Does Karl Rove Think We Can't Handle the Truth?

Today White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove will testify for the fourth time before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury, about his involvement in the outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. The White House's involvement in the outing of Plame also concerns coordinated attempts to beat back criticism of the Iraq War. The Bush Administration assembled a group of top aides under the name, White House Iraq Group [WHIG], which included Rove and Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby among others. DNC Research has prepared a list of unanswered questions about Rove, the White House Iraq Group, and the larger conspiracy to attack Administration critics of the Iraq War:

WHAT DID ROVE KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
When did the classified State Department memo identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA operative come into Rove's possession? Was Rove on the President's trip to Africa? Who else was there?

Powell Admitted Circulating A Classified State Department Memo Identifying Plame Aboard Air Force One. "After a June 12 Washington Post story made reference to the Niger uranium inquiry, Armitage asked intelligence officers in the State Department for more information. He was forwarded a copy of a memo classified 'Secret' that included a description of Wilson's trip for the CIA, his findings, a brief description of the origin of the trip and a reference to 'Wilson's wife.' ...On July 7, this memo and the notes were removed from the safe and forwarded to Powell via a secure fax line to Air Force One. Powell was on the way to Africa with the president, and his aides knew the secretary would be getting questions...Powell told prosecutors that he circulated the memo among those traveling with him in the front section of Air Force One. It is believed that all officials in that part of the aircraft had high-level security clearance." [Los Angeles Times, 8/25/05]

WHO DID HE TELL AND WHEN DID HE TELL THEM?
Did Rove tell the President or the Vice President that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife, that she worked at the CIA, or that she was responsible for Wilson's trip to Niger? Did he talk to any reporters, including Cooper and Novak, about Valerie Plame after viewing the memo? What was Libby's involvement in any of those discussions?

Bush Testified In Front of the Grand Jury for Over an Hour. President Bush was interviewed for more than an hour by Fitzgerald, who is investigating whether White House officials deliberately leaked Plame's identity as a CIA operative. Fitzgerald and several assistants questioned the president for about 70 minutes in the Oval Office. A White House spokesman declined to comment on the substance of the interview. [Washington Post, 7/25/05]

Rove Told Cooper That It Was "Wilson's Wife" Who Worked on WMDs for the CIA. Rove had a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003. Cooper wrote an email about the conversation to his Time bureau chief. In the email, Cooper described how Rove gave him a "big warning" that Wilson's assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rather, "it was, KR said,Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd who authorized the trip"” Wilson’s wife is Valerie Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. [Washington Post, 7/11/05; Newsweek, 7/18/05]

• Cooper's Email Shows Rove Speaking to Reporters 3 Days Before Plame's Name Became Public. According to Newsweek, although Cooper's email does not prove that Rove knew Plame was a covert operative, "...it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, [three days] before Plame's identity had been published." [WP, 7/11/05; Newsweek, 7/18/05]
  
  
• Rove Also Told A Different Story Than Cooper to Special Prosecutor. There also is a discrepancy between accounts given by Rove and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper. The White House aide mentioned Wilson's wife -- though not by name -- in a July 11, 2003, conversation with Cooper, the reporter said. Rove, 55, says that Cooper called him to talk about welfare reform and the Wilson connection was mentioned later, in passing. Cooper wrote in Time magazine last week that he told the grand jury he never discussed welfare reform with Rove in that call. [Bloomberg, 7/22/05]

Novak Said Rove Confirmed Plame's Name for Bob Novak. Rove indirectly confirmed the CIA affiliation of Joe Wilson's wife for Robert Novak the week before he named her and revealed her position in his column. "Novak said he had learned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA...'I heard that, too,' Rove replied." [Washington Post, 7/15/05]

• But Rove Told A Different Story To Special Prosecutor. Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according to a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor. Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, declined in an interview to comment. [Bloomberg, 7/22/05]

THE WHITE HOUSE IRAQ GROUP [WHIG]
Who had the ultimate authority over the White House Iraq Group? What was Rove's role?

Fitzgerald Considering Conspiracy Charges for Group of Senior Administration Officials - WHIG? "[A] new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose." [Washington Post, 10/2/05]

Card Asked a Group of Senior Administration Officials To Join the White House Iraq Group, Which "Sold" The War in Iraq to the Public. "Systematic coordination began in August, when Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. formed the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it 'an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.' The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff." [Washington Post, 8/10/03]

THE WHITE HOUSE IRAQ GROUP
Did WHIG meet after Wilson challenged Bush's statements in the 2003 State of The Union?

WHIG Provided Powell With "Script" For Speech to United Nations on Iraq's WMD Threat. "The final step for WHIG was to get Powell to make the case to the United Nations. This was handled by the White House Iraq Group, which, Bamford says, provided Powell with a script for his speech, using information developed by Feith's group. Much of it was unsourced material fed to newspapers by the OSP [Office of Special Plans]. Realizing this, Powell's team turned to the now-discredited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. But some of Feith's handiwork ended up in Powell's mouth anyway." [UPI, 7/19/04]

Wilson Publishes Article Saying He Did Not Find Evidence Of Uranium Sale In Niger. Former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson published an opinion article in The New York Times saying that on a CIA-funded trip to Africa in 2002, he was unable to substantiate a Bush administration allegation that Niger helped supply nuclear materials to Iraq. [New York Times, 7/6/03]

WHIG Members Reunite To Back Up Their Faulty Intelligence. During the summer of 2003, Hughes and Mary Matalin joined Dan Bartlett in formulating a strategy to pushback on general questions about the White House's credibility over its handling of the Iraq war. "The plan: Release all relevant information. Try to shift attention back to Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism. Diminish the significance of that single piece of iffy intelligence by making the case that Saddam was a threat for many other reasons. Put Republican lawmakers and other Bush allies on TV to defend him. Most important: Question the motives of Democrats who supported the war but now are criticizing the president." [USA Today, 7/24/03,]

DID ROVE LIE ABOUT HIS ROLE?
Did Rove instruct any members of the Administration to say, either to the press or the grand jury, that he had nothing to do with the leaking of Plame's identity?

Rove Initially Claimed That He Did Not Know Who Plame Was. In August of 2004 facing questions of his role in the Plame leak scandal Rove denied his involvement, saying that he did not even know who Plame was at the time of the leak. "Well, I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name." [CNN, 7/4/05]

McClellan Said Rove Told Him He Was Not Involved In Leaking Plame's Name. In October of 2003 White House Press Secretary, Scott McCllelan was asked during a White House Briefing, "Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?" McClellan responded by denying that Rove or the others had assured him that they had not leaked any classified information. "Those individuals - I talked - I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands." [White House Press Briefing, 10/13/03]

WHY DID ROVE AVOID THE TRUTH?
Why didn't Rove tell President Bush the truth?

Rove Falsely Assured President Bush that He Was Not Involved In Leaking CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. "... just days after the Justice Department launched a criminal probe into the unmasking of Plame as a covert agency operative - Rove also assured the President that he had not leaked any information to the media in an effort to discredit Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson ... Sources close to the Fitzgerald investigation say that Rove's personal assurances to the President and his initial interview with the FBI are central to whether the grand jury might charge Rove with making false statements to investigators or with obstruction of justice." [National Journal, 10/7/05]