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Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove

By Jeralyn, Section Lewis Libby Indictment
Posted on Tue Nov 01, 2005 at 09:56:11 AM EST
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Matthew Cooper was on ABC's This Week Sunday speaking about his conversations with Lewis Libby and Karl Rove. (Transcript on Lexis.com)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Matt, I have to begin with you today because you are right in the middle of this Lewis Libby case and let me show you part of the indictment where some of Scooter Libby's, Scooter Libby's testimony was included. There was a question to him in the grand jury, March 5th, 2004, "And it's your specific recollection," this is to Mr. Libby, "that when you told Cooper about Wilson's wife working at the CIA you attributed that fact to what reporters," answered, "Yes," "plural, were saying, correct?" "Yes, I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact. I thought I was, all I had was this information that was coming in from the reporters." Is that how the conversation went?

MATTHEW COOPER, TIME MAGAZINE: That's not my recollection, George. My recollection is that I was writing that week about Ambassador Wilson and this whole question of how the president came to claim in his State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein was looking for uranium in Africa and I had called Scooter Libby as part that story and towards the end of the conversation I had heard earlier just the day before from Karl Rove that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had played a role in dispatching him to Africa and I asked Mr. Libby if he had heard anything along those lines and he said words to the effect of, yeah, I've heard that, too but I don't remember him elaborating and saying he'd heard it from reporters.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS So were you surprised to read that in the indictment?

MATTHEW COOPER : I was surprised to read that. I was surprised I was even in the indictment, frankly.

Matthew Cooper has a new article at Time detailing his conversation with Lewis Libby on July 12.

I had been invited to a fancy Washington country club by friends. Since the club didn't allow the use of cell phones, I kept running from pool to parking lot to try to reach Libby, who was traveling to Norfolk, Va., with Vice President Dick Cheney for the commissioning of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. Eventually I raced home without showering in order to take Libby's call. When he finally reached me at around 3 p.m., we spoke for a few minutes...

That afternoon, we talked a bit on background and off the record, and he gave me an on-the-record quote distancing Cheney from Wilson's fact-finding trip to Africa for the CIA. In fact, he was so eager to distance his boss from Wilson that a few days later, he called to rebuke me for not having used the whole quote in the piece. We updated the online version of the story, and I went on to co-author a piece for TIME.com called "A War on Wilson?," which would attract the attention of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Then Cooper gets subpoenaed about Libby, and as with Russert and other reporters, their lawyers work out a waiver. Cooper gets deposed.

The Wilson part that really interested Fitzgerald was tiny, as I told TIME readers. Basically, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife having been involved in sending him to Niger. Libby responded with words to the effect of, "Yeah, I've heard that too."

Then Fitz decides to re-subpoena Cooper about another source, Karl Rove. Eventually, Cooper got a waiver and testified about Rove. But, Cooper says,

I was surprised last week that the Libby indictment even mentioned me. But apparently his recollection of the conversation differed from mine in a way that led the prosecutor to think he was lying. As for me, I still have no idea if Libby or anyone else has committed a crime. I only know that if there is a Libby trial, I'll testify truthfully and completely, as I did before the grand jury.

Matthew Cooper was also on CBS yesterday, and he explained again his involvement with Rove and Libby (transcript on Lexis.com):

COOPER: I was one of a number of Time reporters working on a big cover story that week and I was trying to get in touch with Mr. Libby over at the White House. And we finally hooked up on July 12th. And we talked a bit on the record. We talked a bit off the record. And I had heard the day before from the president's political adviser, Karl Rove, that Wilson's wife might have played a role in dispatching him to Africa and that she worked at the CIA. And so I asked Livvy--Libby, excuse me, if he had heard anything like that. And he said, `Yeah, I've heard that, too.'

Mr. COOPER: Well, I guess the indictment alleges that he went on to qualify it and say that, `I don't know if she works there, I have heard this from reporters' and a few other things...

SMITH: Right.

Mr. COOPER: ...that the prosecutor says constitutes perjury. I don't know if there was perjury here. I do know what he said to me.

SMITH: Yeah. If we understand the indictment correctly, Libby told the FBI and the grand jury that it was reporters, people like you, presumably, who told him Plame's identity. Would you--could you discern that from your conversation? You suggested it, he confirms it?

Mr. COOPER: No--it--yeah. Yeah, I suggested it, he confirmed it. But there was no suggestion, I guess, as alleged in the indictment that he went ahead and, you know, talked to me about how he heard it and such.

In the July 17 edition of Time, Cooper says:

Cooper writes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald “asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that (Valerie) Plame worked at the CIA.” Cooper says he testified that Rove did not.

Cooper also writes about his August 2004 testimony before the grand jury relating to his conversation with Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Cooper writes that, like Rove, Libby never used Plame’s name or indicated that her status was covert and he never told Cooper that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. On background, Cooper had asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson’s wife sending him to Niger. Libby answered with words to the effect of “Yeah, I’ve heard that too.”

