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Karl Rove

Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950 in Denver, Colorado) is an American political consultant, and (as of 2005) U.S. President George W. Bush's senior advisor, chief political strategist, and deputy chief of staff in charge of policy.

Rove has been a frequent target of critics of the Bush administration, and is presently embroiled in controversy for possibly having revealed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame to at least one reporter, allegedly in retaliation for her husband's criticisms of the administration.

Early life and political experiences

High school and college

Rove was raised in Colorado and Nevada, the second of five children. His family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah when Rove was in high school. At Olympus High School, Rove began his involvement in politics in 1968: In a 2002 Deseret News interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former United States Senator) Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, J.D. Williams." Williams took Rove under his wing, leading to Rove's internship with the Utah Republican Party.

The Dixon campaign incident

In 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon and stole some letterhead, which he used to print fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Rove admitted the incident later, saying "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." (The Washington Post, 7/23/99).

A part in the Watergate saga

On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, Rove was the subject of a Washington Post article titled "Republican Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks." The article, which was sourced to tape-recorded conversations, reported how the 22-year-old Rove and a colleague had been touring the country giving young Republicans "dirty tricks" training, complete with stories of derring-do such as the incident at the Dixon headquarters. At the request of then-Chairman of the Republican National Committee George H.W. Bush, Rove was questioned by the FBI. Rove's contemporary Lee Atwater signed an affidavit stating that the admissions caught on tape, including the Dixon incident, were made merely "in jest."

Watergate veteran and Republican critic John Dean corroborates the investigation of Rove during Watergate: "...Based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him."

Adoption, divorce, and suicide

Rove learned at age nineteen, during his parents' divorce, that the man who raised him, a mineral geologist, was not his biological father. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been. Rove's mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada, in 1981 (New Yorker profile ).

Dropping education in favor of politics

Rove dropped out of the University of Utah in 1971 to become the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee and held this position until 1972, when he became the National Chairman (1973-1974). In this role, Rove had access to powerful politicians and government officials of the Republican party, and formed ties with George H. W. Bush, then Chairman of the Republican National Committee (1973-1974).

Weddings and family

Rove's 1977 marriage to Valerie Wainright was short-lived. Rove remarried in 1986 and had a teenage son by his wife, Darby.

Notable political campaigns

1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign

For the next few years, Rove worked in various Republican circles and assisted George H. W. Bush's 1980 vice-presidential campaign. Rove is credited for introducing Bush to Lee Atwater, who would go on to play a critical role in Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. Like Atwater, Rove is well known for his effective campaign tactics, employing push polls and frequently attacking an opponent on the opponent's strongest issue.

In 1981, Rove founded direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove + Company, based out of Austin, Texas. This firm's first clients included Republican Governor Bill Clements and Democratic Congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican Congressman and United States Senator. In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush's gubernatorial campaign. He continued, however, to operate his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to focus his efforts on Bush's bid for the presidency.

1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign

In 1986, just before a crucial debate in the election for governor of Texas, Karl Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by the Democrats. . The police and FBI investigated and discovered that bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. Critics alleged that Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.

1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign

In 1992, "Sources close to the former president George H.W. Bush say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted" (Esquire Magazine, January 2003). Robert Novak provided some evidence of motive in his column describing the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator Phil Gramm: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove deny that Rove was the leaker, but Mosbacher maintains that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it." (Sources: "Karl and Bob: a leaky history," Houston Chronicle, Nov. 7, 2003; "Genius," Texas Monthly, March 2003, p. 82; "Why Are These Men Laughing," Esquire, January 2003.)

2004 George W. Bush presidential campaign

Rove has professional ties to the producers of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television ads that quoted Kerry reporting stories in front of Congress that he had personally heard from U.S. military personnel in Vietnam who "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," "randomly shot at civilians," and "razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan." Another ad from SBVT accused Kerry of lying to win his Vietnam combat medals.

President George W. Bush thanked Rove in his 3 November 2004 acceptance speech, just after defeating John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election, calling Rove "the architect." .

Consulting business and work in politics in 1990-2000

In 1993, according to the New York Times, Karl Rove + Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by John Ashcroft's successful Senate campaign (Ashcroft paid Rove more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns). In 1999, Karl Rove + Company was paid $2.5 million in fees by the successful George W. Bush presidential campaign. According to Rove, "bout 30 percent of that is postage."

