so, are these the only possibilities?

1) rove is guilty as sin but straight-shooter fitz can’t see clear to indict him for the reasons outlined in waas’s article

2) rove is giving fitz dirt (presumably on cheney), but it’s taking forever for fitz to do anything with it – but when he does, rove will plead guilty to some minor charge

2b) same as 2, but rove gets off completely

3) rove is going the way of Lay and DeLay, but his day has has been way delayed, or waylaid by abu gonzález

obsessed

I think the possibilities are:

1) Fitz is very close on the Perjury and False Statement charges related exclusively to Cooper but is deciding whether he has Obstruction and possible Suborning perjury.

2) Fitz got enough new evidence with the missing emails to finalize the obstruction, conspiracy to obstruct, and suborning charges, and he is working now to finish the cases against all the other people involved in the conspiracy to obstruct (think Susan Ralston, the IT guy, Abu Gonzales). This is my best guess of what is happening.

3) Once the emails came forward, Rove knew he was cooked, so started singing.

My biggest question is, who is Waas’ source for the Rove side of testimony, and why did that person release this? Waas is usually impeccable at not getting spun, so I assume he was impeccable again this time. But there are some reasons why Team Rove might want it suspected that obstruction was coming down the pike.

please let it be #2 …

EW, I think that that is a really good point about the typical stenographers not receiving the story. And the mainstream press does not typically follow Waas’s lead.

I guess that it is probably relevant to follow the arc of Waas’s articles to try and figure out where he gets his information. I am guessing that EW has probably posited a theory about who are Waas’s sources.

My sense is that the fact that he often relies upon Grand Jury testimony for his story says to me that he is either getting it from an FBI insider source who is familiar with the investigation or the defense lawyers.

If this story did not come from the defense, then I am a little stumped as to who would want to put it out there.

I’ve always thought Waas had a source in the FBI and a source in the DOJ.

Well, I guess we know where Novak got the classified Wilson’s trip report information.

I [Novak] was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador [Joseph C.] Wilson’s report [on his Niger trip]
Waas 5/25/06

Might Ashcroft be one of Waas’ sources?:

â€James Hamilton, an attorney for Novak, said he could not comment on the ongoing CIA leak probe. Ashcroft, now in private practice, did not respond through a spokesperson to inquiries for this article. A spokesman for Fitzgerald said that the special prosecutor’s office would not comment on the matter.â€

Waas explicitly states that Novak’s Lawyer and Fitzgerald’s spokesman would not comment. He says that Ashcroft did not respond through a spokesman. This could be interpreted to mean he did, in fact respond. Or perhaps Waas is being sloppy.

There are conflicting accounts of Rove’s early testimony.

Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak’s column.

snip

Rove added that when he steered others in the direction of the now-disproved charges, he believed them to be true, in part because he regarded Novak as a credible news source
Waas 3/8/04

Also of interest to investigators have been a series of telephone contacts between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days just after press reports first disclosed the existence of a federal criminal investigation as to who leaked Plame’s identity. I
Waas 7/12/05

Here’s a thought.

Think about the significance of the call itself. Why would Novak have called Turdblossom to tell him he would protect him unless he needed to be protected?

The Mike Allen 9/29/03 WaPo (link now dead) entitled â€Bush Aides Say They’ll Cooperate With Probe Into Intelligence Leak†is where EW found this quote

She is a case officer in the CIA’s clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction.
WaPo 9/29/03

This article appeared in the Monday Washington Post and may be a factor in why Novak called Rove as well.

Polly

You know, I’ve been wondering if Fitz’s team has a â€forensic talking-point analyst.†It’s become increasingly clear to me that their message discipline may indeed be the linchpin in any potential conspiracy indictment. Much like mutations and polymorphisms in mitochondrial DNA tells us the ancestral geography of a particular racial/ethnic group, the same words and phrasing can help us track back a talking point to its author, and potentially help illuminate a disinformation conspiracy. Having access to emails and speech drafts may also be helpful in this regard.

