His news conference yesterday...and there are a few real conservative economists left in the world..

Mr. Dobson quelled the controversy by saying that Karl Rove, the White House's deputy chief of staff, had not given him assurances about how a Justice Miers would vote. I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade, Mr. Dobson said last week. But even if Karl had known the answer to that--and I'm certain that he didn't because the president himself said he didn't know--Karl would not have told me that. That's the most incendiary information that's out there, and it was never part of our discussion.

It might, however, have been part of another discussion. On Oct. 3, the day the Miers nomination was announced, Mr. Dobson and other religious conservatives held a conference call to discuss the nomination. One of the people on the call took extensive notes, which I have obtained. According to the notes, two of Ms. Miers's close friends--both sitting judges--said during the call that she would vote to overturn Roe.

The call was moderated by the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association. Participating were 13 members of the executive committee of the Arlington Group, an umbrella alliance of 60 religious conservative groups, including Gary Bauer of American Values, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and the Rev. Bill Owens, a black minister. Also on the call were Justice Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court and Judge Ed Kinkeade, a Dallas-based federal trial judge.

Mr. Dobson says he spoke with Mr. Rove on Sunday, Oct. 2, the day before President Bush publicly announced the nomination. Mr. Rove assured Mr. Dobson that Ms. Miers was an evangelical Christian and a strict constructionist, and said that Justice Hecht, a longtime friend of Ms. Miers who had helped her join an evangelical church in 1979, could provide background on her. Later that day, a personal friend of Mr. Dobson's in Texas called him and suggested he speak with Judge Kinkeade, who has been a friend of Ms. Miers's for decades.

Mr. Dobson says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think.

What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?

Absolutely, said Judge Kinkeade.

I agree with that, said Justice Hecht. I concur.

Shortly thereafter, according to the notes, Mr. Dobson apologized and said he had to leave the discussion: That's all I need to know and I will get off and make some calls. (When asked about his comments in the notes I have, Mr. Dobson confirmed some of them and said it was very possible he made the others. He said he did not specifically recall the comments of the two judges on Roe v. Wade.)

Judge Kinkeade, through his secretary, declined to discuss the matter. Justice Hecht told me he remembers participating in the call but can't recollect who invited him or many specifics about it. He said he did tell the group that Ms. Miers was pro-life, a characterization he has repeated in public. But he says that when someone asked him about her stand on overturning Roe v. Wade he answered, I don't know. He doesn't recall what Judge Kinkeade said. But several people who participated in the call confirm that both jurists stated Ms. Miers would vote to overturn Roe.

The benign interpretation of the comments is that the two judges were speaking on behalf of themselves, not Ms. Miers or the White House, and they were therefore offering a prediction, not an assurance, about how she would come down on Roe v. Wade. But the people I interviewed who were on the call took the comments as an assurance, and at least one based his support for Ms. Miers on them.

The conference call will no doubt prove controversial on Capitol Hill, always a tinderbox for rumors that any judicial nominee has taken a stand on Roe v. Wade. Ms. Miers meets today with Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York, both stalwart Roe supporters, who surely will be interested to learn more about her views. After Mr. Dobson's initial comments about things . . . that I probably shouldn't know, Sen. Arlen Specter, the pro-Roe Judiciary Committee chairman, said, If there are backroom assurances and if there are backroom deals and if there is something that bears on a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote, I think that's a matter that ought to be known. He and ranking Democrat Pat Leahy of Vermont threatened to subpoena Mr. Dobson as a witness.

Some participants in the Oct. 3 conference call fear that they will be called to testify at Ms. Miers's hearings. If the call is as you describe it, an effort will be made to subpoena everyone on it, a Judiciary Committee staffer told me. It is possible that a tape or notes of the call are already in the hands of committee staffers. Some people were on speaker phones allowing other people to listen in, and others could have been on extensions, one participant told me.

