Zeroing In On Rove?

Alexandra Walker

April 28, 2006

TPMMuckraker read all the papers and says everyone agrees on why Karl Rove appeared for the fifth—count it, fifth—time before the grand jury on Wednesday: to explain why he failed to tell prosecutors earlier that he'd revealed Valerie Plame's identity to Matthew Cooper. Bloomberg's story quotes "people familiar with the case" as seeing"potentially ominous signs" for Bush's adviser in his latest visit to Fitzgerald's grand jury.

Ominous, Bloomberg explained, because, "Among other things, they said, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald declined to give him any assurance after his testimony that he won't be charged."

RawStory posts an MSNBC report about Rove's lawyers saying that Rove called the whole experience "hell" and "was surprised by the tone of the questions as well as the length of time he was required to testify."

From TPMMuckraker , here's a reminder of how Rove's version of events goes:

Rove testifed in February 2004 that he hadn't spoken with Cooper. Sometime around then (after Rove's testimony, one would assume), another Time reporter, Viveca Novak, told Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin that she'd heard Rove had spoken with Cooper. Luskin was "surprised," according to Novak, because Rove hadn't remembered that conversation. This sparked a search of Rove's emails, unearthing one which showed Rove writing about his conversation with Cooper. So then Rove went back and told prosecutors that he'd spoken with Cooper.

Bloomberg reports that Rove testified this week that he still doesn't remember talking to Cooper. Gosh, Cooper must be some kind of unforgettable character. More likely, of course, is that Rove is lying. James Moore, longtime Rove watcher and co-author of Bush's Brain , wrote in a piece last fall that Karl Rove is not the type to have a fuzzy memory. He can "remember precinct results from 19th-century presidential elections," wrote Moore. 

Moore's article called on Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to recognize that he has before him " the most important criminal case in American history." Speculating about Fitzgerald's strategy, he continued:

Presumably, he is trying to find evidence that Karl Rove launched a covert operation to create the forged documents and then conspired to out Valerie Plame when he learned the fraud was being uncovered by Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As much as this sounds like the plot of a John le Carre novel, it also comports with the profile of the Karl Rove I have known, watched, traveled with and written about for the past 25 years.

I have seen the spawn of Rove’s tortured mind and watched a hundred of his political scams unfold and I am confident I know how this one played out. Rove might have brought it up with his fellow big brains in the White House Iraq Group, a propaganda organization set up to disseminate information supporting the war. There was likely a consensus to move the plan to smack down Wilson out of the White House. Rove always keeps a layer of operatives between himself and the person he gets to pull the trigger. Libby was probably told to manage it out of the VP’s office to protect the president because Karl always takes care of his most prized assets. Libby then likely ordered John Hannah and possibly David Wurmser to call the ever-friendly Judy Miller at The New York Times and columnist Robert Novak to give them Valerie Plame’s identity. Rove knew that Miller would call Libby of Aspen for confirmation and his old friend Novak was certain to call Rove who, as an unidentified senior White House official, would confirm the identity on background only. Because Novak is a partisan gunslinger, he wrote more quickly than Miller and when she saw the firestorm his story created, she backed off and has since been trying to cover for herself and Libby. Miller’s later claim that she cannot remember who gave her the “Valerie Flame” name is as much dissembling as Rove’s unconvincing argument that he “forgot” he met with Time reporter Matt Cooper. Karl Rove can remember precinct results from 19th-century presidential elections. He neither forgets nor forgives.

There you have it, Mr. Prosecutor. To quote an unreconstructed former Republican presidential candidate, “You know it. I know it. And the American people know it.” We expect you also to have sufficient evidence to prove all of this. There are many of us who are on the verge of losing faith in our democracy. We are convinced that there are people within the highest ramparts of American government who are willing to put our country at great risk to advance their geopolitical vision. We want our country back. And all we have left is the power of the law. From what we know, you are the right man come forth at the right time.

Prove to us we still live in a democracy and a nation of laws.

Rumors about the events this past week offer some hope that Fitzgerald is well on his way to doing just that.