Plame Gossip - Rove focused on Wilson
Rawstory has a teaser up on a WaPo story tomorrow saying that Rove was very involved in the politics around the outing of Valerie Plame.(Jim Vandehei) This story sounds like confirmation of some of the elements of Jason Leopold's story earlier.
Short version: Rove was deeply involved in the campaign to discredit Joe Wilson so any claims that he can't remember or was focused on other things are bunkum.
It's interesting to me that this story has White House officials anonymously confirming this storyline. Is this a preemptive effort to pin it all on Rove if he goes down? Do you think anybody would tell this to the Post if they didn't think Rove was going to be indicted and out of there? Does this tell me the White House thinks Rove is going down soon? Just interesting.
LATER: Not too much to add after reading the Vandehei piece this morning. Vandehei still seems to be getting alot of his information out of Rove's defense team, so I greet the minimizing storyline that Fitzgerald's interest is confined to the Matt Cooper contacts with some skepticism.
One interesting defense offered up (again unsourced but certainly from the defense team) is that if Rove really wanted to damage Wilson, he could have sought ought reporters he "knew better and trusted more" rather than Cooper, a newbie on the White House beat. My rebuttal is that a knowledgeable reporter probably wouldn't have even thought about outing a covert agent.
The main useful information here is that Rove was very involved in the campaign to rebut Wilson. The efforts to spin this off as Cheney and Libby are transparently from Luskin, and the defense that he was truthful because he told Fitzgerald about the conversation with Novak is a smokescreen.
Rove was a confirming(second) source for Novak, and thus faced no legal jeopardy for disclosing Plame's identity. With Cooper, he was the primary source, and, so, that's the conversation he lied about.
Also, I'm guessing that Hadley took that deal Fitzgerald apparently offered awhile back as he was making the rounds on the morning shows today talking up Michael Hayden.
Short version: Rove was deeply involved in the campaign to discredit Joe Wilson so any claims that he can't remember or was focused on other things are bunkum.
It's interesting to me that this story has White House officials anonymously confirming this storyline. Is this a preemptive effort to pin it all on Rove if he goes down? Do you think anybody would tell this to the Post if they didn't think Rove was going to be indicted and out of there? Does this tell me the White House thinks Rove is going down soon? Just interesting.
LATER: Not too much to add after reading the Vandehei piece this morning. Vandehei still seems to be getting alot of his information out of Rove's defense team, so I greet the minimizing storyline that Fitzgerald's interest is confined to the Matt Cooper contacts with some skepticism.
One interesting defense offered up (again unsourced but certainly from the defense team) is that if Rove really wanted to damage Wilson, he could have sought ought reporters he "knew better and trusted more" rather than Cooper, a newbie on the White House beat. My rebuttal is that a knowledgeable reporter probably wouldn't have even thought about outing a covert agent.
The main useful information here is that Rove was very involved in the campaign to rebut Wilson. The efforts to spin this off as Cheney and Libby are transparently from Luskin, and the defense that he was truthful because he told Fitzgerald about the conversation with Novak is a smokescreen.
Rove was a confirming(second) source for Novak, and thus faced no legal jeopardy for disclosing Plame's identity. With Cooper, he was the primary source, and, so, that's the conversation he lied about.
Also, I'm guessing that Hadley took that deal Fitzgerald apparently offered awhile back as he was making the rounds on the morning shows today talking up Michael Hayden.
posted by mikevotes at
9:15 PM
4 Comments:
I think your right. I say that next friday we might see something. so says the great prognosticator.
By
Yukkione, at 10:43 PM
My feeling is similar, this week. The only question to me is the mechanics. Grand jury vote in the morning and then press conference in the afternoon. Wed or Fri.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 7:43 AM
It's beginning to look a lot like fitzmas .....
By
Greyhair, at 11:26 AM
Yeah. I think we're now no longer in the "if" stage, but instead on into "when" and "how bad."
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 12:57 PM
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