National Journal: Novak Promised Karl Rove Smooth Sailing in Plame Outing While Ashcroft Briefed

Murray Waas has a stunning (at least to me, regardless of how much crap has already come to light) story about the Valerie Plame/CIA operative outing now under investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, with former Attorney General John Ashcroft's nasty little prints all over it:

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

In the early days of the CIA leak probe, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was briefed on a crucial conversation between Robert Novak and Karl Rove.

Suspicious that Rove and Novak might have devised a cover story during that conversation to protect Rove, federal investigators briefed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the matter in the early stages of the investigation in fall 2003, according to officials with direct knowledge of those briefings.

Ashcroft oversaw the CIA-Plame leak probe for three months until he recused himself and allowed Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to be named to take over the investigation on December 30, 2003. Ashcroft received routine briefings about the status of the investigation from October to December of that year.

Sources said that Ashcroft received a special briefing on the highly sensitive issue of the September 29 conversation between Novak and Rove because of the concerns of federal investigators that a well-known journalist might have been involved in an effort to not only protect a source but also work in tandem with the president's chief political adviser to stymie the FBI.

If true, it makes it rather obvious that Ashcroft should have acted in the best interests of the country and national security, but instead sat his fat self-righteous ass on it to protect his beluffed president, George Bush and his "brain" Rove.