More on Rove

Hi Gang,

It turns out that Karl Rove was sending emails around to other White House officials telling them he talked to reporters about Plame even before the story was printed. And yet the official White House position was that any suggestion that anyone in the White House was the source of the leak was "ridiculous."

Rove's version is that he was doing the reporters a favor by telling them that Former Ambassador Wilson's accusations about faulty intelligence in Iraq were unfounded (accusations that have since been shown to be 100% correct). Rove also claims that he did not learn about Plame's CIA position from another government official but rather from a journalist (who has not been identified yet).

To me it seems like there are three stories here. First, Rove defends himself by saying he was only trying to discredit Wilson (a whistle blower we now know to have been correct in his accusations). Second, regardless of whether Rove was the original source of the leak or not, he was certainly the source for the articles that first publicized Plame's identity. Third, even if Rove is not criminally liable for his role in the leak, this latest email revelation shows that the White House, as an institution, knew Rove's role in great detail right from the start but continued to lie about it to the press and - as Republicans liked to say during the Lewinski scandal - lie to the American people.

I'm curious about the legal ramifications of all this. What is the bare bones legal assessment of Rove's version of events?