A Twist in the Rove-Plame Mystery

Defenders of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove are citing a conversation in early 2004 between Rove’s lawyer and a Time magazine reporter as new evidence that Rove didn’t commit perjury when he initially denied that he told another Time reporter about a CIA officer’s identity in mid-2003.

But this pro-Rove argument is a curious one, since the facts about the 2004 conversation would seem to buttress the case against Rove, not exonerate him.

The available evidence now suggests that Rove did lie to a federal grand jury – even after his lawyer got the warning in early 2004 – and that Rove only admitted the initial contact with the Time reporter when documentary evidence surfaced nine months later.

What is most striking about the early 2004 conversation is that it appears that even after Time reporter Viveca Novak alerted Rove’s lawyer Robert Luskin that Rove had passed on information about CIA officer Valerie Plame to Time reporter Matthew Cooper, Rove still claimed to have no recollection when he testified before a federal grand jury in February 2004.

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