ConversationS?
I don't have any reason to challenge the story in general circulation that Vivac is going to testify tomorrow because Luskin dragged her into the picture in the waning days of Scooter's gainful employment as a civil servant. Still unexplained is why it took Fitzgerald over a month to get around to interviewing her, but we'll cast that into the realm of the unexplainable for the moment and move onto more entertaining conjecture.
WaPo:
Time magazine disclosed on Nov. 27 that one of its reporters, Viveca Novak, would soon answer Fitzgerald's questions about conversations she had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin in 2004. Sources familiar with the case said Luskin told Fitzgerald in October that those conversations would help buttress Luskin's argument that Rove did not intentionally conceal his contacts with reporters from the grand jury.When David Corn recounted his defense of Vivac, he indicated that there was just one conversation where she "pushed back" and said "this is not what I hear" after Luskin said he thought his client was in the clear. But the Nov. 27 Time article, and again the WaPo today, refer to "conversations." Plural. And seem to do so quite deliberately.
Fitzgerald originally asked for information on conversations taking place after May, 2004. A subsequent article in the NYT on December 2, 2005 -- which appear to have Luskin-esque sources -- said that:
Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, spoke in the summer or early fall of 2004 with Viveca Novak, a reporter for Time. In that conversation, Mr. Luskin heard from Ms. Novak that a colleague at the magazine, Matthew Cooper, might have interviewed Mr. Rove about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the case, the people said. (my emphasis)But on Saturday, December 3, the WaPo reported that "the conversation" took place before Rove's grand jury appearance in February 2004, and appears to be quite Viveca-centric in its sourcing.
It would appear that Mr. Luskin and Vivac may have spoken more than once on the topic. And it seems likely that when Luskin offered up his good friend Vivac in order to save his client, he told Fitzgerald that the relevant conversation (or conversations) happened a good while after Rove's testimony in February, 2004 where Rove presumably did not tell the grand jury about the Cooper conversation, because Fitzgerald's request for information starts in May 2004.
One can only imagine that Mr. Fitzgerald's eyes lit up and his response to the Dec. 3 WaPo article was "WTF?" It also seems like Vivac's memories of her Luskin chitchats might differ dramatically from Luskin's. Was Luskin planning on her pegging him to a February, 2004 (or earlier) conversation when he thought she would provide testimony exonerating his client? Was Fitzgerald the only one who read the Saturday article and said "WTF?"
It sounds quite probable that Vivac might not be providing the Rove-friendly testimony his lawyer was hoping for. If indeed there were multiple conversations and Vivac's recollections don't support the tight timeline that lead to the Hadley email's discovery and Rove's recantation of his earlier testimony in the way that it seems like it was originally relayed to Fitzgerald, this whole thing may just have blown up in Rover's pasty face.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 12/07/2005 10:11:00 PM
<< Home