More on what Cooper wrote for Time on July 17 here.

So this is Cooper's story and he's sticking to it:

On July 11, 2003, Karl Rove told Cooper Wilson's wife works for the CIA and had a hand in sending him to Niger. He does not mention her name "Valerie Plame."

On July 12, 2003, after flying back on Air Force Two with Cheney and Catherine Martin, Libby returns Cooper's call. Cooper asks Libby if he knows anything about Wilson's wife working for the CIA and having a hand in sending him to Niger. Libby replies that he had heard that too. But, Cooper doesn't recall Libby saying that he heard the information from other reporters, as Libby told the grand jury.

Libby gets indicted for lying to the grand jury when he testified that he told Cooper he had heard the same thing about Wilson's wife from other reporters. More on that here.

My take: There's something going on with this perjury count that we are not being told. Fitzgerald has to have some other game plan in mind.

< Time For Cheney to Come Clean, Part 2 | Sam Alito and the Hornet's Nest >

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    Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove | 8 comments (8 topical)
    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:37 PM EST
    I simply don't believe Cooper when he says the stuff about Wilson's wife and the CIA and playing a part in sending him to Niger, that this stuff just came up at the tail end of the conversation like an afterthought. The CIA status of Wilson's wife, obviously, was seen as something very important by the parties concerned. All this "oh is sort of came up at the end of the conversation, and I don't really remember blah blah blah..." just doesn't hold water to me.

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:37 PM EST
    I heard this morning: Cooper appeared on Good Morning America yesterday and revealed that: 1. He first learned about Valerie Plame Wilson from Karl Rove. 2. Scooter Libby confirmed, not only that she worked at the CIA, but that she was covert. Did anyone else see this interview?

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:37 PM EST
    The transcript is not up on lexis yet, I searched. I think the ABC article got it wrong, but we'll see.

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:37 PM EST
    My take: There's something going on with this perjury count that we are not being told. Fitzgerald has to have some other game plan in mind. Thanks for the interesting post ... any speculation as to what that game plan might be?

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:37 PM EST
    Well, well well.......get a load of this: link deleted, not in html format

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#6)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:37 PM EST
    Sounds to me like the WHIG group had a complex plan that included leaking and then confirming the leak to reporters the next day by saying 'I heard that too'. I agree that Fitzgerald is not showing his entire hand here. The parallel to his case in Chicago where he only indicted two at first then another 64 including the governor may be shed some light on Fitzgerald's methods here, and provide hope that he will unravel the conspiracy that has led to the deaths of over 2000 US soldiers and far more as "collateral damage". From Chicago Tribune December 17, 2003:
    "It was not opened up as an investigation of George Ryan, it was opened up as an investigation of licenses for bribes at the secretary of state's office," Fitzgerald said. Fitzgerald said today was the last day that the current grand jury was impaneled. Ryan became the 66th person charged in the investigation; 59 people and his campaign committee have been convicted so far.
    Chicago Tribune

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:38 PM EST
    To understand what's going on with the perjury count, we have to understand the scheme that Libby, Rove, et al. concocted to spread this information without getting charged with a crime. I agree with Squeaky that it looks like a round robin of leaking and confirming: Rove leaks to Cooper, then Libby confirms to Cooper; X leaks to Novak, then Rove confirms to Novak; Libby leaks to Miller, then . . . How does that avoid getting charged with a crime? The one element of the IIPA most difficult to prove is the state of mind of the leaker. If they got caught (and they didn't expect to), they could claim, "Oh, I forgot at the time that I learned this information from government sources; I thought I learned it from reporters." And the objective evidence would tend to bear this out: Libby DID learn about Plame from Cooper; Rove DID learn about Plame from Novak. The important point is that Libby did NOT lie to the grand jury about the actual source of his information. I looked back at the transcript of the press conference, and found that Fitzgerald said this: "He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson's wife, but he had forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr. Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new." So Libby and Rove both have a defense: "I forgot." They don't intend to deny that they leaked the information, and they don't intend to deny that they first learned the information from classified sources. They intend to claim that, when they leaked the information, they had forgotten where they first learned it. It's a lame excuse, and not particularly credible, but it is impossible to disprove. The problem is that Libby screwed up. When he said he heard about Plame from Russert, he probably meant to say he heard it from Cooper (or perhaps he really did forget). Now he needs to rely on the "I forgot" defense twice: first, when he leaked Plame's identity, and second when he told the grand jury how he leaked Plame's identity. Good luck, Scooter. You'll need it.

    Re: Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove (none / 0) (#8)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:38 PM EST
    Perhaps we will see indictments based on a charge of 'conspiracy to forget'.

    Matthew Cooper Speaks on Libby and Rove | 8 comments (8 topical)