Ken Melman of the RNC just got exposed on Late Edition for the hypocrisy of the Administrations position, and inconsistencies in the Spin. Transcripts available later today.
In the interim, Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, appeared on Reliable Sources this morning. After viewing the show, or reading the transcripts below, it is clear that Rove was the one engaged in a smear campaign, AND that he exposed Joe Wilson's wife as a CIA operative.
Looks like the Republican celebrations over the last couple of days were premature and highly optimistic, considering the facts.
It will be interesting to see if there is an adjustment to the spin based on today's events. Melman did NOT do well today...
From Today's Reliable Sources:
I'm Howard Kurtz. Ahead, a special interview on the subject with Bob Woodward.
But first, Judith Miller of "The New York Times" remains behind bars for refusing to testify in the CIA leak case involving Valerie Plame. And my first guest came within hours of joining her in jail.
The disclosure that White House adviser Karl Rove served as a source for "Time" magazine's Matt Cooper, as well as for columnist and CNN commentator Robert Novak, has boosted the story into the media stratosphere this week, with Rove on the covers of both "Time" and "Newsweek" just out this morning.
And the disclosure forced White House spokesman Scott McClellan to abandon his earlier denials that Rove was in any way involved. Let's look at McClellan then and now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is totally ridiculous. I've known Karl -- I've known -- I've known Karl for a long time, and I didn't even need to go ask Karl, because I know the kind of person that he is.
Our policy continues to be that we're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation from this podium.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And joining me now in his first cable news interview since testifying before a grand jury in the Plame case on Wednesday is Matthew Cooper, "Time's" White House correspondent. Welcome.
MATT COOPER, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Hey, thanks, Howie.
KURTZ: You laid it all out in this week's issue of "Time" magazine. "Time," of course, owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner.
Now, I want to go back to last week. Hours before you were expecting to go to jail -- you'd left home, you've said good-bye to your 6-year-old son -- you got a last-minute waiver from Karl Rove of your pledge of confidentiality about your conversation. How did you feel when that news came through?
COOPER: Well, I felt a good deal of relief. I didn't -- you know, I was never looking forward to going to jail, and I think, you know, I felt comfortable that the source can -- had released me from the pledge.
You know, my principle throughout this two-year court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and even after "Time" magazine, over my objections, handed over my notes and e-mails and outed my source, my principle had always been, only the source can relieve me of this obligation.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: ... the so-called blanket waiver, where Rove and other White House officials say, any reporter who dealt with me on this can go ahead and testify. But you say that's not voluntary? Is it any more voluntary to get a last-minute waiver negotiated through lawyers when you're about to go off and be in jail?
COOPER: Well, I think things have changed significantly, Howie. For two years, under the advice of my lawyers and also "Time" editors, I didn't approach Rove about any kind of waiver. They thought it was inappropriate, and might be, you know, lead to legal issues. In any event...
KURTZ: You might have to testify about any conversations you had with him?
COOPER: Yes, exactly.
KURTZ: Right.
COOPER: Now, that morning in "The Wall Street Journal," the same morning I thought I was going off to jail, my lawyer saw a quote from Mr. Rove's lawyer that said, Karl waives all confidentiality about these conversations. If Matt Cooper's going to jail, he's not going to jail for Karl Rove.
We took that as a kind of invitation. My lawyer contacted his lawyer, and over the next couple of hours, they worked out an agreement, which is, you know, specific to me, it was run by Karl Rove, it has signatures. And it gives me a specific waiver for conversations with me in July 2003. That had a degree of specificity and personalness to me that I was comfortable enough accepting.
KURTZ: Can you understand why there seems to be relatively little public sympathy for the journalists involved in this case -- you, Judith Miller -- because you are seen -- you were seen as protecting not whistle-blowing sources, not sources uncovering wrongdoing, but sources who appeared to be doing partisan work, trying to spread the word about Joe Wilson, a prominent administration critic, and saying that his wife, Valerie Plame, had been a covert operative for the CIA?
COOPER: Yeah. I can understand that, I'd say a couple of things to that. First, I don't think we as journalists can sort of pick and choose which sources and which obligations we're going to honor, and say, well, this source doesn't seem to have good motives, I'm not going to take his. I think even as we saw in Deep Throat, Mark Felt, who emerged as Deep Throat, had his own motives, and he had been involved in things that were not so great too. But you know, I think you have to honor your pledge. And my principle all along had been that no court, no corporation could break that pledge from me, but you know, if the source wanted it waived, I would testify.
