Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran an article that claimed Time Magazine's Viveca Novak was going to give testimony to Patrick Fitzgerald that would somehow exonerate Karl Rove. Seemed a little fishy, and today's New York Times has a different spin that's not so favorable to Karl.
Seems Ms. Novak is quite a bigmouth:
Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, spoke in the summer or early fall of 2004 with Viveca Novak, a reporter for Time. In that conversation, Mr. Luskin heard from Ms. Novak that a colleague at the magazine, Matthew Cooper, might have interviewed Mr. Rove about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the case, the people said.
So much for keeping sources confidential. And isn't it funny how that revelation to his lawyer caused Karl to re-think his earlier testimony. Rove's people claim that helped jog his memory. Fitzgerald doesn't seem to buying that:
But Mr. Fitzgerald appears to be evaluating whether Mr. Rove came forward with the e-mail and his new testimony only after it became apparent that Mr. Cooper might be compelled to testify about it. It is not clear precisely what Ms. Novak told Mr. Luskin, or what the context for their conversation had been.
People involved in the case said that at a minimum Ms. Novak communicated to Mr. Luskin that Mr. Rove might face legal problems because of potential testimony from Mr. Cooper, her colleague. They said Ms. Novak had told Mr. Luskin that Mr. Cooper might have been in contact with Mr. Rove about Ms. Wilson in the days before her identity became public. Mr. Cooper helped write an article on Time's Web site in July 2003 that was among the first, after Mr. Novak's column, to divulge Ms. Wilson's identity, using her maiden name, Valerie Plame.
Karl was counting on Cooper keeping his mouth shut. If that happened, he was in the clear. But, he underestimated Fitzgerald. Rove is used to dealing with politicians and press people who are easy for him to manipulate. With Fitz, Karl hit a brick wall.
