Rove: Dodging another bullet?

[irishgrl]

Rove may face political fallout, but his legal status remains unclear

By Shannon McCaffrey

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Karl Rove talked. But did President Bush's deputy chief of staff break the law when he told a reporter that an administration critic's wife worked for the CIA?

Legal experts said the answer to that question was far from clear. It appears to hinge on whether Rove knew that Valerie Plame was a covert officer and blew her cover anyway.

It's a tough legal hurdle for Patrick Fitzgerald, the special federal prosecutor who has been investigating the Plame case for more than 18 months.

"He has to find somebody who would say Rove knew that she was covert, that he knew that the government was making an effort to hide her identity," said Philip Heymann, former deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. "It would appear he is working very, very hard to prove that, because without it you don't have a crime."

Enacted in 1982 to protect undercover CIA officials, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime to intentionally identify a covert agent knowing that the U.S. government is taking "affirmative measures to conceal" their relationship with the United States.

The odyssey of the Plame case began with a trip to Africa in 2002 by her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons. Wilson discounted the claims, setting a bizarre chain of events in motion: Plame's unmasking as a spy, a reporter being thrown in jail and a special prosecutor setting his sights on the White House.

The revelations about Rove came about after Time magazine turned over notes and e-mails from reporter Matthew Cooper earlier this month when Fitzgerald threatened to jail the journalist.

Cooper told his boss he had a telephone conversation with Rove five days after an article by Wilson, which criticized the Bush administration as manipulating intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, was published on The New York Times' op-ed page on July 6, 2003. According to Cooper's e-mails, obtained by Newsweek, Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife, whom he didn't name, "apparently works" for the CIA.

The e-mails were turned over to federal investigators after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Both were seeking to keep their sources secret. Miller was sent to prison last week for refusing to reveal her sources to prosecutors. Cooper will testify before a grand jury after Rove waived confidentiality.

Plame's name first surfaced in a July 2003 column by Robert Novak, who has refused to comment on whether he's cooperating with authorities.

Rove's attorney Robert Luskin didn't return a phone call Tuesday but has said Rove didn't reveal Plame's name and that Fitzgerald has told the White House aide he isn't the target of the probe.

Fitzgerald's investigators also have questioned Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney; Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby; and former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who's now the attorney general.

More than a year ago, President Bush pledged to fire the person who leaked Plame's identity. On Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Rove continued to have Bush's confidence. Several prominent Democrats have suggested that Rove, the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, be fired.

Even though Rove apparently didn't use Plame's name in talking to Cooper, legal experts said the criminal case against him wouldn't be hindered, because he used enough information about her to make it clear whom he was talking about.

Former federal prosecutor Lawrence Barcella said one large problem for Fitzgerald was that the statute making it a crime to identify a covert operative was virtually untested.

"There are 10,000 opinions out there on how to interpret the mail fraud statute but this (the leak case) is exceedingly complex and all new," Barcella said. "Understandable care is being taken to make sure you're not stretching the statute beyond what was intended."

Victoria Toensing, a former assistant attorney general who helped write the law, said in an opinion piece in The Washington Post in January that the law was being twisted beyond what was intended. She said Congress had intentionally adopted "a dauntingly high standard" for prosecutors to charge leakers and that Fitzgerald's case didn't appear to make the grade.

Former prosecutors speculate that Fitzgerald also could be putting together a conspiracy case. Or, if he's unable to prove the leak case against Rove or others in the White House, he could be laying the groundwork for perjury charges, depending on what those officials have told the grand jury.

That would echo Washington's other scandals - Watergate during the Nixon administration and the Monica Lewinsky affair of Clinton's tenure - in which the cover-up ends up being the problem.

But with the grand jury's dealings cloaked in secret and Fitzgerald not talking, Rove is facing a trial of public opinion.

"At this point his problem seems to be more political than criminal," former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said.

here's the link (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12116249.htm)


if he gets away with this, we all need to form millitias........(sp?)

