Cheney May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation

http://www.truthout.org/fitzgeraldcalling.shtml
What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald
By Viveca Novak
TIME

Sunday 11 December 2005

It was in the midst of another Washington scandal, almost a decade ago, that I got to know Bob Luskin. He represented Mark Middleton, a minor figure in the Democratic campaign-finance scandals of 1996. Luskin kept Middleton out of the spotlight and never told me much. Still, there is the occasional source with whom one becomes friendly, and eventually Luskin was in that group.

We'd occasionally meet for a drink - he didn't like having lunch - Cafe Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. "Well," he said, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer." I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin's liberal sympathies were no secret, and here he was representing the man known to many Democrats as the other side's Evil Genius.

I began spending a little more time than usual with Luskin as I tried to keep track of the investigation. But how it all bought me a ticket to testify under oath to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald still floors me.

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Jason Leopold | For Rove, New Testimony, New Problems
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 09 December 2005

There are unanswered questions about whether Karl Rove was truthful when he was first interviewed by FBI and Justice Department investigators in early October 2003 regarding whether he played a role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. According to sources close to the probe, he was not.

In that very first interview, which took place just three months after Plame Wilson's name was published in a July 14, 2003, story by conservative columnist Robert Novak in an attempt to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence, Rove testified that he did speak with a handful of journalists and told them about Plame Wilson and that she worked at the CIA - but only after her identity had already been made public. In fact, Rove had been one of the two "senior administration officials" cited in Novak's column confirming Plame Wilson's identity. Additionally, Rove had also been a source for Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, who also published Plame Wilson's name in a story three days after Novak's column - another fact President Bush's deputy chief of staff allegedly withheld from prosecutors.

Moreover, the five-count indictment handed up by a grand jury in late October against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, shows that Rove had learned of Plame Wilson's identity a month or so before Novak's column was published. Neither Rove nor his attorney, Robert Luskin, has so far clarified Rove's alleged misstatements to investigators two years ago. Those falsities, which Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is homing in on, will likely end Rove's political future, sources close to the investigation said Thursday.

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CIA Leak Grand Jury Hears New Evidence
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press

Wednesday 07 December 2005

Washington - Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was back before a federal grand jury on Wednesday in the CIA leak case, with deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove still under investigation.

Since the Oct. 28 indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, two more reporters have been pulled into the investigation - The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Time magazine's Viveca Novak.

Woodward has given a deposition about a conversation he had in mid-June 2003 in which a senior Bush administration official disclosed the CIA status of undercover officer Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald is seeking Novak's testimony about her conversations with Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, in 2004.

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Fitzgerald Presents New Information to Grand Jury
By Carol Leonnig
The Washington Post

Wednesday 07 December 2005

First appearance in probe since Libby indictment.

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald appeared this morning to present information to a new grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.

Fitzgerald has been probing for two years what role senior Bush administration officials have played in leaking a CIA operative name to the media in 2003.

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Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Sunday 04 December 2005

The attorney representing Karl Rove in the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson has made a desperate attempt to ensure President Bush's deputy chief of staff does not become the subject of a criminal indictment.

In doing so, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has turned the tables on the media, who ultimately fought a losing battle to protect Rove - their source - who revealed to some reporters Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status.

Now Luskin has fired back, revealing to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame case - inadvertently tipped him off last year that her colleague at the magazine would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status, several people close to the case said this week.

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In CIA Leak, More Talks with Journalists
By Richard W. Stevenson and Douglas Jehl
The New York Times

Friday 02 December 2005

Washington - A conversation between Karl Rove's lawyer and a journalist for Time magazine led Mr. Rove to change his testimony last year to the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case, people knowledgeable about the sequence of events said Thursday.

Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, spoke in the summer or early fall of 2004 with Viveca Novak, a reporter for Time magazine. In that conversation, Mr. Luskin heard from Ms. Novak that a colleague at Time, Matthew Cooper, might have interviewed Mr. Rove about the undercover C.I.A. officer at the heart of the case, the people said.

Time reported this week that the prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has summoned Ms. Novak to testify about a conversation she had with Mr. Luskin, but provided no explanation of what Mr. Fitzgerald might be looking for. The account provided Thursday by people with knowledge of the discussions between Ms. Novak and Mr. Luskin suggests that Mr. Fitzgerald is still trying to determine whether Mr. Rove was fully forthcoming with investigators and whether he altered his grand jury testimony about his dealings with reporters only after learning that one, Mr. Cooper, might identify him as a source
 

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