Rove, Hadley email 'at crux' of CIA leak investigation

By Jason Leopold

In late January 2004, the grand jury investigating whether top officials in the Bush administration knowingly leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's name and covert CIA status to reporters subpoenaed the White House for records of administration contacts with more than two-dozen journalists going back two years, to determine if any officials talked about Plame with the media.

According to people close to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe, one such document was not turned over to the grand jury by the Feb. 6, 2004 deadline: an email White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove had sent in July 2003 to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. In the email, Rove told Hadley that he spoke to Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the administration's prewar Iraq intelligence.

Rove testified before the grand jury for the first time in February 2004. At the time, he didn't disclose that he had been one of the anonymous sources for Cooper and conservative columnist Robert Novak. The two filed the first stories on Plame, identifying her as a CIA operative.

Rove had told the grand jury, as well as FBI and Justice Department investigators, that he learned about Plame's identity after reading about her in news reports. Only then did he speak about Plame with other journalists, people familiar with his grand jury testimony said.

The grand jury subpoenaed the White House for any information concerning contacts with the 25 reporters on Jan. 22, 2004. It was the second time a directive was issued ordering White House officials to turn over records to determine if officials had spoken about Plame, her husband, and the administration's claims that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium-the key component for a nuclear bomb-from Niger with journalists.

Three months earlier, in late 2003, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales enjoined all White House staff to turn over any communication about Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband. Gonzales' request came 12 hours after senior White House officials had been told of the pending investigation. The email Rove sent to Hadley never turned up in that request either, people close to the investigation said.

Rove's alleged failure to disclose his conversations with Cooper and Novak and the fact that he didn't turn over the Hadley email on two separate occasions is the reason he's been in Fitzgerald's crosshairs and may end up being indicted, people close to the investigation said.

It's also the reason Fitzgerald had grown suspicious at the time that Rove may have hid or destroyed evidence related to his role in the leak, they said, adding that Fitzgerald may have already been aware of the existence of the email, perhaps even obtaining a copy from a witness or another White House official, and waited to see if Rove would cite it or his conversations with Cooper in his grand jury testimony.

It may also explain why Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has reportedly testified that he had a conversation with one of Cooper's Time magazine colleagues, Viveca Novak, in February 2004. Luskin maintains that he and Novak met in February of 2004 over drinks in Washington, D.C. and Novak tipped him off that she heard Rove was Cooper's source.

By bringing Novak into the mix, Luskin came up with a defense for why Rove did not immediately recall having a conversation with Cooper. It's important for Luskin to assert that the meeting took place that month, otherwise he doesn't have a good defense for why the email he sent to Hadley wasn't found the second time.

Novak testified last week that she spoke with Luskin several times during the first half of 2004. But she did not believe she said anything to Luskin in February about Rove being Cooper's source. In her first person Time magazine account about her testimony, she wrote that she believed she told Luskin in either March or May-but most likely May-that the internal buzz at Time was that Rove was Cooper's source for his story on Plame.

Luskin testified that after he spoke with Novak, he and Rove did an exhaustive search for evidence to determine if Rove did in fact speak with Cooper about Plame. Luskin said they then found the Hadley email and turned it over to Fitzgerald.

If Luskin and Novak did meet in March or May and discuss Rove being Cooper's source it doesn't address why the Hadley email didn't turn up in January, when the White House was subpoenaed. That's why Luskin has been insistent that he and Novak met in February, people close to the case said, in order to explain how he was able to find the Hadley email just as the White House was responding to the subpoena.

Otherwise, it hurts Rove's case and makes it much more difficult for Fitzgerald and the grand jury to believe that Luskin and Rove were able to find the same email months later after speaking with Novak, people close to the case said.

Still, Rove did not testify about his conversation with Cooper until Oct. 15, 2004. It's unclear when Luskin turned over the Hadley email to Fitzgerald and why it took at best nearly six months for Rove to finally testify about his conversation with Cooper.

"What Luskin is doing is trying to say that he found the email after his conversation with Ms. Novak but before the White House turned over evidence of administration contacts with journalists," one attorney close to the case said. "He understands that it would be quite difficult to explain to the prosecutor how this email miraculously turned up in either March or May but not in January or February. That's why it appears he is stating that he spoke with Ms. Novak in February."

This discrepancy is at the crux of what Fitzgerald is investigating. Rove didn't reveal to the grand jury that he had spoken with Cooper until Oct. 15, 2004. Luskin says that Rove did not intentionally withhold information from Fitzgerald or the grand jury about his conversation with Cooper. Rather, he says Rove had simply forgotten about it, and Luskin's meeting with Novak had helped jog Rove's memory.

Luskin did not return calls for comment and did not respond to an email list of questions.

The Jan. 22, 2004 subpoena, one of three sent to the White House on Jan. 22, 2004, asked for administration contacts with 25 journalists. Those individuals are Robert Novak, "Crossfire," "Capital Gang" and the Chicago Sun-Times; Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday; Walter Pincus, Richard Leiby, Mike Allen, Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post; Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and James Carney, Time magazine; Evan Thomas, Newsweek; Andrea Mitchell, "Meet the Press," NBC; Chris Matthews, "Hardball," MSNBC; Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, NBC; Nicholas D. Kristof, David E. Sanger and Judith Miller, The New York Times; Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal; John Solomon, The Associated Press; and Jeff Gannon, Talon News.