Matthew Cooper Testifies That Rove Told Him About CIA's Plame

[sabra]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=alx7IIe2sXq0&refer=us

Matthew Cooper Testifies That Rove Told Him About CIA's Plame

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 agent.

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, 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 but didn't know if the information was true.

...

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked whether Libby said where he had learned about Plame.

``Not in any way,'' Cooper said. Asked whether Libby said he heard about her from other reporters, Cooper replied in the negative.

[Hav]

1. .

Mhm, it's getting good.
Rove in jail? One can still have dreams...

[oldtime dfl_er]

2. I still dream of him being frogmarched

out of the WH...could happen, the way the trial is going. Fitz is laying the foundation, slowly, surely...but time is running out...

[insane_cratic_gal]

3. So is Rove off the hook ?

snip
``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.

Or was his being let off the hook, a deal so he'll testify against Libby?

[C_U_L8R]

4. What happened to Bush's promise

to fire anyone who leaked.

It now seems we have several confirmed leakers.

Well? I don't see anyone getting fired.

[Toots]

14. He changed his story the very next day to anyone who committed a crime

I guess leakers are okay.......

[Zorra]

5. So, like....that means Rove committed a pretty serious crime, right?

I mean, if little old you or I told a reporter that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent, under the same circumstances, we'd almost definitely go to prison for a long time, wouldn't we?

Or is it OK to randomly go around outing covert CIA agents to the media...I'm a little confused here.

Shouldn't Rove be indicted, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for this alleged crime?

[aggiesal]

6. It's OK, as long as it for political reasons. (Sarcasm) n/t

[Toots]

15. Nawww he is number two decider

Anything he decides is just fine with the "Unitary Executive" I bet you thought Law and Oder applied??:rofl: Law and Order,,that is so Clintonesque...:rofl:

[Peace Patriot]

24. Yes, and why HASN'T he been indicted? If you think of it in terms of the

investigation strategy, it makes sense. In his one and only press conference on this matter, Fitzgerald said that Libby was "throwing dust in the umpire's eyes"--lying, obstructing the investigation--so that Fitzgerald couldn't SEE who did it, and--very important--WHY they did, a question that Fitz described as a grave matter of national security. Who did it, meaning--if it was a conspiracy (and court docs and testimony overwhelmingly point that way) who MASTERMINDED it? Rove? So I figure this: Rove was something of an errand boy. He got told to "get Wilson." He got told it was legal, or at least his back would be covered. But why whom? Who was calling the shots? So far, all roads lead to Cheney. Fitz's docs point strongly that way. Also, Cheney/Libby were setting Rove up. The first level of the cover story was that Rove did it out of political revenge (very believable). But that is NOT what was going on here--the outing of our entire WMD counter-proliferation network--deep cover foreign agents, in a network that took decades to create, so that illicit movement of dangerous weapons could be detected and prevented. Remember there were TWO outings--first of Plame (by Novak) and then an ADDITIONAL column by Novak naming the front company, Brewster-Jennings--so that if the bad guys in foreign governments couldn't connect the dots between Plame and people in their own government and WMD programs, they were given EXTRA help (the front company name) to identify, remove, kill these counter-proliferators.

Why would the Bush Junta want to do this?

Cheney, Libby, Rove, Hadley, Rice--they were all more on the political end of things. So I think that what we're looking at now (in the trial) is a SECOND layer of cover story, that Cheney did it for political revenge.

But who had the most operational involvement with WMD intel, cooking WMD intel, creating an Office of Special Plans for that purpose, funding scumbags like Ahmed Chalabi, "hunting" for WMDs in Iraq, creating a civil chaos and looting in Iraq, torturing people in Iraq, and killing lots and lots of Iraqis?

Rumsfeld.

And who's gone from the Junta (with no change in Iraq policy)? Rumsfeld.

