Karl Rove talked to only two reporters back in July 2003. That doesn't mean Patrick Fitzgerald can't still indict him for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or obstructing his investigation.
But it does mean that whatever Rove was up to, he was being careful with that information. Rove could have reached scores of influential journalists with whom he has close relations. Yet he talked to only two reporters. And those reporters called him; he didn't dial around looking for a receptive stenographer.
More astonishingly, we learn from the Fitzgerald indictment
that Ari Fleischer knew about Plame and didn't tell anyone at all. He walked reporters, including me, up to the fact, suggesting they look into who sent Wilson, but never used her name or talked about her position. Why not? It certainly would have been helpful for him at the time. His colleagues were savaging him at the time for bungling the response to Wilson's July 6 New York Times opinion piece. They blamed him for not sufficiently refuting the article. By leaking the Plame information,
Fleischer could have discredited Wilson, muddied the story, and won back the affection of his complaining colleagues.
Fleischer and Rove each discussed Plame with
Scooter. A tantalizing fact still hidden in Fitzgerald's briefcase is whether Libby in those conversations with Fleischer and Rove discussed disclosing Plame's identity.
Even Libby seems to have been using potholders when he talked about Plame in 2003. He didn't mention her to some of the reporters to whom he talked about Wilson and even in the cases where he did, he was vague. According to Judy Miller's account of her testimony, Libby said he thought Wilson's wife might work at the CIA. He offhandedly half-confirmed it to my former Time colleague Matthew Cooper only when Cooper brought it up. "Yeah, I've heard that too." he said.
