Jim VandeHei did the Rove breakdown at the Washington Post. Anne Kornblut got the duty at the New York Times. Predictably, Rove has attempted to take advantage of Fitzgerald’s reticence to spin, in order to place his version of his testimony in the papers of record. Kornblut’s article largely brushes aside Rove’s spin. But she provides only one significant new fact, and it has nothing to do with Rove’s testimony.
Mr. Novak has testified to the grand jury since Mr. Rove’s last appearance in October 2005.
VandeHei sticks rather closely to Rove’s narrative, but he winds up with more juicy news. The following tidbit shows Rove at work, spinning to make it look like his recent demotion was not related to yesterday’s Grand Jury appearance.
His grand jury appearance, which was kept secret even from Rove’s closest White House colleagues until shortly before he went to court yesterday, suggests that prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald remains keenly interested in Rove’s role in the case.
This next piece is interesting, and all sourced to an unidentified good-buddy of Rove.
Rove for the first time partly waived his attorney-client privilege to detail conversations he had with his attorney, Robert Luskin, about the leak and his knowledge of it, the source said.
Rove’s testimony focused almost exclusively on his conversation about Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2003 and whether the top aide later tried to conceal it, the source said. Rove testified, in essence, that “it would have been a suicide mission” to “deliberately lie” about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed, the source said.
I can talk for three and half hours about a lot of things: baseball, history, music. But I can’t talk for three and half hours about a conversation I claim not to remember. Rove wants this story to be about Matt Cooper, Viveca Novak, and his lawyer but it appears he got grilled on a variety of subjects. It is interesting, however, that Rove felt compelled to waive his attorney-client privilege and discuss conversations about his legal defense. Of course, Rove’s lawyer appeared before the Grand Jury in December, so this case is far from normal.
Looking at the substance of what Rove is saying, he still appears to be screwed. He says he forgot about talking to Cooper (even though he sent an email to Hadley about it) and that even after his lawyer related his conversation with Ms. Novak to him, he still didn’t remember the conversation.
Luskin told the prosecutor that Viveca Novak had informed him that she had heard from other Time reporters that Rove was Cooper’s source for a July 2003 story on Plame. Luskin shared this information with Rove — before Rove testified that he did not recall his conversation with Cooper.
Yesterday, Rove told the grand jury that it would make no sense for him to lie in February, knowing that all of this would soon be public, the source said.
But the timing of that Luskin-Novak conversation is in dispute. Novak has said she testified that the conversation took place between January and May of 2004 — which could place it either before or after Rove’s initial grand jury testimony. Moreover, Rove did not know at that point that Cooper would later be forced to testify and reveal him as a source, according to lawyers who follow the case.
Rove also testified that he was aware that several aides had been subpoenaed in the case before that first grand jury appearance and that they would be forced to turn over documents.