[gldstwmn]

Former prosecutors speculate that Fitzgerald also could be putting together a conspiracy case. Or, if he's unable to prove the leak case against Rove or others in the White House, he could be laying the groundwork for perjury charges, depending on what those officials have told the grand jury.


I think it's both.

[irishgrl]

I think it's both.

either way, I hope the penalties are SEVERE.....horse's ASS!

[gldstwmn]

either way, I hope the penalties are SEVERE.....horse's ASS!

Well the press is all over it. I think they smell blood now. That's not a good sign.

[macfanken]

Did you see the press HAMMER Scott McClellan yesterday and today? It was WONDERFUL! Sounds like the prosecuter may be going after Rove for obstruction. Randi Rhodes was brilliant today regarding all of this.

I'm SO tired of being lied to on a daily basis by this administration, when will the other 50% of this country wake up to this group of criminal thugs? I can deal with idealogical differences... it's the LYING that makes my head feel like it's going to explode!!

[Beachwood Mac]

Did you see the press HAMMER Scott McClellan yesterday and today? It was WONDERFUL! Sounds like the prosecuter may be going after Rove for obstruction. Randi Rhodes was brilliant today regarding all of this.

It's been some of the best reality TV in a very long time. What will Bush do if the voice inside his earpiece is forced out and the only noise in the earpiece is the wind blowing between Bush's ears?

[gldstwmn]

Did you see the press HAMMER Scott McClellan yesterday and today? It was WONDERFUL! Sounds like the prosecuter may be going after Rove for obstruction. Randi Rhodes was brilliant today regarding all of this.



The guy who really called McClellan out was David Gregory. It was beautiful
and this is truly the first time in a long time that I have seen the press put their balls on and ask the hard questions. This thing ain't going away.
Conspiracy, obstruction, perjury it all works for me.
Actually the one who is really obstucting is Miller.

[Johnny Stew]

I can deal with idealogical differences... it's the LYING that makes my head feel like it's going to explode!!Amen. :nod:

[SuzeQuze]

Did you see the press HAMMER Scott McClellan yesterday and today? It was WONDERFUL! Sounds like the prosecuter may be going after Rove for obstruction. Randi Rhodes was brilliant today regarding all of this.

I'm SO tired of being lied to on a daily basis by this administration, when will the other 50% of this country wake up to this group of criminal thugs? I can deal with idealogical differences... it's the LYING that makes my head feel like it's going to explode!!

:muah: I heard her too. She's mental but I love her. And Stephanie Miller calls him (McClellan) "Puffy McMoonface", although now they started calling him "Chummy McSharkbait". :lol:

The f*cking White House says they are behind Rove or whatever. I'm like, wha? And the republican talking point is that the dems are playing politics again. Wha? :shrug: I guess it doesn't matter that the story that Rove leaked Plame's name is true. It's the most messed up thing, this administration is worse than Nixon's.

[SuzeQuze]

The guy who really called McClellan out was David Gregory. It was beautiful
and this is truly the first time in a long time that I have seen the press put their balls on and ask the hard questions. This thing ain't going away.
Conspiracy, obstruction, perjury it all works for me.
Actually the one who is really obstucting is Miller.

Exactly, KEEP WEARING YOUR BALLS, REPORTERS!! It was actually shocking to hear someone get grilled, but in a good way, and its about damn time. Also, McClellan said that now was not the time to talk about whether he stood by what he said in the past (Rove did not leak name) but at some point in the future it would be discussed. This reminded me of Scott Peterson telling Amber Frye that he couldn't tell her everything but would. :eek: Lies lies lies. AND MORE EFFIN LIES.

[gldstwmn]

It's been some of the best reality TV in a very long time. What will Bush do if the voice inside his earpiece is forced out and the only noise in the earpiece is the wind blowing between Bush's ears?

Someone will call Karen Hughes. :)

[gldstwmn]

Exactly, KEEP WEARING YOUR BALLS, REPORTERS!! It was actually shocking to hear someone get grilled, but in a good way, and its about damn time. Also, McClellan said that now was not the time to talk about whether he stood by what he said in the past (Rove did not leak name) but at some point in the future it would be discussed.
Fine. Then he can be a part of the conspiracy too. But I'm sure that he's already been advised of that.

