# Hey, waittaminnit -- how did Karl Rove know Valerie Plame was CIA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2005, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292 "2005-07-13T03:21:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/41 "2005-07-15T15:15:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I hope you mean that in a purely literal, nonmetaphorical sense. 🙂 Of course. Given the way these guys toss the word “traitor” around, it would only b fitting that they be convicted of exactly that, and get the traditional punishment. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/42 "2005-07-15T15:34:23Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > According to the news today, Rove told the grand jury that he found out she was a CIA agent from journalists whose names he can’t recall. From the other Karl Rove thread in GD: a link to [this article](http://bnfp.org/neighborhood/Lemann_Rove_NYM.htm), with this quote (emphasis mine): \*Also, Rove’s pride in his knowledge of politics is so great that he has an evidently irresistible impulse to dispute, correct, or improve upon virtually anything anybody says on the subject, in a tone that’s half rehearsed lecture, half teasing one-upmanship. Mention that West Texas is conservative, and Rove will come right back and say no, there are actually four subregions in West Texas, each with its own distinct history and ideology, \*\*and then he’ll give detailed, decades-old election results in each one from memory. \*\* \* And this is a guy who can’t recall who told him who was a CIA agent? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/43 "2005-07-15T17:16:11Z")
It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. According to today’s Washington Post, Rove’s attorney once had to return more than $500,000 in legal fees paid to him. The client was a drug cartel member from South America who was convicted and the Justice Department determined that money used to pay the fee was “drug money.” Half of it was paid in gold bars. “Say, buddy, do you have change for a gold brick? I’d like to buy a newspaper.” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/44 "2005-07-15T18:07:55Z")
> [@plnnr](#): > > It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. > > According to today’s Washington Post, Rove’s attorney once had to return more than $500,000 in legal fees paid to him. The client was a drug cartel member from South America who was convicted and the Justice Department determined that money used to pay the fee was “drug money.” Half of it was paid in gold bars. > > “Say, buddy, do you have change for a gold brick? I’d like to buy a newspaper.” Get hired to defend a drug dealer, and your fee will very likely be drug money. That’s true whether your client is a drug lord or a street hood who can afford to hire someone rather than depend on a PD. My own attorney is a good buddy of mine, an old neighbor. He helped me with a speeding ticket and is now helping me revise my will. He’s a devout Mormon, very active in our community, has a nice family. I trust him implicitly. He also, in his criminal practice, defends some not very nice people. This is his job, and their right. Now, nobody in his right mind would accuse me of nefarious activity, just because my attorney defends wife beaters and car thieves, would they? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/45 "2005-07-15T18:24:46Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Get hired to defend a drug dealer, and your fee will very likely be drug money. That’s true whether your client is a drug lord or a street hood who can afford to hire someone rather than depend on a PD. > > My own attorney is a good buddy of mine, an old neighbor. He helped me with a speeding ticket and is now helping me revise my will. He’s a devout Mormon, very active in our community, has a nice family. I trust him implicitly. > > He also, in his criminal practice, defends some not very nice people. This is his job, and their right. > > Now, nobody in his right mind would accuse me of nefarious activity, just because my attorney defends wife beaters and car thieves, would they? Is it hard to carry the water when there is blood in it? [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week\_2005\_07\_10.php#006045](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006045) > [@](#): > > Eventually the Feds got the idea that the money Saccoccia had paid Luskin and his other attorneys for their services was itself part of the $137 million in drug money he was ordered to forfeit. Now, on the face of it this seems a bit unfair since under our system everyone is entitled to good representation and how was Luskin to know it was tainted money. > > Well, the prosecutors thought he should have gotten some inkling when Saccoccia started paying Luskin’s attorney’s fees in gold bars. > > Yep, you heard that right. Luskin got paid more than $500,000 of his attorney’s fees in gold bars from his client who was trying to appeal his conviction on charges that he laundered drug money through precious metals dealers. Who woulda thought that was drug money? > > Luskin insisted that he “never have, and never would, knowingly accept a fee that was the proceeds of illegal activities.” > > But when federal prosecutors finally got a chance to depose Luskin and Saccoccia’s other lawyers, they found that their lawyers’ fees had come in forms “such as gold bars, cash that was dropped off at hotels and trunks of cars, and money transfers from Swiss bank accounts.” > > Eventually, in 1998, Luskin came to a settlement with the government in which he agreed to cough up $245,000 of the money he’d gotten from Saccoccia. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/46 "2005-07-15T19:15:10Z")
Wonder if Bolton is the guy who leaked Val to Karl? That’d explain why the White House has been stonewalling on Congressional requests for his papers, anyay – incriminating evidence up the wazoo… ---
**Author:** ![Airblairxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Airblairxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airblairxxx)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/47 "2005-07-15T22:12:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > According to the news today, Rove told the grand jury that he found out she was a CIA agent from journalists whose names he can’t recall. He later confirmed it to Novak in a phone conversation Novak initiated, becoming the second of two senior administration sources credited in the column (saying “Oh, you know about it.”). \*\*The source of today’s news, who apparently believes Rove’s version of events, is anonymous. \*\* Good lord. The reports this morning came from the [New York Times (login required)](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/politics/15rove.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=bac819afc84e3590&hp&ex=1121486400&partner=homepage) and the [Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071500036.html). The Times apparently came first, but the Post further identified their source as “a lawyer involved in the case”. Hmm, two major newspapers break a story based on anonymous sources (which could be the same person), and the story, if true, exonerates Karl Rove. I call BULLSHIT. “The source of today’s news” could easily be Robert Luskin, Karl Rove’s lawyer. He probably shopped it around/fed it to two stupid news organizations who just don’t care if they’re being used, an attitude which got Judith Miller tossed in jail. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292/48 "2005-07-15T22:24:20Z")
> [@Airblairxxx](#): > > two major newspapers break a story based on anonymous sources (which could be the same person), and the story, if true, exonerates Karl Rove. Gonzalez or Luskin, Gonzalez or Luskin… I’m so CONFLICTED! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-waittaminnit-how-did-karl-rove-know-valerie-plame-was-cia/312292.md?page=2)