What Did Rove Tell Cooper?

New information is circulating today citing that White House adviser Karl Rove might in fact have been the anonymous source who revealed former undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name to journalists Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper and Robert Novak.

According to breaking news reports, Newsweek has obtained copies of e-mails sent from Time’s Cooper to his editor, naming Rove as the leak.

As readers will recall, rumors implicated Rove as the source over one week ago, but there was no proof at the time to back those claims. As a result, the White House stated their unending support for Rove, whom they claimed was totally innocent of all accusations.

Cooper only provided prosecutors with his notes after receiving strong pressure from his employers at Time, as well as a shocking last-minute release from confidentiality provided by his source.

Miller, who never received such permission, is now serving a prison sentence of up to four months for contempt of court. Serving time at the Alexandria, Va., Detention Center–which until recently housed its most infamous recent occupant, convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui–Miller still refuses to name her source.

Novak, the one reporter who revealed Plame’s name to the public in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), has seen little backlash for his own actions.

Below are some excerpts from today’s reports, as well as a link to this morning’s story:

Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but [Patrick] Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case.

If Novak did make some sort of deal with the prosecutor (and perhaps some government officials), this proves much of my own speculation from the past year. In fact, the general consensus as it stands now is that Novak’s deal included some finger-pointing toward Miller and Cooper. If this is the case, Novak sacrificed his fellow journalists after he broke the law, just so he could be safe from prosecution.

Rove’s words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. “I didn’t know her name. I didn’t leak her name,” Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did–and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper’s lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

This begs the question: Why did Rove (presuming that he is the source) give Cooper permission to testify when he knew that the journalist would refuse to do so without his consent?

It’s anyone’s guess, but I speculate that because Time was going to give prosecutors the notes anyway, the source, whether Rove or anyone else, felt that he or she would receive more leniency through cooperation with the investigation.

It is important now to note that there is nothing in these specific e-mails that proves that Rove named Plame or that he even knew that she was a “secret agent.”

The issue here is that Rove happened to be a key source for Cooper before Novak wrote his column, and that whoever the source was who revealed Plame’s name spoke to Miller and Cooper before finally going to Novak for the name to be published.

For the full Newsweek story go here