Karl Rove's alibi hidden from FBI

[FreeState]

(Mods, I did not see this posted, feel free to lock if it has)

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10016

By Murray Waas
Web Exclusive: 07.19.05

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White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said.

Also leading to the early skepticism of Rove's accounts was the claim that although he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a journalist, he said could not recall the name of the journalist. Later, the sources said, Rove wavered even further, saying he was not sure at all where he first heard the information.

[swag]

1. It was posted in GD, but I don't think cross-posting in LBN is a crime

kicked an nominated. Critical.

Did Rove pull a Martha, on top of everything else?

[thinkingwoman]

3. Goddess I hope so!

I'll take any conviction. Perjury or lying to the FBI are both fine with me.

[GardeningGal]

5. Seems like it could also be

obstruction of justice based on the first interview. At least the way I read it.

[thinkingwoman]

23. that works too

I want to see them go down. Please Goddess let them go down.

[Spazito]

2. Thanks for the link!

Interesting reading, seems Rove wouldn't know how to tell the truth if his freedom depended on it, lol.

[smoogatz]

4. Stick a fork in him--

but stand back while you do it. You don't want to get splashed with any of the poisonous green goo that oozes through his veins.

[goforit]

6. If this case was turned down by the Supreme Court can it go back up?

I hope it can't.

[Seabiscuit]

14. Answer: No.

Most cases are decided by the SCOTUS by a decision not to hear the case ("turning it down").

[Alizaryn]

7. Its hard for me to believe he could of been that stupid.

Honestly, much as he is a poisonous amoral snail he is not dumb. Bigger and better have fallen because of pride and tripping over their enlarged ego, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[kestrel91316]

12. Ahhhhh, our old friend "HUBRIS"

[Seabiscuit]

15. He has lived his lies for so long he's bound to die by them someday.

[LiberalFighter]

18. There are people out there that believe their lies

[Seabiscuit]

22. Yes - Jean Paul Sartre called it "bad faith". According to his writings,

people who lie often enough begin to believe their own lies.

And eventually, people like Rove begin telling really stupid lies, because their lies become their reality, and they lose all perspective on the real world outside of their webs of deceit. Part of their delusion is the misperception that the rest of the world sees everything just the way they see it.

[bunny planet]

20. Not dumb but enormously arrogant and spiteful and vindictive as hell.

Those traits will be his downfall.

[sendero]

21. I'm a "student" of..

... human nature. It is my belief that when people do things that are "wrong" over a period of time and keep getting away with it, they get sloppy.

And when someone tells a lot of lies it gets very hard, even for really really REALLY smart people to keep it all straight in their heads. They eventually forget a lie they told to a certain person and reveal themselves.

I don't doubt that Rove is an very intelligent man. But it is totally consistent with human nature that he eventually would cross the line, after all if you keep pushing the envelope and nothing happens, eventually you push it too far.

[OKthatsIT]

27. Rove is the mastermind of the 'STUPID playing stupid' tactic

what the hell else did any of us expect him to say?

[Generator]

8. Karl Rove is slime on his own shoes

[Seabiscuit]

16. And Paul Wolfowitz is slime on his own comb

Dick Cheney is slime on his own sneer.

Bush is slime on his own smirk.

Rumsfeld is slime on his own shit-eating grin.

[fob]

28. There's a song there somewhere - Suggested title? Slime On

[Seabiscuit]

30. Slime on, slime on Chimpster soon?

[alarcojon]

9. Like the article

And this jumped out at me:

In the column, Novak called Plame an "agency operative," thus identifying her as a covert CIA agent. But Novak has since claimed that his use of the phrase "agency operative" was a formulation of his own, and that he did not know, or mean to tell his readers, that she had a covert status with the agency.

Rove, too, has told federal investigators he did not know that Plame had a covert status with the CIA when he spoke with Novak, and Cooper, about Plame.

The distinction as to whether Rove specifically knew Plame’s status has been central to the investigation of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald; under the law, a government official can only be prosecuted if he or she knew of a person's covert status and "that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent."

But investigators were also skeptical of Novak's claim that his use of the term "operative" was a journalistic miscue because it appeared to provide legal protection for whoever his source or sources were. And although Novak's and Rove's accounts of their conversations regarding Plame were largely consistent, they appeared to be self-serving.

They are looking into whether Novak's language was coached to him by Rove! Even if they could never prove this piece of the puzzle, it's nice to have it out there. Spread it far and wide!

[MO_Dem]

11. Yep, it just proves

that Novak and most other journalists were taking dictation from Rove/WH. I'll never believe otherwise.

[Fridays Child]

10. Is Karl looking at perjury and/or obstruction of justice?

[DeepModem Mom]

13. Kicking for the sheer heck of it! (Thanks for posting!) nt

[maddezmom]

17. thanks for the kick

interesting stuff in it :hi:

[Donailin]

19. Excellent

Lying to the FBI. The presidents closest advisor lied to the FBI about leaking information on a CIA agent.

Bush can nominate ten justices this week. It won't matter. They are going down.

[DeepModem Mom]

24. kick

[leftchick]

25. Excellent!

so who was on the plane and then told Rove? Or did he know long before this memo?...

<snip>

The classified memorandum, dated June 10, 2003, was written by Marc Grossman, then the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and reportedly made claims similar to those made by Wilson: that the Bush administration had relied on faulty intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Hussein to make the case to go to war with Iraq. The report was circulated to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and a slew of other senior administration officials who were then traveling with President Bush to Africa.

Fitzgerald has focused on whether Rove might have learned of Plame's identity from one of the many senior White House officials who read the memo, according to the Times account and attorneys whose clients have testified before the federal grand jury.

[gratuitous]

26. What piques an investigator's interest? A changing story

And so far, Rove's story has taken about six turns, as he keeps trying to refine his answer and turn his leaden political dirty trick into a golden instance of selflessness.

[Nothing Without Hope]

29. I'm wondering exactly what questions they asked him. Did they let him

dodge or did they force him to a specific answer that would consitute perjury if false?