March 8, 2004: The American Prospect says Rove insisted he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rove said he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. This is contrary to what Rove's lawyer will later admit. 

June 3, 2004 President Bush announces he will hire attorney James E. Sharp if questioned by the investigation. 

June 24 2004: President Bush is interviewed for more than an hour regarding the incident. 

July 7, 2004 The Senate Select Intelligence Committee releases its "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq." The report documents and offers some explanations as to the many failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its estimates of Iraqi weapons programs. About Plame and Joe Wilson and the Niger trip, one CIA official said Plame "offered up his name" and Plame had written a memo recommending Joe Wilson for the trip given his connections to Nigerien officials and "lots of French contacts." (page 39) Vanity Fair's January 2004 article "Double Exposure" states Joe Wilson was representing a concern seeking business related to gold mining in Niger, a former French colony. As for the information Joe Wilson gained in Niger, CIA and State Department intelligence officials thought it was negligible and to the degree it was reliable either did not change intelligence assessments or further supported the assessment that Iraq had sought contacts with Niger regarding uranium. 

July 2004: In response to the Senate Intelligence Panel's Bipartisan Report Joe Wilson withdraws from his advisory role to the John Kerry campaign. The campaign removes the www.restorehonesty.com website. 

July 31, 2004 Rove says on CNN "Well, I’ll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name." On ABC, he had actually denied having any knowledge of the Plame leak. 

August 2004: In very careful language, Rove tells CNN, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name." This is interesting in that Rove may try to argue that he only revealed her identity as Joe Wilson's wife, not "Valerie Plame." Interestingly, "Plame" goes by her married name Valerie Joe Wilson, so if Novak had dug up her name on his own, rather than being given it by someone with access to CIA information, he'd have called her "Valerie Joe Wilson." This may even make Rove's claim that he didn't know her name (Valerie Joe Wilson) true. 

October 2004: Rove testifies before a grand jury investigating the leak of Plame's identity. Rove spent more than two hours testifying before the panel... Before testifying, Rove was interviewed at least once by investigators probing the leak. Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell were also interviewed, though none appeared before the grand jury... 

September 16, 2004: The Washington Post reports that Walter Pincus' source has revealed his own identity, letting Pincus off the hook that was still ensnaring Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper. 


February 15, 2005 A federal appeals court in Washington ruled that Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper may have witnessed a federal crime (disclosure by government officials of a CIA officer's identity), and would have to cooperate with the grand juries investigating the crime. 

June 27, 2005 : The Supreme Court of the United States declines to hear appeals by Miller and Cooper of the February 15 ruling above.[12] 

June 30, 2005 : Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.'s editor in chief agrees to provide documents concerning the confidential sources of Matthew Cooper to a grand jury . 

July 1, 2005 : Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, on the McLaughlin Group stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury." 

July 4, 2005: Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, admits to Newsweek that Rove did talk to reporters about Plame before Novak's story, contradicting Rove's assertion that he only spoke to reporters after Plame's identity was revealed. 

July 6: New York Times reporter Judith Miller goes to jail purportedly to protect the identity of the person who leaked the identity of a CIA agent. 

July 6: Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, told Newsweek that Rove "did not call Cooper" to give permission to Cooper to testify. These words will be revealed as intentionally misleading. The Washington Post swallows it whole, raising doubt that Rove was the leak. 

July 7: New York Times reports that Cooper's release to testify resulted from negotiations involving Rove's and Cooper's attorneys. Rove's attorney refuses to comment on intentionally misleading the press a day earlier. "I'm not going to comment any further," he said. 

July 10: Newsweek quotes Rove lawyer Robert Luskin as confirming that Rove was the source who gave information to Time reporter Matt Cooper under a pledge of confidentiality, and that he subsequently released him to testify about that conversation to a grand jury. 

July 2005: Michael Isikoff reports in Newsweek that Karl Rove spoke with Matt Cooper days before the Novak story. 

July 11, 2005: Rove's lawyer says, "Rove did not mention her name to Cooper." 

July 11, 2005: Cooper did not actually get a call from his "source" Rove. 

July 13: Matt Cooper confirmed that his source on the leak was President Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove after receiving a waiver from confidentiality signed by Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin. 

July 14: While on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, Joseph Joe Wilson speaks about Plame's covert status at the time of the leak. 

July 15: The Washington Times reports more on the story, with quotes from a former CIA agent indicating that Plame was not a covert agent, possibly corroborating Joe Wilson's statement on Blitzer's show, which Joe Wilson later clarified as a misinterpretation. 

July 15: Joe Wilson rejects the interpretation of the Associated Press and others that his words on the Blitzer show indicated that his wife was not a clandestine operative at the time of Novak's column. AP retracts their initial report, but it is already spread through various other news agencies.