July 12, 2006: Novak Reveals Rove as Source for Plame Wilson Leak

Karl Rove and Robert Novak, 2003. Rove’s button reads, ‘I’m a Source, Not a Target.’ [Source: Lauren Shays / AP / New York Times]Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status in a column three years earlier (see July 14, 2003), says that he can now write about his testimony before the grand jury investigating the leak. In his current column, he reveals that White House political strategist Karl Rove was one of his sources, as was CIA spokesman Bill Harlow. Novak writes that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed his attorneys that the “investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded. That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret.” Novak writes: “I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves. I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors, or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue.” Novak says that Fitzgerald knew, “independent of me,” that his sources for his column outing Plame Wilson were Rove and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see July 8, 2003), whom Novak does not identify in his column. “That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act,” Novak writes. Novak also identifies a third source, Harlow (see (July 11, 2003) and Before July 14, 2003). Novak writes that he reveals Rove as a source “because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection.” Harlow, Novak writes, “has publicly disclosed his version of our conversation, which also differs from my recollection.” He does not name Armitage because Armitage “has not come forward to identify himself,” though he does note that Armitage considered his disclosure of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity “inadvertent.” After learning of Plame Wilson’s identity from Armitage, Novak writes, “I sought out the second administration official [Rove] and the CIA spokesman [Harlow] for confirmation. I learned Valerie Plame [Wilson]‘s name from Joe Wilson’s entry in Who’s Who in America. I considered his wife’s role in initiating Wilson’s mission, later confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, to be a previously undisclosed part of an important news story. I reported it on that basis.” [CNN, 7/11/2006; Human Events, 7/12/2006; New York Times, 7/12/2006] Novak also says of Armitage: “The primary source was not a political operative.… I don’t believe it was part of a plan to discredit anybody.” Novak denies cooperating with a White House strategy to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a prominent critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies (see June 2003, October 1, 2003, and April 5, 2006). [Washington Post, 7/11/2006] Novak testified that when he asked about Plame Wilson’s CIA status, Rove replied, “Oh, you know that, too?” In Rove’s recollection, he responded, “I’ve heard that, too.” Rove’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, says that Rove did not even know Plame Wilson’s name at the time he spoke with Novak, that the columnist called Rove, not the other way around, and that Rove simply replied he had heard the same information that Novak passed along to him regarding Plame Wilson. However, “There was not much of a difference” between the recollections of Rove and Novak, Corallo says. Harlow’s difference with Novak’s portrayal of their conversation is more substantial than the differences between Novak’s and Rove’s recollections. Harlow has said that he warned Novak not to reveal Plame Wilson’s name or CIA status, but Novak has written, “I certainly wouldn’t have used her name if anyone [i.e. Harlow] had indicated she might be in danger.” [Washington Post, 7/11/2006; Associated Press, 7/12/2006] A former intelligence official tells CNN that when Harlow first spoke to Novak about Plame Wilson, he was not aware of her status as a covert employee, and that he tried to talk Novak out of publishing her name when he did find out, making it clear the disclosure could be damaging. [CNN, 7/11/2006] Progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters writes that Novak’s column is filled with “false and contradictory statements” (see July 12, 2006).