Tuesday, May 16, 2006

LEOPOLD'S STORY   [Byron York]

For those who are too busy to follow the Jason Leopold excitement on the left, Leopold is still defending his report that Karl Rove was indicted in the CIA leak case after an all-day meeting Friday at the Washington offices of Patton Boggs, where Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, is based.  Leopold is standing his ground in the face of flat denials from Rove's side, an apparently complete lack of supporting evidence, and growing skepticism from bloggers who would normally be allied with him.

To defend himself, this afternoon Leopold appeared on liberal radio host Ed Schultz's program.  "I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this," Leopold told Schultz.

"Well, I want to see the guy get indicted," Schultz answered.

From there, Leopold not only did not back down, he actually added details to his story and claimed that other news organizations know about it as well.  "Today, I was told, in further following this, that the entire fourth floor [of Patton Boggs] was locked down, that Karl Rove was there with Secret Service detail, that there was a marathon session, that there were plea negotiations going on that were ultimately rejected outright, that at the end of this marathon session Karl Rove was given an envelope which had the indictment in it and was told he had 24 hours to get his affairs in order," Leopold said.  (Leopold has at other times claimed that Rove was given 24 "business hours" to prepare for indictment.)

It was such huge news, Leopold said, that "I honestly believed this was something that would break in the New York Times, the Washington Post, that evening." But it didn't.  Instead, Leopold's credibility was questioned, beginning here on The Corner.

"Needless to say, you're aware of what's being said on the blogs," Schultz said.  "They're going after your credibility." [I've edited the conversation in a few places to make it more readable.]

"I confirmed it with more than two sources," Leopold said.  "There are other news organizations that I have spoken with — Knight-Ridder, MSNBC, and ABC News — who have a single source on it."

"Is there some jealousy by bloggers?" Schultz asked.  "Is there some jealousy by journalists?"

"I wouldn't say jealousy, I would say hatred," Leopold answered.

"Why do they hate you?"

"I'm not quite sure.  I'm a pretty nice guy."

Later, Schultz ended with this: "If you're lying, it will catch up with you."

"Of course," Leopold said.  "I've written the book on that."

05/16 07:55 PMShare