Exclusive from Murray Haas: Novak Cooperated w/ Prosecutors

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Mods: While this is not from a major news source, Murray Haas does write for major publications and is a well-considered journalist. Move if you must.
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THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, Washington D.C.-- Columnist Robert Novak provided detailed accounts to federal prosecutors of his conversations with Bush administration officials who were sources for his controversial July 11, 2003 column identifying Valerie Plame as a clandestine CIA officer, according to attorneys familiar with the matter.

Novak's attorney, James Hamilton, declined to comment earlier this morning. An assistant for Novak told me: "Mr. Novak, per his lawyer's instruction, does not comment on any aspect of that case." Kim Nerheim, a spokesperson for Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the leak of Plame's name said: "We do not confirm or deny any anything regarding an ongoing investigation."

Novak had claimed to the investigators that the Bush administration officials with whom he spoke did not identify Plame as a covert operative, and that use of the word "operative" was his formulation, and not theirs, according to those familiar with Novak's accounts to the investigators.

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and at least two other Bush administration officials have told federal investigators that they had spoken to reporters about Plame, but that they did not know at the time that she was a covert operative with the CIA, the same sources told me.

More: http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/2005/07/exclusive-novak-co-operated-with.html

[ret5hd]

1. "squeel like a pig" novak (nt)

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. Yeah, but...

He doesn't have no purty mouth. ;-)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

20. I refer to him around the house

as "mullet lips."

[Thor_MN]

28. He does have false teeth, which should make him popular

[kenny blankenship]

2. If his testimony implicates Popinfresh

doughboy Rove, or is seen as leading Fitzgerald to Rove through others, then Mr. Novak had better retire from being a "journalist" and maybe settle down in the country--somewhere you can keep a pack of 50 vicious dogs and machineguns. I would think his days as a GOP asset would be over.

[warrens]

3. Let's take Robert down to Gitmo

And beat the truth out of him. This is, of course, a brand new story, conflicting with what he said over the past two years.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. The Attorney-General should have no problem with that...Right?

[wallwriter]

23. Bad news: Novak will lie to protect the administration. Good news:

With so many people lying about the same sequence of events, one or more of these f***sticks is going toi perjure themself.

Novak and Scooter Libby would do, but Rove and Cheney would be better. Then there's *...

[PurityOfEssence]

6. There are very few people in Novak's world, and most of them are him

He'd sell out his mother. I've often wondered if his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism wasn't just opportunism.

Remember: this guy was against the Iraqi folly, and even though he toes the administration line, he's an old time feudal conservative and doesn't much care for the neo-cons.

Okay, that's out of my system now, the devil's been given his due; time to get back to overall issue: he's a blackhearted skunk without a scruple to his name and he should rot in one of those hanging steel baskets from the highest tree, just like they used to use for extreme offenders. The Pillory or the Stock's too good for him.

[sendero]

7. I've always thought..

... that it is obvious that Novak testified. Otherwise, he'd be in the same boat as the others.

I'm convinced that Fitzgerald is a by the book kind of guy.

[lovuian]

8. faced with being a Traitor to this country He Squealed Loudly!!!

So Novak's code

Watch your own ass!!!

[Barrett808]

9. It's becoming clear that the real culprit must have been ...

...extraterrestrial.

Yes.

From Zeta Reticuli.

So no earthly person is at fault.

[Grateful for Hope]

10. This is an excellent article

Thank you for posting it.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

11. My pleasure.

n/t

[anarchy1999]

12. LYING M'Fing POS's! I'm truly sorry for my bad language. I do apologize.

&**^^%$$GKHJK*^RFGVFB

Okay, I'm fine now. NOT!

Where were all these people/politicians when millions marched around the planet on February 15, 2003? Did they really miss that day? We all knew this. Where were our "leaders"?

I'm with Granny D. We need to take brooms, 1 million strong and we need to sweep clean the "HOUSE".

[NeoConsSuck]

27. Where were they on February 15th?

why, they were putting together news stories that would paint the millions of protesters as anti-American Saddam sympathizers.

And Novak and his employers did the artwork and storyline:

[Inland]

13. I don't think so.

My theory remains that Novak took the fifth and didn't testify.