KURTZ: Turning now to your grand jury testimony on Wednesday. You recalled that conversation back in 2003 with Karl Rove. You were new to the beat as a White House correspondent. He gave you kind of a terse warning about Wilson. What did he say to you?
COOPER: Yeah. Well, in fact, to just put it in context, there was a big hullabaloo that week about the president's State of the Union address and in it, which he had...
KURTZ: The 16 words about...
COOPER: Right, the 16 words...
KURTZ: ... about uranium...
COOPER: ... about Saddam Hussein trying to get uranium in Africa to make nuclear weapons. The White House that week said it may be true, but it was not checked out well enough to merit it being in the State of the Union address. So there was a big controversy on that. And I called Rove with that on my mind.
And he did indeed give me a warning, saying don't get too far out on Wilson, which I took to mean don't lionize Wilson, don't believe everything you hear about Wilson.
KURTZ: Now, you also say, let's read from the article, put it up on the screen -- "This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife. Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status."
What was his tone? Did you have the impression he was trying to disparage or undermine Joe Wilson, to influence the tone of your article?
COOPER: I thought it was disparaging towards Wilson. I thought it was sort of guiding and spoken with great confidence. And as I said, before the -- in "Time" this week, as I said -- and I told the grand jury -- before that conversation, I had never heard about anything about Joe Wilson's wife. After that conversation, I knew that she worked at the CIA, and worked on WMD issues. But as I made clear to the grand jury, I'm certain Rove never used her exact name and certainly never indicated she had a covert status.
KURTZ: But at the end of that conversation, he said something that was a little bit cryptic. What was that?
COOPER: Well, he said, "I've already said too much."
KURTZ: What do you think he meant?
COOPER: Well, at the time I thought, well, maybe he meant he had been indiscrete and had said something important. Later I thought, well, maybe it was actually more benign, like "I've said too much, I've got to get to a meeting."
So I don't really know what he meant, but I do know the memory of that line has stayed with me for a couple of years now.
KURTZ: A lot of people have picked up on your description in the memos to your bureau chief of that conversation -- "It was on double super secret background." What did that mean?
COOPER: Well, Howie, I can now reveal that it was a joke. Karl Rove, when we had the conversation, wanted it to be on deep background, which I took to mean I could use the material but not quote it directly, and certainly not attribute it, that I had to protect the identity of my source. When I wrote the note to my bureau chief, just moments after the conversation with Rove, in a slightly playful way, I echoed the line in the movie "Animal House," where John Belushi's wild fraternity is put on double secret probation. So it was a little bit of humor, and...
KURTZ: You also testified -- actually, you testified last year about your conversation with Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. You had repeated what you heard from Rove about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, and what did Libby say?
COOPER: He said words to the effect of, yeah, I've heard that, too.
KURTZ: OK. I am told you had a third administration source, a policy person in Africa. Did the grand jury ask you about anyone else you talked to on this?
COOPER: Well, I don't want to get into all the sources for this article. I'll just say that what I told the grand jury is in "Time" this week, and anything I talked about in the grand jury I had a waiver for.
KURTZ: OK. Now, turning now to just days before you got this last-minute waiver...
COOPER: Yeah, sure.
KURTZ: ... we just talked about, from Karl Rove, and as you referenced earlier, Time, Inc. editor in chief Norman Pearlstine made the decision to turn over your notes and e-mails -- or at least your e-mails -- after trying to get the Supreme Court to hear the case, and he says that journalists are not above the law.
You objected to that decision. Did you feel that Time, Inc. -- you've been fighting for two years, risking jail -- had just pulled the rug out from under you?
COOPER: Well, I thought Time, Inc. had made the wrong decision. I thought Norm Pearlstine, the head of all the "Time" magazines, had done it in a thoughtful and honorable way, but I really disagreed with it, because I thought we were fighting for an important principle and I thought there would be a lot of fallout from handing over the notes. And I think events have borne that out.
KURTZ: You must have been upset.
