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As Media Matters for America noted, on the July 18 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe, during a discussion of the CIA leak case with conservative columnist Robert D. Novak, host Joe Scarborough falsely suggested that White House senior adviser Karl Rove was not involved in leaking the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. On the July 19 edition of the show, on which Novak again appeared, Scarborough claimed that Media Matters was "very upset because of my interview yesterday with Bob Novak, talking about the narrative that the left wing had for a very long time that this whole Valerie Plame leak was a diabolical plot hatched by Karl Rove." Introducing Novak, Scarborough said he was "[h]ere to clear that up and talk about his book, Prince of Darkness" [Crown Forum, July 2007], and, in fact, in response to questioning from Scarborough, Novak acknowledged that Rove was his confirming source. Nonetheless, the two continued to push the false claim, made frequently by defenders of the administration in the media, that special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald -- in Scarborough s words -- "knew that no crime, no underlying crime had been committed" and yet persisted with the investigation that resulted in the conviction of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false claims. As Media Matters has pointed out, Fitzgerald has explained why he continued his investigation of the case, even though he knew that former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had been Novak s initial source. In a sentencing memorandum filed May 25, following Libby s conviction on four of five charges, Fitzgerald responded to "Mr. Libby s friends and associates" who "assert that his prosecution was unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics": [I]t is undisputed but of no moment that it was known early in the investigation that two other persons (Richard Armitage and Karl Rove) in addition to Mr. Libby had disclosed Ms. [Plame] Wilson s identity to reporters, and that Messrs. Armitage and Rove were the sources for columnist Robert Novak s July 14, 2003 column, which first publicly disclosed Ms. Wilson s CIA affiliation. The investigation was never limited to disclosure of Ms. Wilson s CIA affiliation to Mr. Novak; rather, from the outset the investigation sought to determine who disclosed information about Ms. Wilson to various reporters, including -- but not limited to -- Mr. Novak. [...] To accept the argument that Mr. Libby s prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President. To state this claim is to refute it. Peremptorily closing this investigation in the face of the information available at its early stages would have been a dereliction of duty, and would have afforded Mr. Libby and others preferential treatment not accorded to ordinary persons implicated in criminal investigations. Moreover, as Media Matters has repeatedly noted, during an October 2005 press conference announcing Libby s indictment, Fitzgerald said that Libby s obstruction had prevented the special counsel s office from determining whether an underlying crime had been committed. Fitzgerald reiterated this point in his sentencing memorandum, writing that "the reasons why Mr. Libby was not charged with an offense directly relating to his unauthorized disclosures of classified information regarding Ms. Wilson included, but were not limited to, the fact that Mr. Libby s false testimony obscured a confident determination of what in fact occurred." Scarborough teased the segment by saying that he was "going to make Media Matters very angry. ... [T]hey consider me one of the good guys of the extreme right. Not anymore." He then opened the segment by stating that "Media Matters [is] very angry at me. And, of course, it breaks my heart because I ve been sort of the good Republican for them." He was apparently referring to Media Matters item regarding his July 18 Morning Joe interview of Novak, in which he falsely suggested that Rove was not involved in leaking Plame s identity. During that interview, Scarborough stated that he had said during his coverage of the case, "If Karl Rove leaked this information [about Plame], he should be fired." Scarborough began his July 19 discussion with Novak by asking him about Rove s reported role as the source that confirmed Plame s identity to Novak. Scarborough said, "[W]e were talking [yesterday] about the fact that it was Dick Armitage who leaked the name to you. ... But then you called Karl Rove up and let him know that you had found out who Valerie Plame was, right?" Novak then stated that "among the people I called, I called Karl Rove. And he said, Oh, you know that, too? That was enough conversion -- confirming to me. That s all he said." Neither Scarborough nor Novak mentioned that Rove also reportedly leaked Plame s identity to then-Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, as Media Matters noted in its previous item. From the July 19 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe: SCARBOROUGH: When we come back, I m going to make Media Matters very angry. I mean, they consider me one of the good guys of the extreme right. Not