[From the diaries by susanhu, with additions and edits.]

Oh my friends, this little tidbit from David Corn at The Huffington Report has this ol’ grandma more excited than she has been in a long time.

David says that Rove lied. I know we have to be careful here but Rove told the grand jury that he learned of Plame’s CIA position through Novak’s article on the 14th. But, but but….He told Cooper of Plame’s position on the 11th according to Cooper’s email and notes.

Can we get the handcuffs out yet? Can this be the beginning of the end for this evil little man?


Update [2005-7-10 10:57:40 by susanhu]: The Isikoff piece for the July 18 edition of Newsweek is out: “What Karl Rove Told Michael Isikoff“:

It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. “Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation…” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]” and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.


Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute “personal consent” from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. More below:

What David Corn has to say about the Isikoff piece:

UPDATE: The Newsweek story I described below is out. Reporter Michael Isikoff has obtained a copy of an email that Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent his bureau chief, Michael Duffy, on July 11, 2003–three days before conservative columnist Bob Novak first published the leak that outed CIA officer Valerie Wilson/Plame. In that email, Cooper wrote that he had spoken to Rove on “double super secret background” and that Rove had told him that Joseph Wilson’s “wife…apparently works at the agency on wmd issues.” “Agency” means CIA. Read the full Newsweek piece here, and read the item below for why it is so important.

[…………..]

Yet tonight I received this as-solid-as-it-gets tip: on Sunday Newsweek is posting a story that nails Rove. The newsmagazine has obtained documentary evidence that Rove was indeed a key source for Time magazine’s Matt Cooper and that Rove–prior to the publication of the Bob Novak column that first publicly disclosed Valerie Wilson/Plame as a CIA official — told Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson’s now-controversial trip to Niger.


To be clear, this new evidence does not necessarily mean slammer-time for Rove. Under the relevant law, it’s only a crime for a government official to identify a covert intelligence official if the government official knows the intelligence officer is under cover, and this documentary evidence, I’m told, does not address this particular point. But this new evidence does show that Rove — despite his lawyers claim that Rove “did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA” — did reveal to Cooper in a deep-background conversation that Wilson’s wife was in the CIA. No wonder special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursued Cooper so fiercely. And Fitzgerald must have been delighted when Time magazine — over Cooper’s objection–surrendered Cooper’s emails and notes, which, according to a previous Newsweek posting by Michael Isikoff, named Rove as Cooper’s source. In court on Wednesday, Fitzgerald said that following his receipt of Cooper’s emails and notes “it is clear to us we need [Cooper’s] testimony perhaps more so than in the past.” This was a clue that Fitzgerald had scored big when he obtained the Cooper material.


This new evidence could place Rove in serious political, if not legal, jeopardy (or, at least it should). If what I am told is true, this is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson — even classified information related to national security — to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that? …


NOTE: There’s much more in the Newsweek piece by Isikoff and in the David Corn/Nation piece.


Your analyses and observations are welcome!