Editor and Publisher has the complete transcript of his remarks, along with those of his lawyer, Richard Sauber
But Laurie P. Cohen and Anne Marie Squeo write in the Wall Street Journal: "Much of the grand-jury testimony focused on Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to President Bush, a person who talked to Mr. Cooper said.
"The tenor of the questions suggests that the special prosecutor, who has kept even the most basic details of his investigation under wraps, is interested in finding out exactly what Mr. Rove told Mr. Cooper, and the accuracy of notes Mr. Cooper took on the conversation."
Freeing Judith Miller
Blogger Digby points out that Cooper's lawyer says in those remarks that he felt it would have actually been a breach of confidentiality to contact Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer -- until Luskin was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying, "If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it's not Karl he's protecting."
Digby complains: "Rove could have made it clear, though legal channels, during the solid year that Fitzgerald was litigating this, that he didn't expect Cooper to keep his confidence, if that's what he was doing. He obviously knew that there was a battle royale going on between Time magazine and the special prosecutor and he knew that he'd spoken to Cooper. He could have let it be known that if Cooper was going to all this trouble over him, he needn't bother."
But here's what that makes me think: if reporters want to help get New York Times reporter Judith Miller out of jail, let's contact every conceivable person who might have been her source, and ask them (or their lawyers): if for some reason Judy Miller were in jail thinking that she's protecting you, would that be a mistake? Would you tell that to her lawyer?
Let's start with Rove, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams, Cheney national security adviser John Hannah, counselor Dan Bartlett, press secretary Scott McClellan, former press secretary Ari Fleischer -- and every other person's name who has ever even remotely been attached to this story in the past.
What have we got to lose? Is anyone with me, or shall I get going myself.
Yesterday's Grilling
Here's the text of yesterday's briefing , Day Three of the McClellan pinata party.
"I think we've exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days," McClellan said early on, evidently hoping the corps would stop asking him about Rove.
"You haven't even scratched the surface," said one reporter. "It hasn't started," said another.
Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey write in Newsweek.com that the history of what are now clearly inaccurate statements about Rove's involvement "leaves White House aides with only one escape route, short of telling the full story about what Rove said and what Bush knew. That escape route is to fall back on personal charm and goodwill. The only problem is that five years into this administration, and three years after the searing experience of the run-up to war in Iraq, there's not a lot of goodwill left to go around. . . .
