The "Out to Lunch" Defense:Rove's story doesn't make sense (Slate)

The "Out to Lunch" Defense
Karl Rove's story doesn't make sense.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2005, at 7:26 PM ET



Rove: Shifting memories and BLTs

Another of my former Time magazine colleagues has talked to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. This time it's Viveca Novak, with whom I worked on some stories about the Valerie Plame leak case. According to news reports, Karl Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin has told Fitzgerald that a conversation he had with Novak led his client, Rove, to change his testimony to the grand jury in the CIA leak case.

I'm not buying it.

Rove first testified before the grand jury in February 2004. In that first visit, he said nothing about talking to Time's Matt Cooper. He also didn't mention Cooper in an earlier interview with the FBI. Then, eight months later, in October 2004, Rove returned to the grand jury to alter his earlier account and volunteered that he had talked to Cooper.

According to several witnesses who have been interviewed by Fitzgerald and who have talked to me about their testimony, he appears to be suspicious about that change in Rove's narrative. The special counsel seems to think Rove remembered his conversation with Cooper all along but only testified about it when it became clear that Cooper was going to be forced to give up Rove as his source. If Fitzgerald thinks Rove willfully held back on him, it could be the basis for a perjury or obstruction of justice charge.
http://www.slate.com/id/2132350/nav/tap2/

Thanks for posting this.

In late January 2004, Fitzgerald subpoenaed White House records. At this point, Rove and anyone else who had forgotten Cooper's name was presented with a request for all communications with Cooper and 24 other journalists. I know that at least some White House aides were able to search these names, because mine was one of them (presumably because I co-wrote the online article in which Cooper mentioned the White House leak). White House staffers searched for e-mails containing my name, and I know of at least two who handed over what they had to Fitzgerald.

And if seeing Cooper's name on the subpoena didn't jog Rove's memory, might not his upcoming grand jury appearance? After Rove's first testimony in February 2004, the story only grew. In May 2004, Fitzgerald subpoenaed Cooper, and he became a household name. Over the next months it became clear that Cooper was facing jail time for protecting his administration source. If nothing else, shouldn't that have caused Rove to ask, Hey, did I talk to that guy?

But none of it did. According to Luskin, it was his own conversation with Viveca Novak over drinks at Cafe Deluxe that prompted him to scrub Rove's e-mails really hard to look for anything that mentioned Cooper. The other possibility, of course, is that once it started to look like Matt Cooper was going to talk to Fitzgerald, as he first did in August 2004 about his conversation with Scooter Libby, Rove and Luskin needed an explanation of why they hadn't come forward earlier.
http://www.slate.com/id/2132350/nav/tap2/

"And if seeing Cooper's name on the subpoena didn't jog Rove's memory, might not his upcoming grand jury appearance? After Rove's first testimony in February 2004, the story only grew. In May 2004, Fitzgerald subpoenaed Cooper, and he became a household name. Over the next months it became clear that Cooper was facing jail time for protecting his administration source. If nothing else, shouldn't that have caused Rove to ask, Hey, did I talk to that guy?"

:rofl:

gluttenboy was always bragging about his photographic memory until now.

Yes, Fitz is closing in on Chubby McTreason. I don't like the fact that he had to leave DC on a plane yesterday. Get back to DC safe and sound Patrick and let the frogmarching begin.

You know, like how private accounts is supposed to "save" social security.

For KKKarl