Some Damaging Details Emerging

Maybe I misread the latest stories about Karl Rove: I have enough respect for Tom Maguire's lengthy coverage of the issue that when he entitles a post The Emerging Case Against Karl Rove, it makes good sense to see what he has to say. Specifically, the Washington Post is reporting that the State Department memo that now appears to be the center of the the investigation mentioned Valarie Plame/Wilson in a paragraph marked 'S' for secret. Other names mentioned as being in a position to have read the memo include Dan Bartlett and, again, Ari Fleischer (who I believe was Novak's first source on the story, for no good reason).

Here's Tom on what it means:

A quick summing up - it is getting easier to make the case that Rove knew, or should have know, that the info he passed to Cooper was sensitive. In other words (his words, actually), Rove had said too much. But the IIPA looks like the wrong statute.

And the first leak to Novak may be innocuous, if his account, which matches Novak's, stands up.

Sidebar - Ari Fleischer's name is appearing in more articles. He and Steve Hadley are the forgotten men here.

Sorry, time does not permit more. OK, a bit more - the WaPo tells us that the paragraph mentioning Ms. Wilson was marked "S" for secret, but adds that she was in two sentences of a seven sentence paragraph. So, perhaps the other five sentences merited an "S" on June 10, but not in July?

Suppose, for example, that Ms. Wilson was mentioned in a paragraph saying that the CIA arranged a trip to Niger. That info may have been classified prior to the publication of Wilson's Op-Ed (which was OK'ed by the CIA).

Well, here is the Supreme Court tie-in - original intent matters! Special Counsel Fitzgerald has surely interviewed the author of the memo to learn just what is is he was attempting to indicate as classified, and whether it still had that status come July.

Stay tuned...