not for making the leak, but for not making it work well enough. In 2003.
New York Daily News is reporting:
“Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.
Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.
But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, the ex-diplomat who criticized Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/357107p-304312c.html
NYDaily News Cont.
“A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.
“Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way,” the source said.
None of these sources offered additional specifics of what Bush and Rove discussed in conversations beginning shortly after the Justice Department informed the White House in September 2003 that a criminal investigation had been launched into the leak of CIA agent Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak.”
What did he know? When did he know it?
Seems like he didn’t mind the attempted political hit, but was not happy that they missed.
Treason and high crimes, difficult to define, but we know it when we see it.