Should hearings begin on Nov. 7 as is now tentatively planned, they would likely turn into a spectacle. Mr. Specter has said he plans to press Ms. Miers very hard on whether Roe v. Wade is settled law. She will have hearings like no nominee has ever had to sit through, Chuck Todd, editor of the political tip sheet Hotline, told radio host John Batchelor. One slipup on camera and she is toast.

Should she survive the hearings, liberal groups may demand that Democrats filibuster her. Republican senators, already hesitant to back Ms. Miers after heavy blowback from their conservative base, would likely lack the will to trigger the so-called nuclear option. The nomination is in real trouble, one GOP senator told me. Not one senator wants to go through the agony of those hearings, even those who want to vote for her. Even if Ms. Miers avoids a filibuster, it's possible Democrats would join with dissident Republicans to defeat her outright.

There are philosophical reasons for Republican senators to oppose Ms. Miers. In 1987, the liberal onslaught on Robert Bork dramatically changed the confirmation process. The verb to bork, meaning to savage a nominee and distort his record, entered the vocabulary, and many liberals now acknowledge that the anti-Bork campaign had bad consequences. It led to more stealth nominees, with presidents hoping their scant paper trail would shield them from attack.

President Bush has now gone further in internalizing the lessons of the Bork debacle. Harriet Miers is a superstealth nominee--a close friend of the president with no available paper trail who keeps her cards so close to her chest they might as well be plastered on it. If Ms. Miers is confirmed, it will reinforce the popular belief that the Supreme Court is more about political outcomes than the rule of law.

Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS NBC TELEVISION PROGRAM TO "NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS."

Sunday, July 17, 2005

GUESTS: Matt Cooper, White House Correspondent, Time Magazine; John Podesta, President and CEO, "Center for American Progress" and Former Chief of Staff, President Bill Clinton; Ken Mehlman, Chairman, Republican National Committee; Bob Woodward, Washington Post and author, "The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat" and Carl Bernstein, former Washington Post Watergate Reporter

MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert, NBC News

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: the investigation into the leak which identified Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. This Time magazine reporter says his source released him from his pledge of confidentiality, allowing him to avoid jail by testifying on Wednesday. What did he say to the grand jury? He'll discuss it for the first here this morning. Our guest: Matt Cooper.

Then Newsweek magazine quotes Karl Rove as saying it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency, who authorized the trip." What now for President Bush's deputy chief of staff? With us, Rove's former deputy, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, and President Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta.

And 33 years ago, another famous source, Deep Throat, provided information which brought about the resignation of Richard M. Nixon. His identity has now been revealed and his story now chronicled in a new book: "The Secret Man." With us, Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

But, first, joining us now is Matt Cooper of Time magazine. Welcome.

MR. MATT COOPER: Morning, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: This is the cover of your magazine: "Rove on the Spot," subtitled "What I Told the Grand Jury," by Matthew Cooper. And here is an excerpt from your article, which will be available tomorrow in Time magazine.

"So did [Karl] Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that [Joe] Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him?"--to Niger. "Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the `agency' on `WMD'?"--weapons of mass destruction. "Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know."

For the record, the first time you learned that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was from Karl Rove?

MR. COOPER: That's correct.

MR. RUSSERT: And when Karl concluded his conversation with you, you write he said, "I've already said too much." What did that mean?

MR. COOPER: Well, I'm not sure what it meant, Tim. At first, you know, I thought maybe he meant "I've been indiscreet." But then, as I thought about it, I thought it might be just more benign, like "I've said too much; I've got to get to a meeting." I don't know exactly what he meant, but I do know that memory of that line has stayed in my head for two years.

MR. RUSSERT: When you were told that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, did you have any sense then that this is important or "I better be careful about identifying someone who works for the CIA"?

MR. COOPER: Well, I certainly thought it was important. I wrote it in the e-mail to my bosses moments later that has since leaked out after this long court battle I've been in. You know, I certainly thought it was important. But I didn't know her name at the time until, you know, after Bob Novak's column came out.

MR. RUSSERT: Did you have any reluctance writing something so important?

