Novak: Rove was confirming source in Plame story
Columnist Robert Novak has revealed White House aide Karl Rove was a confirming source in his story outing the CIA operative Valerie Plame. Novak did not reveal who first told him of Plame’s identity.
In his latest syndicated column, released Wednesday, columnist Robert Novak revealed his side of the story in the Plame affair, saying Rove was a confirming source for Novak’s story outing the CIA officer, underscoring Rove’s role in a leak that President Bush once promised to punish.
As Rove’s legal problems grew a year ago, the president qualified his earlier pledge to fire anyone involved in the Plame leak, saying it would apply to “someone who committed a crime.”
The columnist said he learned of Plame’s CIA employment from a source he still refuses to publicly identify, and then confirmed with Rove and then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, whose roles in talking to Novak have been previously reported.
Novak said for the first time that prosecutors looking into the leaks already knew his sources when he agreed to disclose them. The columnist was to appear Wednesday on Fox News.
Novak comes late to the Plame game, long after several other reporters talked publicly about the involvement of Rove and of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, in leaking the CIA identity of the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Novak says he kept his mouth shut so long because prosecutors asked him to.
cleveland.com
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