Strapped into his seat, his cell phone darkened in preparation for takeoff on a flight to New Hampshire, Mr. Rove quickly called his lawyer, Robert Luskin, in Washington, D.C., and he explained.

Around 4 p.m. on Monday, June 12, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald alerted Mr. Luskin that he had decided not to charge his client with a crime in the ongoing investigation into who leaked the name of C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame.

“Obviously, he was happy and relieved,” Mr. Luskin said. “And then the rest of the conversation is personal …. ”

If that all sounds a little close, consider the hothouse in which the relationship between Mr. Luskin and his client has been since the White House leak scandal was born.

“This has been a real long and emotional ordeal for him and his family,” Mr. Luskin said, “and, you know, I just want to leave the curtain down on that.”

Mr. Rove was busy late into the night after he landed in the Granite State, and so they decided to wait until the following morning to release the news.

What was most notable in Mr. Luskin’s brief statement was this line: “We believe that the Special Counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct.”

Mr. Luskin does not gnash his teeth at Mr. Fitzgerald.

“It’s not winning the lottery,” he said of the Rove case. “It’s just avoiding something that would be a truly horrendous injustice for your client …. You feel lucky to be part of a process that works fairly and intelligently.”

Actually, it’s the media—not the prosecutor’s office—that he’s angry at, and especially the bloggers. Mr. Luskin was eager to portray the suffering of his client as a function of media attention and speculation, rather than real danger of a conviction.

Mr. Rove, Mr. Luskin said, had fallen victim to partisans and—more importantly—the bloggers who became their enablers.

“It seems to me that there are lots of constituencies who have treated this as the story too good not to be true,” he said. “And people have all had their own reasons—whether they’re political, whether they have to do with opportunities to put themselves forward personally, whether or not they are motivated by efforts to show up the mainstream media.”

The criticism of blogging, in fact, goes right to the story of the White House’s relationship with reporters in the “mainstream media.”

“The big criticism of the mainstream media is that they live in this community, they’ve got continuing relationships with their sources and the people they write about, and the blogosphere says that that makes them spineless,” Mr. Luskin said. (Like Judy Miller?) “I think one can make the exact opposite argument, which is that the premise is true but that makes them accountable.”

He recalled an episode from last month, when a report on the liberal Web site Truthout.org, written by Jason Leopold and citing “high-level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting,” claimed Mr. Rove would be indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators, the results of a marathon session of negotiations in Mr. Luskin’s office that he claims never occurred.

(Mr. Leopold and his editor have stood by his report.)

“I think, by and large, the mainstream media was trying to do the very best that it could,” Mr. Luskin said, “recognizing that they felt accountable—I mean, you know, for what they said—and at the same time, I think, feeling some considerable pressure from the blogosphere.”

Mr. Leopold’s report was only one of hundreds of similarly false pieces of information spread around the Web, Mr. Luskin added.

And indeed, Mr. Rove’s five appearances before the grand jury gave reporters—mainstream and otherwise—plenty to speculate about. (So, for that matter, did Mr. Luskin’s own deposition.)

The weekend Mr. Leopold’s story went online, Mr. Luskin said he had “mainstream-media reporters calling me saying, ‘I’m embarrassed to make this call, because I know this can’t be true—I’ve covered this story, I understand the process, I’ve got my sources—but my editors tell me I need to call and ask, “Is there any truth in this?”’

“That is a function of the tension that there is now between the mainstream media and the blogosphere. On the one hand, it seems to me that the CBS National Guard stories were the poster child for the principle that sometimes the blogosphere keeps the mainstream media accountable, and it seems to me that this story is, if you will, the poster child for the fact that the blogosphere is itself often not accountable, and that there are a universe of folks out there who have got personal or political agendas who were masquerading as news sources. That is just as destructive in its own way, or more than the mainstream media’s insularity is on the flip side.”

Mr. Luskin said that he didn’t believe a single piece of evidence had exonerated his clients.

“I think it’s a mistake to look at this in dramatic terms and think somehow that there’s some particular piece of evidence that flies in over the transom at the last minute and turns things around,” he said. “[Fitzgerald] waited until the investigation was done, and when the investigation was done, he sat down and looked at all the facts—and some facts were more important than others. But that doesn’t mean that the last fact is the most important fact. That’s the mistake here—people just getting wrapped around the axle around this issue with Viveca Novak.”

Mr. Luskin’s appreciation of the mainstream media has its roots at least as far back as early 2004, when he learned for the first time of a conversation between Time reporter Matt Cooper and his client, over drinks with Ms. Novak, a former colleague of Mr. Cooper’s. He found documentation of their chat and immediately presented it to Mr. Fitzgerald.

After consulting with Mr. Rove on Monday evening, Mr. Luskin returned to the mundane routine of law-firm life, attending a three-hour meeting held for lawyers in the public-policy and litigation departments of Patton Boggs, the law and lobbying firm where he works.

“The scariest thing in the world is to be the lawyer for an innocent client, because all you can do is screw it up,” he said. “So from my personal perspective—and particularly because I like and respect my client so much—it’s a huge sense of relief that I didn’t manage to screw it up.”