According to the campaign manager of John McCain's 2000 presidential bid, a push poll was conducted during the 2000 South Carolina primaries which asked potential voters "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". Since McCain was campaigning with his adopted Bangladeshi daughter, an image quickly gathered around that statement. The book and movie Bush's Brain, allege that he was involved in this push poll due to his intimate role as campaign advisor to Bush, though no proof of Rove's direct involvement ever surfaced.

After the presidential elections in November 2000, Karl Rove organized an emergency response of Republican politicians and supporters to go to Florida to assist the Bush campaign's position during the recount.

George W. Bush was inaugurated in January 2001. Rove accepted a position in the Bush administration as Senior Advisor to the President. The President's confidence in Rove is such that during a meeting with South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun on 14 May 2003, President George W. Bush brought only Rove and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Other Republican politicians who have sought Rove's advice include Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in anticipation of a special recall election later that year met with Rove on 10 April 2003 to discuss how the actor should run for Governor of California.

George W. Bush Administration

White House Iraq Group

Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a secretive internal White House working group established by August 2002, eight months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to CNN and Newsweek, WHIG was “charged with developing a strategy for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.” WHIG's existence and membership was first identified in a Washington Post article by Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus on August 10 2003; members of WHIG included George W. Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Rice's deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio, and communication strategists Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes, and James R. Wilkinson. Quoting one of WHIG's members without identifying him or her by name, the Washington Post explained that the task force's mission was to “educate the public” about the threat posed by Hussein and (in the reporters' words) “to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad.” Rove's "strategic communications" task force within WHIG helped write and coordinate speeches by senior Bush administration officials, emphasizing in September 2002 the theme of Iraq's purported nuclear threat.

The White House Iraq Group was “little known” until a subpoena for its notes, email, and attendance records was issued by CIA leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald in January 2004, a legal move first reported in the press and acknowledged by the White House on March 5, 2004.

Allegations of conflict of interest

In March 2001, Rove met with executives from Intel, successfully advocating a merger between a Dutch company and an Intel company supplier. Rove owned $100,000 in Intel stock at the time. In June 2001, Rove met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. At the time, Rove held almost $250,000 in drug industry stocks. On 30 June 2001, Rove divested his stocks in 23 companies, which included more than $100,000 in each of Enron, Boeing, General Electric, and Pfizer. On 30 June 2001, the White House admitted that Rove was involved in administration energy policy meetings, while at the same time holding stock in energy companies including Enron.

Allegations of the use of 9/11 tragedy for political gain

June 23, 2005, marked another controversial statement from Rove. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," said Mr. Rove at a fund-raiser in New York City for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Democrats were angered by this comment, demanding Rove's resignation or an apology. Among other responses, they pointed out that every Democratic Senator voted for military force against Al-Qaeda in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States..

Families Of September 11, an organization founded in October, 2001 by families of those who died in the terrorist attack, issued a statement requesting Rove "stop trying to reap political gain in the tragic misfortune of others."

The Bush administration characterized Rove's comments as "very accurate" and stated that the calls for an apology were "somewhat puzzling", since he was "simply pointing out the different philosophies when it comes to winning the war on terrorism."

Plame affair

Main article Plame affair covers Karl Rove's role as the reported source of published information as to the identity of Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson, as a CIA NOC agent to Robert Novak after Wilson contradicted the George W. Bush administration's statements regarding the Yellowcake forgery.

Origins

On 29 August 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a career diplomat who had worked under Democratic and Republican administrations, alleged that Rove leaked the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative (timeline). The leak is a potential violation of federal law.

Wilson, who in February 2002 investigated claims of attempted 1990s uranium ore purchases by Iraq from Niger, wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times, published 6 July 2003, suggesting that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence findings to justify war against Iraq. Wilson said that his African diplomatic experience led to his selection for the mission: He is the former ambassador to Gabon, another uranium-producing African nation, and was once posted in the 1970s to Niamey, Niger's capital. Wilson, who was open about the CIA's sponsorship of his trip (which he called "discreet but not secret"), wrote that he had been "informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report" relating to the sale of uranium yellowcake from Niger (see also Yellowcake Forgery). Of his trip to Niger Wilson wrote, "I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." Wilson also noted that U.S. Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick "knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington."