MR. COOPER: Well, I wrote it after Bob Novak's column had come out and identified her, so I was not in, you know, danger of outing her the way he did.

MR. RUSSERT: You also write in Time magazine this week, "This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversation with [Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff] Scooter Libby. Libby had also given me a special waiver, and I gave a deposition in the office of my attorney. I have never discussed that conversation until now. In that testimony, I recorded an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew"--of--"or played any role the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, `Yeah, I've heard that, too,' or words to that effect."

Did you interpret that as a confirmation?

MR. COOPER: I did, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Did Mr. Libby say at any time that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?

MR. COOPER: No, he didn't say that.

MR. RUSSERT: But you said it to him?

MR. COOPER: I said, "Was she involved in sending him?," yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: And that she worked for the CIA?

MR. COOPER: I believe so.

MR. RUSSERT: The piece that you finally ran in Time magazine on July 17th, it says, "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..."

"Some government officials"--That is Rove and Libby?

MR. COOPER: Yes, those were among the sources for that, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Are there more?

MR. COOPER: I don't want to get into it, but it's possible.

MR. RUSSERT: Have you told the grand jury about that?

MR. COOPER: The grand jury knows what I know, yes.

MR. RUSSERT: That there may have been more sources?

MR. COOPER: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: The big discussion, Matt Cooper, has been about your willingness to testify...

MR. COOPER: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: ...before the grand jury. And let's go through that. This was Wednesday, July 6, Matt Cooper talking to the assembled press corps.

(Videotape, July 6, 2005):

MR. COOPER: This morning, in what can only be described as a stunning set of developments, that source agreed to give me a specific, personal and unambiguous waiver to speak before the grand jury.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Now, Karl Rove's attorney has spoken to The Washington Post. "[Karl Rove's attorney, Robert] Luskin has said that he merely reaffirmed the blanket waiver by Rove ...and that the assurance would have been available at any time. He said that [Matt] Cooper's description of last-minute theatrics `does not look so good' and that `it just looks to me like there was less a desire to protect a source.'"

MR. COOPER: Well, can I back up a little bit, Tim? For two years, you know, I have protected the identity of my sources. As you know, I was in a rather infamous court battle that went through all the courts in Washington, right up to the Supreme Court, and we lost there with a special prosecutor trying to get me to disclose my source. My principle the whole time was that no court and no corporation can release me from a pledge of confidentiality with my source. And so even after Time magazine, over my objections, handed over my notes and e-mails, which included, really, everything I had and identified all my sources, I still believed that I needed some kind of personal release from the source himself.

And so on the morning of that clip you just saw, my lawyer called me and had seen in The Wall Street Journal that morning Mr. Rove's lawyer saying, "Karl does not stand by any confidentiality with these conversations," or words to that effect, and then went on to say, "If Matt Cooper's going to jail, it's not for Karl Rove." And at that point, at that point only, my lawyer contacted Mr. Rove's lawyer and said, you know, "Can we get a kind of personal waiver that applies to Matt?" And Mr. Luskin and he worked out an agreement and we have a letter that says that "Mr. Rove waives confidentiality for conversations with Matt Cooper in July 2003." So it's specific to me and it's personal, and that's why I felt comfortable, only at that point, going to testify before the grand jury. And once I testified before the grand jury, then I felt I should share that with the readers of Time.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Luskin, Rove's attorney, is suggesting that you had the same waiver throughout the last two years, and only when you were confronted with going to jail did you, in effect, decide to compromise your source or not protect your source.

MR. COOPER: Well, I protected my source all along. I don't maintain that I haven't. I have all the way along, and that's why we went to the Supreme Court. That's why I stood by the source even after Time had disclosed my documents. We went to Rove only after seeing his lawyer, in some sense, invite us to, in that quote in The Wall Street Journal. My lawyers and the editors at the time did not feel it was appropriate for me to go and approach Rove about some kind of waiver before then.