Strapped into his seat, his cell phone darkened in preparation for takeoff on a flight to New Hampshire, Mr. Rove quickly called his lawyer, Robert Luskin, in Washington, D.C., and he explained.

Around 4 p.m. on Monday, June 12, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald alerted Mr. Luskin that he had decided not to charge his client with a crime in the ongoing investigation into who leaked the name of C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame.

“Obviously, he was happy and relieved,” Mr. Luskin said. “And then the rest of the conversation is personal …. ”

If that all sounds a little close, consider the hothouse in which the relationship between Mr. Luskin and his client has been since the White House leak scandal was born.

“This has been a real long and emotional ordeal for him and his family,” Mr. Luskin said, “and, you know, I just want to leave the curtain down on that.”

Mr. Rove was busy late into the night after he landed in the Granite State, and so they decided to wait until the following morning to release the news.

What was most notable in Mr. Luskin’s brief statement was this line: “We believe that the Special Counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct.”

Mr. Luskin does not gnash his teeth at Mr. Fitzgerald.

“It’s not winning the lottery,” he said of the Rove case. “It’s just avoiding something that would be a truly horrendous injustice for your client …. You feel lucky to be part of a process that works fairly and intelligently.”

Actually, it’s the media—not the prosecutor’s office—that he’s angry at, and especially the bloggers. Mr. Luskin was eager to portray the suffering of his client as a function of media attention and speculation, rather than real danger of a conviction.

Mr. Rove, Mr. Luskin said, had fallen victim to partisans and—more importantly—the bloggers who became their enablers.

“It seems to me that there are lots of constituencies who have treated this as the story too good not to be true,” he said. “And people have all had their own reasons—whether they’re political, whether they have to do with opportunities to put themselves forward personally, whether or not they are motivated by efforts to show up the mainstream media.”

The criticism of blogging, in fact, goes right to the story of the White House’s relationship with reporters in the “mainstream media.”

“The big criticism of the mainstream media is that they live in this community, they’ve got continuing relationships with their sources and the people they write about, and the blogosphere says that that makes them spineless,” Mr. Luskin said. (Like Judy Miller?) “I think one can make the exact opposite argument, which is that the premise is true but that makes them accountable.”

He recalled an episode from last month, when a report on the liberal Web site Truthout.org, written by Jason Leopold and citing “high-level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting,” claimed Mr. Rove would be indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators, the results of a marathon session of negotiations in Mr. Luskin’s office that he claims never occurred.

(Mr. Leopold and his editor have stood by his report.)

“I think, by and large, the mainstream media was trying to do the very best that it could,” Mr. Luskin said, “recognizing that they felt accountable—I mean, you know, for what they said—and at the same time, I think, feeling some considerable pressure from the blogosphere.”

Mr. Leopold’s report was only one of hundreds of similarly false pieces of information spread around the Web, Mr. Luskin added.

And indeed, Mr. Rove’s five appearances before the grand jury gave reporters—mainstream and otherwise—plenty to speculate about. (So, for that matter, did Mr. Luskin’s own deposition.)

The weekend Mr. Leopold’s story went online, Mr. Luskin said he had “mainstream-media reporters calling me saying, ‘I’m embarrassed to make this call, because I know this can’t be true—I’ve covered this story, I understand the process, I’ve got my sources—but my editors tell me I need to call and ask, “Is there any truth in this?”’

“That is a function of the tension that there is now between the mainstream media and the blogosphere. On the one hand, it seems to me that the CBS National Guard stories were the poster child for the principle that sometimes the blogosphere keeps the mainstream media accountable, and it seems to me that this story is, if you will, the poster child for the fact that the blogosphere is itself often not accountable, and that there are a universe of folks out there who have got personal or political agendas who were masquerading as news sources. That is just as destructive in its own way, or more than the mainstream media’s insularity is on the flip side.”

Mr. Luskin said that he didn’t believe a single piece of evidence had exonerated his clients.

“I think it’s a mistake to look at this in dramatic terms and think somehow that there’s some particular piece of evidence that flies in over the transom at the last minute and turns things around,” he said. “[Fitzgerald] waited until the investigation was done, and when the investigation was done, he sat down and looked at all the facts—and some facts were more important than others. But that doesn’t mean that the last fact is the most important fact. That’s the mistake here—people just getting wrapped around the axle around this issue with Viveca Novak.”

Mr. Luskin’s appreciation of the mainstream media has its roots at least as far back as early 2004, when he learned for the first time of a conversation between Time reporter Matt Cooper and his client, over drinks with Ms. Novak, a former colleague of Mr. Cooper’s. He found documentation of their chat and immediately presented it to Mr. Fitzgerald.

After consulting with Mr. Rove on Monday evening, Mr. Luskin returned to the mundane routine of law-firm life, attending a three-hour meeting held for lawyers in the public-policy and litigation departments of Patton Boggs, the law and lobbying firm where he works.

“The scariest thing in the world is to be the lawyer for an innocent client, because all you can do is screw it up,” he said. “So from my personal perspective—and particularly because I like and respect my client so much—it’s a huge sense of relief that I didn’t manage to screw it up.”

