Treasongate - Karl Rove timeline

1970: At the age of nineteen and while a protege of Donald Segretti (later convicted as a Watergate conspirator), Karl Rove sneaked into the campaign office of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon and stole some letterhead, which he used to print fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Admitting to the incident much later, Rove said, "I was nineteen and I got involved in a political prank."

1986: Just before a crucial debate in the election for governor of Texas, Karl Rove announced that his office had been bugged by the Democrats. There was no evidence of this, and it was later discovered that he had bugged his own phone to garner media coverage.

2001: In March 2001, Rove met with executives from Intel, successfully advocating a merger between a Dutch company and an Intel company supplier. Rove owned $100,000 in Intel stock at the time. In June 2001, Rove met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. At the time, Rove held almost $250,000 in drug industry stocks. On 30 June 2001, Rove divested his stocks in 23 companies, which included more than $100,000 in each Enron, Boeing, General Electric, and Pfizer. On 30 June 2001, the White House admitted that Rove was involved in administration energy policy meetings, while at the same time holding stock in energy companies including Enron.

2003: August 29th, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson alleged that Rove leaked the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. The leak was a potential violation of federal law. Wilson, who in February 2002 investigated claims of attempted uranium ore purchases by Iraq from Niger, wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times, published July 6th, which suggested that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence findings to justify war against Iraq. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he had spoken directly with Rove about the leak and that "he was not involved" in leaking Plame's identity to the news media. McClellan said, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved... It was a ridiculous suggestion" and "It's not true."

2003: In September 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the leak. Rove was identified by the New York Times in connection to the Plame leak on October 2nd 2003, in an article that both highlighted Attorney General John Ashcroft's employment of Rove in three previous political campaigns and which pointed to Ashcroft's potential conflict of interest in investigating Rove. After recusing himself from the case, Ashcroft appointed Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on December 31 to pursue an investigation into the leak, working initially from White House telephone records turned over to the FBI in October 2003.

2003:
October 6th- President George Bush, who has repeatedly denied knowing the identity of the leaker, called the leak a "criminal action" for the first time, stating "[i]f anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker."

October 7th- Bush stated to the press "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."

October 8th- White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that "no one has more of an interest in getting to the bottom of this than the White House does, than the President does."

October 10th- After the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor two other officials whom he had personally questioned – Elliot Abrams, a national security aide, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – were involved.

2004: Karl Rove stated his own public denials, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name." On June 10th 2004, President Bush pledged to fire any individuals involved in the leaking of classified information.

2005:
July 1st- Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst on the McLaughlin Group stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of... for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time Magazine's going to do with the grand jury." The document dump has since occurred.

July 2nd- Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that his client spoke to Time reporter Matt Cooper "three or four days" before Plame's identity was first revealed in print by commentator Robert Novak. (Cooper's article in Time, citing unnamed and anonymous "government officials," confirmed Plame to be a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Cooper's article appeared three days after Novak's column was published.) Rove's lawyer, however, asserted that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." This second statement has since been called into question by an e-mail, written three days before Novak's column, in which Cooper indicated that Rove had told him Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.

July 11th- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who had since become a grand jury witness himself, refused at a press conference to answer certain questions, saying that Bush Administration had made a decision not to comment on the case while it was still under investigation. McClellan declined to answer whether Rove had committed a crime. McClellan also declined to repeat prior categorical denials of Rove's involvement in the leak, nor would he state whether Bush would honor his prior promise to fire individuals involved in the leak. Although Democratic critics called for the immediate suspension of Rove's security clearances and access to meetings in which classified material was under discussion, Rove remained working in the White House. Neither Rove nor the President offered public comment on the unfolding scandal.

The Facts:
-Rove denied being responsible for the leak repeatedly, we now know there is no question Karl Rove lied and is indeed responsible for the leak.
-While Rove may not have specifically named the CIA agent, he identified who her husband was and that she was CIA, which is everything but saying her actual name. Can this minor technicality keep him from being convicted of treason? Possibly, but it certainly should lose him all security clearance and end his relationship with the White House.
-President Bush has stated he would fire anyone responsible with the leak, if he does not fire Rove, he will lose even more credibility than his 40% approval ratings because he will have once again been caught lying to the American public.

This should be huge, if the Democrats and the press don't seize this opportunity to destroy Rove and possibly Bush, they are complete idiots.

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