Friday, July 22, 2005

''Rove and Libby: Perjurers?''

"Bloomberg is reporting today that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby gave testimony to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak scandal that directly contradicts accounts given by reporters.

Libby told the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, that NBC's Tim Russert was the first person to tell him about Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative. Karl Rove said he first heard about Plame's identity from conservative columnist Robert Novak, who was the first person to reveal her identity to the public. But Russert testified that he didn't tell Libby about Plame, and Novak gave a different story than Rove's to the special prosecutor. Republicans have built their defenses of Karl Rove around the argument that he didn't violate the exact letter of the law in revealing Valerie Plame's identity. But perjury is a much simpler matter.

If Rove and Libby did give false testimony to the grand jury, then there is no question that they committed a crime. Will President Bush finally keep his promise to fire anyone who was involved in leaking Valerie Plame's identity?"-from the DNC.

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