GOP rallies to defend Rove as Democrats step up call for ouster

WASHINGTON — Republicans mounted an aggressive and coordinated defense of Karl Rove yesterday, contending the White House's top political adviser did nothing improper or illegal when he discussed a covert CIA official with a reporter.

With a growing number of Democrats calling for Rove's resignation, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and congressional Republicans sought to discredit Democratic critics and knock down allegations of possible criminal activity.

"The angry left is trying to smear" Rove, said RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, a Rove protégé.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration unlawfully leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the news media. The White House has said previously that Rove was not involved in the episode. However, a recently disclosed internal Time magazine e-mail shows that Rove mentioned Plame, albeit not by name, to reporter Matthew Cooper before her name and affiliation became public in July 2003.

The grand jury is to hear from Cooper today.

The emerging GOP strategy — devised by Mehlman and other Rove loyalists outside of the White House — is to try to undermine the Democrats calling for Rove's ouster, play down Rove's role and wait for President Bush's forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy, according to several high-level Republicans.

The White House said Bush retains full confidence in Rove, but for a second day it would not answer a barrage of questions about his role in the leak scandal on the grounds that the investigation is not complete.

However, the RNC weighed into the controversy in a major fashion. Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse Democrats of dirty politics and argue that Rove was guilty of nothing more than discouraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday.

"Republicans should stop holding back and go on the offense: Fire enough bullets the other way until the Supreme Court [nomination] overtakes" events, said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

Prominent congressional Democrats, meanwhile, mounted a full court press against the White House, demanding the president send Rove packing.

"The White House's credibility is at issue here, and I believe very clearly Karl Rove ought to be fired," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who lost his bid to unseat Bush last fall.

And standing next to him at a Capitol Hill news conference, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., a likely 2008 presidential contender, nodded in agreement.

Rove has not been asked by senior White House officials if he did anything illegal or potentially embarrassing to Bush, aides said.

"No one has asked him what he told grand jury. No one has deemed it appropriate," said a senior White House official who requested anonymity. "What you all need to figure out is does this amount to a crime?"

Legal experts said the answer was far from clear. It hinges on whether Rove knew that Plame was a covert agent and blew her cover anyway. It's a tough legal hurdle for Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who has been investigating the Plame case for more than 18 months.

"He has to find somebody who would say Rove knew that she was covert, that he knew that the government was making an effort to hide her identity," said Philip Heymann, former deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. "It would appear he is working very, very hard to prove that, because without it you don't have a crime."

Privately, even Rove's staunchest supporters said the situation could explode if Fitzgerald accuses Rove or any other high-level official of committing a crime.

Fitzgerald "is the problem for the White House, and we have no idea what he knows," said William Kristol, a conservative commentator with close White House ties.

Bush said in June 2004 that if any White House official were involved, he would be fired. The president yesterday twice declined to answer questions on whether Rove should be dismissed.

The controversy involves Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA to Niger in February 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy nuclear material.

After the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003, Wilson suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

After Wilson went public, columnist Robert Novak reported that he had been told by two administration officials that the Niger trip had been suggested by Wilson's wife, Plame.

Whatever the legal considerations in the case, the emerging record shows that the White House was involved in an active effort to discredit Wilson after he went public with his criticism.

According to the Time magazine e-mail, the conversation between Cooper and Rove took place a few days before Novak's column appeared in July 2003. Cooper says Rove raised questions about Wilson's credibility.

Rove has maintained that he neither knew Plame's name nor leaked it to anyone.

Material from Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Dallas Morning News and The Associated Press is included

in this report.