By: E&P Staff The mystery deepened today over top White House aide Karl Rove's involvement in the Plame case and how strongly special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is interested in that. The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports today that Fitzgerald "still appears to want more answers about Rove's role" and apparently is "focused on" his conversations with Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who has now agreed to testify in the matter.
Yesterday The New York Times reported that Cooper?s dramatic reprieve from jail, after his unnamed sourced freed him from their confidentiality agreement, came after he got a personal okay from Rove. At the same time, The Post reported that Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, denied that Rove had called him.
"Yesterday, however," Balz reports, "Luskin declined to comment on a New York Times report that the release came as a result of negotiations involving Rove's and Cooper's attorneys, nor would he speculate that Cooper was released from his pledge in some other fashion than a direct conversation with Rove. 'I'm not going to comment any further,' Luskin said."
Balz also noted that Luskin's previous confirmation that Rove had spoken to Cooper two years ago "appeared at odds with previous White House statements. In retrospect, however, these statements -- which some interpreted as emphatic denials -- were in fact carefully worded."
Rove told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Valerie Plame, CIA operative and wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was "fair game," according to an October 2003 report in Newsweek. "At a minimum Fitzgerald could turn up embarrassing information that may yet become public about how the Bush White House operates," Balz writes today.
"Although the president has encouraged full cooperation with the special prosecutor," he adds, "administration officials have not appeared eager to explain fully their roles in the Wilson matter."
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