[SuzeQuze]

TrueMajority sent me this, they wrote a great blurb about what happened in plain English which is refreshing.

It’s Confirmed: Karl Rove Exposed a CIA Operative
White House Credibility Gap Captured on Video
...

http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/rove_must_go

Here’s what we know:

An ongoing investigation into this scandal eventually will conclude whether Rove should go to prison or was just inept. In the meantime, the Commander-in-Chief has an obligation to protect our nation and our troops by making sure Rove doesn’t get another chance to leak something that, next time, may cost someone more than their career.

In his State of the Union message in 2003, George Bush said that Saddam Hussein was trying to get uranium from Niger. In the following weeks, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson disclosed that he was sent to Niger by the CIA to look into this and had reported to top administration officials months before the speech that there was no Niger-Iraq uranium connection. In a discussion with a reporter at Time magazine about Wilson’s disclosure, Rove said that Wilson’s wife was the CIA operative who sent him to Niger. Three days later columnist Robert Novak published the fact that Plame was a CIA operative thus ending her career, possibly endangering her life and ending an important operation.

Rove may have been punishing Wilson for embarrassing the President. If Rove exposed Wilson’s wife, a covert member of the CIA’s weapons of mass destruction team, it would be an act of treason. Rove’s lawyer counters that he didn’t know she was a covert operative and didn’t mean any harm. Either way his disclosure was dangerous and President Bush needs to pull his security clearance and get him out of the White House right now.


[1] For Newsweek's confirmation of Rove’s disclosure, see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek
[2] See the AP’s analysis of this breaking scandal, “Newsview: CIA Leak Probe Focuses on Rove”, July 13, 2005. Click here: http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/politics-5/1121259688149860.xml&storylist=topstories

When you go to this site you can send a fax to your legislators through the Web page. You can also see the Puffy McMoonface video where McLellan lies his ass off.

This org was started by Ben of Ben and Jerry's and I signed up for their information when I saw his "Pants on Fire" Bush float in Boston. What I like about them is, once you sign up, if they send you an alert you just hit reply and send in your email and they do the rest.

[irishgrl]

thanks for posting that action link, Ive just signed the petition.
Lessee: we've got the gas, we've got the entree, all we need now is....

a MATCH! Rove BBQ! and for desert: Bush Banana splits (obvious reference to the "monkey pants" jokes)
http://www.internetweekly.org/images/monkey_pants.jpg

here's the site that the pic (http://www.internetweekly.org/cartoons_2004/cartoon_bush_monkey_pants.html) came from

[macfanken]

Here comes the spin... Sean Hannity (on Faux News Hannity & Colmes) just said "Karl is the victim here." :eek: I'm speechless. Ann Coulter is on next... I'll have to turn the channel.

[SteveMacD]

Here comes the spin... Sean Hannity (on Faux News Hannity & Colmes) just said "Karl is the victim here." :eek: I'm speechless. Ann Coulter is on next
http://www.addis-welt.de/smilie/smilie/kotz/zensiert039.gif

[SuzeQuze]

Here comes the spin... Sean Hannity (on Faux News Hannity & Colmes) just said "Karl is the victim here." :eek: I'm speechless. Ann Coulter is on next... I'll have to turn the channel.

I hope you really changed it, don't watch that bullsh*t, those people are insane. Hannity's brain is in his ass, he's a puppet with talking points is all. I can't wait to hear Steph rip him up in the morning. And I thought Coultergeist was on the way out? Dammit.

KARL ROVE TOLD A REPORTER WHO A CIA OPERATIVE WAS. Now, claiming he didn't know she was on a secret mission is crap. You just don't talk about that stuff to reporters. Hello? And the timing is suspect. Ugh. These guys all have frikkin inexplicable forcefields around them. :eek: must.crack.forcefield.

[dissention]

Here comes the spin... Sean Hannity (on Faux News Hannity & Colmes) just said "Karl is the victim here." :eek: I'm speechless. Ann Coulter is on next... I'll have to turn the channel.

