Sunday, further countering White House claims that neither aide was involved in the leak.
However, we’re sure there will be detailed counter-counter claims on this (as soon as the Talking Points hit the talk shows, columnists and other commentators).
And who wants to bet that White House press spokesman Scott McCellan calls in sick tomorrow? MORE:
In an effort to quell a chorus of calls to fire deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, Republicans said that Rove originally learned about Valerie Plame’s identity from the news media. That exonerates Rove, the Republican Party chairman said, and Democrats should apologize.
But it is not clear that it was a journalist who first revealed the information to Rove.A lawyer familiar with Rove’s grand jury testimony said Sunday that Rove learned about the CIA officer either from the media or from someone in government who said the information came from a journalist. The lawyer spoke on condition of anonymity because the federal investigation is continuing.
In a first-person account in the latest issue of Time magazine, reporter Matt Cooper wrote that during his grand jury appearance last Wednesday, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald “asked me several different ways if Rove had indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA.” Cooper said Rove did not indicate how he had heard.
The White House’s assurance in 2003 that Rove was not involved in the leak of the CIA officer’s identity “was a lie,” said John Podesta, White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. He said Rove’s credibility “is in shreds.”
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that Libby and Rove had no connection to the leak. Plame’s husband is Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq at the start of the Persian Gulf War.
The White House refused last week to repeat its denials about Rove’s involvement. The refusal came amid the disclosure that Rove told Cooper on July 11, 2003, that Wilson’s wife apparently worked at the CIA and that she had authorized a trip he took to Africa in 2002. The White House on Sunday declined to comment about Libby, saying the investigation was ongoing.
The CIA sent Wilson to check out intelligence that the government of Niger had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons. The chief rationale for the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 was that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Five days before Rove spoke with Cooper, Wilson had written a newspaper opinion piece suggesting the administration had twisted prewar intelligence, including a “highly doubtful” report that Saddam bought nuclear materials from Niger.
Libby and Rove were among the unidentified government officials who provided information for a Time story about Wilson, Cooper told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The thing about this scandal is that on the surface it seems clear cut; yet the law is reportedly a complex one. Time’s Matt Cooper tells exactly what he told the grand jury — hidden behind a Time subscriber wall, so we’ll pass on detailing it here.
You can read the Meet the Press transcript of Cooper’s appearance today. One of the most intriguing parts of it:
MR. RUSSERT: And when Karl concluded his conversation with you, you write he said, “I’ve already said too much.” What did that mean?
MR. COOPER: Well, I’m not sure what it meant, Tim. At first, you know, I thought maybe he meant “I’ve been indiscreet.” But then, as I thought about it, I thought it might be just more benign, like “I’ve said too much; I’ve got to get to a meeting.” I don’t know exactly what he meant, but I do know that memory of that line has stayed in my head for two years.
You can watch A VIDEO of this interview on Crooks And Liars.
The bottom line on this investigation is: until the Special Prosecutor signals which way he’s going, no one really knows and all analysis is speculation. And which analysis should readers trust? Analysis by lawyers? Politicians? Partisans?
To put the controversy in perspective, read this Washington Post “upsummer” of events which is in the form of a chronology/analysis. Its most important conclusions at the end:
As for the Bush administration, the investigation has exposed how an administration that publicly deplores leaking has engaged aggressively in the practice to advance its goals.
Yet much of the case remains a mystery. Did the White House leak the identity of a CIA operative? Is it a crime? Did Bush have any knowledge of it? Will Fitzgerald have spent this much time pressuring officials and reporters and not deliver an indictment? Those questions may be answered soon, as the grand jury’s term is set to expire in October.
Then read this chronology by Time. There is no way the White House comes out looking good on this so far — even if no law was actually broken.
Still — and this is what makes this case to fascinating — in the end it’s unlikely Rove will lose his job, as the New York Times’ Anne E. Kornblut notes:
But Rove is not just any staff member. He is the definition of an indispensable aide. He is ”the architect” of Republican gains against Democrats, as Bush dubbed him after the 2004 elections. He also serves as a nexus of politics and policy within the West Wing, his office abuzz with communications from Congress, grass-roots groups, other branches of the administration and Republican operatives nationwide.
Some marveled at the strength of Rove’s footing as the drama of the CIA leak continued to unfold last week with news that, despite claims to the contrary two years ago, he had talked with reporters about the case.
But history suggests it would take far more than the taint of impropriety for anyone so central to be cut loose.
Only a few presidential confidants as indispensable as Rove have been thrown overboard. Sherman Adams, the chief of staff to President Dwight Eisenhower, left the White House in a scandal in 1958 after accepting a vicuna fur coat from a business friend who had interests at the White House.
Bert Lance, a close adviser of President Jimmy Carter and director of the Office of Management and Budget, was forced out in 1977 because of charges he had mismanaged the bank he ran before the election.
So far, there is no proof that Rove committed any wrongdoing. He did speak to two journalists about Valerie Wilson, a CIA operative whose husband went to Niger on a mission searching for information about weapons of mass destruction. But the accounts so far suggest that Rove merely confirmed what the journalists already knew…..
But is there a tipping point?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.