Mind the Gap: the Libby-Novak Call

You wouldn’t think that I–after babbling about this for two years and beating up the press for ignoring it–would miss an opportunity to highlight the super-secret Libby-Novak meeting, do you? Only that’s what I did yesterday, when I was puzzling through the remaining two-page gap in the Tatel opinion. Duh.

My post yesterday made the argument that, in addition to laying out the background for the Cooper-Rove conversation (and Rove’s prevaricating about it) and pointing out the discrepancies between Rove’s story and Novak’s, the two-page gap must explain why a bunch of seeming extraneous quotes from grand jury testimony appear in the unsealed portion. Those quotes include:

• Two details of Cheney’s involvement tied to Libby’s leaks without a larger explanation of Cheney’s importance in the leaks
• A description of Armitage’s somewhat implausible story of learning he was Novak’s source
• The following claims from Novak as to the sourcing of his column:

Novak identified Armitage’s comment as an “offhand revelation” from “asenior administration official” who was “no partisan gunslinger.”(II-20.) He referred to Rove simply as “another official” who said,“Oh, you know about it.”

One thing that could very logically tie these loose ends together is a discussion of the Libby-Novak conversation that happened on July 9. After all, it would provide a way to reintroduce (and explain) the Cheney involvement, it would provide a reason to doubt the "Armitage as primary source" story, and it would provide a reason to question Novak’s claim that he had two and only two sources.