[Enraged_Ape]

14. Well, of course he rolled over. He's a neocon, thus a coward.

I know this guy folded like a Taco Bell Southwest Chicken Pita when the guys with crew cuts and dark glasses came to his door. Cowardice is endemic in the neoconservatives. Screaming and running away is what they LIVE for. It's all they do.

[goforit]

15. This still can't negate Cooper's e-mails, LOL, Novac fries for them

anyhow.....

He's such a fool, even if he is paid big bucks to do it.

Love this quote:
"the word "operative" was his (Novac)formulation, and not
theirs(WH),according to those familiar with Novak's accounts to the investigators."

Keep talking Novac, you're just making their chances worse!!!

[Disturbed]

17. Novak is not a Neocon but he is a scumbag.

He damn well knew what he was doing when he printed his article about V. Plame. He has done this kind of crap before and with that slime Rove, who was fired by Poppy Bush for doing so.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

24. Novak's been a NeoCon for years.

[Kagemusha]

16. Wow. I get it now. I really get it.

Novak saying that he made up the word "operative"... he's saying that in such a way as to imply, without black and white saying, that he made up the part about Plame being undercover (based on his 40 years of the use of the word "operative") on his own for dramatic purposes, AND THIS IS PROOF THAT ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS DID NOT REVEAL HER UNDERCOVER STATUS. Presumably, as proof they did not KNOW she had undercover status.

This is likely, at best, a creative and narrowly crafted argument which uses what Novak does not know and has no desire to find out, or help anyone else find out, whether the administration officials really were "outing an undercover CIA agent" in their own minds or not. If Novak lied outright and did not make up the "operative" word or, which turns out to be the same thing, he used "operative" as the lingo he uses for "undercover" or "NOC" because that was the impression given to him by his sources (in the same sense that "Joe Wilson's wife" is not "naming" her), this is an exceptionally difficult lie to prove without the administration sources testifying he has lied, which is highly unlikely even if they have testified, since they have a clear incentive to lie as well.

Even if what they say is the truth, it's small comfort. If they all lied to protect each other on a very difficult to prove charge, then the only way to prove it is to do a heavy detour and work back to the facts from a different direction, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT FITZGERALD HAS BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME. Well, trying to, since the reporters in their wisdom were trying to shield their sources to preserve the right of administration officials to anonymously out undercover CIA agents in case doing so might someday be in the best interests of America.

So I get it now. And now, so should all of you who doubted.

[Nickster]

21. This is EXACTLY what Randi Rhodes said would happen on her show today.

[anitar1]

22. And don't forget Bolton's fine hand in this. n/t

[MasonJar]

18. Not knowing is no excuse because she was; her compatriots

and the company they had been establishing for years were simultaneously outed, probably in order that Cheney was not exposed as the crook we all know he is.

[Kagemusha]

19. I don't think they're that smart and were just petty fools

I don't think they're particularly sad the CIA got burned though. Accurate intelligence was just making the propaganda harder after all.

But deliberately planned with that effect in mind? Even if it was, I don't think Rove's the one who planned it. He'd want to know only enough to smear, not enough to get him in legal jeopardy. (Of course this could be interpreted as criminal intent to conspire)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

25. The ultimate purpose behind exposing Plame, was the....

...simultaneous exposure of the CIA front company for which she worked and her entire global network. Plame's global network was one of the last two obstacles to the NeoCon Junta's storyline that Iraq had WMDs. The final obstacle was the group of UN weapons inspectors that the NeoCons ordered out of Iraq just prior to the illegal and immoral invasion/occupation of that country.

These are the same people that engineered the Coup of December 2000 through the use of election fraud and control of the Legislative and Judicial branches.

This is the same group that also engineered the election fraud of 2002, and 2004.

These are the same people that, at the VERY least, allowed the attacks on 911 to take place.

Please don't tell us that they weren't "that smart and were just petty fools"...the events of the last 5+ years clearly indicate otherwise.

[dweller]

26. yes

you are on to the right track. All roads lead to Cheney.

dp

[bribri16]

29. So what did they say about Plame if they didn't know she was undercover?

Even if they didn't know she was a CIA operative, the fact that high WH officials were talking about her to reporters proves that high officials in the government were out to smear Wilson.