Here's what I think really happened in Rovegate

[Jersey Devil]

The state dept memo taken on the plane to Africa was sent there by Bolton. Ari called Rove from the plane to tell him about it.

Bolton leaked to Judith Miller who was more than a reporter but in fact a trusted player who Bolton had leaked WMD stories to on a regular basis prior to this - that is known.

He instructed her to leak to Rove so they would have cover in the event that someone tried to say the leak originated from the White House (even though they already knew about Plame from the State Dept memo) and they could say they heard it first from a reporter. Miller could then claim privilege against disclosing her source and no one would ever find out who started the leaks.

Rove & Libby leaked to Cooper. He and Libby also leaked it to other reporters who did not write stories. These reporters may or may not have been called to testify before the GJ. If they did and testified then Rove & Libby are totally screwed.

Somehow, when called before the GJ, Libby screwed up the story by blaming it on Tim Russert as the source, when Russert had nothing whatsoever to do with it. How could that happen? Libby heard the leak from Rove (supposedly, according to the cover story) who said his source was a reporter and Libby either guessed wrong or wasn't listening. To me, this was their first big screwup in covering up the leak and probably piqued Fitzgerald's interest in pursuing perjury.

Their second screwup, imo, is that when they leaked they really had no idea if Plame was really undercover and what her role was with the CIA. When Fitzgerald filed his sealed affidavit with the court to force the reporters to testify it revealed that Plame was much more than some lower level CIA employee and that she was involved in some pretty delicate stuff. One of the judges said that the gravity of what was in that affidavit caused him to change his mind and vote to force the reporters to testify. So their second big screwup was vastly underestimating Plame's role with the CIA and thinking no judge would ever order the reporters to testify.

Miller is in jail not to protect her source but to protect her own ass as a co-conspirator.

Maybe I am giving them too much credit for intelligence. But many of these characters are lawyers or have unfettered access to lawyers and I have to think that they are always devising schemes to cover themselves and the WH in the event something goes wrong.

The trouble is that in their hubris, they never imagined their cover could be unraveled in other ways. These characters have gotten away with everything for years and never imagined that some pipsqueak lawyer they never heard of from Chicago could penetrate their cloak.

Of course, this is all conjecture but I will be curious to see just how close I get when the GJ and Fitzgerald release their findings.

[Frances]

1. Plausible guess

Judith Miller did receive a lot of bogus WMD info that she put in articles printed by the NYT. People are saying she got it from Chalabi, but who vouched for Chalabi? I think she would have talked to someone close to this administration. It could very well be Bolton and that's why the White House has been silent about Bolton recently. And of course why the White House won't release all the Bolton info.

[Boredtodeath]

2. I disagree.

I think Rove and Libby (who were in DC preparing Tenet's statement falling on his sword) believed Tenet would declassify Plame in the very statement they were writing.

Tenet changed the statement at the last minute and did not declassify Plame, thus screwing Rove and Libby.

That's why Tenet's sudden (and surprising) resignation.

[KharmaTrain]

3. Enjoy The Fun..I'll Wait For The Real Deal..

only Patrick Fitzgerald, the judges and the members of the Grand Jury really have any insight into this mess...and if they're as confused as we are...we're in for some exciting times.

We all have drawn our conclusions here...I have mine...and it goes higher than Bolton (one of many pawns here), but I'll say mine is as much conjecture as anyones...just having fun with the thoughts of perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

I suspect, Mr. Fitzgerald is winding down this phase and in a couple weeks we'll have a brand new ball game. Some of what we know now will become public fact, more "leaks" and other revelations will follow as well.

Save your posts...hopefully in a year we can all pull out our theories, conspiracy plots and other detective tools and see how well we fared against the fact.

Cheers...