MR. RUSSERT:  Let's go through what you know with you and our viewers.  This is the Robert Novak column July 4, 2003.

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.  Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger. ... The CIA says its counterproliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."

And then on this Friday, we learned this.

"Karl Rove...spoke with the columnist Robert Novak [on July 8, 2003] as he was preparing an article...that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.  Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.  After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist:  `I heard that, too.'"

Now, Matt Cooper's original article, July 17:  "And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched to Niger..."

And we learned this.  Matt Cooper's e-mail outlining his conversation with Karl Rove on which he based his column.

"Friday morning, July 11, 2003...Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief. ... `Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins. ... please don't source this to rove or even wh'"--White House.  "...Cooper wrote that Rove offered him `a big warning' not to `get too far out on Wilson.'  Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by" the director of the CIA, "George Tenet--or Vice President Dick Cheney.  Rather, `it was, Karl Rove said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues, who authorized the trip.'"

Mr. Mehlman, based on that--and you just heard Matt Cooper say the first time he learned that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was from Karl Rove, wasn't that a leak of something that should not have been leaked?

MR. KEN MEHLMAN:  Tim, it was not.  What's most amazing, if you think about it, is we wouldn't have been having this show last week.  Mr. Fitzgerald was conducting his investigation last week.  What's changed?  You hit the nail on the head what's changed.  Two stories have come out this week, both of which have the effect of exonerating and vindicating Mr.  Rove, not implicating him. And what's so amazing and what's so outrageous, in my judgment, is, despite the fact that this investigation is ongoing, despite the fact that Mr. Rove and other people at the White House are cooperating fully with Pat Fitzgerald, Democrat partisans on the Hill have engaged in a smear campaign where they have attacked Karl Rove on the basis of information which actually vindicates and exonerates him, not implicates him.

That information says Karl Rove was not Bob Novak's source, that Novak told Rove, not the other way around, and it says that Karl warned Matt Cooper about Joe Wilson not to get too overactive.  Karl was right.  Joe Wilson was wrong on numerous fronts.

MR. RUSSERT:  But Mr. Rove did say to Robert Novak "I heard that, too," and Mr. Novak used him as a confirming source.  And, two, Matt Cooper said he learned of her existence as a CIA operative from Karl Rove.

MR. MEHLMAN:  Well, Tim, these same stories also suggested that Karl Rove heard the first time about it from another reporter.  It suggested that he was not Bob Novak's initial source, and that Bob Novak never said, "I'm asking for corroboration."  There was a chat going on.  But here's the point.  We don't know this stuff.  We're prejudging this morning.  And that's why it's so outrageous that this past week, John Kerry, who was the nominee for president of the United States by the Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton, the first lady of the United States, Harry Reid, the Democrat leader in the Senate, would attack Karl Rove, call for him to lose his job, call for his national security clearance to be taken away.  Every Democrat voted for that to happen on the basis of prejudging a case when the information actually exonerates and vindicates.  It doesn't implicate.  It's wrong, it's outrageous, and folks involved in this, frankly, owe Karl Rove an apology.

MR. RUSSERT:  One more point.  I'll bring in Mr. Podesta.  When one is given classified clearance, they are asked to sign an oath, and they are given a briefing book with form--Standard Form 312, it's called.  And if you read this briefing book, it says this:  "Before...confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of"--"SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified.  If it has not...confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure."

So by confirming a story from Robert Novak or sharing information with Matt Cooper, no matter where it came from, if, in fact, it was classified information, without seeking to determine whether it was declassified, it is an unauthorized disclosure.

I'm certainly happy that George W. Bush and Karl Rove are not Democrats. If they were, just imagine the mess this country would be in right now, even worse than the mess it is in.

First, there would be cries of "treason" directed at Mr. Rove from the Republican ranks. Some of the more overheated members of Congress would demand that he be taken immediately out back of the Capitol and shot by a firing squad.

After all, he revealed the identity of a covert CIA agent, did he not?-George McEvoy, Palm Beach Post