Rove Worrier

Richard Keil writes for Bloomberg: "Rove testified Wednesday for the fifth time before a federal grand jury probing the case, and [people familiar with the case] cited potentially ominous signs for him. Among other things, they said, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald declined to give him any assurance after his testimony that he won't be charged. . . .

"Sometime in the first five months of 2004, Rove's attorney Robert Luskin was alerted to Rove's contact with Cooper during a discussion with another Time reporter, Viveca Novak. Luskin later found and turned over to prosecutors an e-mail written by Rove to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley shortly after Rove's talk with Cooper. In it, Rove wrote that he tried to wave the Time reporter away from following the Wilson story. . . .

"Rove testified Wednesday he still doesn't recall having spoken with Cooper, the people familiar said."

Firedoglake blogger Jane Hamsher does a nice job of analyzing the two conflicting reports of how Rove is using the Novak-Luskin conversation in his defense.

It's a little complicated, but in the version of the defense team's argument related by related by Jim VandeHei of The Washington Post, the Viveca Novak tip took place before Rove's first grand jury appearance. In this sequence of events, for Rove to lie to the grand jury about his conversation with Cooper would have been suicidal -- because he already knew that people at Time were going to tell Fitzgerald he was Cooper's source. So since Rove isn't suicidal, there's no other logical explanation for his testimony except that he honestly didn't remember.

In the version of the defense team's argument related by Shuster , the Viveca Novak tip came after Rove's first grand jury appearance and led to Luskin finding the e-mail. Then Rove, faced with the evidence, went back to the grand jury and acknowledged that the conversation must have taken place.

Novak herself has said he doesn't remember exactly when she met with Luskin.

Rove's New Spokesman

Mark Corallo's name is suddenly popping up as Rove's spokesman.

Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig wrote in The Washington Post in October that Rove was "making contingency plans, which included having allies begin to assemble a legal and political team in case he is eventually indicted.

"Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for the Justice Department, would be part of the public relations defense team, according to a person familiar with the plan. Corallo is no stranger to high-profile defenses. He was spokesman for former representative Bob Livingston (R-La.), who was forced to step aside as the incoming speaker of the House in 1998 after admitting an extramarital affair."

Corallo specializes in "crisis management" now. Here's his bio .

Corallo told me this morning that he was hired by Luskin in October.