Wilson's Op-Ed piece appeared three and a half months after the US-led 2003 Invasion of Iraq, at a time when search teams in occupied Iraq were raising questions about whether weapons of mass destruction would ever be found. On 11 July 2003, five days following the publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece, the CIA issued a statement discrediting what he called "highly dubious" accounts of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger. In the press release, CIA Director George Tenet said it should "never" have permitted the "16 words" relating to alleged Iraqi uranium purchases to be used in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, and called it a "mistake" that the CIA allowed such a reference in the speech Bush used to take the United States to war.

Publication of the leak

Eight days after publication of Wilson's article, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote an article dismissing the importance of Wilson's trip to Niger. Novak wrote that the choice to use Wilson "was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge." Novak went on to identify Plame as Wilson's wife: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him." Although Wilson wrote that he was certain his findings were circulated within the CIA and conveyed (at least orally) to the office of the Vice President, and George Tenet himself had written not only of his familiarity with the report but that it "was given a normal and wide distribution" in intelligence circles, Novak questioned the accuracy of Wilson's report and added that "it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it."

Although the Novak article called her a CIA "operative," it did not necessarily identify Valerie Plame as an "undercover" (or NOC agent). However, the publication of her name and a brief account of her duties was enough to abruptly end her "undercover" status, as well as that of her cover firm and other agents using its cover (as well as their contacts).

Nearly a year after Wilson's editorial was published (12 July 2004), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Report on the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessments on Iraq stated that Plame "offered up name" for the trip. Several high ranking CIA officials disputed this claim, however, and indicated that the person who made the claim was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. "In an interview with Time, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. 'That is bullshit. That is absolutely not the case,' Wilson told Time. 'I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere . None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job.'"

Spreading the leak

Walter Pincus, a Washington Post columnist, has written that he was told in confidence by an (unnamed) Bush administration official on 12 July 2003, two days before Novak's column appeared, that "the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction." Because he did not believe it to be true, Pincus did not report the story.

Days after Novak's initial column appeared, several other journalists, notably Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, published Plame's name citing "some" unnamed government officials as sources. In his article, titled "A War on Wilson?", Cooper, with no proof, speculated that the White House had "declared war" on Wilson for speaking out against the Bush Administration.

In the October 13 Newsweek, Wilson is reported to have received a call from Chris Matthews, of MSNBC's "Hardball," who told him, "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game."

NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell also has been mentioned in the press as having early knowledge of the Plame leak, although her and Matthews' conversations may have taken place after Novak's article was published. Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief of NBC News, and Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic reporter for the Washington Post, have both offered testimony in an ongoing investigation.

Two Newsday reporters who also confirmed and expanded upon Novak's account, Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce, were mentioned in October 2003 in connection to an ongoing judicial inquiry.

CIA seeks special prosecutor from Department of Justice

Wilson and both current and former CIA officials claimed the leak not only damaged his wife's career, but arguably endangered and ruined the ability to operate of many other CIA agents who worked abroad like Plame under nonofficial cover (as "NOCs"), passing as private citizens. Plame, who worked undercover for the CIA for nearly 20 years, was identified as an NOC and confirmed as a "specialist in nonconventional weapons" by New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller on 5 October 2003.

In an unsuccessful attempt to dim the controversy, Robert Novak wrote a second column on 1 October 2003, minimizing the importance of the leak, and further suggesting that Plame's relationship to Wilson could be assumed by reading his entry in Who's Who In America. The following day on CNN, Novak announced that Plame's nominal employer was Brewster Jennings & Associates. "There is no such firm, I'm convinced," Novak said, noting that "Ms. Valerie E. Wilson" had donated $1,000 to the Gore campaign in 1999 and had listed Brewster Jennings & Associates as her employer. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery." In fact, Brewster Jennings & Associates did exist, and proved to be an elaborately crafted CIA enterprise likely to have provided cover not only to Plame/Wilson but to other covert CIA operatives and contacts working abroad: subsequent articles in many publications suggest that BJA, nominally an oil exploration firm, was in fact a CIA front company (now defunct) spying on Saudi and other interests across the Middle East.

Under certain circumstances, disclosure of the identity of a covert agent is illegal under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, though the language of the statute raises the issue of whether Rove is within the class of persons to whom the statute applies.

