Come On Fitzgerald, Get a Life!

Time Reporter Called a Key to Rove's Defense In Leak Probe

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 29, 2005; Page A01

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

It's not clear why Luskin believes Novak's deposition could help Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, who remains under investigation into whether he provided false statements in the case. But a person familiar with the matter said Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October, when the prosecutor brought perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"This is what caused [Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging" Rove, the source said. But another person familiar with the conversations said they did not appear to significantly alter the case.

Luskin presented evidence, including details of his own conversations with Novak, to Fitzgerald at a secret meeting at a downtown law office shortly before Libby was indicted on Oct. 28, according to a source familiar with the case.

It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and the subsequent investigation of it.

Novak is not related to Robert D. Novak, the columnist who first disclosed Plame's identity in July 2003. Viveca Novak is expected to write a firsthand account after she is deposed.

The disclosure of Novak's impending testimony is the latest indication that Fitzgerald is still considering charges against Rove and that the investigation of Bush's top aide continues, even as the prosecutor prepares for Libby's trial. It also shows that Rove, who, like Libby, was dragged into the case for talking to reporters, is now hoping that a reporter will help pull him out.

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward told Fitzgerald earlier this month that he had discussed Plame with a senior administration official -- and that the official was someone other than Libby -- before Libby's first conversation with another reporter about Plame. The Libby legal team cheered Woodward's testimony, calling it "a bombshell" and contending that it undercut Fitzgerald's case that Libby was the first official known to have talked about Plame and her CIA status with a reporter.

Libby's legal team plans to rely on testimony from Woodward and other reporters to show that the former Cheney aide is not guilty of lying, providing misleading statements and obstructing justice in the course of the investigation, a person familiar with the legal strategy said.

Luskin, Viveca Novak and Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment. The two sources, both of whom are familiar with the Luskin-Novak conversations, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the prosecutor has warned everyone involved in the case not to discuss it publicly.

Fitzgerald has spent the past two years investigating whether any Bush administration officials disclosed Plame's name and employment at the CIA as part of an effort to discredit allegations by her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, that President Bush had twisted intelligence to justify the Iraq war. Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with the crime he originally set out to prove: the illegal disclosure of a covert CIA operative's identity. Instead, he has focused on alleged wrongdoing in the course of the investigation.

Talk about beating a dead horse...HEY PATRICK! THERE WAS NO ORIGINAL CRIME. Time to fold up your tents and go home. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This time you lost, no crime was committed until you began to stir up the political pot. Stop looking for a justification for your investigation, stop disrupting people's lives and go home. Go find a bug to pull the legs off of. This death of a thousand cuts routine is getting old. You are not doing anything positive for the country, you are just contributing to the negative atmosphere that hangs over Washington, DC. GO HOME! PLEASE!

Full Story: Tend to the Log in Your Own Eye...

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