Tangina worked her voodoo on my apartment and I'm proud to say it's been Coultergeist free for weeks.

[macfanken]

I hope you really changed it, don't watch that bullsh*t, those people are insane. Hannity's brain is in his ass, he's a puppet with talking points is all. I can't wait to hear Steph rip him up in the morning. And I thought Coultergeist was on the way out? Dammit.

OK, I'll admit, I didn't change the channel. As usual, Ann Coulter was out of her mind. I don't know if I like to torture myself or if I'm just trying to understand the enemy! Every once in a while I'll even listen to Hannity's radio show.

KARL ROVE TOLD A REPORTER WHO A CIA OPERATIVE WAS. Now, claiming he didn't know she was on a secret mission is crap. You just don't talk about that stuff to reporters. Hello? And the timing is suspect. Ugh. These guys all have frikkin inexplicable forcefields around them. :eek: must.crack.forcefield.

Oh, Rove knew exactly what he was doing... if his intentions were so innocent, why did he call Tim Russert and tell him that Joe Wilson's wife was "fair game"?

[macfanken]

Tangina worked her voodoo on my apartment and I'm proud to say it's been Coultergeist free for weeks.


Lucky you! I wish she'd just spontaneously combust.

[dissention]

Lucky you! I wish she'd just spontaneously combust.

After being exposed as a tranny, naturally.

[gldstwmn]

KARL ROVE TOLD A REPORTER WHO A CIA OPERATIVE WAS. Now, claiming he didn't know she was on a secret mission is crap. You just don't talk about that stuff to reporters. Hello? And the timing is suspect. Ugh. These guys all have frikkin inexplicable forcefields around them. :eek: must.crack.forcefield.

Not only that but I believe at the time he leaked her name he did not have the clearance so someine who did have the clearance must have told him. Last I read, that would be one of about six people.

[SuzeQuze]

...Oh, Rove knew exactly what he was doing... if his intentions were so innocent, why did he call Tim Russert and tell him that Joe Wilson's wife was "fair game"?

:eek: I don't remember hearing that before. I hope that this gets sorted out properly by the court.

[macfanken]

:eek: I don't remember hearing that before. I hope that this gets sorted out properly by the court.

Actually, I'm wrong, it was Chris Mathews from MSNBC who got the call from Rove saying that Wilson's wife was "fair game". It's in Wilson's book, which I just started reading. :)

[gldstwmn]

:eek: I don't remember hearing that before. I hope that this gets sorted out properly by the court.

I thought the fair game comment was told to Chris Matthews but it could have been Russert. They were two of the journalists that the story was shopped to.

[SuzeQuze]

Actually, I'm wrong, it was Chris Mathews from MSNBC who got the call from Rove saying that Wilson's wife was "fair game". It's in Wilson's book, which I just started reading. :)

Ohhhh, okay. I do remember this now. Jeez. One of those right wing bastard media guys (I don't remember who it was) said he's glad Plame was outed, someone had to do it. :eek: What an ignorant statement. It made me really ill. The talking points went out and the Rs were doing damage control - confusing people on purpose - because this is a complicated story that most people won't pay attention to long enough to understand.

I need a vacation. I thought I was already disgusted, but now I am truly disgusted. :distress:

[SomeKindaMother]

Ohhhh, okay. I do remember this now. Jeez. One of those right wing bastard media guys (I don't remember who it was) said he's glad Plame was outed, someone had to do it. :eek: :

Okay. WHY? Am I missing something? Why did 'someone have to do it'? Or what did this RWB give as his reasoning? That makes no sense. How can you have the best interest of our nation in mind if you are glad that *ANY* of our covert CIA agents are outed?

Kelly :)

[SuzeQuze]

Okay. WHY? Am I missing something? Why did 'someone have to do it'? Or what did this RWB give as his reasoning? That makes no sense. How can you have the best interest of our nation in mind if you are glad that *ANY* of our covert CIA agents are outed?