In September 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the matter. Rove was identified by the New York Times in connection to the Plame leak on 2 October 2003, in an article that both highlighted Attorney General John Ashcroft's employment of Rove in three previous political campaigns and which pointed to Ashcroft's potential conflict of interest in investigating Rove. In recusing himself from the case two months later, Ashcroft named Deputy Attorney General James Comey, to be "acting attorney general" for the case; on 30 December 2003, Comey named Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, (Comey appoints Fitzgerald) to pursue an investigation into the leak, working initially from White House telephone records turned over to the FBI in October 2003.

Both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush have been interviewed by Fitzgerald, although neither under oath. Colleagues of Rove who have testified before the grand jury (quietly convened in Washington, D.C. by January 2004) include current White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Deputy Press Secretary Claire Buchan, former White House communications aide Adam Levine, former advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. On 13 May 2005, citing "close followers of the case," The Washington Post reported that the length of the investigation, and the particular importance paid to the testimony of reporters, suggested that the counsel's role had expanded to include investigation of perjury charges against witnesses. Other observers have suggested that the testimony of journalists was needed to show a pattern of intent by the leaker or leakers.

Supreme Court decision, testimony of journalists

New York Times investigative reporter Judith Miller, who (according to a subpoena) met with an unnamed White House official on July 8 2003, two days after Wilson's editorial was published, never wrote or reported a story on the Wilson/Plame matter, but nevertheless refused (with Cooper) to answer questions before a grand jury in 2004 pertaining to sources. Both reporters were held in contempt of court. On 27 June 2005, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the reporters' request for appeal, Time magazine said it would surrender to Fitzgerald e-mail records and notes taken by Cooper. Miller and Cooper faced potential jail terms for failure to cooperate with the independent counsel's investigations. Columnist Robert Novak, who later admitted that the CIA attempted to dissuade him from revealing Plame's name in print, "appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor" (according to Newsweek).

Miller was jailed on 7 July 2005, and is expected to remain there until October 2005. She is being held in Alexandria, VA in the same facility as Zacarias Moussaoui.

Allegations of illegal activities

On 1 July 2005 Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, on the McLaughlin Group stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time Magazine's going to do with the grand jury." The document dump has since occurred.

On 2 July 2005, Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that his client spoke to Time reporter Matt Cooper "three or four days" before Plame's identity was first revealed in print by commentator Robert Novak. (Cooper's article in Time, citing unnamed and anonymous "government officials," confirmed Plame to be a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Cooper's article appeared three days after Novak's column was published.) Rove's lawyer, however, asserted that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." This second statement has since been called into question by an e-mail, written three days before Novak's column, in which Cooper indicated that Rove had told him Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. If Rove were aware that this was classified information at the time then both disclaimers by his lawyer would be untrue. Furthermore, Luskin said that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" (three times, according to the Los Angeles Times of 3 July 2005 in addition to two interviews by the FBI) and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. Luskin stated that Rove "has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else." Rove's lawyer declined to share with Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff the nature or contents of his client's conversations with Cooper.

On 6 July 2005, Cooper agreed to testify, thus avoiding being held in contempt of court and sent to jail. Cooper said "I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions for not testifying," but told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance at court he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" an indication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep his source's identity secret. For some observers this called into question the allegations against Rove, who had signed a waiver months before permitting reporters to testify about their conversations with him (see above paragraph).

Cooper, however, stated in court that he did not previously accept a general waiver to journalists signed by his source (whom he did not identify by name), because he had made a personal pledge of confidentiality to his source. The 'dramatic change' which allowed Cooper to testify was later revealed to be a phone conversation between lawyers for Cooper and his source confirming that the waiver signed two years earlier included conversations with Cooper. Citing a "person who has been officially briefed on the case," The New York Times identified Rove as the individual in question, a fact later confirmed by Rove's own lawyer. According to one of Cooper's lawyers, Cooper has previously testified in August 2004 before the grand jury regarding conversations with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, after having received Libby's specific permission to testify.

Attorney and Watergate whistleblower John W. Dean observed that even if Rove didn't technically break the specific law barring the exposure of a covert agent, the administration has almost certainly run afoul of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641.

Rove's White House security clearance, governed by Executive Order 12958, apparently required both a criminal background check as well as training in the protection of classified information. To receive security clearance, Rove agreed, in writing (SF-312 Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement), not to divulge or confirm classified information to individuals (including reporters) not authorized to have it. According to Rove's attorney's public statements, Rove has admitted to violating SF-312 agreement..

Rove's role as Time leaker revealed

On September 29, 2003, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, regarding any suggested involvement of Rove with the leak, that "he President knows" that it was not true.