I wonder if this type of analysis would hold up to scrutiny during a trial.

â€Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak’s column. â€

If this really was Rove’s testimony, then he is caught in another lie:

On July 11, 2003, the same day Rove says he spoke to Libby, Rove told Time magazine’s Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA. Although Rove has said he has little recollection of his conversation with Cooper, he has testified that similar to his conversation with Novak, he passed along to Cooper the same rumors about Plame he had originally heard from journalists.

I think I see why Fitzgerald would believe that Rove would have a motive to hide the Cooper conversation in particular. We know from Cooper’s own reporting that Rove brought up Plame with him and told him the key info about her; and it does not appear that he passed it on as gossip from reporters or even as unsubstantiated rumor. If that is so, it is pretty implausible that Rove would do that simply on the basis of unsubstantiated rumors he’d been hearing from reporters. Hence, the Cooper conversation is a problem for Rove not simply because it happened – because Rove passed information about Plame’s CIA affiliation and purported role in her husband’s trip – but because it raises the likelihood that Rove did not learn this information from reporters, and that his entire story is bs. Maybe that’s been obvious for a while.

On a related note, that Rove-Libby conversation is also key. Since Fitzgerald does not believe that Russert told Libby about Plame, if Rove testified that Libby told him on July 11 (or 10) that he was hearing gossip from reporters about Plame, Fitzgerald is bound to see this as evidence of a cover-up featuring those two. (In light of what we’ve seen now of Libby’s questioning in the grand jury, and the way Fitzgerald goes back over the key events in rounds of questioning, I bet Rove was questioned about the conversation with Libby this time around again.)

While Swopa’s ingenious hypothesis on 1×2×6 is dead, his theory of the immaculate dissemination is alive and thriving.

Two quick things on some of polly’s cites. I don’t think there are necessarily conflicts in Rove’s early testimony; it’s just rather bizarre, especially the idea that Rove passed information to journalists after Novak’s story in part because he considered Novak a reliable news source – while at the same time he was one of the major sources for that very story, even though he maybe sorta didn’t realize that he had been a source for Novak, since it would be hard to imagine that Novak had taken his minimal agreement with Novak about Plame as confirmation.

Also, if Cooper has told us everything relevant that LIbby said about Plame, then that actually helps Rove and Novak, since it means another journalist (Cooper) took the very same words Rove uttered to Novak as the same kind of confirmation. Or so it seems.

EW: Cooper does have another source. Probably the same one Pincus had.

Speaking of which…

While Swopa’s ingenious hypothesis on 1×2×6 is dead…

In your dreams, research boy. It’s as alive as ever.

Shuster on Hardball says that Rove has admitted that he had a conversation with Novak after the investigation was announced. So Murray’s source could have been someone in the Rove camp, and this story could just be trying to deflect a bigger story to come. With all of the other news today, Rove’s little adventure may be drowned out.

THe AP weighs in with an interesting look: http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin…..ref=slogin

Ty Cobb?

polly,

yeah, I’m arguing that Tweety (Matthews) and Mitchell came after the leak.

What I’m suggesting is that if either before or after Novak’s conversation with Armitage (remember, Libby keeps saying he had a conversation with Novak, though I’ve never seen it verified) Libby figured out Armitage could be useful to him, then he might have sent people Armitage’s way. (Imagine, for a second, if Woodward either forgot or lied about telling Libby about Armitage?). So Libby sends people to Armitage for comment and, he hopes, so that Armitage will tell them about Plame so he doesn’t have to. With Novak, Armitage begins to get hip to the process. (But assume Judy came before). Then Cooper calls, Tweety and Mitchell try to call. Armitage has figured out at this point that Libby’s sending people, and that he–Armitage–fucked up by saying as much as he did to Novak. She he refuses Tweety’s and Mitchell’s calls, but he still counts their phone calls pre-leak as one of the six.

