O.K., I realize this is going to sound far-fetched -- and maybe it even puts me in tin-foil cap territory. But something has always seemed suspect about that one Rove-to-Hadley e-mail that Rove dug up many months after the Rove-gate investigation began. It seemed to fit Rove's spin too perfectly.
The e-mail says:
"Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare-reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up, he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him, I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."
Now here's Cooper's account of the same phone conversation:
"As I told the grand jury--and we went over this in microscopic, excruciating detail, which may someday prove relevant--I recall calling Rove from my office at TIME magazine through the White House switchboard and being transferred to his office. I believe a woman answered the phone and said words to the effect that Rove wasn't there or was busy before going on vacation. But then, I recall, she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him. I recall saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected. "Don't get too far out on Wilson," he told me. I started taking notes on my computer, and while an e-mail I sent moments after the call has been leaked, my notes have not been.
"The grand jury asked about one of the more interesting lines in that e-mail, in which I refer to my conversation with Rove as being on "double super secret background," a line that's raised a few eyebrows ever since it leaked into the public domain. I told the grand jury that the phrase is not a journalistic term of art but a reference to the film Animal House, in which John Belushi's wild Delta House fraternity is placed on "double secret probation." ("Super" was my own addition.) In fact, I told the grand jury, Rove told me the conversation was on "deep background." I explained to the grand jury that I take the term to mean that I can use the material but not quote it, and that I must keep the identity of my source confidential.
"Rove went on to say that Wilson had not been sent to Niger by the director of the CIA and, I believe from my subsequent e-mails--although it's not in my notes--that Rove added that Dick Cheney didn't send him either...."
"...[My] notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings."
"...Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. 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. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it's not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much." This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don't know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years."
"A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can't find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don't recall doing so."
So, what makes Rove's e-mail to Hadley so suspicious -- that is, bogus-sounding -- to me is three things:
1. Notice how it conveniently mentions ONLY those aspects of the conversation that support Rove's spin that he was innocently warning a journalist away from publishing something inaccurate, while it leaves out all of the aspects that are more incriminating -- like his mentioning of Wilson's wife, her employment by the CIA, her specific job (WMD's) at the CIA, her alleged responsibility for sending Wilson, etc.
2. It inaccurately says, "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare-reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger." According to Cooper, who took notes during the entire conversation, the call had nothing to do with welfare reform. How likely is it that Rove, on the very same day that he spoke with Cooper, could have written an e-mail summary of the conversation to Hadley in which he screws the facts up about whether or not the topic of welfare reform was discussed? And how likely is it that this screw-up just happened to agree perfectly with the spin the Republicans were giving to the story around the same time? If I remember correctly, one of the talking points the Republicans were pimping at the time the e-mail surfaced was that Rove and Cooper's conversation was originally about welfare reform, and the Niger subject was just a quick, unexpected topic brought up afterwards. I'm not sure how this was supposed to help Rove's case exactly, but I guess they were thinking that it somehow showed that Rove was just innocently answering some questions about welfare reform when suddenly Cooper blind-sided him with the Niger scandal -- that there was nothing pre-meditated/conspiratorial about Rove's response? Whatever their thinking was, it seems to have been a big deal to both the Republicans and to Fitzgerald; as Cooper's article states, "A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter."
3. Rove appears to get another fact screwed up -- again, about a conversation that he has just had -- and the screw-up once again supports Rove's spin. He says, "I didn't take the bait." In what sense could that possibly be an accurate claim? He just told Cooper all of the key talking points about the Niger scandal (Wilson's wife works for the CIA, she sent him to Niger, etc.), put the discussion on "deep background," and at the end he even said, "I've already said too much." How is that not "taking the bait?" Is he once again getting the facts wrong about a conversation he has just had? Or is he lying to Hadley, assuring him that he didn't say anything he wasn't supposed to?
So, here's my suspicion: Rove either altered the contents of his e-mail to Hadley sometime after the investigation began or he never sent an e-mail to Hadley but created it later on to support the spin he was putting on the Cooper-conversation story. Does anyone know if it's possible to do either one of these things -- to either change the contents of an old e-mail or to make a newly created e-mail appear old? And if so, can either of these things be determined by a computer expert if Fitzgerald ever decided to look into it?
Update 12/03/05: Here is an interesting and relevant excerpt from a Washington Post story this morning:
New details emerged yesterday of Rove's version of how and when he came to remember the Cooper conversation. Shortly before his client's second appearance before the grand jury in October, Luskin personally conducted a review of thousands of e-mails Rove had sent during the crucial weeks in 2003, including those from accounts reserved for personal and political correspondence, a source familiar with the situation said.
Amid the e-mails, Luskin found one sent from Rove to Stephen J. Hadley, then deputy national security adviser, in which Rove mentioned his conversation with Cooper. The e-mail was written from Rove's government account, which investigators searched early in the inquiry. It is unclear why the e-mail was not discovered at that time.
Once found by Luskin, the e-mail was shared with Rove and then quickly turned over to Fitzgerald, the source said. Rove then testified that the e-mail "established that he had in fact had a conversation with Cooper," the source said.