Village Voice: What Now, Karl? Rove and Ashcroft face new allegations

[DemsUnited]

in the Valerie Plame affair
by Murray Waas

August 13th, 2005 2:39 PM

Justice Department officials made the crucial decision in late 2003 to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame in large part because investigators had begun to specifically question the veracity of accounts provided to them by White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to senior law enforcement officials.

Several of the federal investigators were also deeply concerned that then attorney general John Ashcroft was personally briefed regarding the details of at least one FBI interview with Rove, despite Ashcroft's own longstanding personal and political ties to Rove, the Voice has also learned. The same sources said Ashcroft was also told that investigators firmly believed that Rove had withheld important information from them during that FBI interview.

Those concerns by senior career law enforcement officials regarding the propriety of such briefings continuing, as Rove became more central to the investigation, also was instrumental in the naming of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Up until that point, the investigation had been conducted by a team of career prosecutors and FBI agents, some of whom believed Ashcroft should recuse himself. Democrats on Capitol Hill were calling for him to step down, but he did not. Then on December 30, 2003, Ashcroft unexpectedly recused himself from further overseeing the matter, and James B. Comey, then deputy attorney general, named Patrick J. Fitzgerald as the special prosecutor who would take over the case.

<snip>

http://villagevoice.com/news/0533,waasweb1,66861,2.html

[Moderator]

1. move

dated August 13th.

[evermind]

2. Interesting article! Also, Waas' blog has a new Rove detail

about his interview with the FBI:

Rove also claimed that he first learned about Plame's employment with the CIA-- not from a classified source-- but rather from a journalist.

What has not been previously reported until now (a blog breaks news!?), is that not only could Rove not remember the name of the journalist who purportedly might have told him of Plame's CIA employment, but he also claimed to remember virtually nothing about the circumstances of the purported conversation. He could not even recall whether the conversation took place on the phone or in person.

( http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/2005_08_14_whateveralready_archive.html )

I wonder if he told that tale under oath, as well - there must come a point where such claims to partial memory loss, in a man not noted for his mental decline (unlike, say, Reagan in contragate), begin to look like perjury...

(Edit: Include link! D'oh!)

[SuperWonk]

3. Hmmmm....

Mr. Novak, please report to the ambulatory level... and pay no attention to the men in the white coats.