MR. RUSSERT: In your piece, as I mentioned, you said "some government officials," and you said it may be more than just Rove and Libby. Did you get waivers from those additional sources when you testified before the grand jury?

MR. COOPER: I don't want to get into anything else, but I don't--anything I discuss before the grand jury, I have a waiver for.

MR. RUSSERT: Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief...

MR. COOPER: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: ...of Time magazine, authorized the release of your e-mails and notes to the prosecutor. Pearlstine said this: "I found myself really coming to the conclusion that once the Supreme Court has spoken in a case involving national security and a grand jury, we are not above the law and we have to behave the way ordinary citizens do." Do you agree?

MR. COOPER: In part. I mean, I think Norman Pearlstine made a very tough decision. I spent a lot of time with him and I admired the way he made it. I disagreed. I thought we should have at least, you know, gone forward, gone into civil contempt. I would have been willing to go to jail. I think we should have, you know, held on a little longer, but that's a reasonable, you know, disagreement between people.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, he came to Washington, Pearlstine, and some other editors from New Work and met with the Washington bureau of Time magazine.

MR. COOPER: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: At least two correspondents produced e-mails saying, "Our sources are now telling us they will no longer confide in Time magazine. They will no longer trust us to protect our sources." Is that going to be a long-term problem for your magazine?

MR. COOPER: Well, I think, you know, Time will have to, you know, reassure confidential sources that we're going to continue to rely on them and continue to protect them. You know, this--Tim, I think the important thing is here that one aberration in this case was it went all the way to the Supreme Court, and it was then--you know, Time did decide in this case to turn over the notes. Now, Pearlstine has said that in other cases he might not. I think the important thing to remember here is that, you know, the reporters of Time will keep their word. I kept my word for two years. I didn't feel like any court or corporation could release me from that confidence, and I kept my word and so only spoke with the grand jury after I received that written personal waiver from my source.

MR. RUSSERT: You are going to testify this week before Congress for a shield law. Explain that.

MR. COOPER: Sure . Well, Tim, you know, this is the 12th day, I believe, of my colleague Judith Miller from The New York Times being in jail in this investigation because she did not get a waiver that she feels comfortable with and she's protecting her sources. There's incredible aberration, Tim. Forty- nine states have some kind of protection for journalists and their confidential sources, but there is no protection at the federal level. And so in a bipartisan way, Republicans and Democrats have put forward legislation in Congress to create some kind of protection for whistle-blowers and confidential sources and other people who want to come forward to the press so there'd be some kind of federal law, too.

MR. RUSSERT: What's your biggest regret in this whole matter?

MR. COOPER: Well, I'm not sure I have that many. I mean, I believe the story I wrote was entirely accurate and fair, and I stand by it. And I think it was important because it was about an important thing that was going on. It was called A War on Wilson, and I believe there was something like a war on Wilson going on. I guess I'd be a little more discreet about my e-mails, I think. I'm an object lesson in that, you know, e-mails have a way of getting out.

MR. RUSSERT: Will this affect your career as a journalist?

MR. COOPER: I don't think it should, Tim. I kept my word to my source. I only spoke after I got a waiver from that source. That's what other journalists have done in this case. I don't think it should.

MR. RUSSERT: How did you find the grand jury?

MR. COOPER: I was surprised, Tim. You know, I'd heard this old line that grand jurors are very passive, that they'll indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor tells them. I thought this grand jury was very interested in the case. They--a lot of the questions I answered were posed by them as opposed to the prosecutor. I thought they were very involved.

MR. RUSSERT: Where do you think it's heading?

MR. COOPER: You know, I really don't know, Tim. I've been, you know, involved in this case as anyone, I guess, for a couple of years now, and at times I think it's a very big case, at times I think it's, you know, politics as usual and not going to be that big a case at all. I just don't know.

MR. RUSSERT: And we'll find out. Matt Cooper, we thank you very much for joining us and sharing your views.

MR. COOPER: Thank you, Tim.