Indispensable as always, Polly. But wasn’t that Isikoff story in turn refuted by the Pincus 10/12 story (which struck me as a direct response by the 1×2×6 SAO)?

I think, though, that you’ve helped me understand a flaw of the original 1×2×6 story. I’ll save the explanation for a Needlenose post, assuming it pans out upon further study.

See a tongue-in-cheek visual of the plan by Rove and Novak to keep their little secret quiet…here:

http://www.thoughttheater.com

But aren’t you the one arguing Cooper has another source? Plus there’s the Dickerson corroboration, which Rove presumably didn’t have.

Both good points. But Cooper has said that he took it as confirmation, I believe. That said, it remains possible that there was more to their conversation than we have heard about so far.

So Swopa, for whom polly is always indispensable but I’m â€research boy,†I can’t wait for the long-promised, long-deferred salvation of your ingenious 1×2×6 hypothesis, its flaw revealed and the hypothesis redeemed. On a more serious note, while I’ll be happy for emptywheel’s idea to be right, I’m inclined toward the view that if Armitage is 1×2×6, he was distracting attention from himself and toward the White House at a key moment. On this view, the fact that he would have pushed back again after Newsweek’s story would not be surprising or much of a refutation, rather than just a reassertion.

But I think I recall the last time I tried out this hypothesis, there was some reason that Swopa and/or emptywheel thought it was flawed, which I was impressed by. What was it?

I pointed out that if it was meant as distraction, it got instead an immediate counter-attack (and possibly sparked the attack on BJ and Flame/Plame.

JohnLopresti & viget

I find your ideas very interesting. I’ve noticed a couple of other words used in this story that aren’t often found in general speech. I’ve been looking around thinking there must be a clue about one of the leakers, if an usual word shows up in different places.

Boondoggle

Boondoggle starts with Wurmser according to the following accounts and makes it’s way to Pincus and Wilson’s friend via Novak.

Pincus used boondoggle in his account of what he was told. â€it was set up as a boondoggle by his wifeâ€

Wilson says that â€Libby evidently seized opportunities to rail openly against me as an â€asshole playboy†who went on a boondoggle â€arranged by his CIA wifeâ€â€

Rawstory attributed boondoggle to to Wurmser in a meeting with Libby and Cheney. â€He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources saidâ€

Dispatched

First appears in the INR Memo in the INR Analyst’s Notes. The word dispatched does NOT appear in the INR Memo only in this attachment. (aside: these notes were misquoted in the SSCI creating an entirely different meaning)

Either Cooper loves the word dispatched or maybe one of his sources knew what was in the INR Memo attachment.

Meeting apparently convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb Joe Wilson, with the idea that the agency and the larger USG could dispatch Joe to Niger to use his contacts there to sort out the Niger/Iraq uranium sale question.
INR Analyst Notes (attachment to the INR memo) – Niger/Iraq uranium Meeting CIA, 2/19/06

Source â€some government officialsâ€

these officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband’s being dispatched Niger to investigate
7/17/03

Source â€A source close to the matterâ€

A source close to the matter says that Wilson was dispatched to Niger because Vice President Dick Cheney
TIME 7/17/03

Source Cheney’s staff

They say the Vice President merely asked routine questions at an intelligence briefing and that mid-level CIA officials, on their own, chose to dispatch Wilson.
TIME 7/17/03

Or maybe dispached and boondoggle are common Washington lexicon.

â€Suggestedâ€, is another word I’ve been following around.

I was looking for an article, I thought I remembered in 10/03 that has a reference to the 1×2×6 and reread this interesting Allen and Pincus 10/04/03 WaPo.

I wonder who was talking to Wilson numerous times in the WH?

For some officials, the task is a massive one. Some White House officials said they had numerous conversations with Wilson that had nothing to do with his wife, so the directive is seen as a heavy burden at a time when many of the president’s aides already feel beleaguered.
WaPo 10/04/06

Swopa

This looks like the 1×2×6 source with a new quote in the Allen and Pincus 10/12 WaPo (my favorite Plame article BTW). I would say that this is the knock down of the Isikoff 10/8/03 Newsweek article.

