"Big Scooper's" Scoop Verified

According to news today, including the ominous Newsweek article by Michael Isokoff, "The Rove Factor", that was scooped by "Big Scooper", Lawrence O'Donnell, Karl Rove, did indeed speak with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003, days before the name of a CIA operative surfaced in the media. Rove's lawyer has confirmed the conversation, which seems to be a new admission in the case. Rove spoke to Cooper about a week before published reports revealed the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic and former U.S. envoy Joseph Wilson.

Cooper and another reporter, Judith Miller, have been held in contempt of court for not cooperating with an investigation into who revealed Plame's identity. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been investigating the alleged outing of the CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak was the first to publish Plame's name, but the prosecutor believes that whoever leaked the information to Novak, probably also leaked to other journalists, which could constitute separate violations of federal law.

White House advisor Karl Rove has testified before a grand jury investigating the Plame case on three occasions, his latest in October 2004. At that time the prosecutor announced that his investigation was complete with the exception of the testimony of the two recalcitrant reporters. Columnist Novak has not been charged, therefore it is assumed that he has given the prosecutor the name of the leaker. Karl Rove and other White House officials have released the reporters from any binding confidentiality agreements, therefore none of the reporters would be violating journalistic ethics to name Karl Rove or others in the administration.

So perhaps "Big Scooper" O'Donnell was technically correct that Karl Rove would be fingered as a source of Matthew Cooper, as has happened. That does not prove that Rove broke any laws, and Rove's lawyer denies that his client did. It is highly unlikely that Lawrence O'Donnell and his ilk will be seeing any "frog marching" of Karl Rove. In other words, as has been said from the beginning of this farce - there is NO THERE there, and the entire kerfuffle has been little more than a publicity stunt by the former ambassador and his CIA wife! Perhaps the good ambassador and his wife were the leakers, as they have obviously enjoyed the spotlight and their resulting inclusion into the "Illuminati of Washington" crowd.

Ambassador Wilson was the one who brought up the accusation that the leaker to Novak had broken a federal law. Then the two of them went on a "weeping and wailing campaign" to publicize their outrage. In an article in The New York Times on 6 July 2003, lambasting the Bush administration, Joseph Wilson claimed that he was sent to Niger at the request of Vice President Cheney. Cheney denied any knowledge of Wilson's claim, and a week later appeared the Novak article, revealing that Wilson's hiring was the the result of nepotism. Joseph Wilson's wife at the CIA had suggested that he be sent to Niger in 2002, to investigate Yellowcake Forgery documents. Thus, Novak was outing Joseph Wilson as, in fact, a liar and user of favoritism, and this is where Wilson's outrage probably originated. Wilson immediately charged that his wife's CIA association had been deliberately exposed by the White House in order to destroy her career, when in fact, it was all about him and his exposure as a fraud.

At the National Press Club in October 2003, the good ambassador tearfully accepted the first Ron Ridenhour "Award for Truth-Telling", presented by The Nation Magazine Foundation and the Fertel Foundation. On January 17th, 2004, Vanity Fair, did a puff profile on the glamour couple which included the image at the left, and revealed that Wilson publicly referred to his wife as "Jane Bond".

However, by July 10th of the same year, the Washington Post outed Joseph Wilson IV as a "non-Truth-Teller".

Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission (washingtonpost.com): "Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly."

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson has been successful on his own, without the use of cronyism, at one thing and one thing only; the squandering of government resources. He gives nary a thought to the flagrant waste of taxpayers' money, as long as he can personally benefit. Whether it is winning government contracts through nepotism or making scurrilous charges against Karl Rove and others of law breaking. At that he is a wizard.

Everyone knows that no crime was committed, yet millions have been spent at Joseph Wilson's urging. On April 7, 2005, the Washington Post reported that Prosecutor Fitzgerald was not likely to seek an indictment for the alleged crime of knowingly exposing a covert officer (charges made by Joseph Wilson which prompted the inquiry), although he may charge a government official with perjury for giving conflicting information during the investigation. That's it. Case closed ... almost, anyway.
Trackedback at Outside the Beltway.
[Valerie Plame] [Lawrence O'Donnell] [Karl Rove] [Joseph Wilson]