The media is using every excuse or as Ten would say every "nuance" to keep this issue alive. Either they smell blood, or they finally are remember whating is meant by the phrase, unbiased and aggressive investigative journalism.
*******************************************************
Reporter: Rove was first source on CIA leak
Time magazine's Cooper says woman's name was not disclosed
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 1:48 p.m. ET July 17, 2005
WASHINGTON - White House political aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell a Time magazine reporter that the wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy was a CIA officer, the reporter said in an article Sunday.
Time correspondent Matthew Cooper said he told a grand jury last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the "agency," or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the call by saying "I've already said too much."
He said Rove did not disclose the woman's name, Valerie Plame, but told him information would be declassified that would cast doubt on the credibility of her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, who had charged the Bush administration with exaggerating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs in making its case for war.
"So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD'? Yes," Cooper wrote in Time's current edition.
"When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me," Cooper wrote.
He also wrote that he was not certain what Rove meant by commenting he had already said too much.
A top Cheney aide was also among the sources, the Cooper said Sunday.
Earlier denials
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and Rove were not involved in the leaks.
Cooper said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he spoke to Libby after first learning about Wilson's wife from Rove.
Republicans are responding to the revelations about Rove's role in the leak by saying that the deputy White House chief of staff first heard about Wilson's wife from a reporter.
The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, told NBC that the disclosure about getting the information from a reporter vindicates Rove and that Democrats who have called for Rove's dismissal should apologize.
But John Podesta, former White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, said the White House's assurance in 2003 that Rove was not involved in the leak "was a lie." Rove's credibility "is in shreds," said Podesta, who appeared with Mehlman.
Wilson was the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.
msnbc.msn.com |
