Matthew Cooper Testifies Rove Told Him About Plame (Update3)
By Laurie Asseo
bloomberg.com
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified today that top presidential aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell him that an Iraq war critic's wife was a CIA official.
Cooper, testifying in Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby's perjury trial, also contradicted Libby's account of a conversation the two had the following day, on July 12, 2003, about war critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.
Libby, 56, Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, is accused of lying to investigators probing whether U.S. officials deliberately leaked Plame's identity to retaliate against Wilson for attacking the administration's Iraq war claims. Prosecutors say Libby falsely told a grand jury that, when Cooper asked about Plame, he said he heard about her from other reporters and didn't know if the information was true.
``I asked what he heard about Wilson's wife'' sending him to Niger to find out if Iraq sought to buy uranium there, Cooper said. ``Mr. Libby said words to the effect of `yeah, I heard that too.'''
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked whether Libby said where he had learned about Plame.
``Not in any way,'' said Cooper, now Washington editor of a new magazine, Conde Nast Portfolio. Asked whether Libby said he heard about her from other reporters, Cooper replied in the negative.
Wilson wrote a column in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, saying he found no evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger and accusing the Bush administration of ``twisting'' intelligence to justify invading Iraq.
State of the Union
The day after Wilson's article, the White House acknowledged that President George W. Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address shouldn't have included a claim that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium in Africa.
Cooper said he was looking into the controversy over that statement when he spoke on July 11, 2003, to Rove, who hasn't been charged in the leak investigation.
Rove said, ``A number of things were going to be coming out about Mr. Wilson that would cast him in a different light,'' including who was involved in sending Wilson to Africa, Cooper testified.
``I said `who' and he said, `like, his wife,''' Cooper said. Rove said Wilson's wife worked in weapons of mass destruction at ``the agency,'' which Cooper said he took to mean the Central Intelligence Agency. Rove then said, ``I've already said too much. I've got to go,'' Cooper said.
Rove testified five times before a grand jury that investigated the leak of Plame's identity.
Grand Jury Testimony
Libby is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of obstruction, the most serious charge. Libby resigned after he was indicted in October 2005.
Cooper said he remembered his July 12 conversation with Libby vividly, and that he mentioned nothing about who told him about Plame.
According to the indictment, Libby -- testifying in March 2004 before the grand jury -- said that in his conversation with Cooper about Plame, ``I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that, because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact.``
Libby told the grand jury, ``All I had was this information that was coming in from reporters,'' according to the indictment.
Cross-Examination
During cross-examination, defense lawyer William Jeffress questioned Cooper in detail about his reporting methods, displaying to jurors his typewritten notes on the interview with Libby and e-mails to his editors and another Time reporter.
Jeffress asked Cooper whether he viewed Libby's statement, ``I heard that,'' as a confirmation that Wilson's wife was a CIA official.
``I took it that way from Mr. Libby, yes,'' Cooper responded.
``Did you ask him where he'd heard it?'' Jeffress asked.
``I did not,'' the reporter said.
The defense lawyer also asked Cooper whether Libby's statements disputing some of Wilson's allegations in his New York Times article could be considered disparaging of Wilson.
Cooper said he viewed Libby's overall comments as disparaging because he was criticizing Wilson's methodology in his investigation in Niger.
Judith Miller
Cooper appeared on the witness stand after former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The two fought subpoenas seeking their testimony, and Miller went to jail for 85 days in 2005 rather than disclose Libby as her source. She said she decided to testify after Libby released her from a promise of confidentiality.
Miller testified yesterday that Libby told her about Plame in June 2003. Prosecutors say Libby told investigators that he learned about her on July 10, 2003, from NBC journalist Tim Russert.
On July 14 of that year, eight days after Wilson's column in the New York Times, syndicated columnist Robert Novak publicly revealed that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Fitzgerald then began investigating the leak.
Also today, with the jury out of the room, lawyers argued whether U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton should let prosecutors introduce a note Libby wrote by hand during a July 10, 2003, conversation with Mary Matalin, then a press aide to Cheney.
The note said that Matalin urged Libby to call Russert about the Wilson matter and also contained the phrase ``Wilson's a snake.'' Defense lawyer Ted Wells argued that the phrase could create prejudice against Libby. Walton said the note was of ``marginal'' value, though he didn't announce a decision on the matter.
The trial is expected to last four to six weeks.
The case is U.S. vs. Libby, 05-394, U.S. District Court, the District of Columbia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laurie Asseo in Washington at lasseo1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 31, 2007 15:35 EST |
