Evidence appears to be mounting for two criminal activities to have been committed by Karl Rove, the key White House advisor often referred to as “Bush’s Brain.”

According to the Newsweek story today, at 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003 Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper sent the following e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy:

“Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential)
“Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation…” “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]”
“it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.”

“The trip” that was being referred to was that of former ambassador Joseph Wilson February 2002 to investigate charges that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Nigeria which Wilson said he had found no evidence to support the claim. Wilson’s wife was the former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The leak of Plame’s identity was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. According to Murry Wass of The American Prospect “Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July… Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak’s column.”

But wait… Cooper’s e-mail about Rove was dated July 11, 2003, three days before Novak’s article was published! That means that Rove disclosed Plame’s identity to Cooper before it appeared in Novak’s column.

The evidence appears to be mounting for two criminal activities to have been committed by Karl Rove:

• First, the outing of the identity of a CIA operative. According to David Corn of The Nation: “This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison.
• Second, possible lying to the FBI and to a Grand Jury. We do know from the Newsweek story today and other sources, that Rove had testified before the grand jury “two or three times” and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. As I have stated in this blog, before if Karl Rove testified before the Grand Jury under oath that he was NOT the source of the Plame outing to Cooper when in fact he WAS the source, this could result in a perjury rap for Mr. Rove.