And I said it is simply not true . So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He 's aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it.

During the 2004 Republican National Convention, Rove told CNN:

I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name. This is at the Justice Department. I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation.

On 10 July 2005, Newsweek posted a story from its forthcoming July 18 print edition which quoted one of the e-mails written by Time reporter Matt Cooper in the days following the publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece. Writing to Time bureau chief Michael Duffy on 11 July 2003, three days before Novak's column was published, Cooper recounted a two-minute conversation with Karl Rove "on double super secret background" in which Rove said that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee: "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." In a Time article released 17 July 2005, Cooper says Rove ended his conversation by saying "I've already said too much." If true, this could indicate that Rove identified Wilson's wife as a CIA employee prior to Novak's column being published. Some believe that statements by Rove claiming he did not reveal her name would still be strictly accurate if he mentioned her only as 'Wilson's wife', although this distinction would likely have no bearing on the alleged illegality of the disclosure. The White House repeatedly denied that Rove had any involvement in the leaks. Whether Rove's statement to Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in fact violated any laws has not been resolved.

In addition, Rove told Cooper that CIA Director George Tenet did not authorize Wilson's trip to Niger, and that "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an suspect but so is the report" which Wilson made upon his return from Africa. Rove "implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro Niger," and in an apparent effort to discourage Cooper from taking the former ambassador's assertions seriously, gave Cooper a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Cooper recommended that his bureau chief assign a reporter to contact the CIA for further confirmation, and indicated that the tip should not be sourced to Rove or even to the White House. The Washington Post reported that the CIA, contradicting Rove, "maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999", though she is reported to have suggested him for the 1999 trip.

Cooper testified before a grand jury on 13 July 2005, confirming that Rove was the source who told him Wilson's wife was an employee of the CIA. In the 17 July 2005 Time magazine article detailing his grand jury testimony, Cooper wrote that Rove never used Plame's name nor indicated that she had covert status, although Rove did apparently convey that certain information relating to her was classified: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me." Cooper also explained to the grand jury that the "double super secret background" under which Rove spoke to him was not an official White House or Time magazine security designation, but an allusion to the 1978 film Animal House, in which a college fraternity is placed under "double secret probation."

On 13 August 2005 journalist Murray Waas reported that Justice Department and FBI officials had recommended appointing a special prosecutor to the case because they felt that Rove had not been truthful in early interviews, withholding from FBI investigators his conversation with Cooper about Plame and maintaining that he had first learned of Plame's CIA identity from a journalist whose name Rove could not recall. In addition, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, from whose prior campaigns Rove had been paid $746,000 in consulting fees, had been briefed on the contents of at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI - raising concerns of a conflict of interest with the not-yet-recused Attorney General.

Rove email

In an email sent by Rove to top White House security official Stephen Hadley immediately after his discussion with Matt Cooper (obtained by the Associated Press and published on 15 July 2005), Rove claimed that he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations Wilson was making about faulty Iraq intelligence. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming," Rove wrote to Hadley. "When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this." Rove made no mention to Hadley in the e-mail of having leaked Plame's CIA identity, nor of having revealed classified information to a reporter, nor of having told the reporter that certain sensitive information would soon be declassified. Although Rove wrote to Hadley (and perhaps testified) that the initial subject of his conversation with Cooper was welfare reform and that Cooper turned the conversation to Wilson and the Niger mission, many months later Cooper disputed this suggestion in his grand jury testimony and subsequent statements: "I can't find any record of talking about with him on July 11 , and I don't recall doing so," Cooper said.

White House/Republican reaction

From the beginning, the White House dismissed the allegation that Rove deliberately disclosed classified information as "totally ridiculous" and "simply not true." The White House continued to publicly assert that no Bush administration officials were involved in the leak until after the Supreme Court decision of 2005, the subsequent release of internal Time Magazine email, and Time reporter Matt Cooper's decision to testify to the grand jury. The White House subsequently adopted "we do not comment on ongoing investigations" as their official position. Other Republicans have been more public on what they consider an unfair smearing of Karl Rove.

Denials: July 2003 — July 11, 2005

On September 30, 2003, Mr. Bush said "if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." He followed that remark with "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan explained that "appropriate action" meant "f anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration," adding that Karl Rove had specifically assured McClellan that he was not involved, and that "the President expects his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct and the highest ethics."