That's my theory of all this. Rumsfeld was the mastermind, and the Niger/Iraq nuke allegation (and forgeries) were only Part 1 of the scheme. Part 2 was PLANTING nukes in Iraq (to be "found" by the US troops--and, not incidentally, by Judith Miller, who was accompanying them on an "embed" contract signed by Donald Rumsfeld (according to her)), as the followup to the Niger forgeries. Why did WH operatives keep putting the Niger/Iraq nuke allegation BACK into Bush's speeches, even after it had been proven fraudulent by several agencies? Because that was Part I of a plan that had a Part 2--to make the Niger/Iraq nuke allegation come true. And Bush SAYING it--making the allegation--was prep to that triumphant moment of "discovery" (of the nukes) when the Bushites were proven "right," and the CIA was proven "wrong" and discredited.

I think that their nefarious scheme was foiled--more than likely by one or more of those deep cover anti-WMD agents/contacts in the BJ network--and that the Bushites were panicked, in the weeks of late June to mid-July 2003, that they were about to be exposed. So they outed EVERYBODY. (There was also a parallel WMD whistleblower debacle going on in England, with a haunting coincidence of dates, parallel to the Plame/B-J outings, that may have, at the very least, added to their panic, and may be closely tied to Treasongate--the whistleblowing, outing and highly suspicious death of the Brits' WMD expert, David Kelly, four days after Plame was outed.)

IF they were trying to plant nukes in Iraq, that may be what they are covering up NOW--that nefarious scheme and its foiling (and all their panic about it, which caused them to out the whole BJ network).

Does Fitz think this? There is no sign of it. But he is bulldog investigator--and he is most certainly aware, in this case, that he has not yet gotten past the layers and layers of coverup, to the heart of the matter. To the mastermind(s). And to the very important WHY (did they do it?) It is typical of him to squeeze the lower rungs of a criminal conspiracy, to get at the higher ups. I think he's done that with Rove successfully (wrung relatively truthful testimony out of him, with the threat of an indictment for his now admitted outing of Plame, and because Cheney/Libby tried to set Rove up--so Rove probably hates them). But so far he has not been as successful with Libby, who is still protecting Cheney (and, I think, the deeper conspiracy). However, the blood all over the floor already in this trial--this tribal war between Bush camp/Cheney camp--could crack things open at any time. Fitz is laying out a Cheney-led conspiracy--but I suspect there are key pieces still missing in THAT picture (caused by Libby's perjury/obstruction)--as well as this OTHER possible picture, deeper in the background, of the TRUE reasons for the outingS.

Whatever the truth of the matter, this is a fairly good working hypothesis to have handy, and consult, as the trial proceeds.

[Peace Patriot]

25. One other thing to be aware of, re Fitzgerald. In order to crack this case, he

has to NARROW it. By narrowing it--and focusing like a laser beam on Libby's perjury and obstruction--he puts the squeeze on Libby. That's why--I think--Fitzgerald keeps excluding things (resists widening the context, as Libby's lawyers are trying to do). His one pullable thread in this tapestry of lies is Libby. And he is now surrounding Libby with thread after thread of evidence that he lied, and seems to be IGNORING the fact that all these people committed treason (or, at the least, felony disclosure of a CIA covert network). He keeps immunizing them (Fleischer), bargaining with them (Rove), jailing them in the case of Miller and then bargaining with her to let her exclude certain topics --so they will tighten the noose around Libby. It annoys the rest of us--who are focused on the wider context, particularly the war, or the deeper background (the range of Bush Junta crimes, including the deeper aspects of this one). I would LOVE to know, for instance, what ELSE Libby and Miller talked about--because Miller was a close colleague of David Kelly's and is an intriguing connection to that case (--her friend Kelly was going down, on the same issues, at exactly the same time). But Fitzgerald let Miller exclude the rest of those conversations (other than Wilson/Plame details), in order to add her bit on Libby's lies to the grand jury. And politicos here at DU were extremely annoyed that Rove didn't get indicted (yet). But he, too, is just one more thread strangling Libby on his lies, so that the structure of this layer of the conspiracy will start unraveling.

To understand what is happening in this courtroom, we need to have a sense of Fitzgerald's strategy. And I think this is it. And we need to remember what he SAID (--and this is a man who doesn't say much). He wants the MAIN perps, individual or collective--and was obstructed from seeing who they are--and he wants to know their REAL motive--WHY--because it is a VERY SERIOUS matter of national security.