Kelly :)

Exactly, it makes absolutely no sense. :confused: And people listen to these idiots and believe what they say, "well she had to be outed", I mean WTF? Maybe their claim is she was making stuff up about the uranium in Niger and Saddam really was trying to get it? :shrug: But we know already that isn't true. They believe what they pull from their butts, truth be dammed, and its making me sick.

[SomeKindaMother]

Exactly, it makes absolutely no sense. :confused: And people listen to these idiots and believe what they say, "well she had to be outed", I mean WTF? Maybe their claim is she was making stuff up about the uranium in Niger and Saddam really was trying to get it? :shrug: But we know already that isn't true. They believe what they pull from their butts, truth be dammed, and its making me sick.

I can NOT listen to those Limbaugh types. In fact, Limbaugh is the only one I've ever heard...years ago. So I can't judge any of the others. I am pretty sheltered. :] I do listen to Air America radio occasionally. In fact, they just played the excerpt that you referrred to from the right winger. Is there a "Fox"...or something like that? I don't think they were referring to Fox news, and I didn't really hear who they attributed it to, but that was the name it sounded like. Anyway, I was only half listening at the time, and mainly recognized it because I knew it had to have been what were referring to!

Kelly :)

[SuzeQuze]

I can NOT listen to those Limbaugh types. In fact, Limbaugh is the only one I've ever heard...years ago. So I can't judge any of the others. I am pretty sheltered. :] I do listen to Air America radio occasionally. In fact, they just played the excerpt that you referrred to from the right winger. Is there a "Fox"...or something like that? I don't think they were referring to Fox news, and I didn't really hear who they attributed it to, but that was the name it sounded like. Anyway, I was only half listening at the time, and mainly recognized it because I knew it had to have been what were referring to!

Kelly :)

I don't listen to them either, yes I heard it on AAR. Stephanie Miller played it. Usually I can just laugh because she is so funny but this is way over the top. So you're right, that's exactly what i was referring to. And neither one of us knows who it was. :lol: Oh well, its really just incidental. :)

[strandinthewind]

July 19, 2005


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Memo Underscored
Issue of Shielding
Plame's Identity

By ANNE MARIE SQUEO and JOHN D. MCKINNON
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 19, 2005; Page A3

A classified State Department memo that may be pivotal to the CIA leak case made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared, according to a person familiar with the document.

A special prosecutor is investigating whether Bush administration officials broke the law by intentionally outing a covert intelligence operative. Investigators are trying to determine if the memo, dated June 10, 2003, was how White House officials learned that Valerie Wilson was an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.


News that the memo was marked for its sensitivity emerged as President Bush yesterday appeared to backtrack from his 2004 pledge to fire any member of his staff involved in the leaking of the CIA agent's name. In a news conference yesterday that followed disclosures that his top strategist, Karl Rove, had discussed Ms. Wilson's CIA employment with two reporters, Mr. Bush adopted a different formulation, specifying criminality as the standard for firing.

"If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Mr. Bush said. White House spokesman Scott McClellan later disputed the suggestion that the president had shifted his position.

The memo's details are significant because they will make it harder for officials who saw the document to claim that they didn't realize the identity of the CIA officer was a sensitive matter. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, may also be looking at whether other crimes -- such as perjury, obstruction of justice or leaking classified information -- were committed.

On July 6, 2003, former diplomat Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, disputing administration arguments that Iraq had sought to buy uranium ore from Africa to make nuclear weapons. The following day, President Bush and top cabinet officials left for Africa, and the memo was aboard Air Force One.

The paragraph in the memo discussing Ms. Wilson's involvement in her husband's trip is marked at the beginning with a letter designation in brackets to indicate the information shouldn't be shared, according to the person familiar with the memo. Such a designation would indicate to a reader that the information was sensitive. The memo, though, doesn't specifically describe Ms. Wilson as an undercover agent, the person familiar with the memo said.

Generally, the federal government has three levels of classified information -- top secret, secret and confidential -- all indicating various levels of "damage" to national security if disclosed. There also is an unclassified designation -- indicating information that wouldn't harm national security if shared with the public -- but that wasn't the case for the material on the Wilsons prepared by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. It isn't known what level of classification was assigned to the information in the memo.