Mr. Bush, who repeatedly denied knowing the identity of the leaker, called the leak a "criminal action" for the first time on 6 October 2003, stating "f anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker." Speaking to a crowd of journalists the following day, Bush said "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers." On 8 October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that "no one has more of an interest in getting to the bottom of this than the White House does, than the President does." On 10 October 2003, after the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor two other officials whom he had personally questioned – Elliot Abrams, a national security aide, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – were involved.

On 10 June 2004, eight months after the formal outside investigation was begun and five months after the appointment of an Independent Counsel, President Bush was asked by a reporter, "Given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, suggesting that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leak the agent's name? ... And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?" The President responded, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts."

'If Someone Committed a Crime': July 11, 2005 onward

On 11 July 2005, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who had since become a grand jury witness himself, refused at a press conference to answer dozens of questions, repeatedly stating that the Bush Administration had made a decision not to comment on an "ongoing criminal investigation" involving White House staff. McClellan declined to answer whether Rove had committed a crime. McClellan also declined to repeat prior categorical denials of Rove's involvement in the leak, nor would he state whether Bush would honor his prior promise to fire individuals involved in the leak. Although Democratic critics called for Rove's dismissal, or at the very least immediate suspension of Rove's security clearances and access to meetings in which classified material was under discussion, Rove remained working in the White House.

Neither Rove nor the President offered immediate public comment on the unfolding scandal. Rove was vociferously defended by Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman and by many conservative news outlets and commentators, some of whom followed cues laid out in a "talking points" memo, circulated among Republicans on Capitol Hill, which questioned Joseph Wilson's credibility. Among others, David Brooks, conservative New York Times editorialist and NPR commentator, attacked Wilson on 14 July 2005 by falsely alleging that Wilson had claimed Cheney sent him on the Niger mission, and that in speaking to Cooper, Rove was merely correcting a misconception about the Vice President's possible involvement. In an even more extreme example of partisanship, the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal praised Rove on 13 July 2005 for leaking Plame's identity, referring to him as a "whistleblower." Fox News's John Gibson said that even if Rove is not being truthful, he deserves a medal for leaking Plame's CIA identity because Joseph Wilson opposed the war and "Valerie Plame should have been outed by somebody."

After ignoring reporters' questions for more than a week, on 18 July 2005 Mr. Bush said "f someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

Critics of Bush consider this to be an expansion of the criteria, i.e., that Mr. Bush now reserves the right to fire only in the event of an actual conviction, which clearly requires a higher standard of proof and would in any case take much longer. Supporters believe that this is consistent with the position President Bush has taken from the very beginning.

Others counter this view by relying on Bush's one previous mention of illegality, his September 30, 2003 remarks, to suggest that Bush has never meant anything other than that only a criminal conviction would prevent someone from working in the White House, though it seems exceedingly unlikely that any presidential administration would continue to employ someone while they were in prison.

Reactions of members of Congress

Ninety-one members of Congress from the Democratic Party signed a letter on July 15, 2005 calling for Rove to explain his role in the Plame affair, or to resign. Thirteen members of the House Judiciary Committee, all Democrats, have called for hearings on the matter.

A Resolution of Inquiry has been offered by Rush Holt (D-NJ) and John Conyers (D-MI), requesting that the Bush Administration release all documents concerning the exposure of Plame's CIA identity.

Barney Frank (D-MA) and John Conyers (D-MI) have authorized the Library of Congress to research legal precedent for the impeachment of White House staffers.

Twenty-six Democratic Senators, including seven members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have issued a public statement authored by Senator John Kerry, calling for Congressional hearings to investigate the Plame leak.

As of 22 August 2005, none of the 306 Republican members of Congress had expressed public concern about Rove's continued role in the Bush Administration.

Opinion polls

A poll conducted by ABC News in mid-July 2005 revealed that 53% of respondents were following this story closely, and 47% were not following the matter closely. In the same poll, 47% believed the White House is not cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation, 28% had no opinion and 25% thought the White House was fully cooperating.

A CNN poll dated 22 July - 24 July found that 49% of respondents say Rove should resign, 31% said he should not, and 20% had no opinion. USAToday

A poll commissioned by Newsweek and published 8 August 2005 indicated 45% believed Rove "guilty of a serious offence", 15% "not guilty of a serious offence", who 37% who "don't know."

