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Murray Waas Exclusive: Novak Cooperated

The intrepid reporter Murray Waas has an exclusive: Bob Novak has cooperated with Valerie Plame investigators and they may not believe him:

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. Investigators have been concerned that Novak and his sources might have conceived or co-ordinated a cover story to disguise the nature of their conversations. That concern was a reason-- although only one of many-- that led prosecutors to press for the testimony of Cooper and Miller, sources said.

Lending credence to those suspicions was that a U.S. government official questioned by investigators said Novak specifically asked him whether Plame had some covert status with the CIA. The official told investigators that Novak appeared uncertain whether she was undercover or not. That account, on one hand, might lend credence to the claims by Rove and other Bush administration officials that they did not know Plame was a covert CIA officer. Conversely, however, the fact that Novak asked the question in the first place appeared to indicate that he might have indeed been told Plame was a covert operative, and was seeking confirmation of that fact.

< Luskin Speaks on Rove and Cooper | Walter Pincus' Source: Was it Karl Rove? >
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    Re: Murray Waas Exclusive: Novak Cooperated (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:09 PM EST
    If he made a deal, it still won't protect Novak from perjury. He better have been honest...

    Re: Murray Waas Exclusive: Novak Cooperated (none / 0) (#2)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:09 PM EST
    novak stated in his original article that:
    The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it. That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998. Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative
    OPERATIVE! 'nuf said. Wison was/is a hero and rove and novak outed his CIA operative wife as political payback. That's treason in time of war, (since all you wingnuts assure us this is a war.)

    Re: Murray Waas Exclusive: Novak Cooperated (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:09 PM EST
    The Perrspectives Document Library has been expanded to include background articles and documents on the Karl Rove outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. The Rove documents include the original Joseph Wilson New York Times op-ed, Robert Novak's column outing Wilson's wife Valerie Plame and key 2003 White House press briefings by Scott McClellan and President Bush. The Library also features key 2003 and 2005 articles on the scandal, as well as a timeline of entire affair. For future reference, links to the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Covert Agent Identity Protection Act are also included. See the Karl Rove Scandal Documents here.