"She voluntarily resigned," managing editor Jim Kelly said.

Novak was brought in to talk to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in November, after the prosecutor learned that she had discussed the Plame leak with Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin. In those discussions, Novak had told Luskin that Rove was a source for Time's Matt Cooper--a connection that the lawyer had previously not known.

Novak did not alert Time editors to her involvement in the investigation for 10 days, until Fitzgerald called her back to testify under oath. "Nobody was happy about it, least of all me," Novak wrote for Time in December. That was her last Time byline.

Novak could not be reached for comment.

--Gabriel Sherman

Neither Mr. Luskin nor Ms. Novak had expected to see news of those conversations in print. According to a source familiar with the matter, their talks had been off the record.

According to the source, Mr. Luskin told Mr. Fitzgerald to talk to Ms. Novak, signing a waiver. “The waiver that was executed was in a form that was similar to one that was used by Fitzgerald with other reporters—a waiver for the limited purpose of responding to questions from the special counsel,” the source said.

In other words, it was similar to waivers agreed to by Washington Post reporters Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler, whose sources on the Valerie Plame Wilson affair remain unknown. The Post’s Bob Woodward has also declined to publicly identify his own source.

Time’s account of the conversations between Mr. Luskin and Ms. Novak arrived on newsstands Nov. 28. On Dec. 2, The New York Times reported on the substance of one conversation, writing that Mr. Luskin had learned from Ms. Novak that his client, Mr. Rove, might have spoken with Time’s Matt Cooper about Ms. Wilson.

That fact was significant because, at the time, Mr. Rove may not yet have told Mr. Fitzgerald about this conversation, and because Mr. Cooper was under pressure to reveal his source. The Washington Post reported on Dec. 3 that Mr. Luskin was using this conversation with Ms. Novak as a tool in his defense strategy, though exactly how (or if) this detail helps Mr. Rove remains murky.

So did Time magazine burn Mr. Luskin? Or did he waive his confidentiality when he came clean to Mr. Fitzgerald?

According to a person familiar with Time’s thinking, the feeling at the magazine was that any kind of understanding between Mr. Luskin and Ms. Novak was made moot when Mr. Luskin came forward to Mr. Fitzgerald. By approaching the special prosecutor and saying that he had learned of his client’s conversation with Mr. Cooper from Ms. Novak, he had turned the tables, making Ms. Novak the source. So who were they to protect?

Both Mr. Luskin and Time managing editor Jim Kelly declined to comment. Ms. Novak didn’t return calls.

“They were concerned that it would be perceived that she was doing Rove or Luskin a favor and not doing her job,” said one source. “What they are doing this week is trying to even the score.” Or pre-empt getting scooped.

According to one source, Ms. Novak was not in the loop on the decision to publish her source’s name. “Time management independently made a decision … without consulting her,” the source said.

Time’s response contrasted to that of The New York Times, where attempts to keep the identity of Judith Miller’s source secret—even after reporters had learned it from outside sources—were a source of tension within the newsroom.

In the paper’s 5,800-word attempt to come clean, managing editor Jill Abramson defended the decision, saying that if Ms. Miller were willing to go to jail to protect her source, it would have been “unconscionable then to out her source in the pages of the paper.” Ms. Novak is complying with Mr. Fitzgerald’s inquiry.

Another issue raised by the details that have emerged about the Novak-Luskin conversation is the propriety of Ms. Novak telling or even hinting to Mr. Luskin about her colleague’s “double-super-secret background” conversation.

“[Ms. Novak] was feeling [that Mr. Luskin] was giving a line of spin. He was trying to spin her and said it wasn’t true,” a person with knowledge of Ms. Novak’s conversation said, commenting on the reporter’s off-the-record chat.

Mr. Kelly told The Washington Post: “There’s no way that Viveca Novak knowingly, wittingly gave up a confidential source to Robert Luskin.”

This latest tidbit shot Mr. Luskin’s client’s legal travails into the news again, something that can’t make the Rove defense team happy. Time’s tangled history with Mr. Luskin dates back to the last-minute negotiations over the waiver that Mr. Rove gave Mr. Cooper to testify.

Mr. Cooper’s lawyer said he only felt free to seek a waiver after reading a comment by Mr. Luskin in The Wall Street Journal, in which Mr. Luskin said: “If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it’s not Karl he’s protecting.”

After the two sides agreed to a personalized waiver, Mr. Luskin still harbored animosity toward Mr. Cooper for painting his client as dragging his feet. It “does not look so good,” he told The Washington Post. “[I]t just looks to me like there was less a desire to protect a source.”

Novak is expected to discuss under oath her conversations with Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney, in May 2004.

The New York Times reported last week that Novak may have told Luskin that Rove had been Time reporter Matt Cooper's source in the Valerie Plame Wilson leak affair.

Novak will give her deposition to Fitzgerald tomorrow without going before the grand jury. Fitzgerald's spokesperson Randall Samborn declined to comment. Novak and her attorney, Henry Schuelke, did not return calls seeking comment.

--Gabriel Sherman