Bob [tag]Novak[/tag]’s account of how he came to publish the name of undercover [tag]CIA[/tag] agent [tag]Valerie Plame[/tag] has never really held together. His explanation(s) have included odd denials and contradictions, such as his claim that his [tag]White House[/tag] sources thought Plame’s identity was “significant,” and “they gave me the name,” followed by Novak’s claim that “nobody in the Bush administration called me to [tag]leak[/tag] this.” What happened in between these two competing comments? Novak chatted with [tag]Karl Rove[/tag].
According to a stunning report yesterday from National Journal’s [tag]Murray Waas[/tag], Rove was not only one of Novak’s sources on [tag]Plame[/tag], even more importantly, the two ethically-challenged men chatted after the federal criminal investigation was launched.
On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men. […]
Rove testified to the grand jury that during his telephone call with Novak, the columnist said words to the effect: “You are not going to get [tag]burned[/tag]” and “I don’t give up my [tag]sources[/tag],” according to people familiar with his testimony. Rove had been one of the “two senior administration” officials who had been sources for the July 14, 2003, column in which Novak outed Plame as an “agency operative.” Rove and Novak had talked about Plame on July 9, five days before Novak’s column was published.
The concern, obviously, as the two key players in a criminal case worked to create a cover story that would shield the truth from prosecutors. As Justin Rood put it, “In other words, there’s mounting evidence that Novak and Rove not only lied to the FBI and grand jury, but they conspired to [tag]obstruct[/tag] justice.”
Waas reported, however, that it’s “unlikely” Patrick Fitzgerald will bring charges related to the September 29 conversation because of how difficult it is to “prove what happened in a private conversation between two people” — especially, as one Waas source noted, when the two are willing to conceal the truth from the grand jury.
But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Waas quotes one former federal prosecutor as saying that the Novak-Rove chat could be seen as “the beginning of a [tag]conspiracy[/tag] to obstruct justice, given that they had reason to believe that an investigation would soon be under way.” Stay tuned.