The Leaker Revealed?

The scuttlebutt around the liberal blogosphere is that the leaker of Valerie Plame's identity is none other than...

For those of you who have forgotten, this story all started after Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy uranium in Africa so that he could begin making that infamous "mushroom cloud." After President Bush made the claim that, yes, Saddam was trying to purchase uranium in the form of yellowcake from Niger in that now infamous State of the Union address, Wilson went public and shot down that claim. In an attempt to discredit Wilson, it was leaked that the only reason he was sent on the trip was because his wife was a CIA analyst who had pushed that he be sent. His wife, Valerie Plame, was outed by Robert Novak in a column he wrote. Since it is a crime to reveal the identity of a CIA operative, there has been an investigation going on for quite some time as to who the leaker was. All this came to a head this week when the Supreme Court refused to hear the cases of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, who were refusing to reveal their sources. Faced with jail time for Cooper and $1000 a day in fines, Time Magazine has pledged to give the grand jury all their documents on the story.

What's been puzzling about the whole thing is why Novak, the only reporter to write a story about the leak, has escaped any kind of scrutiny. Well, let the rumors begin. The scenario that seems to make the most sense is that Novak has already revealed his source, but that his source, when questioned by the special prosecutor, denied it. It is now thought that Miller's and Cooper's sources were needed to collaborate Novak's story and to bring perjury charges against the leaker. Speculation? Yes. But interesting, if true.

Cue the McLaughlin Group. Last night, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, appeared on the talk show and claimed to know who the leaker was...

What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury.

This should be a very interesting week coming up.

More at Talk Left, American Street, AMERICAblog, dailyKOS and elsewhere around the blogodrome.

Update: Apparently this story has legs and has moved on to the MSM. Newsweek is first out of the gate with it...

Now the story may be about to take another turn. The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove...

Novak appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor, and other journalists who reported on the Plame story have talked to prosecutors with the permission of their sources. Cooper agreed to discuss his contact with Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, after Libby gave him permission to do so. But Cooper drew the line when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked about other sources.

Initially, Fitzgerald's focus was on Novak's sourcing, since Novak was the first to out Plame. But according to Luskin, Rove's lawyer, Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before Novak's column appeared. Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He did say that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. "He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else," Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told NEWSWEEK that there was growing "concern" in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove. Fitzgerald declined to comment.

In early October 2003, NEWSWEEK reported that immediately after Novak's column appeared in July, Rove called MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and told him that Wilson's wife was "fair game." But White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters at the time that any suggestion that Rove had played a role in outing Plame was "totally ridiculous." On Oct. 10, McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."

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