White House maintains confidence in Rove

Grand jury involvement
He said the legal issue should be resolved by the grand jury. Begala also said the White House has a political problem because “people are going to look at this crowd and say, Gee, we can’t trust a thing they say after the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) controversy.’ “

New York Times reporter Judith Miller is in jail for refusing to reveal who in the administration talked to her about Plame.

Cooper had also planned to go to jail rather than talk, but at the last minute he agreed to cooperate with investigators when a source, Rove, gave him permission to do so. Cooper’s employer, Time Inc., also turned over Cooper’s e-mail and notes.

One of the e-mails was a note from Cooper to his boss in which he said he had spoken to Rove, who described the wife of former U.S. Ambassador and Bush administration critic Joe Wilson as someone who “apparently works” at the CIA, Newsweek magazine reported.

It said “Wilson’s wife” — not CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney — authorized a trip by Wilson to Africa. The purpose was to check out reports that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium for use in nuclear weapons.

Rove’s conversation with Cooper took place five days after Plame’s husband suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. Wilson’s trip to Africa provided the basis for his criticism.

Robert Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, said his client did not disclose Plame’s name. Luskin declined to say how Rove found out that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA and refused to say how Rove came across the information that it was Wilson’s wife who authorized his trip to Africa.

On Tuesday, Joseph Wilson commented publicly for the first time since the new Cooper e-mail surfaced.

“I have said all along that Rove was intimately involved in the smear campaign launched after the [Novak] article appeared," he told NBC News in an off-camera conversation. "Now to find out he talked to Matt Cooper before then only compounds the outrage at the abuse of power.”

Groups want Rove's security clearances suspended
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and a private group, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, called on Bush to suspend Rove's security clearances, shutting him out of classified meetings.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked the Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee to hold a hearing at which Rove would testify.

Rove should resign or the president should fire him, said Tom Matzzie, Washington director of the liberal advocacy group, MoveOn PAC.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Rove to detail any conversations he had about Plame before her name surfaced publicly in Novak's column.

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