COOPER: Well, I was, absolutely. And, you know, but I also, you know, respected the way he made the decision. But I was upset. I disagreed with it, and I've been saying so ever since.
KURTZ: Now, at that point, before this waiver from Rove, your wife, Mandy Grunwald, told me that your friends and even your lawyers said, you would now be crazy to go to jail, because they've got the notes. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, knows who your sources are, and even was threatening through your lawyer to charge you with criminal contempt, which meant you could have spent up to a year in jail or even more. Why at that point were you still willing to go to jail, after "Time" had surrendered basically your sources?
COOPER: Well, you're exactly right, Howie. A lot of people, including a lot of journalists, said to me, look, the confidence has been broken. You can't protect a source who has been outed essentially by your employer, by the handing over of these notes and e-mails.
I considered that, but I thought, in the end, that only the source could release me from my obligation, that a court couldn't do it, a corporation couldn't do it, that really I needed to get it personally from the source. And frankly, the idea of getting it from the source was not on my mind until that morning. I mean, I just assumed I was going to jail and I had resigned myself to that.
KURTZ: So even though Pat Fitzgerald knew at this point you talked to Rove, you talked to Libby, he had the notes, he had the e- mails, you still felt that you needed a personal reassurance in this case from Karl Rove, otherwise you were going to spend some time behind bars?
COOPER: Yeah. I mean, I wasn't even looking for the personal reassurance until that morning, when my lawyer called me, reading this quote from Rove's lawyer, essentially inviting us to go and, you know, seek a waiver. But you know, until then, I had basically resigned myself that I was going to have to do some time.
KURTZ: Now, unlike "Time," "The New York Times" has stood firm in this case. Judith Miller now finishing her second week in an Alexandria jail. I asked "The Times" executive editor Bill Keller about the impact of what "Time" did and what "The New York Times" was doing. Let's take a look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL KELLER, "NEW YORK TIMES" EXECUTIVE EDITOR: I imagine, you know, that the next occasion that Matt Cooper is in talking to a confidential source of his and promises to, you know, not to betray a person's identity, I can imagine that source saying, sure, I trust Matt Cooper, but do I trust "Time" magazine?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Are you worried about that?
COOPER: Well, let me just correct the way you set that up a little bit, because the situations aren't entirely analogous. Judith Miller was under subpoena, but "The New York Times" was never under subpoena, too. So they, you know, they...
KURTZ: They didn't face the same decision as a corporation.
COOPER: They didn't face the same decision as "Time."
KURTZ: But Keller's point is that next time you've got a source, look, I'll protect you, you've got to tell me this sensitive information, they may trust you but they may not trust "Time."
COOPER: Well, you know, that's possible as a fallout from this decision. I think, you know, if you look at the record that "Time" did take it all the way to the Supreme Court, that this was, you know, kind of an anomalous case, to say the least...
KURTZ: But two other "Time" correspondents, as you know, brought some e-mails from their sources to a meeting with Norm Pearlstine, the sources saying we don't know if we can cooperate with "Time" in the future.
COOPER: Well, this is one of the things I was concerned about when I argued for, you know, holding out, because I thought that there might be fallout like this. But you know, I think, you know, I think "Time" reporters themselves will take it upon themselves to put less in e-mail, you know, to put less in electronic form that the company owns and protect things better. And I think, you know, "Time" will continue to rely on confidential sources. And I think their wariness will ease with time, at least I hope so.
KURTZ: Matt Cooper, you have had a two-year battle on this. I'm sure it's been very draining. You've testified now before the grand jury. You've avoided going to jail, which looked like a very real prospect. How do you cover the White House now? Can you talk to Karl Rove? Can you talk to Lewis Libby? Can you have conversations with them that aren't on the record?
COOPER: Well, I've got to step back and see about all that after all this. It's been a weird two years. You know, I'm used to being a reporter and not in front of microphones and such, and I'd like to get back to that. And that's why this week, after talking to the grand jury, I felt very comfortable getting back into the role of reporter, and simply, since grand jury rules don't prohibit me from telling my story, I just told the readers of "Time" what I told the grand jury, and hopefully that will put this chapter behind me.
KURTZ: Well, we appreciate you talking to us, and not on double super secret background.
COOPER: Never for you, Howie.
KURTZ: Matt Cooper, thanks very much for joining us.