anymore. [...] SCARBOROUGH: So Media Matters, very angry at me. And, of course, it breaks my heart because I ve been sort of the good Republican for them. And, very upset because of my interview yesterday with Bob Novak, talking about the narrative that the left wing had for a very long time that this whole Valerie Plame leak was a diabolical plot hatched by Karl Rove. Here to clear that up and talk about his book, Prince of Darkness, let s bring back in Bob Novak. Bob, how are you doing? NOVAK [on the phone]: Very good. Thanks for having me, Joe. SCARBOROUGH: Let s clear this up now. You -- when we were talking yesterday, we were talking about the fact that it was Dick Armitage who leaked the name to you. NOVAK: That s correct. SCARBOROUGH: But then you called Karl Rove up and let him know that you had found out who Valerie Plame was, right? Talk about how that happened. NOVAK: I called -- after deputy Secretary of State Armitage told me in an offhand way that the reason that Joe Wilson, unlikely Clinton supporter, had been sent on that mission with no exper-- intelligence experience was that his wife, who was employed at the CIA, suggested it, I wanted to confirm that. And among the people I called, I called Karl Rove. And he said, "Oh, you know that, too?" That was enough conversion -- confirming to me. That s all he said. I then later talked to the official spokesman at the CIA, who confirmed that to me also. This was supposed to be a deep secret, but the official flack, the public relations man, said, "Yes, she worked for the counterproliferation division." He told me that. He claimed that she hadn t suggested her husband for the mission, but later, those documents and that report by the Senate Intelligence Committee had indicated she had. SCARBOROUGH: And that, of course, just wasn t true. What was it like for you going through this process, where you were attacked, you were accused of leaking -- well, let me -- we ll first of all ask you the question that some of the emailers want us to ask you: Why did you decide to print Valerie Plame s name? NOVAK: Because I thought it was a part of the story. I wasn t attacking Joe Wilson. I -- as you know, I think you know, I was against the invasion of Iraq. I was a news -- I try to write a news column, and I thought that his mission to Niger was a part of the column. I wondered how come he was selected, and in the middle of the column, I indicated it was because of his wife. That s why I printed the name. Now you ask me, what was it like? It wasn t pleasant. but I ll tell you what, I m a big boy. I ve been around this town for 50 years, Joe, and I ve been attacked, and I ve been praised. I ve had good and bad. but what really bothered me was the lack of support from my brothers and sisters in the news media. I believe they re mostly liberals, and they just jumped on the liberal conspiracy bandwagon, with some exceptions. I got great support from my home paper, the Sun-Times, great support from The Washington Post, which ended up really supporting me editorially, but a lot of my individual colleagues and a lot of editorial writers across the country, without knowing the facts, joined the conspiracy theorists. SCARBOROUGH: And they had this narrative they wanted to follow, and you and I both know, if they d known that it d been Dick Armitage, [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell s number-two guy, who had leaked this information to you initially, which allowed you to call Rove and say, "Hey, I know this," and Rove said, "Oh, you know that, too?" and then you called the CIA person -- if they had known what the true narrative was, then we wouldn t have had the pack of dogs chasing after you and Rove and everybody else for so long. NOVAK: That s right. And the special prosecutor, who knew the minute he stepped in the office, Mr. [Patrick] Fitzgerald knew Armitage s identity as the leaker, they asked me not to talk about it at all. My lawyer advised me to follow that, and I certainly didn t want to get in the same kind of trouble that Scooter Libby got in, so I followed my lawyer s advice and followed the instructions of the special prosecutor and never said a word -- SCARBOROUGH: But, Bob, Bob, that is the damnedest thing. Why do you have this guy, this special prosecutor, who was put up as sort of an Eliot Ness, an Untouchable -- he knew the true story. Why conduct an investigation where you know that no crime, no underlying crime, had been committed? NOVAK: Well, they gave -- the Justice Department, the Bush Justice Department knew the identity of Armitage as the leaker. And they -- instead of making a decision whether a crime was committed, they turned it over to Mr. Fitzgerald, a squeaky-clean guy, to make the decision because they didn t have the guts to do it themselves. Mr. Fitzgerald decided there was no underlying crime, and, of course, Scooter Libby was the fall guy. You know, it s -- SCARBOROUGH: No crime, let s start an investigation. NOVAK: Yeah. I -- the first chapter of my book, I give all these details, I give details at the end. It s not a complicated story, as far as I m concerned, as far as my involvement is concerned. And I ll tell you, a lot of people cannot handle this truth. They just can t accept that it was as limited as that.