[Lasher]

26. Then why didn't the outed BJ agents go ahead and expose the plot?

If CIA agents were going to expose a plot to plant nukes to be 'found' in Iraq, what stopped them from doing so after Plame and the BJ network were outed?

[Peace Patriot]

33. These were deep cover agents/contacts in foreign gov'ts--some likely dead

now because of the B/J outing. The B/J outing was probably intended to do that. Cover so deep that even backchannel inquiries on their welfare would put them in jeopardy, if they had survived the outing. The effect of the outing would be to get them killed or put them in terror. To silence them. (There is a whole blog/conspiracy thing related to all the biochemists around the world who were turning up dead around this time--possibly related.)

As for official CIA agents, they are sworn to lifelong secrecy about certain things, especially covert agents. They are like priests. Once a priest, always a priest.

You will notice it was Wilson who exposed the Niger/Iraq nuke scam, not his wife. She is not free to do so.

Dr. Kelly was not official M16 or CIA. He worked for the Brit Defense Dept. (MoD) and was loaned to Unscom (UN weapons inspectors), and loaned around to different agencies. So he was not bound by secrecy the way intel agents are (--although they did threaten him with the "Official Secrets Act" in his interrogation at a "safe house" shortly before he died). He also had a designated role of talking to press. As a known whistlblower, he was a wild card--he was "off the reservation."

I think what we are dealing with here, in the Bush Junta, during the weeks of late June/early July 2003, is panic and fear of WHERE the exposure might come from. They had Wilson after them in the US; Kelly whistleblowing in the UK; also, several reports in the Islamic press of botched US attempts to illicitly move WMDs into Iraq (those witnesses are probably dead, too--no followup reports). And think a moment about the fear that must grip people with this kind of info about ruthless, conscienceless SOBs like Cheney and Rumsfeld. You make it sound so simple and neat. If they knew it, why didn't they say it? Well, for one thing, if you were an Iraqi, you could end up in Abu Ghraib in a dark dungeon, indeed. And even people in relatively safe societies would feel fear for their families and themselves. Wilson and Plame felt such fear for their kids. So you have the CIA "code of silence." And you have terror. Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co. are terrorists. No question about that in my mind. And psychos like them, no matter how much power they have, never have enough, and never feel "safe" from exposure--and from someone doing to THEM what they have done to others. So, invulnerable though they seem, they are subject to panic. I think the outing of B/J was a sign of panic. And I DON'T think it was panic about a newsstream that they had near total control over.

All the more amazing when somebody whistleblows on this Junta. Do you remember the political atmosphere in 2003?

[Lasher]

35. Yes, I remember the political atmosphere in 2003.

[PhilipShore]

27. CIA issues have immunity -- Rove is probably CIA

More then likely even if Fitz wins -- the Libby matter will be overturned by the appeals court. However, Fitz is winning in the most important court of all, the court of public opinion.

I am not a lawyer -- but my guess is Fitz knew this from day one, that If he went after Rove -- from the beginning, the case against Libby would of been thrown out of court, in a New York minute, because Rove probably is a CIA agent, and/or has done work for them.

The CIA is just a secret society of Repukes.

[alstephenson]

32. Very interesting hypothesis.....thanks!

It makes perfect sense to me. Very well set out - thanks again!

[MagickMuffin]

7. Could additional charges be charged?

Since Scooter is being tried for obstruction and prejury and is convicted, Couldn't he then be charged with the more serious crime of outting a CIA agent?

This trial is proving that this was a diliberate attempt to punish both of the Wilson's. And since Rove told Cooper that Plame was in WMD division, he knew how serious this offensive attack would be.

Kinda like getting rid of two birds with one stone. Discredit Joe, and punish Valerie for tracking WMD (she would know about movements, since that was part of her job. They both were hinderences to this MisAdministration.

[AllegroRondo]

8. Most definitely

just because Fitz chose to charge him with perjury and obstruction, it doesnt mean they cant charge him or other with more crimes based on evidence that comes to light during this trial.

