Karl Rove is Outed as CIA Leak Source
It’s confirmed over at Newsweek. So… will we see an indictment of Bush’s top political operator on Federal charges?
It’s unclear whether Rove actually used Plame’s name, but it is known that he identified her as Joseph Wilson’s wife, which would be public knowledge:
“Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a ‘big warning’ not to ‘get too far out on Wilson.’ Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by ‘DCIA’ CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, ‘it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.’”
It’s also unknown whether Rove knew that Plame was undercover, so it’s entirely possible that Rove will avoid a conviction, if not charges. However, this certainly lends credence to the theory that the leak came from Karl Rove, in an attempt to discredit or punish Joseph Wilson following Wilson’s public criticism of the Bush administration’s now demonstrably false claims that Saddam had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium in Niger. This fits perfectly with the fact that, according to Newsweek, “immediately after Novak’s column appeared in July, Rove called MSNBC ‘Hardball’ host Chris Matthews and told him that Wilson’s wife was ‘fair game.’”