The Facts Are In: So Is Rove Out?

by Joe Conason

For nearly two years, the Bush White House has been repeating falsehoods -- to the press and the public and perhaps to itself -- about the role played by Karl Rove in revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

On Sept. 29, 2003, for example, White House press secretary Scott McClellan called allegations of Mr. Rove's involvement "a ridiculous suggestion" and added, "It is simply not true. . . . I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove." There were many more such denials, all of them suddenly worthless. The red-faced flack is no longer taking questions on this topic.

Now the question George W. Bush must face is whether he will fulfill his pledge to dismiss anyone in his administration who participated in leaking the name of Ms. Wilson -- even though that means firing his chief political adviser and deputy chief of staff, also known as the "boy genius" who propelled him into the Oval Office.

The proof of Mr. Rove's participation in the "outing" of Ms. Wilson, in an attempt to harm her and discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, was reported in the most recent issue of Newsweek. Reporter Michael Isikoff obtained the text of an e-mail from Matthew Cooper, Time magazine's White House correspondent, whose testimony and documents were subpoenaed in the investigation of the Wilson case by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

The Cooper e-mail, sent to his bureau chief on July 16, 2003, describes a "double super secret" conversation with Mr. Rove about Mr. Wilson. The former ambassador had stirred national controversy by writing a New York Times Op-Ed article describing a trip he took at the request of the CIA in early 2002 to Niger, where he investigated alleged attempts by Iraq to purchase uranium from that impoverished West African country. Titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," his article disputed the president's reference to that alleged uranium trade in the 2003 State of the Union address.

Mr. Rove told the Time correspondent that the former ambassador's Niger trip had been authorized by neither the CIA director nor the vice president. According to the Cooper e-mail: "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."

The allegation that Ms. Wilson had "authorized" her husband's trip to Niger was false: Government regulations and the CIA hierarchy both preclude such nepotism. It was true, however, that Ms. Wilson worked at the "agency" to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- as she had done for years, using what is known in the intelligence community as "non-official cover." Her friends and neighbors thought she worked as an energy analyst for a firm called Brewster-Jennings Associates.

Mr. Rove's apologists suggest he did nothing wrong by revealing Ms. Wilson's identity. He didn't actually speak her name (at least not to Mr. Cooper). He didn't violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act because she wasn't really an undercover agent (and because he didn't say her name). He isn't a "target" of the Fitzgerald probe.

Like most of the Washington wisdom purveyed on cable television, all this knowing babble is either inaccurate or misleading. The 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act doesn't hinge on whether someone utters an operative's name. Its text refers to disclosure of "any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent." That covers the phrase "Wilson's wife."

As for Ms. Wilson's status, there would be no grand jury, no two-year investigation and no jailing of reporters who refused to testify if the CIA didn't deem her "undercover." The Justice Department opened this case because the CIA -- after conducting its own two-month probe of the Wilson leak -- asked the department's Criminal Division and the FBI to "undertake a criminal investigation of this matter."

Mr. Rove's attorney says the prosecutor has assured him that his client is not a "target" of the leak investigation. The prosecutor -- whose office and grand jury are run professionally and don't leak -- has not commented. But it's entirely possible that Mr. Rove, who has appeared before the grand jury three times, is a "subject" of the investigation -- meaning someone whose conduct is being examined for possible criminal violations.

Whether Mr. Rove violated the law or not, however, the president has promized to punish those responsible for the Wilson leak. He now has the facts, and sooner or later he will have to act.