[antiimperialist]

17. I just want to know who told Armitage

Someone in a higher position than Armitage must have told him about Plame's status. Who?

[Garbo 2004]

29. Armitage was Deputy Secretary of State & saw the State Dept memo that was prepared

by State Dept staff in response to Libby's request for info on Wilson and his trip to Niger. The memo also identified Valerie Wilson as CIA.

[Divine Discontent]

9. well...

YEAH! I mean, doesn't Rovie telling a magazine reporter that Plame was a CIA agent cross the line into treason? He outed an undercover agent toooooooooooooo - a REPORTER! duh...

frogmarch vote - #2



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[jaksavage]

10. Driving it home

I keep thinking that all these revelations will continue to build until it becomes obvious that the Whitehouse needs to be fumigated for rats and fleas. IMPEACHMENT will be the only option.

[htuttle]

11. So we have TWO members of the White House staff outing the same agent

How many do they need before they start talking about conspiracy charges?

[knight_of_the_star]

19. I think three

And if the two known willingly testify then we can nail #3.

[Morgana LaFey]

12. THIS needs to be KICKED???

Tsk tsk.

[CountAllVotes]

13. yo!

:kick:

[Zorra]

34. As often as necessary.

[antiimperialist]

16. I've never seen so much evidence against one man

The number of witnesses lining up against Libby is just overwhelming. If this jury ends up believing that they were all lying they should be in a mental institution.

Russert is next tomorrow.

[calimary]

30. I wonder how good li'l timmy feels about having been in bed with these

people - and enabling them and greasing the skids for them and sweetheart-dealing them on the air - only to have them drag him into this, and libby, for one, trying to PIN IT on him. That's what you get for your loyalty to this bunch, russert. May you have MANY sleepless nights.

[antiimperialist]

18. Cooper confirming the leak is old news.

it's on Libby's indictment documents.
Libby has been toast since day 1. This is what Fitzgerald says:

On or about July 12, 2003, in the afternoon, LIBBY spoke by telephone to Cooper, who asked whether LIBBY had heardthat Wilson’s wife was involved in sending Wilson on the trip to Niger. LIBBY confirmed to Cooper, without elaboration or qualification, that he had heard this information too.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf

[PhilipShore]

20. Self Delete-Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2710750

[MadMaddie]

21. Libby's Goose is cooked....

What's going to be good is when and if he is found guilty by the jury. How loud will he sing to cut his time in prison.

This is why * and Cheney are hastening the path of war with Iran.

[appleannie1]

22. Cooper laid out how he had initially heard about Wilson’s wife in a conversation with Karl Rove on

July 11, 2003.



How sweet it is. Hopefully arrows will be pointed to the whole blasted bunch of them.

[MadMaddie]

23. Yea..if it came from Rove than * knew and gave the order for the

hatchet job on Wilson and his wife...this kind of vindictiveness is his specialty.

[PhilipShore]

28. Kick

:kick:

[PhilipShore]

31. ABC News: Cooper Details Conversation with Rove

Jan. 31, 2007

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2838590&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Jan. 31, 2007 — Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified Wednesday in the trial of former Cheney adviser Lewis "Scooter" Libby that he first learned the identify of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson from White House adviser Karl Rove and then confirmed Plame's identity with Libby.

Cooper told the jury that in July 2003 he was working on a story addresssing the controversy surrounding claims made in the president's State of the Union that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Niger.

Cooper said Rove told him: "Don't get too far out on Wilson…a number of things are going to be coming out that would cast him differently."

Cooper also told the jury that Rove said Wilson's wife "worked on at the Agency."

_____________________________________


How did Rove know, unless Rove was part of the CIA agency -- himself?

[4dsc]

36. So what about this National Review article??

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200507150827.asp

Since Novak did not report that Plame was “working covertly” how did Corn know that’s what she had been doing?

Corn does not tell his readers and he has responded to a query from me only by pointing out that he was asking a question, not making a “statement of fact.” But in the article, he asserts that Novak “outed” Plame “as an undercover CIA officer.” Again, Novak did not do that. Rather, it is Corn who is, apparently for the first time, “outing” Plame’s “undercover” status.