Rove was first source on CIA agent -Time reporter

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House political aide Karl Rove
was the first person to tell a Time magazine reporter that the
wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq
policy was a CIA agent, the reporter said in an article on
Sunday.

Time correspondent Matthew Cooper said he told a grand jury
last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the “agency,”
or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the
call by saying “I’ve already said too much.”

The leak of the agent’s identity has sparked a criminal
probe, and several Democrats have urged President Bush to fire
or sideline Rove, Bush’s top political adviser.

Cooper wrote that Rove did not disclose the woman’s name,
Valerie Plame, but told him in July 2003 that information would
be declassified that would cast doubt on the credibility of her
husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson.

“Don’t get too far out on Wilson,” Cooper quoted Rove as
saying. Cooper said he had also discussed Wilson and his wife
with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Wilson took a CIA-funded trip in 2002 to investigate a
charge that Iraq tried to buy nuclear materials in Africa, and
later accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the Iraqi
weapons threat in its case for war.

“So did Rove leak Plame’s name to me, or tell me she was
covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I
learned for the first time that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA
and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove
say that she worked at the ‘agency’ on ‘WMD’? Yes,” Cooper
wrote in Time’s current edition.

“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 wrote.

He said he was uncertain what Rove meant by commenting he
had already said too much.

COURT ORDER

Cooper testified about Rove to avoid going to jail. New
York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to
testify.

It is against the law for a government official to
knowingly expose a covert CIA agent.

Columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame’s identity in July
2003, citing two administration officials, shortly after Wilson
published an opinion piece in the New York Times that accused
the administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq.

Wilson wrote that in Niger he could not substantiate
allegations Iraq had tried to buy nuclear materials, as the
White House asserted even after the mission.

Cooper also reported on Plame’s identity, citing Novak’s
column and administration officials.

Wilson accuses the Bush administration of retaliation in
his wife’s exposure; Rove’s lawyer said the aide had done
nothing wrong and was not an investigation target.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, on
NBC’s “Meet the Press,” called criticisms of Rove “partisan
smears.”

Bush has said he would fire any leaker in the case, but
said last week he would withhold judgment on Rove’s role.

Cooper wrote he had previously told the grand jury he had
also discussed Wilson and his wife with Lewis “Scooter” Libby,
Cheney’s chief of staff. He said he asked Libby about Wilson’s
wife playing a role in the Niger trip, and Libby replied,
“Yeah, I’ve heard that too.”

Rove used similar language in a conversation with Novak,
according to media reports. Wilson had written that he took the
trip in response to questions raised by Cheney, but he told
CBS’s “Face the Nation” he had not meant to imply Cheney sent
him.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in October 2003
that Rove, Libby and another official had assured him they were
uninvolved in the leak.

Cooper said he viewed Rove’s comments on Wilson as an
attack on his credibility. “I thought it was disparaging toward
Wilson. I thought it was sort of guiding,” he said on CNN’s
“Reliable Sources.”

(Additional reporting by Peter Szekely)