Double super secret trouble

The White House press finally takes on the Rove story. (Updated 7:00 & 7:30 pm)

President Bush offered only a stony silence today when he was asked if he planned to fire Karl Rove, a senior aide at the center of an investigation over the unmasking of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

  NY Times article

I can just picture it, can't you?

In another contentious news briefing today, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, would not directly address any of a barrage of questions about Mr. Rove's involvement amid new evidence suggested that Mr. Rove had discussed the C.I.A. officer with a Time magazine reporter in July 2003 without identifying her by name.

[...]

Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Mr. Rove and other senior presidential aides had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House is refusing to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove's role in the matter.

[...]

"Are you going to fire him?" the president was asked twice in a brief Oval Office appearance with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore. Both times, the president ignored the questions.

Then a White House aide signaled that the session was over. "Out those doors, please," the aide told journalists. "Thank you very much."

The lawyer for top White House adviser Karl Rove says that Time reporter Matthew Cooper "burned" Rove after a conversation between the two men concerning former ambassador Joseph Wilson's fact-finding mission to Niger and the role Wilson's wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, played in arranging that trip. Nevertheless, attorney Robert Luskin says Rove long ago gave his permission for all reporters, including Cooper, to tell prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about their conversations with Rove.

  Byron York National Review article

See there? KKKarl doesn't hold any grudges.

"By any definition, he burned Karl Rove," Luskin said of Cooper. "If you read what Karl said to him and read how Cooper characterizes it in the article, he really spins it in a pretty ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to reporters to try to get them to them to report negative information about Plame."

How could he even suggest they would do such a despicable thing?

I'm afraid Buttie's got some propaganda to catapult. That London story apparently isn't covering up the Rove one.

And, while we're on the subject, just what's Cooper's angle anyway? If you remember, I had said I thought it was strange that Cooper would make a big deal out of getting Rove's release to talk to the prosecutor ("in what can only be described as a stunning set of developments") when Rove had already signed a waiver back when this shit hit the fan. Here's York:

Luskin also shed light on the waiver that Rove signed releasing Cooper from any confidentiality agreement about the conversation. Luskin says Rove originally signed a waiver in December 2003 or in January 2004 (Luskin did not remember the exact date). The waiver, Luskin continues, was written by the office of special prosecutor Fitzgerald, and Rove signed it without making any changes — with the understanding that it applied to anyone with whom he had discussed the Wilson/Plame matter. "It was everyone's expectation that the waiver would be as broad as it could be," Luskin says.

Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller have expressed concerns that such waivers (top Cheney aide Lewis Libby also signed one) might have been coerced and thus might not have represented Rove's true feelings. Yet from the end of 2003 or beginning of 2004, until last Wednesday, Luskin says, Rove had no idea that there might be any problem with the waiver.

It was not until that Wednesday, the day Cooper was to appear in court, that that changed. "Cooper's lawyer called us and said, "Can you confirm that the waiver encompasses Cooper?" Luskin recalls. "I was amazed. He's a lawyer. It's not rocket science. [The waiver] says 'any person.' It's that broad. So I said, 'Look, I understand that you want reassurances. If Fitzgerald would like Karl to provide you with some other assurances, we will.'" Luskin says he got in touch with the prosecutor — "Rule number one is cooperate with Fitzgerald, and there is no rule number two," Luskin says — and asked what to do. According to Luskin, Fitzgerald said to go ahead, and Luskin called Cooper's lawyer back. "I said that I can reaffirm that the waiver that Karl signed applied to any conversations that Karl and Cooper had," Luskin says. After that — which represented no change from the situation that had existed for 18 months — Cooper made a dramatic public announcement and agreed to testify.

Investigator Fitzgerald must have some serious associates, because nothing has apparently leaked about his investigation. And it's been going on for a year and a half.

Luskin told NRO that Rove is not hiding behind the defense that he did not identify Wilson's wife because he did not specifically use her name. Asked if that argument was too legalistic, Luskin said, "I agree with you. I think it's a detail."

Luskin also addressed the question of whether Rove is a "subject" of the investigation. Luskin says Fitzgerald has told Rove he is not a "target" of the investigation, but, according to Luskin, Fitzgerald has also made it clear that virtually anyone whose conduct falls within the scope of the investigation, including Rove, is considered a "subject" of the probe. "'Target' is something we all understand, a very alarming term," Luskin says. On the other hand, Fitzgerald "has indicated to us that he takes a very broad view of what a subject is."

Is that clear?

So far, I'm still leaning toward my original assumption: Fitzgerald will perform an airtight investigation that clears everybody in the White House of anything illegal.

MoveOn (soon to be on the U.S. terrorist list) is asking for signatures:

Last year, President Bush promised that anyone at the White House involved in the leak would be fired. We believe that the President should stick to his word. That's why we're calling on him to fire Karl Rove.

Sign the petition to Bush right now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/firerove/index.html

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update 7:00 pm:

Here's how the NY Times parses the Cooper release:

Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, stood before a federal judge on Wednesday, facing up to four months in jail for refusing to testify about a confidential source. But he told the judge that he had just received a surprising communication from his source that would allow him to testify before a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative.

"A short time ago," Mr. Cooper said, "in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."

But the facts appear more complicated than they seemed in court. Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

[...]

Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word "personal" to mean specific.

[...]

In an e-mail message on Tuesday night, Mr. Cooper said he believed the [original waiver] forms could have been coerced and thus worthless.

[...]

The only thing that would do, Mr. Cooper wrote, was a "certain, unambiguous waiver" from his source.

Around 7:30 on Wednesday morning, Mr. Cooper had said goodbye to his son, resigned to his fate. His lawyer, Mr. Sauber, called to alert him to a statement from Mr. Luskin in The Wall Street Journal.

"If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source," Mr. Luskin told The Journal, "it's not Karl he's protecting."

That provided an opening, Mr. Cooper said. "I was not looking for a waiver," he said, "but on Wednesday morning my lawyer called and said, 'Look at The Wall Street Journal. I think we should take a shot.' And I said, 'Yes, it's an invitation.' "

Josh Marshall wonders if Luskin blew it, but I'm a little fuzzy on that one. I think it's a bit of a stretch for Cooper (with his lawyer's prompting, it would seem) to take what Luskin said as a specific waiver for Cooper to testify.

In court shortly after 2, he told Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington that he had received "an express personal release from my source."

That statement surprised Mr. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer. Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald.

Mr. Cooper has some conflict with Scooter Libby on the same subject.

Mr. Cooper's statements on Wednesday echoed his rationale for testifying last summer. "Mr. Libby," a statement issued by the magazine at the time said, "gave a personal waiver of confidentiality for Mr. Cooper to testify."

In an interview Friday, Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, disputed that.

"Mr. Libby signed a form," Mr. Tate said. "He gave it back to the F.B.I. End of story. There was no other assurance."

[...]

"I personally called Libby about a waiver," Mr. Cooper said, "and he said that if it was O.K. with his lawyer it was O.K. with him."

Update 7:30 pm:

Josh Marshall posts that John Bolton may also be involved in the leak of Plame's identity.

I've been trying to keep a list of Marshall's posts analyzing the Plame case from the beginning.