â€It was unsolicited,†the source said. â€They were pushing back. They used everything they had.â€
WaPo 10/12/03

I also ran into (in one of your ancient posts) Fineman backing up the 9/28/03 WaPo, he has someone (1×2×6?) in the WH saying that the WH did the leaking.

MATTHEWS: Well, the “Washington Post†is a very credible organization in Washington, D.C. Is that the main source that everybody is pegging this to? Their report from a Saturday source, apparently, that the administration or two people in the White House were making these calls to leak this information about Joe Wilson‘s wife, Howard?

FINEMAN: Well, it was in the Sunday “Washington Post.†Yes, that‘s the main thing that got this going again. But in my own calling around, I have some people inside the White House telling me the same thing. They‘re making the allegation, not for attribution, that yes, in fact, there were people inside the White House leaking, inside the White House complex. And, you know, these are people that I‘ve talked to before who know what they‘re talking about, usually.

And what‘s of interest to me here is that you seem to have a fight going on behind the scenes to see who, if anybody, is going to come forward and admit something. Who‘s going to actually finger somebody else on the record.
Hardball 9/29/03

I’ve got something on the Deputy’s Committee, seems Armitage is only one that is not a Cheney guy according to Brown and Mitchell

Ms. MITCHELL: Well part of Cheney’s power is ideas. He has sold his ideas to his principle, George W. Bush. A part of it is loyalty and the fact that he has no presidential ambitions of his own. Part of it is that all of the people who you see, the key players on the Deputy’s Committee–this is the super powerful group that decides a lot of international security olicy–they all, with the one exception of Richard Armitage, who works for Colin Powell, they all worked for Dick Cheney in other lives. And who did Dick Cheney work for, whom did he work for? Donald Rumsfeld.

MATTHEWS: He has people throughout the government and they’re at the secondary level…

Ms. MITCHELL: They’re all connected.

MATTHEWS: …and his chief of staff is enormously influential, a great bureaucrat, and I–I just wonder–Campbell, you served at the White House so
long, covering it, do you have a sense of how his power worked, Cheney,inside?

Ms. BROWN: Well I think Andrea hit the nail on the head, meaning that everyone on the inside, with the exception of Armitage, was a Cheney guy. Now there is a hitch, and–and we’ve been talking about this, but Joe Wilson, Ambassador Joe Wilson, has a book that’s out now, which goes after Cheney’s
Hardball 5/04

Looking to seeing your new post on the 1×2×6.

I can’t post over at talkleft, so I’m going to post here about it. Jeralyn has a post on the Rove-Novak business that now includes a response to her from Mark Corallo, Team Rove’s spokesman. She has been regularly posting responses from him and/or Luskin. First, I think she’s being played by Team Rove. They are taking advantage of the fact that, after promoting Leopold’s evidently inaccurate story and, during her foray into reporting, inappropriately calling Luskin at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, she has been bending over backward to give them their say. Now they know they have a direct line into the left blogosphere to say whatever they want and have it presented with the imprimatur of talkleft. People too are, understandably, a little timid in the wake of the Truthout mess. But it’s really unfortunate.

Case in point, Corallo today, special delivery to the left blogosphere via talkleft:

â€Karl Rove has never urged anyone, directly or indirectly, to withhold information from the Special Counsel or to testify falsely. No one has ever said or implied to Karl Rove that he intended to do so. The Special Counsel has never suggested that there is any evidence to support such an allegation. Frankly, it is hard to think of anything less reliable or less relevant than what investigators may or may not have speculated before they had started collecting evidence. Circulating such speculation now is nothing short of irresponsible.â€

The first three sentences are just today’s talking points – indeed, the first one appears, almost verbatim, in Waas’ article – and are much as you would expect, except that the third sentence is a little slippery. But the fourth and fifth sentences are just downright bs. Does doing interviews with the principals involved count as â€collecting evidence†or is Corallo just being deeply misleading? Because here’s what the article says:

Ashcroft was advised during the briefing that investigators had strong reservations about the veracity of the Novak and Rove accounts of the July 9 conversation.

