Consider this a prelude to a wonderful frog-marching symphony.  The Washington Post reports today that a former government official told the grand jury that Karl Rove “was intimately involved in the prewar intelligence fight and discussed various components of the plan at senior staff meetings and one-on-one strategy conversations.”

Here are the basics:

[Rove] argued that he hardly knew Cooper, who had recently started on the White House beat — one reason the conversation slipped his mind, the source close to Rove said.

To determine whether Rove could simply forget this conversation, Fitzgerald and his investigative team have questioned current and former government officials about Rove’s involvement in the 2003 campaign to counter Wilson and defend prewar intelligence.

One former aide, who would discuss internal White House discussion only on the condition of anonymity, said Rove was intimately involved in the prewar intelligence fight and discussed various components of the plan at senior staff meetings and one-on-one strategy conversations.

The aide said Rove’s message was that “if there are no WMDs and some blame us, it will not be a pleasant election year.” The aide said Rove talked a lot about Wilson that week, but mostly about the fact he was a Democrat and needed to be rebutted.

Luskin, Rove’s attorney, said Rove’s focus was not on Wilson.

The extent of the evidence Fitzgerald may have gathered is unknown. Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald’s spokesman, refused to comment on the investigation or grand jury proceedings.

The article finishes with a nice summary of what is known.

Not to put to fine a point on it, this witness is saying that Karl’s “I forgot I talked to Cooper” defense is just baloney.  You don’t forget conversations with reporters from major magazines when a good part of your week is spent rubbing your hands and plotting to diabolically take out a political enemy.

according to evidence compiled by Fitzgerald, Rove was discussing Wilson and/or his wife with two reporters and at least two aides in the week before her identity was revealed.

Evidence made public suggests Rove was particularly involved in rebutting Wilson after the former ambassador wrote a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed piece charging that Bush had “twisted” intelligence. Two days later, columnist Robert D. Novak called Rove and told him that he had heard that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and helped arrange his Niger mission.

Rove testified that he told Novak, “I heard that, too,” according to a source close to Rove.

A few days later, Rove told Libby about Novak’s plan to write a column about Wilson and his wife, according to court filings by Fitzgerald. This is the only evidence to emerge publicly so far of Rove and Libby discussing Wilson’s efforts.

Around the same time, Rove took a call from Cooper and reportedly told him Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and had authorized the mission. Afterward, Rove e-mailed Hadley to tell him he waved Cooper off Wilson’s claim that the administration had misused intelligence on Iraq. This is the e-mail Rove’s lawyer would find more than one year later and that Rove would cite as the reason he wanted to change his testimony.

Luskin said Rove was chiefly concerned that week with “assuring that there was a statement from the director of central intelligence that directly addressed the substance of the criticism of Wilson and others.”

On July 11, the day Rove talked to Cooper and e-mailed Hadley, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet issued a statement that Bush’s Africa claim should not have been made and accepted blame for failing to take it out of the State of the Union speech. Three days later, Novak wrote the now-famous column that unmasked Plame and ultimately sparked Fitzgerald’s investigation.

Rove would publicly deny any involvement for the next year. Rove has argued he was upfront with Fitzgerald about his conversation with Novak and therefore was not trying to hide any larger role from investigators.

So if I’m on the grand jury, I’d have to say Karl was lying when he said he forgot he tried to out Plame with Cooper.  I haven’t seen enough evidence to know what Karl said about his conversation with Novak, and I can’t explain why he would admit one leak and not another.  But I’m sure that is something some lawyer in Fitzgerald’s office has been working on.  Any guesses?