MORE



• Text of Bush-Singh Press Conference1
07/18/05

• Storm Persists Over CIA Leak Probe2
07/18/05

FROM THE ARCHIVES



• Memo May Aid Leak Probe3
10/17/03




Who received the memo, which was prepared for Marc Grossman, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, and how widely it was circulated are issues as Mr. Fitzgerald tries to pinpoint the origin of the leak of Ms. Wilson's identity. According to the person familiar with the document, it didn't include a distribution list. It isn't known if President Bush has seen the memo.

Mr. Fitzgerald has subpoenaed the phone logs from Air Force One for the week of the Africa tour, which precedes the revelation of Ms. Wilson's CIA identity in a column by Robert Novak on July 14. In that piece, Mr. Novak identified Valerie Plame, using Ms. Wilson's maiden name, saying that "two senior administration officials" had told him that Ms. Wilson suggested sending her husband to Niger.

Mr. Novak attempted to reach Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, in the days before his column appeared. However, Mr. Fleischer didn't respond to Mr. Novak's inquiries, according to a person familiar with his account. Mr. Fleischer, who has since left the administration, is one of several officials who testified before the grand jury.

In an October 2003 article4 on the memo, The Wall Street Journal reported that it details a meeting in early 2002 in which CIA officials discussed how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium ore from Niger. Ms. Wilson, an agent working on issues related to weapons of mass destruction, recommended her husband, an expert on Africa, to travel to Niger to investigate the matter.

White House officials had been warning reporters off the notion that the trip to Niger was ordered by Vice President Dick Cheney, as Mr. Wilson had suggested. Emails and a first-person account published this week of his grand-jury testimony by Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper support this notion. The grand jury is set to expire in October in this case, though its tenure could be extended for six months.

It is possible that reporters learned Ms. Wilson's identity from government officials who hadn't seen the memo. Mr. Cooper has testified and written that he was first told of Mr. Wilson's wife by Mr. Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff. Mr. Rove didn't identify Ms. Wilson by name. Similarly, one of Mr. Cooper's other sources, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, said he had heard Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, but he didn't identify her any further, according to Mr. Cooper.

The fact that two top White House officials discussed a CIA agent with reporters has prompted a furor in Washington, with Democrats calling for the firing of Mr. Rove.

A new ABC News poll signaled how the matter has damaged the administration's credibility -- and the political peril Mr. Rove still faces. Just 25% of Americans say the White House is fully cooperating with the federal investigation into the leak of Ms. Wilson's identity, down from about half when the investigation began nearly two years ago. Moreover, 75% said Mr. Rove should lose his job if he leaked classified information. The poll of 1,008 adults, conducted July 13-17, has a margin of error of three percentage points.

---- John Harwood contributed to this article

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB112170178721288385-IRjgoNjlah4op2oZHqIaqWHm5,00.html

[strandinthewind]

July 24, 2005
For Bush, Effect of Investigation of C.I.A. Leak Case Is Uncertain
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, July 23 - His former secretary of state, most of his closest aides and a parade of other senior officials have testified to a grand jury. His political strategist has emerged as a central figure in the case, as has his vice president's chief of staff. His spokesman has taken a pounding for making public statements about the matter that now appear not to be accurate.

For all that, it is still not clear what the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. operative's identity will mean for President Bush. So far the disclosures about the involvement of Karl Rove, among others, have not exacted any substantial political price from the administration. And nobody has suggested that the investigation directly implicates the president.

Yet Mr. Bush has yet to address some uncomfortable questions that he may not be able to evade indefinitely.

For starters, did Mr. Bush know in the fall of 2003, when he was telling the public that no one wanted to get to the bottom of the case more than he did, that Mr. Rove, his longtime strategist and senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, had touched on the C.I.A. officer's identity in conversations with journalists before the officer's name became public? If not, when did they tell him, and what would the delay say in particular about his relationship with Mr. Rove, whose career and Mr. Bush's have been intertwined for decades?

