scooter

so much info keeps coming out about the plame-name scandal that only the most diligent can keep up with it all. and i wasn't the most diligent blogger this weekend: i spent much of the weekend working on a new poster-sized collage to show (and possibly sell) at the collage show on august 12.

matt cooper has written about his grand jury testimony, releasing some new facts:

Time magazine's Matthew Cooper says a 2003 phone call with White House political adviser Karl Rove was the first he heard about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently working for the CIA.

Giving a first-person account of his role in a case that nearly landed him in jail, the reporter recalled that Rove told him, "I've already said too much" after revealing that the wife of the former ambassador apparently was with the CIA.

Cooper speculated in the piece, released Sunday, that Rove could have been "worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

"I don't know, but that signoff has been in my memory for two years," Cooper wrote.

"i've alreasy said too much" doesn't sound to me like he was late for a meeting. sounds to me like rove knew damn well he shouldn't be talking about plame's agency status.

but that's not all; we also learned that cheney's chief of staff, lewis "scooter" libby, was also one of cooper's sources:

Writing an account of a conversation he had with Libby, Cooper said, ''Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too' or words to that effect'' when he asked if Libby had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Africa to investigate the possible sale of uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons.

back in 2003 when scott mcclellan and bush were stating that the idea that rove was involved was "ridiculous", they were saying the same thing about scooter. so now we know they've lied about two administration leakers, at the very least.

and it's looking like plame's name wasn't the only classified info that was leaked; there's also been a lot of talk about a june 10, 2003 memo that was apparently circulated around white house circles, documenting how plame allegedly recommended her husband for the fact-finding trip to niger where he discovered that the uranium stories were bunk. some bloggers, like dkos's pollyusa, were on top of this memo story days ago, and as pollyusa points out, the CIA has long disputed the memo's contents:

Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

of course, leaking the memo's contents was illegal regardless of whether its contents were true or false. but if false, that just makes it worse.¶