(Promoted from the diaries by Steven D)

Viveca Novak:

    “Did I take notes at those meetings? No. Luskin was more likely to speak freely if he didn’t see me committing his words to paper.”

During such unique meetings, I wouldn’t take notes either, not to stall the conversation and let someone open up with information I needed. However, I have never met a reporter who wouldn’t jot down the useful knowledge gained during these special meetings, especially with the lawyer of the Karl Rove. Or would she have more important conversations in her career than these with a White House under pressure from DOJ and later prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

To keep any date with a person, sure she would have kept it in her agenda, as would Bob Luskin, as these weren’t four or five meetings by chance at the same place —

    We’d occasionally meet for a drink – he didn’t like having lunch – at Café Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. “Well,” he said, “You’re sitting next to Karl Rove’s lawyer.” I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin’s liberal sympathies were no secret …

Surprise, surprise what do you know! It’s Rove’s lawyer.

Rove’s Last Line of Defense
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Bob Luskin is partner and works on same floor as Benjamin Ginsberg, chief legal counsel; both are partners at the law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs, provided outside counsel to the Bush re-election campaign as well as to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald …

WASHINGTON (CNN) Oct. 3, 2003 — White House counsel Alberto Gonzales sent a notice to all White House employees after receipt of a letter from the Justice Department seeking documents in the probe into the leak of a CIA operative’s name.

  ««  click pic for CNN Report with links

When did John Ashcroft recuse himself and when did Patrick Fitzgerald step in?

Why Did Attorney General Ashcroft Remove Himself From The Valerie Plame Wilson Leak Investigation?
Signs that a Key Witness May Have Come Forward
John W. Dean @ FindLaw’s Legal Commentary

On December 30, Deputy Attorney General Comey held a press conference to announce that Ashcroft had removed himself from the investigation. Comey said that the investigation would instead be headed by Fitzgerald. Of note to me, was Comey’s comment that “this has come together really in the last week” — meaning, apparently, the week of December 22-26 — the Christmas holiday week during which the FBI raised the prospect of a grand jury.

As Comey explained, given Fitzgerald’s U.S. Attorney status — which will be continuing concurrent with his “special counsel” status — there will be no interruption in the investigation. Comey noted that if Fitzgerald “needs to issue a subpoena involving the media, for example, or if he wants to grant immunity to somebody,” he will not have to obtain approval of the Justice Department. (The reference to the media certainly hints at subpoenaing Novak’s phone records, or calling him before the grand jury — again suggesting progress in the inquiry.)

On January 2, NBC News reported that the FBI was focusing on the White House as the probable source of the leak. It also reported that the FBI had asked White House staffers “to sign a form releasing reporters from any promises of confidentiality they may have made to their sources.”

What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald – (TIME Dec. 11, 2005)

Fitzgerald asked how often Luskin and I met during the period from fall 2003 to fall 2004 (about five times), when, where and so forth. I had calendar entries that helped but weren’t entirely reliable. Did I take notes at those meetings? No. Luskin was more likely to speak freely if he didn’t see me committing his words to paper. Did Luskin ever talk to me about whether Rove was a source for Matt on the subject of Wilson’s wife?

That was the “chicken bone” Fitzgerald had referred to, the conversation Luskin had told him about that got me dragged into the probe. Here’s what happened. Toward the end of one of our meetings, I remember Luskin looking at me and saying something to the effect of “Karl doesn’t have a Cooper problem. He was not a source for Matt.“

I responded instinctively, thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, “Are you sure about that? That’s not what I hear around TIME.” He looked surprised and very serious. “There’s nothing in the phone logs,” he said. In the course of the investigation, the logs of all Rove’s calls around the July 2003 time period–when two stories, including Matt’s, were published mentioning that Plame was Wilson’s wife–had been combed, and Luskin was telling me there were no references to Matt. (Cooper called via the White House switchboard, which may be why there is no record.)

… If I could have a do-over, I would have kept my mouth shut; since I didn’t, I wish I had told my bureau chief about the exchange. Luskin walked me to my car and said something like, “Thank you. This is important.”

What is astonishing, just like Bob Woodward with WaPo and Judith Miller with NYT, Viveca Novak did not confide with her editor she had spoken with Rove’s lawyer Bob Luskin¹ on the Valerie Plame case, in which TIME was involved through journalist Matt Cooper. Even at the time in November 2005, Viveca Novak spoke with Fitzgerald in the office of her personal lawyer Schuelke, without informing TIME magazine. Interesting to read Ms Novak described Bob Luskin with liberal sympathies for representing Mark Middleton.

Bob Luskin¹ – Member of Phi Beta Kappa– just like George H. Bush but also Patrick Fitzgerald and David Boies.

Lawrence O’Donnell – Rove’s Lawyer an On-the-Record Liar

    But on Friday, Nov. 18–when I was on deadline, writing, ironically, about Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward‘s newly discovered role in the investigation–my lawyer called and told me Fitzgerald did indeed want me under oath. I realized that I now needed to share this information with Jay Carney, our Washington bureau chief. On Sunday, Nov. 20, I drove over to his house to tell him. He then called Jim Kelly, the managing editor. Nobody was happy about it, least of all me.

It really matters …
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My personal feeling ::

WH and trustworthy journalists joint forces as they were coming under attack by DOJ Patrick Fitzgerald. Their line of defense was the protection under the 1st Amendment as they would have liked to keep all WMD info under wraps in dark secrecy.

As I analyze the sequence of events, Vaveca Novak was set up by Bob Luskin to be used at his discretion at a later date in an attempt to fool DOJ Patrick Fitzgerald. Just as in the case of Judith Miller and Bob Woodward, this meant a delay in the investigation but hasn’t changed the chances of an indictment, on the contrary.

Glad some persons from CIA HQ and federal prosecutors are steadily moving forward to our common goal.

  «« click on pic for BooMan’s article

Is a Rove Indictment Coming Soon?  

Viveca Novak: Trouble Comes in Threes
Jane Hamsher – The Huffington Post – 12.12.2005

But her contrition is deeply suspect and seems to fall into the category of “sorry I got caught.” Her actions over the past two years clearly indicate that her loyalty was to herself first, her good friend Robert Luskin second, and any sense of obligation she felt toward Time Magazine, her colleague Matt Cooper or journalistic principles was only incidental, if at all.

Her tale as related in Time is embarassing. She thinks she may have had the fated conversation with Luskin in January, but then again it might be May or March. Ms. Novak volunteers that Luskin was “more likely to speak freely if he didn’t see me committing his words to paper.” We presume he did not follow her home and rip the pen from her hand to prevent her from documenting the conversation forthwith.

It’s certainly not reporting if you can’t remember when it took place and you have no notes about something quite relevant to the story you are currently working on. Further, it’s not entirely clear that this is the whole story. As emptywheel notes, if the conversation did happen in March — and it appears Fitzgerald thinks it did, although Viveca seems to habitually knock back several glasses of wine before keeping her calendar — this was two months before Matt Cooper was specifically subpoenaed.

[…]

It just goes downhill from there. Even knowing that this interaction with Luskin was critical, she does not tell her editors that it occurred. When her coworker Matt Cooper is facing jail time, she doesn’t come forward. Even after she is contacted by Luskin and told she has now become part of the story, she hires an attorney but seeks to hide her involvement from her employers.

“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

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