Then there is the broader issue of whether Mr. Bush was aware of any effort by his aides to use the C.I.A. officer's identity to undermine the standing of her husband, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration of twisting its prewar intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program.

For the last several weeks, Mr. Bush and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, have declined to address the leak in any substantive way, citing the continuing federal criminal investigation.

But Democrats increasingly see an opportunity to raise questions about Mr. Bush's credibility, and to reopen a debate about whether the White House leveled with the nation about the urgency of going to war with Iraq. And even some Republicans say Mr. Bush cannot assume that he will escape from the investigation politically unscathed.

"Until all the facts come out, no one is really going to know who the fickle finger of fate points at," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster.

The case centers on how the name of a C.I.A. operative came to be appear two years ago in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who identified her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame. The operative, who is more usually known as Valerie Wilson, is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration eight days before Mr. Novak's column of twisting some of the intelligence used to justify going to war with Iraq. Under some conditions, the disclosure of a covert intelligence agent's name can be a federal crime.

The special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has kept a tight curtain of secrecy around his investigation. But he spent more than an hour in the Oval Office on June 24, 2004, interviewing Mr. Bush about the case. Mr. Bush was not under oath, but he had his personal lawyer for the case, James E. Sharp, with him.

Neither the White House nor the Justice Department has said what Mr. Bush was asked about, but prosecutors do not lightly seek to put questions directly to any president, suggesting that there was some information that Mr. Fitzgerald felt he could get only from Mr. Bush.

Allan J. Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in Washington, said the lesson of recent history, for example in the Iran-contra case under President Ronald Reagan, is that presidents tend to know more than it might first appear about what is going on within the White House.

"My presumption in presidential politics is that the president always knows," Mr. Lichtman said. "But there are degrees of knowing. Reagan said, keep the contras together body and soul. Did he know exactly what Oliver North was doing? No, it doesn't mean he knew what every subordinate is doing."

Although it is possible that other officials will turn out to have played leading roles in the leak case, the subordinates whose actions would appear to be of most interest to Mr. Bush right now are Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby, who as Mr. Cheney's chief of staff had particular reason to protect the vice president.

According to accounts by various people involved in the case, Mr. Rove spoke in the days after Mr. Wilson went public with his criticism in July 2003 to both of the first two reporters to disclose that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A., Mr. Novak and Matthew Cooper of Time. Mr. Cooper has said he also spoke about the case with Mr. Libby.

By September 2003, as a criminal investigation was getting under way, Mr. McClellan was telling reporters that Mr. Rove had nothing to do with the leak, saying he had checked with Mr. Rove about the topic.

Around the same time, the president was saying he had no idea who might have been responsible. Asked by a reporter on Oct. 6, 2003, whether the leak was retaliation for Mr. Wilson's criticism, Mr. Bush replied: "I don't know who leaked the information, for starters. So it's hard for me to answer that question until I find out the truth."

Asked the next day if he was confident that the leakers would be found, Mr. Bush, alluding to the "two senior administration officials" cited by Mr. Novak as his sources, replied: "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there's a lot of senior officials. I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth."

Republicans said the relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove was so deep and complex that it was hard to imagine the president cutting ties with him barring an indictment.

"Can you survive being involved in something you probably shouldn't have been involved in where you didn't break any laws?" Mr. Fabrizio said. "Well, you probably can, especially if you are Karl."

Mr. Fabrizio said that even if Mr. Rove left the White House, he would continue to consult with Mr. Bush "unless they put him in a tunnel."

Mr. McClellan and other White House officials have repeatedly declined to answer when asked if Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby had told the president by October 2003 that they had alluded to Ms. Wilson's identity months earlier in their conversations with the journalists.

But Mr. Bush's political opponents say the president is in a box. In their view, either Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby kept the president in the dark about their actions, making them appear evasive at a time when Mr. Bush was demanding that his staff cooperate fully with the investigation, or Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby had told the president and he was not forthcoming in his public statements about his knowledge of their roles.

