Rove's Lawyer, Time Reporter Testify in CIA
Leak
The Washington Post
By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 9, 2005; Page A08
A special prosecutor questioned Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak under
oath yesterday about a conversation she had with the attorney for presidential
adviser Karl Rove that has become part of the CIA leak investigation, according
to a top editor at the magazine.
In another twist, the lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, was deposed on the same
issue last Friday, a source close to the case said.
Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's questions in both sessions focused
on the same subject: the conversation that Luskin and Novak, longtime friends,
had over drinks sometime in the first half of 2004 about Rove's potential
exposure in the probe.
Fitzgerald's decision to delve into the once-removed chat between a reporter
and the lawyer for the top Bush political adviser comes as the prosecutor
considers whether to charge Rove. For more than a year after the investigation
began, Rove failed to reveal to the FBI and the grand jury that he had
privately told another reporter for Time, Matthew Cooper, about the CIA role of
undercover operative Valerie Plame.
Novak was deposed a day after Fitzgerald spent three hours meeting with a
new grand jury in the leak inquiry. A previous grand jury investigating the
case indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
on Oct. 28 and then disbanded. At the time, Fitzgerald warned Luskin that Rove
remained under investigation, and he said in public filings that he would
probably present information to a new grand jury.
Fitzgerald has spent two years investigating whether White House officials
leaked Plame's name in the summer of 2003 to discredit allegations made by her
husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the Bush administration
twisted intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Viveca Novak is not related to columnist Robert D. Novak, who disclosed
Plame's identity in July 2003.
According to sources familiar with Rove's status, Luskin persuaded
Fitzgerald in late October to postpone indicting Rove by alerting Fitzgerald to
Luskin's previous conversation with Novak, among other things. Luskin argued
that these private discussions helped show Rove did not intentionally conceal
his conversation with Cooper from investigators. Rove has argued he forgot
about the chat he had with Cooper on the phone in the summer of 2003.
Sources familiar with their conversations say Novak's and Luskin's accounts
to Fitzgerald appear to conflict on when they spoke.
The timing of Rove's actions since the leak investigation began in September
2003 have been of keen interest to Fitzgerald, according to sources familiar
with the prosecutor's questions. Rove did not mention his contact with Cooper
to the FBI during interviews in 2003, or to the grand jury in February
2004.
He revealed to the grand jury that he spoke with Cooper on Oct. 15, 2004.
That was one month after Fitzgerald subpoenaed Cooper to testify about his
confidential conversations with administration sources other than Libby. It
also came two days after a federal judge ordered that Cooper cooperate.
Viveca Novak and Luskin refused to comment yesterday. Fitzgerald and his
spokesman have declined to comment on the Novak-Luskin conversation.
A source familiar with Novak's account said she believes the conversation
took place in March or May, and definitely took place after February 2004, when
Rove first testified before the grand jury.
But one person close to the case said the conversation took place before
Rove's first grand jury appearance in February. This person said the
conversation was not the event that led Rove to change his testimony.
Time's managing editor, Jim Kelly, said yesterday that the magazine will
publish Novak's account of her testimony in its Monday edition, and it will be
available in an online edition Sunday. Kelly said he did not yet know and could
not comment on the full details of Novak's testimony or Fitzgerald's questions
because he had not spoken with the reporter.
Novak was traveling from Washington to New York yesterday afternoon, he
said, and planned to brief him and other Time editors at the magazine's
headquarters about her testimony.
"To be fair, I need to speak with Viveca now that she has testified under
oath," he said. "We felt it important to let Viveca prepare for her testimony.
Now we'll be looking at the questions that have been raised by this whole
incident."
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