Washington – Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is wrapping up his investigation into Karl Rove’s role in the CIA leak case by weighing this central question: Did Rove, who was deeply involved in defending President Bush’s use of pre-Iraq war intelligence, lie about a key conversation with a reporter that was aimed at rebutting a tough White House critic?
Fitzgerald, according to sources close to the case, is reviewing testimony from Rove’s five appearances before the grand jury.
President Bush’s top political strategist has argued that he never intentionally misled the grand jury about his role in leaking information about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003. Rove testified that he simply forgot about the conversation when he failed to disclose it to Fitzgerald in earlier testimony.
Fitzgerald is weighing the White House deputy chief of staff’s foggy-memory defense against evidence he has acquired or accumulated over nearly 2 1/2 years that shows Rove was very involved in White House efforts to beat back allegations that Bush twisted U.S. intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to sources involved in the case.
That evidence includes details of a one-week period in July 2003 when Rove talked to two reporters about Plame and her CIA role, then reported the conversations back to high-level White House aides, according to sources in the case and information released by Fitzgerald as part of the ongoing leak investigation.
Additionally, one former government official said he testified that Rove talked with White House colleagues about the political importance of defending the pre- war intelligence and countering Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. It was Wilson who publicly accused Bush of twisting intelligence about Iraq’s efforts to obtain nuclear material from Africa. The official refused to be named out of fear of angering Fitzgerald and the White House.
Robert Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, responded that “just because Rove was involved in the defense of the White House Iraq policy, it does not follow that he was necessarily involved in some effort to discredit Wilson personally. Nor does it prove that there even was an effort to disclose Plame’s identity in order to punish Wilson.”
Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted – or publicly cleared of wrongdoing – for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser.
A Rove indictment would be devastating to a White House already battered by low poll numbers, a staff shake-up and a stalled agenda.