"We know that Karl Rove, through Scott McClellan, did not tell Americans the truth," said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois and a former top aide in the Clinton White House. "What's important now is what Karl Rove told the president. Was it the truth, or was it what he told Scott McClellan?"

There is a third option, that neither Mr. Rove nor Mr. Libby considered their conversations with the journalists to have amounted to leaking or confirming the information about Ms. Wilson. In that case, they may have felt no need to inform the president, or they did inform him and he shared their view that they had done nothing wrong.

Mr. Bush has also yet to answer any questions publicly about what if anything he learned from aides about Mr. Wilson and Ms. Wilson in the days after Mr. Wilson leveled his criticism of the administration in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on July 6, 2003.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/24bush.html?hp&ex=1122177600&en=8dac145cfd031145&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[xxxmx]

i want this to turn into a feeding frenzy. thanks for sharing these articles, strandie. i seem to not pay attention to the news anymore. how sad, i get my info from the ledge... at least people share!

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it... or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." Lincoln

[irishgrl]

curiouser and curiouser....No low is too low for Bush and Company....
Bush needs to be impeached. his advisors need to be stripped of all power.
No Bush, No Cheney, No Rove...

[gldstwmn]

i want this to turn into a feeding frenzy.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000990611

Atty. Gen. Gonzales Responds to Frank Rich's '12-Hour Gap' Charge

By E&P Staff

Published: July 24, 2005 11:20 AM ET

NEW YORK Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, responding to a strong charge in a column by Frank Rich in The New York Times’ today, said there was nothing improper about waiting 12 hours to “preserve all materials” after being informed by the Justice Department in 2003 that it was launching an investigation into the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent.

Gonzales told Bob Schieffer on the CBS show “Face the Nation” that he had been given permission by the Justice Department to hold off overnight if he saw fit, which he did.

He also explained that he had not launched his own probe into the matter because “in this kind of case you want to wait to see if there is a criminal investigation.” He said he feared his own queries into the Plame leak “would hinder a criminal investigation.”

Rich had written that Gonzales was likely denied the Supreme Court nod that just went to John G. Roberts because the White House feared that he had too much “proximity” to the Plame scandal.

“As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife,” Rich wrote. “That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must ‘preserve all materials’ relevant to the investigation.

"This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. ‘Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence,’ said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago.”

Asked about this by Schieffer today, Gonzales said, “It has always been my practice to work closely with investigators.” After getting notification from the Justice Department about 8 p.m. that night, he asked if he could inform staffers at the White House early in the morning , and that was okayed.

Schieffer then asked if he at least informed anyone at the White House that first night to “get ready” for the order.
Yes, Gonzales said, he told the president’s chief of staff that night, and then the president himself “first thing” the next day.

He then explained that he hadn't launched an internal probe just in case a criminal investigation was in the works.

Any regrets about how he handled all this? Schieffer wondered.

“No,” Gonzales replied, pointing how that the “strong prosecutor” in the case will bring out all the facts.

[xxxmx]

in my most sacred non-lindsey-shagging fantasies i see rove, ashcroft, and cheney going down and taking gonzales, frist, delay, jeb bush, and mel martinez with them. as it looks like lindsey-shagging isn't in the cards, i will most certainly settle for shooting jerk republican fish in a valerie plame barrel.

[irishgrl]

in my most sacred non-lindsey-shagging fantasies i see rove, ashcroft, and cheney going down and taking gonzales, frist, delay, jeb bush, and mel martinez with them. as it looks like lindsey-shagging isn't in the cards, i will most certainly settle for shooting jerk republican fish in a valerie plame barrel.

I LIKE that idea, I'll go grab my rustiest HARPOON!

[gldstwmn]

in my most sacred non-lindsey-shagging fantasies i see rove, ashcroft, and cheney going down and taking gonzales, frist, delay, jeb bush, and mel martinez with them. as it looks like lindsey-shagging isn't in the cards, i will most certainly settle for shooting jerk republican fish in a valerie plame barrel.

Bravo. :thumbsup: