The idea that Karl Rove learned about Valerie Plame from a journalist — which became part of the conservative spin two weeks ago — has never really made any sense.
First, Rove has said repeatedly that he only didn’t leak Plame’s name; he didn’t even know her name. This new spin suggests he did know about Plame, but only because a reporter told him. Second, when asked which reporter allegedly gave him classified information, Rove said he couldn’t remember. How terribly persuasive.
Time magazine inched the ball forward over the weekend with a report delving into when, exactly, the White House learned about Plame.
As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell Time some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.
The previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson’s trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. That office then contacted Plame’s unit, which had sent Wilson to Niger, but stopped short of drafting an internal report. The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip from Carl Ford, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame’s relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy then too.
When Pincus’ article ran on June 12, the circle of senior officials who knew about the identity of Wilson’s wife expanded. “After Pincus,” a former intelligence officer says, “there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others” about Wilson’s trip and its origins. A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6. John McLaughlin, then deputy head of the CIA, confirms that the White House asked about the Wilson trip, but can’t remember exactly when. One thing he’s sure of, says McLaughlin, who has been interviewed by prosecutors, is that “we looked into it and found the facts of it, and passed it on.”
According to Rove’s lawyer, Rove told the grand jury he learned of Plame though an unidentified reporter. This report in Time suggests that may not be the case.
Drip, drip, drip…