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Lyuokdea
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http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15889405-38198,00.html
TOP White House adviser Karl Rove was one of the secret sources who spoke to reporters about a covert CIA operative whose identity was leaked to the media, Newsweek has reported.
Mr Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed Mr Rove talked to Time about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, the magazine reported.
Mr Luskin said Mr Rove had recently given Time reporter Matt Cooper permission to testify about the conversation to a grand jury investigating the leak in 2003, Newsweek reported.
A US federal judge ordered Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify and reveal their confidential sources.
Cooper last week avoided a jail sentence for contempt of court by agreeing to testify in the case.
Miller refused to testify and was jailed.
The case has become an important test involving freedom of the press, and has pitted the media's traditional use of anonymous sources against the efforts of a federal government prosecutor to investigate a possible crime.
It is illegal to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.
Mr Rove has previously made statements about the Plame leak but has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about the CIA agent.
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He has chosen his words carefully when questioned about the leak.
"I didn't know her name, I didn't leak her name," he told CNN last year when asked if he had had anything to do with the leak of Ms Plame's name.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been leading a two-year investigation into the leak, amid questions about whether it came from White House as part of an attempt to discredit Mr Wilson after he contradicted President George W. Bush's assertions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Wilson wrote an opinion column in The New York Times saying he had been sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate the Bush Administration's claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa – a claim the administration used to justify going to war in Iraq.
Mr Wilson said he found no evidence to support the claim.
The Newsweek article said an email Cooper sent his bureau chief after briefly talking with Mr Rove stated "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd (weapons of mass destruction) issues who authorised the trip".
The email did not suggest Mr Rove had used Ms Plame's name, or that he knew she was a covert agent, the article said.
"Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper," Mr Luskin told Newsweek.
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I'm shocked.
~Lyuokdea
TOP White House adviser Karl Rove was one of the secret sources who spoke to reporters about a covert CIA operative whose identity was leaked to the media, Newsweek has reported.
Mr Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed Mr Rove talked to Time about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, the magazine reported.
Mr Luskin said Mr Rove had recently given Time reporter Matt Cooper permission to testify about the conversation to a grand jury investigating the leak in 2003, Newsweek reported.
A US federal judge ordered Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify and reveal their confidential sources.
Cooper last week avoided a jail sentence for contempt of court by agreeing to testify in the case.
Miller refused to testify and was jailed.
The case has become an important test involving freedom of the press, and has pitted the media's traditional use of anonymous sources against the efforts of a federal government prosecutor to investigate a possible crime.
It is illegal to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.
Mr Rove has previously made statements about the Plame leak but has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about the CIA agent.
Advertisement:
He has chosen his words carefully when questioned about the leak.
"I didn't know her name, I didn't leak her name," he told CNN last year when asked if he had had anything to do with the leak of Ms Plame's name.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been leading a two-year investigation into the leak, amid questions about whether it came from White House as part of an attempt to discredit Mr Wilson after he contradicted President George W. Bush's assertions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Wilson wrote an opinion column in The New York Times saying he had been sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate the Bush Administration's claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa – a claim the administration used to justify going to war in Iraq.
Mr Wilson said he found no evidence to support the claim.
The Newsweek article said an email Cooper sent his bureau chief after briefly talking with Mr Rove stated "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd (weapons of mass destruction) issues who authorised the trip".
The email did not suggest Mr Rove had used Ms Plame's name, or that he knew she was a covert agent, the article said.
"Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper," Mr Luskin told Newsweek.
-----------------------
I'm shocked.
~Lyuokdea
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