In a surprising move the Washington Post has rewritten and republished their story on Karl Rove's fifth trip to the grand jury room. Gone are the excerpts with which I brutally bludgeoned writers William Branigin and Jim VandeHei. Oh my... gone is William Branigan from the byline, too. Gee, I must have hit 'em where it really hurts.
The new and improved version takes a slightly different approach to Bush Administration bashing. For instance, there is no longer the assertion that Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson "debunked" the Administration charge that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. And, there is also no mention of our unidentified government official who came forward to claim responsibility for the disclosure under investigation, which the Post had reported earlier this way.
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed...
Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the previously undisclosed conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3 -- one week after Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted in the investigation.
While the earlier story mentioned the unidentified government official as "an area of interest", the enhanced edition repackages the story of Karl Rove's conversations with Robert Novak and Matt Cooper to imply that he, Karl Rove, may be the original leaker after all.
In grand jury appearances and other conversations with federal investigators, Rove has testified that he discussed Wilson's wife briefly with columnist Robert D. Novak and Cooper before she was publicly unmasked in July 2003, according to lawyers in the case.
But the New York Times version of Rove incriminating conversation with Novak went like this,
After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."
Sorry, but that doesn't sound like a leak to me. Confirmation? Sure. But leak? No. But by omitting that bit of information from Release 1.1 of "Rove Testifies 5th Time On Leak" one can easily conclude that Rove could be the one who originally told Bob Novak, while clearly he was not. Well, how about Matt Cooper. Did Rove disclose CIA agent Plame's identity to Matt Cooper? Here is Fox News reporting of that conversation.
Cooper started with a clipped statement: "I am writing about Wilson," to which Rove replied: "Don't get too far out on Wilson"...
After hearing insider chatter criticizing Wilson, Cooper said he called Rove, who apparently explained to Cooper that Wilson's mission had not been requested by then-CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney. Cooper then sought confirmation for that...
According to Cooper, Rove was the first to tell him that Wilson's wife worked at the "agency," conceivably the CIA; that her specialty was "WMD," or weapons of mass destruction; and that she was responsible for sending Wilson to Niger. Cooper said Rove never mentioned her by name and Cooper didn't learn it until it showed up the following week in a column by Robert Novak.
Well, no leak there either. But like Libby, Rove is on the hook because Fitzgerald apparently believes the purpose of his investigation is to charge somebody from the White House with something. Since Rove has said he forgot all about this non-incriminating conversation with Matt Cooper, he may be on the hook for lying about it.
And the ever helpful Post aids the investigation in the court of public opinion, by promoting the story that Joseph C. Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame were victims of a smear. Rove Testifies - R1.1 points out this nefarious attack on our valiant whistle blowers.
A court filing by Fitzgerald earlier this month, for instance, provided the new and politically damaging revelation that Bush had authorized Libby to disclose previously classified information about Iraq's weapons programs.
Could there be anything more dastardly then to smear the Wilson's with facts!
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