Interesting Theories from Emptywheel: "Rove's Timing"

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/05/roves_timing.html

Timing

<snip>In any case, I think it possible (who knows how likely) that Rove's real chronology for the week of July 7 looks like:

July 8 Rove talks to Novak
July 8 Novak blabs to Wilson's friend
July 9 Rove talks to Novak again (perhaps with more detail about Plame?)
July 11 Rove talks to Cooper
July 11 Rove talks to Libby about his conversations with Rove and Cooper

Like I said, this is just a possibility. But if Rove talked to Libby about Cooper, it blows both of their forgetfulness about Cooper out of the water. And if Rove's Townsend excuse is chronologically impossible (as I suspect it may be), then it suggests all matter of possibilities about his earlier involvement.

Fake Email

<snip>
Now, I've been pretty lonely in my theory that Rove altered or produced his Hadley email after the fact. I've argued it's likely because (at least according to Cooper), they didn't discuss welfare reform at all, which Rove referenced in his email. And they did discuss Plame, which Rove didn't mention at all. If Rove really tried to communicate with Hadley about the content of the Cooper call, then the email would have been reversed (no mention of welfare reform, which didn't affect Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley in any case, and some mention of Plame). As it is, the email makes a lot more sense if it were invented after the fact, because it provided both a non-Plame excuse for the phone call (welfare reform) and some evidence that Rove didn't mention Plame, even though we know he did.

[Peace Patriot]

1. These dates have such resonance...

July 6: Wilson publishes his article.
July 7: Tony Blair is informed that Brits chief WMD expert David Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things" (Hutton report).
(Kelly had been whistleblowing anonymously to the BBC about the "sexed up" pre-war WMD intel (late May), and had been mysteriously outed to his bosses and interrogated at a "safe house" (late June); i.e., his whistleblowing had been shut down, so what was Tony Blair worried about that he "could" say?).
July 8-12: A flurry of communications and meetings involving Libby, Rove, Miller, Novak and others, including Plame memo circulating on AF-1
July 14: Plame outed, by Novak.
July 18: David Kelly found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances; his offices and computers are searched.
July 22: Brewster-Jennings, the entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation network that Plame headed, outed by Novak, putting all of its covert agents and contacts around the world at great risk of getting killed.

Whatever was really at stake in Traitorgate--involving this intense suppression of insider WMD counter-proliferation experts (and I think it goes way beyond Bushite worry about an ex-diplomat's dissenting article)--there is plenty of reason to believe that Mr. Dirty Tricks himself would forge an email to protect himself and/or to cover up the truth. They were peddling forged Niger/Iraq nuke documents to "sell" the war (among other things). Lies mean nothing to this junta. And the notion that Karl Rove was concerned about "welfare reform" while all hell was breaking loose within the regime over their failure to "find" those WMDs in Iraq that they all knew weren't there, well--that's a joke, right?

Or was he thinking about another tax cut for poor billionaires?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. You are so right ! No one is stepping back to see the forest for

the trees ! Plame is a micro-issue and is but one domino. Their overreaction to Wilson, when he was right, is proof positive that they had to invade Iraq.

Add in the Downing Street memo that said the intelligence would be fixed

Add in the latest notes from meetings in Britain - that they picked the invasion date, what was it some time in January?

Add in the fact that inspectors were coming up with nothing and Bush pushed harder for invasion. What PRUDENT leader would speed up when they should have been slowing down.

Add in the fact that El Baredi repeatedly asked for a copy of the Niger Uranium document and it wasn't passed to him until they could safely get it into the SOTU speech, without a formal IAEA debunking.

Add in the fact that the aluminum tube issue was debunked and they knew it.

[Me.]

3. IF They Got The Hard Drives As Has Been Reported

It is likely that FitzG., has the correct version of the email.

*shadow government*

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. Really? I never read that he had the hard drives. I've read

people speculate on it. But you know what makes me think the email stinks is because neither Rove NOR Hadley turned it over under the first, or second subpoena. Too much of of coincidence coupled with the fact that it didn't accurately depict Cooper's version. But, what makes me think it is real is that it wasn't particularly exculpatory.