Legal opinions

The unusual circumstances of this case led a number of media organizations to file a friend-of-the-court (amicus curiae) brief on behalf of the journalists who were subpoenaed (Matthew Cooper, Judith Miller, and Time Inc.). In this brief, lawyers representing 36 media organizations, including ABC News, AP, CNN, CBS News, WSJ, Fox News, USA Today, NBC News, Newsweek, and Reuters, argued to the court that "there exists ample evidence in the public record to cast serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed under the Intelligence Protection Act in the investigation underlying the attempts to secure testimony from Miller and Cooper." Victoria Toensing, the principal author of the amicus brief, also contended that Ms. Plame didn't have a cover to blow, citing a July 23, 2004 article in the Washington Times which argued that Valerie Plame's status as an undercover CIA agent may have been known to Russian and Cuban intelligence operations prior to the Novak article.

Perhaps because Toensing's brief did not address issues relating to (possible) perjury and obstruction of justice charges, nor many other possible violations associated with the disclosure of classified information, many of these same news outlets continue to suggest the possibility that Rove may have violated the law. (The amicus brief predated the publication of internal Time email, as well as Cooper's own testimony and published account of Rove's role.) Although some reporters speculate that Rove's (future) legal defense might be built upon testimony that he was ignorant of Plame's protected status at the time he outed her as a CIA employee, most agree that if it could be proven that he had heard of her CIA covert status or knew material was classified when he spoke to journalists, Rove could face far more serious charges.

A New York Times story of 16 July 2005 suggested that the Independent Counsel grand jury has questioned whether a particular top secret State Department briefing which named Plame in connection to Wilson may have been the source of Rove's information.. Colin Powell was photographed carrying the briefing during a visit to Africa, in the company of the President, in the days following the 6 July 2003 publication of Wilson's Op-Ed piece. (According to Time, Powell received the briefing, dated 10 June 2003, nearly a month later on 7 July 2003.)

The Wall Street Journal reported on 19 July 2005 that the briefing "made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared." Specifically, the briefing marked Valerie Wilson's name and CIA responsibilities as "snf", for "secret no foreign", meaning the information was so sensitive it could not be shared even with allied foreign security agencies such as Britain's MI6.

Although some legal pundits felt that Rove was unlikely to have been in violation of the narrowly-worded Intelligence Identities And Protection Act — in fact, the CIA's original "crimes report" submitted to Fitzgerald apparently did not mention the Act— many others argue that by compromising Valerie Plame's position, Rove may have broken one or more federal laws. According to John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist and former presidential counsel, Rove is likely to have violated Title 18, Section 641 of the United States Code, which prohibits the theft or conversion of government records for non-governmental use. In 2003, this law was successfully used to convict John Randel, a Drug Enforcement Agency analyst, for leaking to the London media a name of someone that he believed the DEA was not paying enough attention to in a money laundering investigation (Lord Ashcroft) . In a statement to Randel, United States District Court Judge Richard Story wrote, "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country." Having pled guilty, Randel's sentence was reduced from 500 years in a federal prison, to a year of imprisonment and three years of probation.

This may be seen by Bush's political opponents as setting precedent for the prosecution of similar leaks, and Karl Rove is likely to face greater consequences than Randel if indicted for violating Section 641. Whereas Randel leaked sensitive information about an individual whose name could be found in the DEA files, unlikely to affect the national security of the United States, it is argued that Rove may have leaked the identity of a CIA agent, an expert on weapons of mass destruction, at a time when the United States had gone to war based on the perceived threat from such weapons.

Fallout from the affair

While the breaking of Valerie Plame's cover as a NOC operative of the CIA may be regarded as serious in and of itself, there has been debate over the damage caused by the leak, and the areas into which that damage may extend, particularly in relation to Plame's work with her cover company, Brewster Jennings & Associates. Legal filings by Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald contain many pages blanked out for security reasons, leading some observers to speculate that Fitzgerald has pursued the extent to which national security was compromised by the actions of Rove and others.

While a preponderance of evidence to date appears to suggest that retaliation for Wilson's public contradiction of the Bush Administration claim (that Iraq had attempted to obtain enriched uranium) was the motive for the leak, another explanation holds that the leak was an attempt to sabotage an investigation into Saudi oil reserve (see peak oil).

John Ashcroft / Karl Rove Conflict Of Interest Allegation

When Karl Rove was being questioned over the leak by the FBI, Attorney General John Ashcroft was being personally briefed about the investigation. U.S. Representative John Conyers described this at the time as a "stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation."