During the 6 a.m. ET and 8 a.m. ET hours of the July 18 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe, commentator John Ridley said he was "curious" about syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak s July 15 assertion during a panel discussion on NBC s Meet the Press that, as Media Matters for America documented, "Republicans are very pessimistic about 2008. When you talk to them off the record, they don t see how they can win this thing. And then they think for a minute, and only the Democratic Party, with everything in their favor, would say that, OK, this is the year either to have a woman or an African-American to break precedent, to do things the country has never done before. " During the 6 a.m. ET hour of the show, Ridley -- who wrote about Novak s comments in a July 17 post on the Huffington Post blog -- quoted Novak s statement and said: "I m actually curious. I hope that Mr. Novak will clarify this." Ridley continued: "So are the Republicans hopeful for change? Or are they hopeful that when you have a black or a woman running on the Democratic ticket, a majority of Americans will go, Nah. I ain t voting for that. " Novak was scheduled to appear during the 8 a.m. ET hour of the show. During the 8 a.m. ET hour, before the interview with Novak, Ridley again quoted Novak s statement and said: "And so I was curious, just hopefully he could elaborate, what he means by hope." Ridley then stated, "By the way, if he is talking about a Wilder effect, here, referencing [former Virginia] Governor Doug Wilder [D], I don t necessarily disagree with that." The "Wilder effect" refers to the theory that African American candidates sometimes do better in pre-election polling than they do in the actual election because some voters tell pollsters that they will vote for the African American candidate but choose a white candidate instead on Election Day. After mentioning the Wilder effect, Ridley then asked: "[I]s he saying that the Republicans only hope come November is hoping that there is some latent bigotry in America who -- that wouldn t vote for a man of color or a woman for president?" As Media Matters noted, neither Meet the Press host Tim Russert nor any of Novak s fellow panelists, Bloomberg News Washington managing editor Al Hunt, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum -- all of whom are, like Novak, white men -- commented on or challenged Novak s assertion. As Media Matters has also documented, a breakdown of the guests on Meet the Press from 2005 to 2006 shows that 76 percent of the guests on the program were white men. During the interview -- which, according to Scarborough, occurred later in the broadcast than expected due to "some mix-up" -- Novak was not asked about his comments on Meet the Press. Scarborough did state, however, that Novak would return at 7:30 a.m. ET on the July 19 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe to continue the conversation. From the 6 a.m. ET hour of the July 18 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe: SCARBOROUGH: So John Ridley has a -- your Huffington Post. RIDLEY: On Huffington. SCARBOROUGH: And you ve written this column saying that the only thing the Republicans have going for them, according to Bob Novak, are that they re white. RIDLEY: Well, it was interesting. They had the roundtable discussion with Tim Russert on Meet the Press. Everybody was, you know, galvanized by the [Sen. Jim] Webb [D-VA]-[Sen. Lindsey] Graham [R-SC] cage fight. But there was something that he said. Republicans, right now, as you probably know, are a little pessimistic. I think you had something interesting yesterday that 21 percent of the people -- they still don t know who they re gonna vote for. SCARBOROUGH: Unknown is leading on the Republican side. RIDLEY: Unknown leads the pack for the Republicans. SCARBOROUGH: So what s the Republicans hope? RIDLEY: Well, as -- and I want to -- I m actually curious. I hope that Mr. Novak will clarify this, but he was talking about, that this year -- and this is a quote from him -- "the Democrats will either have a woman or an African-American to break precedent, to do things the country has never done before, and it gives the Republicans hope." So are the Republicans hopeful for change? Or are they hopeful that when you have a black or a woman running on the Democratic ticket, a majority of Americans will go, "Nah. I ain t voting for that." SCARBOROUGH: Well, I think it s the latter. I really do. I think a lot of people will stop and think -- I think it s a little different with Hillary because Hillary s been around for a long time. She has her sort of own identity. Barack Obama, though, I think for a lot of people out there that, again, have not followed these candidates as much as anybody else are thinking: "Hey, he s that young black guy that s really energetic and exciting." And so it s going to be very interesting. From the 8 a.m. ET hour of the July 18 edition of MSNBC s Morning Joe: SCARBOROUGH: Now, you had concerns with Bob Novak -- who s supposed to be calling in -- about Novak and what he said this weekend on Meet the Press. RIDLEY: Well, more curiosity because I don t -- SCARBOROUGH: And this, by the way, this is on the top of Huffington Post right now. RIDLEY: Yeah. This is Huffington Post. I wrote about it. Look, it was a heck of a show on Meet the Press on Sunday. Something happened -- SCARBOROUGH: Oh. Great show. RIDLEY: Yeah. You had the Webb-Graham cage match. But at the roundtable, Tim Russert was talking to some other individuals about how the Republican Party is disenfranchised at this point. They re not raising money, they don t know who they want their front-runner to be. And Mr. Novak said something regarding the Democrats that -- and this is a quote -- "This is a year either to have a woman or an African-American to break precedent, do things the country has never done before, and it gives the Republicans hope." And so I was curious, just hopefully he could elaborate, what he means by hope. And, by the way, if he is talking about a Wilder effect here, referencing Governor Doug Wilder, I don t necessarily disagree with that. But is he saying that the Republicans only hope come November is hoping that there is some latent bigotry in America who -- that wouldn t vote for a man of color or a woman for president? SCARBOROUGH: Well, I think it s -- I think it is obviously something that s never been done before. So -- MIKA BRZEZINSKI [news anchor]: And the question is, are the times right, is the historic moment here? RIDLEY: It is, but the bigger question for me is, is that what he s saying the Republicans -- that s what they re running on? They can t run on the war, they can t run on national security, they can t run on family values. SCARBOROUGH: You know what they can run on? RIDLEY: What can they run on? SCARBOROUGH: They can run on the fact that they ve got a president that, every time he opens his mouth, makes history. You see, [late-night talk show host David] Letterman has these things -- great moments in presidential speeches. RIDLEY: Yeah. SCARBOROUGH: Had another one last night. [...] SCARBOROUGH: All right, hey, Bob, we ve got to go because we, unfortunately, we had some mix-up -- NOVAK: Sorry, but I look forward to talking to you tomorrow. SCARBOROUGH: I ll see you tomorrow morning at 7:30. NOVAK: Terrific. Thank you, Joe.