THE FAT LADY WARMS UP!

Rove, Libby Accounts in CIA Case Differ With Those of Reporters
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

WHAT NOVAK HAS SAID:

Newsday, July 22, 2003 - "Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.""

Referring to the Newday interview from July 22nd, Novak says"[T]hat was an interview right after the column appeared....That isn't very artfully put and what I was trying to say was that I didn't do an investigative report in the CIA, going into the bowels of the CIA talking to agents - what I meant was that the senior official had given me her name."Karl Rove, CNN Interview, August 31, 2004.