A few months later, on Oct. 7, 2003, President Bush and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, said during a press conference that the White House ruled out three administration officials""Rove, Libby and Elliot Abrams, a senior official on the National Security Council, as sources of the leak""a day before FBI questioned the three of them""based on questions McClellan said he asked the men.
A day later Rove told FBI investigators that he spoke to journalists about Plame for the first time after Novak's column was published""a lie, it appears""based on Time reporter Matthew Cooper's emails, the contents of which were reported by Newsweek earlier this month.
That same day in October 2003, in an unusual move, Bush said he doubted that a Justice Department investigation would ever turn up the source of the leak, suggesting that it was a waste of time for lawmakers to question the administration and for reporters to follow up on the story.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, responded to the president's statement in an Oct. 10, 2003, interview with the New York Times.
"If the president says, 'I don't know if we're going to find this person,' what kind of a statement is that for the president of the United States to make?'' Lautenberg asked. "Would he say that about a bank-robbery investigation?"
During this time the White House was facing a deadline on turning over documents, emails and phone logs to Justice Department officials probing whether or not the leak came from the White House. Bush said that the White House could invoke executive privilege and withhold some "sensitive" documents related to the leak case leading many Democrats to believe that the White House had something to hide.
At the same time, the White House first started to lay the groundwork for a defense, specifically related to the role Rove played in the leak and whether he or anyone else in the administration knew Plame was covert CIA operative and intentionally blew her cover in order to undercut Wilson's credibility.
On Oct. 6, 2003, McClellan, in response to questions about whether Rove was Novak's source, tried to explain the difference between unauthorized disclosure of classified information and "setting the record straight" about Wilson's public criticism of the administrations handling of intelligence on Iraq.
"There is a difference between setting the record straight and doing something to punish someone for speaking out," McClellan said. "There were some statements made (by Wilson) and those statements were not based on facts," McClellan said. "And we pointed out that it was not the vice president's office that sent Mr. Wilson to Niger. (CIA Director George) Tenet made it very clear in his statement that it was people in the counter proliferation area that made that decision on their own initiative."
The difference is crucial in that knowingly making an unauthorized leak of classified information is a federal crime. But repeating the leak when it has already been reported may not be considered a serious offense.
Still, when the Justice Department failed to convict Martha Stewart on insider trading charges, prosecutors had enough evidence to convince a jury that the style maven lied to federal investigators and obstructed justice. She wound up with a felony conviction and six months in jail.
Now that the evidence shows that Karl Rove and others White House officials lied to federal investigators about what they knew and when they knew it maybe they too will meet the same fate.
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.
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