Rep. Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has sent a letter asking for a formal investigation of the time between the start of Rove's investigation and John Ashcroft's recusal:

There has long been the appearance of impropriety in Ashcroft's handling of this investigation. The former attorney general had well documented conflicts of interest in this matter, particularly with regard to his personal relationship with Karl Rove. Among other things, Rove was employed by Ashcroft throughout his political career, and Rove reportedly had fiercely advocated for Ashcroft's appointment as attorney general. Pursuant to standard rules of legal ethics, and explicit rules on conflict of interest, those facts alone should have dictated his immediate recusal.
The new information, that Ashcroft had not only refused to recuse himself over a period of months, but also was insisting on being personally briefed about a matter implicating his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General.

Trivia

  • Karl Rove is known for careful management of the press, including the use of humor to put reporters at ease.
  • Karl Rove is a Norwegian-American. According to Bob Woodward's recent book, Rove is obsessed with the "historical duplicity" of the Swedes, who seized Norway back in 1814. According to Woodward, this nationalism manifested itself as hatred for Swedish weapons inspector Hans Blix.
  • Karl Rove's alleged reputation for political dirty tricks is such that, among both his supporters and critics the phrase "Rovian" has come to be used as a synonym for "Machiavellian". The documentary Bush's Brain “…depicts Rove as the most powerful political consultant in American history and, in essence, a co-president” according to USA Today.
  • The television show American Dad depicted Rove as a shadowy figure clad in a red robe and cowl. Whenever his name is said a wolf howls, and when he tried to enter a church, he began to burn. He later departed the scene by transforming into a swarm of bats.

Further reading

  • Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains Behind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush, Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl Cannon, 2003, Paperback, 256 pages, ISBN 1586481924.

External links

Biographical data

Legal Links

  • An amicus brief filed by 36 news organizations asserting that "there exists ample evidence on the public record to cast serious doubt that a crime has been committed."

Editorials

Media accounts

  • New York Times - 'Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove,' Lorne Manly and David Johnston (July 18, 2005)
  • BBC.co.uk - 'Drawing up Blueprints for Bush Victory', Rachel Clarke, BBC (November 6, 2004)
  • BNFP.org - 'The Controller: Karl Rove is working to get George Bush reelected, but he has bigger plans' (profile), Nicholas Lemann New Yorker (May 12, 2003)
  • EditorAndPublisher.com - 'MSNBC Analyst and a Newsweek Reporter Say Karl Rove Named in Matt Cooper Documents', Greg Mitchell (July 2, 2005)
  • FoxNews.com - 'White House 'Puzzled' Over Rove Flap', Fox News (June 24, 2005)
  • PBS.org - 'Karl Rove The Architect' (documentary), PBS Frontline (April 12, 2005)
  • WashingtonTimes.com - 'Rove rejects charges he was CBS source', Stephen Dinan, Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times (July 2, 2005)
  • National Review - 'Lawyer: Cooper "Burned" Karl Rove' - Byron York.
  • Transcript from CNN interview with Joseph Wilson, where he states that "my wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," causing much speculation about his intended meaning from both sides.
  • Washington Times - 'Rove Fight Escalates,' includes quotes from a former CIA agent who claims that Plame's 'nonofficial cover' did not qualify her as 'a covert agent'. This claim is based on a gross misquote of USA Today.
  • Star Tribune - 'The Plame blame: What do we know so far?' contains a recap of what is known to date (July 17, 2005)
  • National Review - 'Andrew C. McCarthy on Valerie Plame' - Links to an amicus brief and details Plame's name being outed by the CIA prior to Novak's article.
  • National Review - Mark R. Levin - 'Valerie's No Victim.'
  • Wall Street Journal - Staff - 'Memo Underscored Issue of Shielding Plame's Identity' - CIA memo at the center of the leak scandal was marked 'sensitive'

News compilations

Satire and blogs

Search compilations

  • LookSmart.com - 'Karl Rove' (search engine category)
  • Newsmeat.com - 'Campaign Contribution Search' (Karl Rove's individual political campaign donations of $200 or more, since 1977)
  • Yahoo.com - 'Karl Rove' (search engine category)
  • Karl Rove Sampler - 'What we know and when we knew it'

U.S. Government links

Senator Harry Reid's "Rove Clock" shows number of days, hours, minutes, seconds without Republicans investigating CIA leak

White House media

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