In other words, investigators were not speculating without any knowledge. They were affirmatively suspicious at least in part precisely because of what Rove and Novak said to investigators.

It is perfectly possible that Fitzgerald is not, and has not ever, pursued this angle, either because he does not believe it accurate, or becuase he knows he’s not going to crack the Rove-Novak nut. But the story is on the actual course of the investigation, not some speculation before evidence was collected.

So Corallo is just getting a valuable platform for spouting his nonsense at no cost. It’s a shame.

polly

This:

And what‘s of interest to me here is that you seem to have a fight going on behind the scenes to see who, if anybody, is going to come forward and admit something. Who‘s going to actually finger somebody else on the record.

Might explain the September comment of Powell’s that Libby’s team is hot and bothered to use. If they had a fight at the principals’ meeting over who was going to take the fall for this, and everyone tried to push Armitage, then I can imagine 1) that Libby would learn of it, and 2) that he would try to introduce it to suggest Armitage was the primary leaker.

Jeff

It doesn’t really bother me to see Corallo’s denunciations at TalkLeft. If any place is appropriate, it’s there–as a defense lawyer I think Jeralyn has reminded more than once that even Rove has criminal rights. Besides, I think it can be useful.

The last line is pretty harsh, the irresponsible attack. While Corallo might still be BSing, with his apparent anger at Waas, his quote suggests one of two things. First, it suggests that Corallo is pissed about this. Which, if true, would also suggest Rove’s team isn’t that thrilled to have this out there. But it also suggests Corallo is trying to do just what you’re arguing–suggest this story derives from the early day of the investigation.

That’s part of the reason I’m so interested in the date of the GJ appearance here. Waas could have written this story on all the reporting he did earlier on (though Summar 2004 would be the earliest possible date). Which is what Jeralyn speculated in response to my post.

But Waas didn’t write it two years ago, he wrote it now. Which suggests there’s some current reporting on it. Which may suggest the GJ appearance is the most recent one.

In other words, Corallo’s statement might mean either that this happened recently and they’re trying to hide it (but then who is Waas’ source), or that it happened recently and they wanted it out (to telegraph the cover-up is under active investigation) but they want to give the impression that it happened much earlier.

polly

I had never seen either of those quotations from 9-29-03, the one from Pincus or the one from Fineman. They’re great. Thanks. It’s particularly interesting to see Fineman saying his sources in the White House already knew about colleagues leaking. And both the Post and Fineman had just enough information consistent with 1×2×6 to find it plausible, even though, so far, it hasn’t panned out. That is, Fitzgerald only knows of four reporters who were told by White House people, and only three of them were told by our pair, who I assume were named by 1×2×6 to the Post off the record.

emptywheel

I am fully sympathetic to talkleft’s concern for rights of the accused. In fact, I am fully in sympathy with some of the complaints coming from Libby’s allies about the prosecution – I just think the problem has nothing to do with Fitzgerald per se, but rather are completely conventional prosecutorial conduct, and point to problems with those conventions and the criminal justice system that enables and allows them. And maybe you’re right that Corallo’s bs is instructive bs. I still think talkleft is being taken advantage of.

Well, anytime you’re ready to grace us with the long-deferred revamped 1×2×6 hypothesis, let me know.

Oooh! Using my own procrastination against me … that’s a low blow. (And, um, one to which I am particularly vulnerable.)

But just to clarify — the â€flaw†I mentioned was in the WaPo’s original 1×2×6 story, not my hypothesis.

Many of my best posts are still in my head.

Just to throw a couple more teasers onto the pile (since I won’t write the post until later today): I do believe that Steve Clemons talked Pincus, and there was a source that did â€get wobbly.â€