Interview With Matt Cooper; Interview With Bob Woodward
Aired July 17, 2005 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice-over): Secret sources. Matt Cooper breaks his silence in the Valerie Plame investigation. Why did he agree to testify at the last minute, avoiding a jail sentence? Why was he protecting Karl Rove? And has Time Inc.'s decision to surrender his confidential notes in the case hurt the magazine?
Plus, Bob Woodward on the CIA leak investigation, the ethics of dealing with anonymous sources, and his 33-year relationship with Deep Throat. Why did Mark Felt risk his FBI career to keep meeting Woodward in a parking garage?
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KURTZ: Welcome to this special one-hour edition of RELIABLE SOURCES, where today we turn our critical lens on how high a price journalists should pay for protecting confidential informants.
I'm Howard Kurtz. Ahead, a special interview on the subject with Bob Woodward.
But first, Judith Miller of "The New York Times" remains behind bars for refusing to testify in the CIA leak case involving Valerie Plame. And my first guest came within hours of joining her in jail.
The disclosure that White House adviser Karl Rove served as a source for "Time" magazine's Matt Cooper, as well as for columnist and CNN commentator Robert Novak, has boosted the story into the media stratosphere this week, with Rove on the covers of both "Time" and "Newsweek" just out this morning.
And the disclosure forced White House spokesman Scott McClellan to abandon his earlier denials that Rove was in any way involved. Let's look at McClellan then and now.
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SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is totally ridiculous. I've known Karl -- I've known -- I've known Karl for a long time, and I didn't even need to go ask Karl, because I know the kind of person that he is.
Our policy continues to be that we're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation from this podium.
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KURTZ: And joining me now in his first cable news interview since testifying before a grand jury in the Plame case on Wednesday is Matthew Cooper, "Time's" White House correspondent. Welcome.
MATT COOPER, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Hey, thanks, Howie.
KURTZ: You laid it all out in this week's issue of "Time" magazine. "Time," of course, owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner.