Rove Source of Plame Leak?

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000972839

MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case

By E&P Staff

Published: July 01, 2005 11:30 PM ET

NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller, held in contempt for refusing to name sources, tried Friday to stay out of jail by arguing for home detention instead after Time Inc. surrendered its reporter's notes to a prosecutor.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said Friday that several unidentified Senate Republicans had placed a hold on a proposed resolution declaring support for Miller and Cooper.

``Cowards!'' Lautenberg said of the Republicans. ``Under the rules, they have a right to refuse to reveal who they are. Sound familiar?''

Lautenberg's resolution is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) It says no purpose is served by imprisoning Miller and Cooper and that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press.

[scott]

Whoops.

[exstatic]

I'm shocked! ;)

[Nbadan]

Republicans like to throw what people said back in their faces, so lets see what W said about the Plame investigation just a couple of short years ago...


From WhiteHouse.gov

Q Mr. President, on another issue, the CIA leak-gate. What is your confidence level in the results of the DOJ investigation about any of your staffers not being found guilty or being found guilty? And what do you say to critics of the administration who say that this administration retaliates against naysayers?

PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I'm glad you brought that question up. This is a very serious matter, and our administration takes it seriously. As members of the press corps here know, I have, at times, complained about leaks of security information, whether the leaks be in the legislative branch or in the executive branch. And I take those leaks very seriously.

And, therefore, we will cooperate fully with the Justice Department. I've got all the confidence in the world the Justice Department will do a good, thorough job. And that's exactly what I want them to do, is a good, thorough job. I'd like to know who leaked, and if anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find out the leaker.

I have told my staff, I want full cooperation with the Justice Department. And when they ask for information, we expect the information to be delivered on a timely basis. I expect it to be delivered on a timely basis. I want there to be full participation, because, April, I am most interested in finding out the truth.

And, you know, there's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it. And if this helps stop leaks of -- this investigation in finding the truth, it will not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked -- and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.

American Blogspot (http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/flashback-bush-about-plame-leak-oct-6.html)

I wonder how eager W is to finding out the truth now? I'm wondering why Rove was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House after the last election. If the prosecution goes any further and there is an effort to seek Rove's papers, will Bush invoke executive privilege? I assume that it would be easier to invoke executive privilege over the papers of someone who is an official part of the government. Before his recent appointment, Rove was just a private political campaign advisor. Now that he's been officially brought into the government, Bush may seek to make all of his papers unreachable. This act of bringing Rove into the government and giving him an administrative position might tend to show knowledge on Bush's part of Rove as the leaker.

[Nbadan]

Rove's lawyer denies that his client leaked Plames name to Cooper...


Lawyer says Rove talked to reporter, did not leak name

By Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, spoke with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper during a critical week in July 2003 when Cooper was reporting on a public critic of the Bush administration who was also the husband of a CIA operative, his lawyer confirmed today.

Rove is identified in Cooper's notes from that time period, which Time turned over Friday to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald — under court order. Fitzgerald is investigating whether senior administration officials leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporters in July 2003 as retaliation after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq.

Rove's lawyer said Rove never identified Plame to Cooper in those conversations. More significantly, Robert Luskin said, Fitzgerald assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation.

"Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else," Luskin said. Luskin said the question remains unanswered: "Who outed this woman? ... It wasn't Karl."

<</SNIP>>

Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002356167_webrove02.html)

Well, what else should we expect from the lawyer of the biggest premaddona in recent American political history, right?

[Nbadan]

Rove's day will come...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/wannajumpmyscooter/Karl_Pees.jpg

[Nbadan]

The Mark of Rove...a brief background of some of the political tricks of the schister...


<snip>
The “Mark of Rove” refers to Machiavellian maneuvers that leave no trace of their origin. In other words, Rove's involvement is but rumored. “The New Yorker” had a nice way of putting it: “Rove has an ominpresent quality.” During his first gubernatorial campaign in Texas, Rove announced that someone had bugged his office, and who but the opposition would benefit from that? Others in Texas politics thought Rove had planted the bug himself. Nothing was proved, and the Republicans won. In 1994, W Bush was campaigning for governor against the incumbent Ann Richards. A whisper campaign had it that Richard had employed a lesbian, and perhaps was one herself. Bush said nothing. A local campaign chairman who had worked with Rove whispered the rumors to the press. A scandal erupted and Bush, who had neither run for nor held any public office, won the governorship.

However these leaks and whispers began, Democrats have not been alone in suffering them. In the 2000 presidential primary race against Republican Senator John McCain, rumors surfaced that turned McCain's advantage as a Vietnam war hero into a liability. It was alleged that McCain was mentally unstable because of his wartime experience. Perhaps he had an illegitimate black child; perhaps his wife is a drug addict. Several political reporters and local politicians held Rove responsible for the smear tactics. Nothing was proved. In public, Bush campaigned as a “uniter,” and not only won but was perceived by voters has having run the kinder campaign. In 2003, Rove was credited with having unseated the most powerful man in the Senate, Majority Leader Trent Lott (Republican), by engineering a scandal about racist remarks that Lott had made. It is rumored Rove he did so because Lott challenged G.H.W.'s tax plan in 1990, a betrayal that was sin enough for the Bush family, and for the loyal Rove. When “USA Today” called Rove the 101st senator, ABC News said, “as if senators have as much power as Karl!”

Marci Palley (http://www.marciapally.com/rove.html)

Funny how time has a way of catching up with people.

[exstatic]

The wheel turns. Sometimes slowly, but those on top always wind up on the bottom, a position that should be familiar to Rove, since he's been feeding there forever. ;)

[IcemanCometh]

So basically they're saying the source of that "Iraq looking to buy uranium for nuclear weapons" was Rove, who is in the Bush administration, the very people looking for evidence to start the war. Time for another distraction.

[IcemanCometh]

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8427/treasowned7uj.jpg

[exstatic]

So basically they're saying the source of that "Iraq looking to buy uranium for nuclear weapons" was Rove, who is in the Bush administration, the very people looking for evidence to start the war. Time for another distraction.

Time for another invasion. :angel

[CommanderMcBragg]

It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this.

[JoeChalupa]

Man that damn liberal media sure is all over this story!!

[exstatic]

It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this.

A GOP congress is only interested in perjury if a Demo President is gettin' some, not if intel operatives are being endangered for political revenge.

[GoldToe]

Ted Rall is all over this on his website.

I think the liberal news media is checking this twice so they don't get "rathered".

[The Ressurrected One]

Ted Rall is all over this on his website.
Okay, first of all, that's like saying "a [stupid] cartoonist" is all over this on his website.

I think the liberal news media is checking this twice so they don't get "rathered".
I think the "liberal" media knows there's nothing to it...

[GoldToe]

Okay, first of all, that's like saying "a [stupid] cartoonist" is all over this on his website.

I think the "liberal" media knows there's nothing to it...

Ted Rall is much more than a cartoonist and I think even your conservative blindness can see that.

Nothing to it? I hope you are right but if Rove is guilty of this than it is much more serious than betting a blow job in the Oval Office don't you think?

[JohnnyMarzetti]

Despite the Time-Warner Corp's cave on the first ammendment, Fed prosecutor Fitzgerald is going after Cooper. So much for 'getting at the documents.'



July 5, 2005
Prosecutor Demands Time Reporter Testimony
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:12 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal prosecutor on Tuesday demanded the grand jury testimony of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, even though Time Inc. has surrendered e-mails and other documents to the investigation.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald also opposed the request of Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller to be granted home detention -- instead of jail -- for refusing to reveal their sources.

Fitzgerald said allowing them home confinement would make it easier for them to continue to defy the court order.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
[/quote]

I agree with this judge: it's time to make someone pay for this crime. And a crime it was, make no mistake.

Let's start with Liver Lips. Oh, right, he owns this administration, so he's protected from oh yeah, the law.

Bush is going down faster than Monica went down on Bill.

[The Ressurrected One]

Ted Rall is much more than a cartoonist and I think even your conservative blindness can see that.
You're right, he's a traitorous, idiotic, cartoonist.

Nothing to it? I hope you are right but if Rove is guilty of this than it is much more serious than betting a blow job in the Oval Office don't you think?
No one's convinced a crime occurred. There's a lot of ambiguity surrounding Ms. Plame's status with the CIA. She was, according to Washington media, known to work for the CIA. And, if she had a dual role in that agency, it would have to be revealed that her identity was leaked as "secret" agent and not just some CIA employee at Langley...which, by the way, is was is being asserted. Her secret agent days (if they ever truly existed) were long over before she was "outed" as a desk jockey employee.

It's not like she had infiltrated the upper echelon of al Qaeda and had her name and picture splashed across the media while getting boned by bin Laden, was it?

[NameDropper]

From what I've heard these reporters are derranged. This isn't a first ammendment issue and should not be confused for one for one second.

Where the hell is deepthroat??

These two reporters are complicit in the commission of a felony that damn near borders on treason. They aren't doing anything patriotic or moral by refusing to testify. What they are doing is trying to save their asses from real jail time.
They should be tried for the same felony that rove will face.

Rumor has it this is the beginning of Rove Gate?

[Nbadan]

Rumor going around Congressional Democrats is that Rove is soon to be indicted...


Occasionally I get emails from Washington folks who work on the Hill claiming to possess juicy insider digs on our public servants and their corporate paymasters. I usually delete said emails, as I don't want to be responsible for propagating dirty rumors or false information that can't be corroborated. I'd rather let Judith Miller and the New York Times do that. Nonetheless, in the past 24 hours I have been contacted by three separate congressional Democrats in Washington, by email and later phone, who all say the same thing: Karl Rove is about to be indicted.

Dissident Voice (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Frank0705.htm)

[Nbadan]

More on the possible uncoming Rove indictment...


Sources also all say that this indictment is likely to come down either late this week or early next week. Of course Rove's lawyer denies that his client ever “knowingly” handed over classified information to the media, or is the “target” of any investigation. Perhaps Rove “unknowingly” leaked the information, and he's the “subject” rather than a “target” of an investigation. Time will tell.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who has been leaked this information either. Over at Redstate, a right-wing Internet blog, one member who calls himself “Ohsure”, also claims that “ Great sources confirmed” the matter, and later added: “I not only don't do this, I have never done this. But here it is; ‘Karl Rove will be indicted late this, or early next week.’ I'm trusting a source. So either I am made a into an overzealous horses a**, or..., I have good sources and may be more trusted to get these things right.”

Dissident Voice (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Frank0705.htm)

[Nbadan]

Some sources are saying that Rove may not be the only WH Senior Official who is under investigation by Fitzgerald and the alleged conspiracy could extend to include false information fed by the Bush junta to 'friendly' news sources in order to prop up its war in Iraq...


White House Rovegate conspiracy likely to grow to include other senior White House officials

More on Rovegate: According to Washington insiders, Karl Rove is not the only "person of interest" being investigated by a Federal special prosecutor and the FBI for leaking the name of covert CIA agent to the media. In addition to the leak, itself a crime, prosecutors are looking at criminal conspiracy involving a non-White House "pass through" that leaked the classified information on Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings Associates to Robert Novak. Although Novak's now infamous column appeared on July 14, 2003, the focus is on a phone call or calls made by Rove to a non-White House player on July 6, 2003, the same day Ambassador Joseph Wilson's OP-ED on the bogus Niger intelligence appeared in The New York Times. It is also known that the White House knew at the time of Bush's departure that the "16 words" on Africa, Iraq, and uranium used in the State of the Union were false. Ari Fleischer said, a few hours after Rove made his first phone call, "we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect." However, the trashing of Wilson and continued exposures of his wife continued even after this information was known to the White House.

July 6 was the same day that President Bush departed Washington for Africa -- and it is also known that the prosecutor subpoenaed phone records from Air Force One from July 6 to July 30 -- but the focus is on July 6 -- the evening Air Force One departed Andrews Air Force Base for Senegal (EDT) (the aircraft arrived in Senegal on July 7) and the day Rove called the White House "pass through," said to be one of the journalists subpoenaed by the Grand Jury. Rove's lawyer is now claiming that Rove did not "knowingly" disclose the name of a CIA agent. Rove's claim is incredulous considering the fact that it is doubtful Rove would have cared about Plame's identity and then sought to spread it throughout the media, if she worked for the Bureau of Land Management or the Comptroller of the Currency.

New information: There is word that Karl Rove met with FBI agents who are part of the Fitzgerald probe 6 months ago and was given a "clean pass." However, this meeting may have been a sign that Rove was nervous and sought to gauge the prosecutor's case, if any, against him. Any prosecutor would have jumped at the chance to have a target like Rove get nervous and talk to them voluntarily, especially if he contradicted his previous Grand Jury testimony.

There are also growing suspicions that Rove coordinated the exposure of Plame and her network through an entity called the White House Iraq Group -- an entity created to manage the propaganda for the war. Its members included Rove, Cheney's assistant Mary Matalin, White House communications assistants Karen Hughes and James Wilkinson, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Legislative liaison Nicholas Calio, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, and Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The entire White House Iraq Group is considered suspect in knowing beforehand about the leak and participating in the subsequent conspiracy to cover it up -- both in conversations between Air Force One en route to Africa and Washington, DC and in group strategy meetings to deal with the subpoena of documents and testimony before the Grand Jury. Although the focus is now on Rove, many insiders also believe Scooter Libby phoned reporters to divulge Plame's identity.

Wayne Madsen (http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/)

[The Ressurrected One]

More on the possible uncoming Rove indictment...
Exactly.

[Nbadan]

Today's editorial on the Plame leak in the Express-News clearly shows which way the local SA fishwrap swings.....what liberal media?


Editorial: Jailing of reporters damages free press
Web Posted: 07/06/2005 12:00 AM CDT


San Antonio Express-News

In one of its final acts of the 2005 session, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of two reporters facing jail time for refusing to disclose confidential sources.

The clock is now running out on Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.

The prosecution of Miller and Cooper stems from an investigation into the disclosure by administration officials of the identity of a CIA officer. Miller never wrote about the information she received. Cooper only repeated what a third journalist, Robert Novak, had already made public in his syndicated column.

Novak, at this point, faces no prosecution.

It is unclear whether Time Inc.'s decision to turn Cooper's notes over to a prosecutor will negate his refusal to testify in the eyes of the courts.

Lost in the debate about the journalistic privilege to protect anonymous sources is a fundamental issue: No law has been broken. A violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act would require the deliberate disclosure of the identity of a covert agent whom the government is taking "affirmative measures" to conceal.

Nothing close to that has transpired, not even from the pen of Novak.

Rather than come up empty handed after a two-year investigation, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald seems intent on putting people behind bars, even if they had nothing to do with the commission of this noncrime and even if it strikes a blow at the function of a free press.

No remedy exists for the Supreme Court's apparent indifference to this prosecutorial zeal. Congress, however, can establish a federal shield law to protect legitimate uses of confidential sources. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have similar laws on the books.

The Free Flow of Information Act would allow testimony to be compelled from journalists only after all nonjournalistic sources had been exhausted and only if such testimony was essential to a criminal or civil case. The measure has bipartisan support and should be enacted immediately.

The miscarriage of justice in the case of Miller and Cooper goes beyond the narrow issue of two innocent individuals serving jail time.

If prosecutors can capriciously send journalists to jail for refusing to disclose anonymous sources, the ability of the press and the people to know what transpires behind the closed doors of government will be fundamentally impaired.

Express News (http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/stories/MYSA070605.06B.miller.3d175f58.html)

:rolleyes

Spin away Express-News. Spin away.

Judith Miller and Matt Cooper are not shielding an anonymous whistle-blower. They are shielding a criminal. Revealing the identity of Valerie Plame WAS the crime. Cooper and Miller are WITNESSES to this crime. Had the information not been offered them, there would be no crime.

This is absolutely the opposite of a whistle-blower case, in which a witness discloses to a reporter the criminal actions of others. Is Valerie Plame's career as an undercover CIA operative criminal? That's the only way that the leakers could be considered whistle-blowers. Since it is not, the leakers are simply treasonous criminals who used classified information to try to PREVENT a whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, from talking about what he knew to be true - that there was no Iraq/Niger uranium deal. So in effect you are siding against the whistle-blower.

You have it wrong. The Express-News should reconsider this campaign.

[Duff McCartney]

He'll get away with it. I don't care what any "liberal" says...he'll get off scot-free.

That's the way the wheel turns in this day and age.

[Nbadan]

It's not looking good for Rove and his companions as Fitzgerald seems unintimided by WH power moves to try and protect the source of the confidential leak...


The Bush Administration is scrambling behind the scenes to stop a criminal indictment against Presidential advisor Karl Rove for disclosing classified information to reporters in an attempt to discredit a White House critic.

Time Magazine emails turned over to a grand jury show Rove leaked CIA Operative Valerie Plame’s name to journalists after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, went public with claims the Bush Administration knowing used false information to justify the invasion of Iraq. Plame, until the disclosure, worked as a covert operative for the intelligence agency.

“Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews... that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” Time reporter Matthew Cooper wrote in the magazine in July, 2003.

Emails recently turned over to a federal grand jury investigating the leak show Cooper told his editors that Rove was the source of the information. In addition, Rove attorney Karl Luskin confirms that Cooper interviewed Rove for the article but claims that his client “never knowingly disclosed classified information.”

However, a producer for MSNBC’s Hardball program testified before the grand jury that in July, 2003, Rove called the show’s host, Chris Matthews, and said Plame was “fair game.”

*snip*


As a top White House aide, Rove has "code level" clearance on security matters and would easily have had access to Plame's status at the CIA. White House sources say he requested additional information on both Plame and Wilson before talking to reporters.

If Rove knowingly disclosed classified information he could face federal felony indictments. Sources within the investigation say special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is pursuing such an indictment against Rove but that the White House is pressuring the Justice Department to put the brakes on such a move.

“It’s a power game,” says one Justice Department attorney familiar with the investigation. “The White House is very, very worried that this will come back down on Rove and them.”

*snip*


“Rove once described himself as a die-hard Nixonite; he is, like the former president, both student and master of plausible deniability,” Israel says. “Consequently, when former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson challenged President Bush’s embrace of the British notion that Saddam Hussein imported uranium from Niger to produce nuclear weapons, retaliation by Rove was never in doubt.”

Capital Hill Blue (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_6981.shtml)

[The Ressurrected One]

Isn't this like the eleventy-millionth thing that was going to bring down the "Bush Junta?"

[JoeChalupa]

I think this may just be much ado about nothing.

'Wash Post' Wonders if Leaker of Plame's Identity Was a Reporter

By E&P Staff

Published: July 05, 2005 11:00 PM ET

NEW YORK The Washington Post, declaring Wednesday an "historic" day in the history of the press in America, suggested that perhaps the "leaker" of Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative was not a Bush administration official but a reporter (or reporters).

In a Wednesday A3 story, Carol Leonnig writes, "Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials -- not the other way around -- that Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA employee."

She also revealed that colleagues of Matt Cooper, the Time reporter who may be sent to jail Wednesday if he continues to refuse to testify to a grand jury, say "he is still struggling with his decision. For practical purposes, he cannot protect his sources because his publication has already turned over notes that identify them. But if Cooper cooperates, friends say, he fears his journalistic reputation will be tarnished. Time editors have told him they will respect whatever decision he makes, they said."

Leonnig also observed that at a lunch meeting on Tuesday with Washington Post reporters and editors, Karl Rove, who turned up as a source in Cooper's notes, declined to answer questions about the Plame case.

Washington Post thinks if may have been a reporter who leaked.... (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000973582)

I may not be a Bush supporter but even I don't think Rove would make such a juvenille mistake.

[The Ressurrected One]

I still don't think it's been determined that she was, in fact, a "secret" CIA operative.

[ClintSquint]

I still don't think it's been determined that she was, in fact, a "secret" CIA operative.

How hard is that really? Doesn't the CIA even know who they are?

[The Ressurrected One]

How hard is that really? Doesn't the CIA even know who they are?

Well, it's not that it's hard. It's just that she had a very public position at the CIA in Washington which was common knowledge; and now, apparently, we find out she was also a covert agent. Dual responsibilities it's called.

The original Novak article referred to her as a CIA "operative" on WMD's. Her public position was as an expert on WMD's at the CIA. It is still unknown what her "covert" responsibilities were. But, at the time of the writing of the article, Plame had been at a desk in Washington for some time -- over 3 years, I believe.

The whole nonsense started over Novak's use of the term "operative," I believe. Had he just said she was employed by the CIA as a WMD expert, it probably would have never raised an eyebrow.

That's how complicated the issue is. It's not that she wasn't a covert CIA agent; we don't know that for sure -- the CIA doesn't discuss such issues, It's just that Novak "outed" her public position with the agency and all the carping by the Left turned her into a "spy" (which she still could be but, that wasn't the effect of the article -- just the effect of the Left's response). At least, that's the way I understood it at the time...and, by the way, still do.

In the interceding 2 years since Novak "outed" here, the Left has managed to turn her into a deep cover spy that was exposed and had to be extracted from some infiltration; probably in Osama bin Laden's cave or something.

[exstatic]

I may not be a Bush supporter but even I don't think Rove would make such a juvenille mistake.
It's not a matter of making a mistake, it's being so power drunk that you don't care. In that respect Rove is totally "Nixonian".

[Nbadan]

Well, it's not that it's hard. It's just that she had a very public position at the CIA in Washington which was common knowledge; and now, apparently, we find out she was also a covert agent. Dual responsibilities it's called.

It seems that Yoni, as well as most NeoCon supporters and their corporate media shills are trying to rewrite history...

Wilsons' wife is named Valerie Plame, formerly Valerie Wilson, and she has worked for the CIA for years. Plame is not an analyst or a secretary as Republican shills claim. Plame is what the CIA calls a NOC, which stands for "non-official cover." A NOC designation means that Valerie Plame was working under such deep cover that she could not be associated with the American intelligence community in any way, shape or form. Plame worked out of a CIA front company called Brewster Jennings & Associates while she performed her service to America's defense. Her service? Valerie Plame ran a clandestine global network designed to track any person, group or nation that might try to deliver weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

Not long after Wilson's editorial ran in the Times, a individual, or individuals within the Bush administration cold-called several journalists and informed them that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. One of these calls went to Robert Novak, who wrote about it in his column. "Wilson never worked for the CIA," wrote Novak on July 14, 2003 "but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

This revelation, and the subsequent firestorm that followed, had a number of effects. Most prominently, it annihilated an intelligence network dedicated to keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. It destroyed the viability of Brewster Jennings & Associates as a front company, thus wrecking the work of every other agent who worked from there. It put the lives of Plame's informants within her network in mortal peril; when an agent gets blown, foreign intelligence agencies - especially ones in unfriendly countries - tend to erase the people that agent associated with as a matter of national security. It put Plame's life in peril as well; those same foreign intelligence services would prefer Plame be dead for revealing sensitive data about their activities.

"They couldn't resist letting Novak and those others know my wife worked with CIA," said Wilson on Monday. "Did they know she was a clandestine operator? The number of people in the administration who knew what my wife did for a living is very small. Only those who had means and motive could have done this, someone who has keys to our most precious national security secrets along with a political agenda. It occurred right at that nexus of policy and politics."

Why do this? Agents within the Bush administration destroyed a network dedicated to what is roundly broadcast as this administration's main mission: Keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. According to the rhetoric, this was why we invaded Iraq.

[Nbadan]

So what law may have been broken in the Plame case?


U.S. Code as of: 01/02/01 Section 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources

(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(d) Imposition of consecutive sentences A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment.

Case Law (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/15/subchapters/iv/sections/section_421.html)

[Nbadan]

What's really so sad is that Rove and his media shills are trying to hide behind the First Amendment, but SCOTUS set the precedent for these types of cases in 1972


Finally, if the confidential information relates to criminal activity, the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1972 (in Branzburg vs. Hayes) that should a grand jury investigating the crime need the information, the journalist must turn it over — despite the freedom of the press guaranteed under the 1st Amendment.

No reporter can enter into an agreement that violates that law. Rather, an agreement of confidentiality is subject to it. The so-called news person's privilege, just like the attorney-client privilege or a president's executive privilege, is a qualified privilege. When a judge holds a reporter in contempt for violating the law, that judge is merely upholding the law of the land.

LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-sources6feb06,0,6080347.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary)

No presedent is being set by jailing Judith Miller. Miller is in jail because she is breaking the law.

[Nbadan]

In a Wednesday A3 story, Carol Leonnig writes, "Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials -- not the other way around -- that Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA employee."

Judith Miller? Not quite.

This is a very interesting quote because of the rampant blogoshere speculation that Gannon/Guckert/Yonivore (male prostitute impersonating a WH reporter) may have been having a, how should I say this, a much 'closer' relationship with Karl Rove than anyone would ever care to admit publicly. One has to speculate if it was pillow-talk between Gannon-Rove that got the Machiavellian ball rolling in the Plame outing.

[The Ressurrected One]

Wilsons' wife is named Valerie Plame, formerly Valerie Wilson, and she has worked for the CIA for years. Plame is not an analyst or a secretary as Republican shills claim. Plame is what the CIA calls a NOC, which stands for "non-official cover." A NOC designation means that Valerie Plame was working under such deep cover that she could not be associated with the American intelligence community in any way, shape or form. Plame worked out of a CIA front company called Brewster Jennings & Associates while she performed her service to America's defense. Her service? Valerie Plame ran a clandestine global network designed to track any person, group or nation that might try to deliver weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.
Where did you get this information and why aren't you in jail? Jeeze!

[Vashner]

Ok but is the reporter not liable for breaking the law too?
If someone gives you classifed info you call the FBI to report it in private.
They will interview you and take a record.
If you KNOW it's classified info and you blair your mouth on TV you are breaking
the law too. There was no public need to know that she was an agent .. as
far as media ethics.

It could of been someone on the left that is the source too.. don't be too suprised.

[JoeChalupa]

The attention, not that the damn liberal media was paying much, has shifted to London and this is mute.

[Nbadan]

If anything, I hope the attacks in London forces our own Government to more closely examine it's own policies, foreign and domestic, and whether someone revealed the name of a clandestine operation led by Mrs. Plame designed to keep weapons out of the hands of International terrorists..

The NY Times and Editor and Publisher (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000974740) is reporting that Karl Rove was likely the source that waivered a confidentiality agreement allowing Cooper to testify before members of the Fitgerald Commission..


By E&P Staff

Published: July 07, 2005 8:45 AM ET

NEW YORK "A short time ago, in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express, personal release from my source," Matt Cooper of Time magazine told a federal judge yesterday, in dramatic fashion, just before being sentenced to jail. "It's with a bit of surprise and no small amount of relief that I will comply with this subpoena."

But who was this source? According to The New York Times today, "Cooper's decision to drop his refusal to testify followed discussions on Wednesday morning among lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser, according to a person who has been officially briefed on the case."

Rove's lawyer had confirmed over the weekend that his client had turned up as a source in Cooper's documents, which Time turned over to the special prosecutor on Friday, but that did not mean that he was the key source in question.

Recent discussions, the Times reported, "centered on whether a legal release signed by Mr. Rove last year was meant to apply specifically to Mr. Cooper, who by its terms would be released from any pledge of confidentiality he had made to Mr. Rove, the person said. Mr. Cooper said in court that he had agreed to testify only after he had received an explicit waiver from his source.

[Nbadan]

Prehaps, Miller has her own reasons for not talking to federal investigators...


(CBS/AP) A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge the name of a source to a grand jury investigating the leak of the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.

"There is still a realistic possibility that confinement might cause her to testify," said U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan of the showdown in a case that has had both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney interviewed by investigators. "If we give her a pass this time... then we are on a very slippery slope that leads to anarchy."

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports Miller said: "I won't testify. The risks are too great. The government is too powerful."

CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/07/national/main707048.shtml)

Shades of David Kelley perhaps?


Thanks to news articles written by others we know more about Kelly's e-mails than Judith Miller revealed to readers of The New York Times... and more importantly, we know that Kelly wrote at least one e-mail that Miller failed to write about.

SUICIDE scientist Dr David Kelly warned a friend that "dark actors" were working against him just hours before his death.

Dr Kelly revealed his fears shortly before killing himself after being dragged into the row over the Government's justification for war in Iraq.

In an email to American author Judy Miller, sent just before he left his home for the last time, he referred to "many dark actors playing games".

But, according to Miller, Dr Kelly gave no indication he was depressed or planning to take his own life.

He told her he would wait "until the end of the week" before deciding his next move following his traumatic appearance before a House of Commons select committee...

Thanks to: Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/3/17138/30618)

[JohnnyMarzetti]

Rove's Lawyer Sees the Light.

As pointed out on Keith Olberman's show the other night, Karl Rove's lawyer tried to enter into a "non-denial denial" by saying that rove did not "knowingly" give out the name of an undercover agent to the press.

He's dead.

[NameDropper]

Rumor has it that Rove gave bits and pieces to different individuals and then they put the pieces together. It's not his fault that they came together and got the information.

Plausible deniability is definitely a Karl Rove technique.

[Nbadan]

Newsweak Nails Karl Rove...


July 18 issue - It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek)

[Nbadan]

Rove's lawyer issues another denial-non-denial...


Rove Told Reporter About CIA Role But Gave No Name, Attorney Says

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 11, 2005; Page A01

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name.

<snip>

To be considered a violation of the law, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that the government was actively concealing the covert agent's identity.
<snip>

Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.
<snip>

"Rove did not mention her name to Cooper," Luskin said. "This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."

Washinton Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/10/AR2005071001000.html)

Wasn't it just last week that Luskin was claiming that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information". Their story seems to keep changing.

[Nbadan]

David Korn of The Nation posted this article that argues that W has little choice but to fire Rove if he want's to maintain the WH's standard of conduct image it alleges to possess.


The email--which Time had turned over to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the Plame/CIA leak--may not be enough to prompt Fitzgerald to indict Rove. Under the narrowly written Intelligence Identities Protect Act, Fitzgerald would have to show that Rove knew Valerie Wilson (a.k.a. Valerie Plame) was working at the CIA under cover--that is, as a secret employee--which she was. But Fitzgerald still could build such a case upon other evidence. And Rove also could be in legal peril if his previous testimony to Fitzgerald is contradicted by this email--or the other material Time surrendered, over Cooper's objections, to Fitzgerald or by Cooper's forthcoming testimony to Fitzgerald's grand jury. (Last week, Cooper declared his source, presumably Rove, had given him permission to testify before the grand jury.)

But let's put aside the legal issues for a moment. This email demonstrates that Rove committed a firing offense. He leaked national security information as part of a fierce campaign to undermine Wilson, who had criticized the White House on the war on
Iraq. Rove's overworked attorney, Robert Luskin, defends his client by arguing that Rove never revealed the name of Valerie Plame/Wilson to Cooper and that he only referred to her as Wilson's wife. This is not much of a defense. If Cooper or any other journalist had written that "Wilson's wife works for the CIA"--without mentioning her name--such a disclosure could have been expected to have the same effect as if her name had been used: Valerie Wilson would have been compromised, her anti-WMD work placed at risk, and national security potentially harmed. Either Rove knew that he was revealing an undercover officer to a reporter or he was identifying a CIA officer without bothering to check on her status and without considering the consequences of outing her. Take your pick: in both scenarios Rove is acting in a reckless and cavalier fashion, ignoring the national security interests of the nation to score a political point against a policy foe.

This ought to get Rove fired--unless he resigns first.

Can George W. Bush countenance such conduct within the White House? Consider what White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on September 29, 2003, after the news broke that the Justice Department was investigating the leak. McClellan declared of the Plame/CIA leak, "That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing."

The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/)

[EasilyAmused]

I can't believe this is getting so little coverage.

[Guru of Nothing]

I'm so confused.

[MannyIsGod]

The coverage is actually picking up, and I think that it's going to get rolling quite hard very soon. The media isn't exactly happy with this whole situation and I have a feeling they are going to fry this fucker. Serves him right.

[mookie2001]

manny comes correct again
hes leading the site with a 98.8% come correct ratio

[Nbadan]

Rove is not the only potential subject for Fitzgerald's probe, which already has resulted in the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to reveal her sources and Time magazine being forced to turn over notes about confidential sources, including Rove, to a grand jury.

People familiar with the inquiry say Fitzgerald also is reviewing testimony by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, though it is not clear whether the prosecutor is focusing on him or seeking information about higher-ups. Fleischer last night refused to comment.

Other Bush aides who have testified to the grand jury or been questioned by prosecutors include McClellan; Rove; former Deputy Press Secretary Adam Levine; Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff; and Dan Bartlett, a Bush communications adviser.

Bush himself was questioned by Fitzgerald in the Oval Office on June 24, 2004.

`Something Serious'

Randall Eliason, the former chief of the public corruption section of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, said the fact that Fitzgerald pursued Cooper and Miller so aggressively suggests that he has a legal target in sight. It is rare for a federal prosecutor to seek jail for a reporter who refuses to reveal sources, he said.

``You wouldn't expect him to go to these lengths unless he thought he had something serious to look at,'' Eliason said. ``You don't compel reporters to testify or jail reporters unless you have a pretty good reason. This is not something you do lightly.''

Eliason said Fitzgerald could be pursuing a perjury or obstruction of justice charge rather than a prosecution under the 1982 law that makes it a crime to reveal the name of a covert operative. He said that for an indictment under that law, Plame would have had to have been a covert operative, Rove would have had to have known she was covert, and information about her status would have to be classified."

Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aPAumGLz.W9M&refer=top_world_news)

Maybe this is why Fletcher quit on the day the Novak article came out? Sure is looking everyday like someone lied to federal investigators.

[Vashner]

There where plenty of Democrats out there from the Klinton admin that knew she was agent. Besides.. Rove got Bush back in.. his mission is over..
Or maybe they don't want him manning the guns against Hillda Beast.

[Nbadan]

There where plenty of Democrats out there from the Klinton admin that knew she was agent.

The source of the investigation into the leak definitely seems to lie between Judith Miller-Karl Rove-Matthew Cooper. Do you have proof a Democrat was involved?

[Nbadan]

Why W can't fire Turd blossom

http://img328.imageshack.us/img328/8338/karlrovedouchetriloquist8iv.jpg

[The Ressurrected One]

The source of the investigation into the leak definitely seems to lie between Judith Miller-Karl Rove-Matthew Cooper. Do you have proof a Democrat was involved?
Well, seeing as how Rove signed an unconditional waiver, in 2003, that would allow ANYONE, including Cooper and Miller, to reveal he had talked to them about the Wilson story, I find it hard to believe Rove is Miller's source.

What is more likely is that Miller is Miller's source, that she -- In Jayson Blair style -- just claimed to have a source when, in acuality, she was repeating something that was already common knowledge around Washington.

Would you go to jail if your confidential source had said, "Hey, go ahead, you can tell everyone I was your source on this story."?

But, let's move to the bigger picture as evidenced in today's New York Time's editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13wed1.html?) on the whole Plame affair. To begin with, the Times has a bit of a problem denouncing leaks, as it admits: "Far be it for [sic] us to denounce leaks." No kidding; the Times has carried on a guerrilla war against the Bush administration for the last four and one-half years, relying largely on anti-Bush leaks by Democrats in the CIA and the State Department.

But the Plame "leak" is different, somehow:


But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary.
Yes, I certainly agree with that. That's Joe Wilson is a scrotum-licking scum-sucker. He leaked the contents of his own report to the CIA--in the pages of the New York Times!--only he lied about his own report. He "peddled disinformation," falsely claiming to have found no evidence of an Iraqi effort to buy uranium from Niger, in order to "harm a political adversary," President Bush. The Times didn't mind that particular disinformation, however, since it fit the paper's political agenda. In fact, the Times has never issued a correction of the misstatements in Wilson's op-ed. On the contrary, today's editorial links to Wilson's 2003 piece and repeats its central allegations, without even mentioning that Wilson's op-ed has been found to be fraudulent by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee!


Mr. Rove said the origins of Mr. Wilson's mission were "flawed and suspect" because, according to Mr. Rove, Mr. Wilson had been sent to Niger at the suggestion of his wife, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency. To understand why Mr. Rove thought that was a black mark, remember that the White House considers dissenters enemies and that the C.I.A. had cast doubt on the administration's apocalyptic vision of Iraq's weapons programs.
No! Rove "thought that was a black mark" because Wilson had falsely claimed, in the very New York Times op-ed that the editorial linked to this morning, that he had been sent to Niger at the request of Vice-President Cheney's office:


In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.
This was another lie by Wilson, as Cheney pointed out at the time, and as the Senate Intelligence Report confirmed. Contrary to false statements made by Wilson and his wife, it was Valerie Plame who suggested her husband for the Niger venture, and the Vice-President's office had nothing to do with it. This is precisely what Karl Rove told Matt Cooper, but the Times demurely fails to quote Cooper's email to that effect.

As usual, the Times's editorial will sound plausible only to the uninformed. But it seems to me that there is a deeper level of malfeasance here.

In all of the liberal huffing and puffing over the supposed "outing" of Valerie Plame--as though she might be in danger as she drove to and from her desk job in Langley, and as though she hadn't posed for a photo shoot in Vanity Fair, dressed up as a spy--I've seen no liberal criticism of a more recent, real outing of a clandestine CIA operation. In this case, those who outed a CIA operation exposed secret agents operating in the field, in circumstances of great personal danger, not a civilian desk employee. The outing of the CIA operation undoubtedly forced the CIA to terminate or change what had been an effective means of protecting the nation's security, and likely did endanger the lives of real covert agents.

I'm referring, of course, to the exposure of a purportedly civilian airline as a CIA operation:


While posing as a private charter outfit - "aircraft rental with pilot" is the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service. The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees.

An analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and corporate documents, as well as interviews with former C.I.A. officers and pilots, show that the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased since 2001. The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft.

The planes, regularly supplemented by private charters, are operated by real companies controlled by or tied to the agency, including Aero Contractors and two Florida companies, Pegasus Technologies and Tepper Aviation.
Who was it who "outed" these CIA employees, blew their cover and perhaps endangered their lives? The New York Times (http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/view/1397), of course! In an article that was based largely on leaks by former CIA employees, who were out to embarrass the administration. Ah, but that's the "good" kind of leak--the kind that exposes the Agency's real covert operatives, not the kind that tries to correct lies told by Democratic Party loyalists in the pages of the New York Times.

Finally, it's still not clear that Valerie Plame was even a covert agent anymore; that her association with the CIA wasn't known about; and that the CIA was actively seeking to keep her identity secret.

It has been pointed out that Valerie Plame was recalled to Washington in the 90's when Aldrich Ames "outed" her and compromised her position. She has since been at a desk job in the CIA at Langley -- from which, by the way, she lobbied for her husband to get the Niger assignment.

Rove merely told the truth in an attempt to keep Cooper from printing an erroneous story. Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA, at the behest of his wife (there's a memo with her signature on it -- very covert, Val.), not by the Vice President. Wilson is a liar and Rove merely corrected him.

[Nbadan]

Well, seeing as how Rove signed an unconditional waiver, in 2003, that would allow ANYONE, including Cooper and Miller, to reveal he had talked to them about the Wilson story, I find it hard to believe Rove is Miller's source.

What is more likely is that Miller is Miller's source, that she -- In Jayson Blair style -- just claimed to have a source when, in acuality, she was repeating something that was already common knowledge around Washington.

Would you go to jail if your confidential source had said, "Hey, go ahead, you can tell everyone I was your source on this story."?

Even if Judith Miller was the source, that would not be enough confirmation for Robert Novak and his editors to run with this type of story and it doesn't begin to take in account Rove's statements to reporters about Joe Wilson being 'fair game' after he disputed the Presidents statement about yellow cake uranium in his SOTU address. Not to mention recent public statements by Miller that she fears for her own safety if she was to reveal the name of her source.

[Nbadan]

Yes, I certainly agree with that. That's Joe Wilson is a scrotum-licking scum-sucker. He leaked the contents of his own report to the CIA--in the pages of the New York Times!--only he lied about his own report. He "peddled disinformation," falsely claiming to have found no evidence of an Iraqi effort to buy uranium from Niger, in order to "harm a political adversary," President Bush. The Times didn't mind that particular disinformation, however, since it fit the paper's political agenda. In fact, the Times has never issued a correction of the misstatements in Wilson's op-ed. On the contrary, today's editorial links to Wilson's 2003 piece and repeats its central allegations, without even mentioning that Wilson's op-ed has been found to be fraudulent by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee!

Oh please, the 911 Commission report on Yellow-cake uranium was full of gaping holes, but that's a subject for another day. The fact remains that the documents that these allegations were based on, British Government documents by the way, had already been found to have been completely fraudulant by the time the whole Valarie Plame story broke. There simply was no credible intelligence linking Niger-Iraq-Yellow Cake Uranium, and Wilson's trip only confirmed those findings, but that didn't stop the WH.

[Nbadan]

This was another lie by Wilson, as Cheney pointed out at the time, and as the Senate Intelligence Report confirmed. Contrary to false statements made by Wilson and his wife, it was Valerie Plame who suggested her husband for the Niger venture, and the Vice-President's office had nothing to do with it. This is precisely what Karl Rove told Matt Cooper, but the Times demurely fails to quote Cooper's email to that effect.

As usual, the Times's editorial will sound plausible only to the uninformed. But it seems to me that there is a deeper level of malfeasance here.

Here is where the real controversy starts. In their testimony to investigators Cheney is reported to have told investigators that he didn't know who sent Joe Wilson to Niger, nor who's idea it was in the first place to send him and his wife. However, in his testimony Karl Rove told investigators that he authorized the Wilson trip, not Valerie Plame as the right-wing echo-chamber is religiously claiming. Joe Wilson meanwhile continues to state that it was Cheney who authorized the trip, and that he sent a complete copy of his final report to the State Dept, the CIA heads and to Dick Cheney's office personally. Why would Karl Rove have authority to order this kind of trip and never inform the President and Vice-President? It's very unlikely that Cheney didn't know and this is were obstruction of justice comes into the picture. Someone lied to investigators and its becoming clear from Fitzgerald's own statements this is precisely what he is currently after, not the treason charge per se, until Judith Miller talks.

[Nbadan]

Project Missing Dick

It seems now in this most current variation of reality, one surpassing anything even Baudrillard could have imagined, criminal activity is simply up for interpretation. The rule of law is but a passé little concept meant for small minds and the unenlightened masses.

As always, in this reality, when the most criminal offenses occur at the highest level of government, our resident Dick goes missing.

Downing Street Minutes? $8.8 Billion missing from Iraq? Faux war?

I am Cheney’s medulla oblongata

Given this administration’s love for partial-truth-abortions (PTA, oddly enough) -- the most notable of course is the Rathergate scenario -- it is interesting to find Rove front and center and Cheney all covert-like.

A quick walk through a simple PTA procedure is as follows: discredit the carrier and/or mechanism of delivery while simultaneously aborting all discussion of the actual subject of what is being delivered, regardless of fact.

So in watching the mechanism, and seeing Rove, over-visibly pimped about town as the criminal de jour (not that this is untrue, just the de jour part), is it so un-reasonable to ask where the actual subject is?

After all, Rove may have had his sticky fingers inside all sorts of files, but it is highly doubtful that he would have the ability to know the status of a CIA NOC. It is also highly unlikely that “Bush’s brain” would have and/or command any real ability outside of “fixing” lessons and creating “talking” lies. Well, we really should include the wire-tapping of his own office too (a man of many trades).

Rove is, in short, capable of many things as his Nixon- protégé resume shows, but he is not remotely in any way more than a front-end leaker in this case.

I am Cheney’s Cold Sweat

How then, did Rove both acquire and validate the status of a NOC asset, a high level officer at that? Did he ring up Ollie North at his uber-journalistic headquarters at Fox news to inquire? Or maybe he Googled around until the NOC came knocking?

No, I think that Mr. Rove, was supplied the information in order to fulfill his job, namely, to deliver the “package” via the front end.

Dick, however, paid a great many visits to the CIA, sent Joe Wilson abroad, and used his office and his Scooter to source this very same story. In fact, Veep even had the forged uranium yellowcake documents.

I Am Larisa's Complete Lack of Surprise

Let’s all sit around the camp fire and toast some nuggets of possibility. Granted, this is a theory and may be entirely and absolutely a ridiculous attempt at logic on my part (and the part of others). But let us proceed anyway, just for poops and giggles, as it were.

Who is Fredrick Fleitz?

Anyone?

Well, Freddy is a CIA asset on “loan” to John Bolton.

On loan for what you ask?

Good question! It seems that Fred, and he even says so in his own words, served at least one purpose: acting as “…liaison… for the agency and Mr. Bolton.” (http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2005/FleitzInterview050411.pdf)

Okay, but what is Fred on loan from in the CIA: typing, running errands, what? Mr. Fleitz, it appears, is, on loan from the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC).

Oops, would that put Fred anywhere near looking into uranium yellowcake, WMD, and maybe, a high level CIA NOC?

Considering I am not the only one under the influence of this thing called logic and that others have written far more extensively about this Fred to Bolton to Dick trifecta, or given the most recent Rove circumstances, quadrifecta, let me simply provide you with a few pieces for your reading pleasure:

Washington Notes (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000569.html)

Ray McGovern (http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=5934)

I am Rove’s Wasted Life

So why is the MSM press busy scurrying around Rove, all honest-like, and not asking the more important questions about the far more egregious leak and the reason for that leak?

If the DSM (collectively) validated a “fixing” of intelligence around a policy to create a war and if Joe Wilson put a wrench in that “fix,” what would someone like Bolton do on the behest of his master? Anyone?



Larisa Alexandrovna, The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/larisa-alexandrovna/project-missing-dick_4127.html)

[The Ressurrected One]

However, in his testimony Karl Rove told investigators that he authorized the Wilson trip, not Valerie Plame as the right-wing echo-chamber is religiously claiming.
What testimony? Transcript please.

[dcole50]

Besides.. Rove got Bush back in.. his mission is over..
uh, i assume he wants to work on future campaigns. or at least be a free man ...

[cqsallie]

Someone lied to investigators and its becoming clear from Fitzgerald's own statements this is precisely what he is currently after, not the treason charge per se, until Judith Miller talks.
Exactly, Nbadan!!!
I believe that the crows have come home to roost; that Karl Rove may have just gone too far this time; that the press corps is starting to ask the hard questions they seemed too afraid to ask during the past few years; that even the simplest mind is beginning to realize that Rove is Bush's Himmler - a master of propaganda, lies, and innuenda.
This may be a good excuse for Bush to get rid of Rove (publicly, while privately assuring him of what a great guy he is). KR has served his purpose and right now GWB's ratings are at all-time low. What could be better for Bush than to dish Rove, ostensibly taking the high road, to the applause of both the right and left. I would think the sooner he does this the better. This administration can't stand the scrutiny that hauling Rove in would create.
In a way, I'd rather see Rove take his licks and bring his puppets with him.
I'm just reading all these posts, having been on about a dozen other sites and blogs for the past several weeks. The majority would like to see the end of Rove - even a surprising number of Republicans...

[Nbadan]

Everyday the plot thickens. The vindictive NY Times is reporting that a State Dept memorandum that linked Valarie Plame to the CIA may have made it's way onto a Presidential flight by Colin Powell, and discussed with both Karl Rove and the President before Wilson had the odacity to criticize the WH for it's SOTUA.


<snip>

WASHINGTON, July 15 - Prosecutors in the C.I.A. leak case have shown intense interest in a 2003 State Department memorandum that explained how a former diplomat came to be dispatched on an intelligence-gathering mission and the role of his wife, a C.I.A. officer, in the trip, people who have been officially briefed on the case said.

Investigators in the case have been trying to learn whether officials at the White House and elsewhere in the administration learned of the C.I.A. officer's identity from the memorandum. They are seeking to determine if any officials then passed the name along to journalists and if officials were truthful in testifying about whether they had read the memorandum, the people who have been briefed said, asking not to be named because the special prosecutor heading the investigation had requested that no one discuss the case.

The memo was sent to Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, just before or as he traveled with President Bush and other senior officials to Africa starting on July 7, 2003, when the White House was scrambling to defend itself from a blast of criticism a few days earlier from the former diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson IV, current and former government officials said. Mr. Powell was seen walking around Air Force One during the trip with the memo in hand, said a person involved in the case who also requested anonymity because of the prosecutor's admonitions about talking about the investigation.

Investigators are also trying to determine whether the gist of the information in the memo, including the name of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, Mr. Wilson's wife, had been provided to the White House even earlier, said another person who has been involved in the case. Investigators have been looking at whether the State Department provided the information to the White House before July 6, 2003, when her husband publicly criticized the way the administration used intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, the person said.

<snip>

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/politics/16memo.html)

I wonder who the State department leak could have been......hummmmmmm..









http://english.epochtimes.com/news_images/2005-1-6-bolt-2.jpg

[Nbadan]

Seems that Rove-Miller may just be the warm-up act - the real target of Special Counsel's investigation could be Libby-Cheney...


By Howard Kurtz and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 16, 2005; Page A06

Lawyers in the CIA leaks investigation are concerned that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may seek criminal contempt charges against New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a rare move that could significantly lengthen her time in jail.

Miller, now in her 10th day in the Alexandria jail, already faces as much as four months of incarceration for civil contempt after refusing to answer questions before a grand jury about confidential conversations she had in reporting a story in the summer of 2003. Fitzgerald and Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan have both raised the possibility in open court that Miller could be charged with criminal contempt if she continues to defy Hogan's order to cooperate in the investigation of who may have unlawfully leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media.

The unusual threat in the case underscores the sensitivity of an investigation that has reached the highest levels of the White House and the prosecutor's determination to extract information from reluctant journalists even though he has yet to charge anyone with a crime. What secrets Miller can unlock for Fitzgerald -- and the reasons he has so doggedly pursued her -- have been a subject of considerable mystery.

While media coverage in recent days has focused on conversations White House senior adviser Karl Rove had with reporters, two sources say Miller spoke with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, during the key period in July 2003 that is the focus of Fitzgerald's investigation.

<snip>

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071502080.html)

[clubalien]

he said that he was giving the mission by vice president, WELL who would know this is not true
1:) the person who gave hiim job )( his wife) why woudl his wife and aassoastes what to leak it .. answer no reason at all
2:) vice president would know that he didnlt give him the job

therefore it seems VERY likely that the VICE president himself coudl be the orginal major LEAK

and it fits with his personana

[The Ressurrected One]

The NY Times suggests, could have been Colin Powell or his deputy, Rich Armitage.

Watch heads explode all over Washington trying to figure out how to handle this one. It will be like the androids on that old Star Trek episode faced with the unanswerable condundrum about what happens wihen a liar says he's lying: "But if you are lying then you can't be telling the truth but if you say you are lying then you are telling the truth if you are lying but you can't tell the truth....Norman, compute, Norman, compute...." And BOOOOM!

Will this mean that the bloom will come off the always-sweet-smellling Powell rose, or is it time for the wholesale reexamination of Powell on the moderate-lib-left that he mysteriously avoided in 2003 after it turned out his speech on WMD didn't have all the facts straight?

[violentkitten]

now perjury convictions are all the rage. go figure.

[ChumpDumper]

So you believe the Times now?

How convenient.

[The Ressurrected One]

So you believe the Times now?

How convenient.
I didn't say they were right.

[The Ressurrected One]

Just as with the DeLay "travel scandal," I'm predicting the Liberals will wish they hadn't been so rabid in their pursuit of Karl Rove.

Interesting article... Just who is Judith Miller protecting and why isn't the media as interested in her source?


Outing Plame may not have been illegal. What is the prosecutor hunting?
Sunday, July 17, 2005

Why is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursuing so zealously the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, since it is all but impossible to prove that the leaker or leakers committed a crime?

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires that the leaker have learned the identity of a "covert agent" from authorized sources. And it requires that the leak be deliberate.

The law defines a "covert agent" as someone working undercover overseas, or who has done so in the last five years. Plame had operated under non-official cover, but was outed by CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, and has been manning a desk at CIA headquarters since 1997.

So why is Fitzgerald acting like Inspector Javert in "Les Miserables"? The answer may lie in a sentence Walter Pincus of The Washington Post wrote on June 12, 2003. First, some background:

At Plame's suggestion, the CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger in February 2002 to investigate a report by a foreign intelligence service that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium. In his report to the CIA (as documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee), Wilson said Iraqis had approached Nigerien officials. In 1999, an Iraqi delegation met with the prime minister in the interest of "expanding commercial relations" -- which the prime minister interpreted to mean uranium sales -- but no deal had been made.

In September 2002, the British government published a white paper in which it made public British intelligence's belief that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A month later, the CIA received from an Italian source documents purporting to show that Niger and Iraq had done a deal. These turned out to be forgeries.

President Bush mentioned the British findings in his State of the Union address in January 2003. In his leaks to Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson claimed Bush knew this was false. The key sentence in Pincus' story is this:

"Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,' the former U.S. government official said."

Wilson's official role ended when he returned from Niger in March. The CIA didn't get the Italian forgeries until October. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Kristof and Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.

Wilson outed himself in an op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which described his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger in 2002. On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wondered why Wilson, who had no intelligence background and strong anti-Bush views, had been selected for the Niger mission. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report," he wrote. That set off the Plame name game.

Journalists lost interest when in July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Wilson was lying about who sent him to Niger and what he learned there. Furthermore, the Butler Commission concluded reports Saddam was trying to buy uranium were "well founded."

But by then the special prosecutor they'd sought had been appointed, and Fitzgerald was demanding testimony from two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote a story about Plame, and Judith Miller of the New York Times, who didn't.

Journalistic interest revived when Cooper revealed his source was Bush political guru Karl Rove. Novak (the journalist who outed Plame) hasn't revealed his sources. But a fawning profile of Wilson and Plame in Vanity Fair in January 2004 offers a clue:

"Wilson was caught off guard when around July 9 he received a phone call from Robert Novak who, according to Wilson, said he'd been told by a CIA source that Wilson's wife worked for the agency."

Cooper is a free man because Rove gave him explicit permission to talk about their conversation. Miller is in jail because her source didn't, suggesting he or she is someone other than Rove.

Liberals want Rove's scalp. But the revelation Friday (if true) that Rove learned of Plame's occupation from a journalist makes it most unlikely that he could prosecuted successfully under the Identities Act.

Maybe Rove -- or someone else -- lied to the grand jury. Or maybe Fitzgerald is investigating a different crime.

What if someone in the CIA was leaking classified information to influence the 2004 election? Uncovering a crime like that would be worthy of Inspector Javert's doggedness.

I suspect the biggest shoe in this case has yet to drop, and liberal journalists won't be happy when it does.

What if it's Plame herself? Who else would have been in a postion to give Wilson information to which he wasn't privvy? I just love it...

[Nbadan]

The law defines a "covert agent" as someone working undercover overseas, or who has done so in the last five years. Plame had operated under non-official cover, but was outed by CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, and has been manning a desk at CIA headquarters since 1997.

Do you really believe that people are naive enough to fall for the 'desk job in Langley' and 'Aldrich Ames bit'?


PLAMEGATE
How Rove's Leak Undermined National Security

Did the outing of Valerie Plame damage U.S. national security? Many have claimed it did not, since (in the words of conservative Victoria Toensing) the CIA "gave a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them." Yesterday, a bipartisan group of 11 former intelligence officers -- including Col. W. Patrick Lang, the former Director of Defense Human Intelligence Services at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Vince Cannistraro, former counterterrorism chief at the CIA -- submitted a letter to congressional leaders rebutting these claims. The officers argue that the "desk job" excuse reveals "an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover." More importantly, they say, the "disclosure of Ms. Plame's name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources."

"THE GRAVITY OF THE SUSPECTED CRIME...": Perhaps the best indication of the severity of the Plame leak is found in the opinion of Circuit Judge David Tatel. In February 2005, Tatel joined his colleagues on the D.C. Court of Appeals in ordering reporters Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller to reveal their sources despite the fact that he believes current law provides "a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources." So what explains his ruling? Tatel wrote that, in this case, the journalists' privilege had to give way to "the gravity of the suspected crime." Tatel's opinion on the matter is crucial, both because of his status as an independent, nonpartisan source, and because he admits to "aving carefully scrutinized voluminous classified filings," which virtually no other public figure commenting on the Plame case has had the opportunity to do. Later in his ruling, as MSNBC analyst Lawrence O'Donnell notes, Tatel "says he 'might have' let Cooper and Miller off the hook 'ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.'" And Tatel's colleagues are "at least as impressed with the prosecutor's secret filings as he is. One simply said 'Special Counsel's showing decides the case.'"

PLAME WASN'T THE ONLY VICTIM OF ROVE'S LEAK:In late 2003, the Washington Post revealed that Plame's outing had "also exposed the identity of a CIA front company," and so might "have damaged U.S. national security to a much greater extent than generally realized." One former high-level agency official said the front firm was "apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk," meaning that "once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered." A former diplomat warned the Post that "every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities." The exposure of the front firm forced the CIA's Directorate of Operations to conduct an "extensive damage assessment," though its results have never been released.

American Progress Action (http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=897873)

Well, maybe Yoni is naive enough to fall for the 'desk-job in Langley' bit, but if Plame had not worked as a 'operative' over-seas since 1997 what was she and her husband, Joe Wilson, doing in Niger in 2001? Even if she had suggested the trip to her CIA bosses? And if the Ames or Cuban incident revelation really did compromise Plame, why has the CIA refused to release the findings of their examination into her public outing by Robert Novak?

[Nbadan]

In a article to be published today, The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/) is claiming that a State Department file marked 'Secret' discussed Valarie Plame identity, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified.

Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Thursday, July 21, 2005; Page A01


A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

[Nbadan]

Now that I've been sucked into the right-wing disinformation machine, I am struck by how unrelenting it is. Cliff May posted a dumb column claiming that Joe Wilson told me on background that his wife was an undercover operative and that I was the first person to really out Valerie Wilson (nee Plame). I debunked that nonsense here. But pesky May still sent me email asking me to explain what I had already explained. By not accepting my explanation--and by claiming that what I've written previously is misleading--he is essentially calling me a liar. I take such things personally. (This fellow once asked me if I would be willing to be his partner in a right/left cable-TV face-off. I'm glad it never came to pass.) And there he was again yesterday on CNN expanding his web of fabrication. He said:

You can say what you want about Bob Novak. He has insisted since the beginning that he didn't know she was a secret agent. He just knew she worked at the CIA. Nobody told him that. And if he had known she was secret, he wouldn't have published her name. Now who did publish her name first was David Corn of "The Nation," and he was the first one to say she was a secret agent, and he did that in a conversation with, guess who, with Joe Wilson.

How does one combat repeated silliness of this sort? Who knows what Novak would have done had he been told Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer? And maybe he was told. All we know is that Novak claims the CIA informed him it would prefer if he not name her but did not go ballistic about it. This tale may be true; it may not. (In his own account, Novak still turned down the CIA.) Moreover, Novak did publish her name first. It's right there in the column that prompted the CIA to ask the Justice Department to investigate the White House. CNN anchor Carol Costello should have stopped May and told the audience he was either lying or misspeaking. And May states as a fact that Wilson told me his wife was an undercover officer, even though he has no evidence of this and I have said precisely the opposite. What chutzpah! He doesn't even have an anonymous source to rely on. Is this the sort of journalism he learned when working at The New York Times? Or did he perfect his smear skills when he subsequently served as a spokesperson for the Republican Party? In his absurd article, he at least had the courtesy to present his bogus charge as the product of his own deductive reasoning (as defective as it was). On CNN, he stated as a fact that Wilson had spilled the beans to me about his wife--which is not true . . . .

Disinformation, distraction--that's the plan, as trouble-causing details emerge from the investigation that threaten Karl Rove and other senior Bush aides. For GOP operatives, it's all-hands-to-the-deck time. And the strategy is to fire whatever ammunition the have, whether it is real or a dud. They want to turn this into a partisan mud-wrestle, realizing that much of the public turns off to such cat-and-dogs nastiness. They try to make the victims the culprits, calling Joe Wilson the biggest liar of all time and making claims about Valerie Wilson that are unsupported by the known facts (e.g., she was no more than a desk jockey). Change the focus to anything but what Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other White House aides did and whether the White House and the president has covered up for them.

David Corn, The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=7282#pid7307)

[AFE7FATMAN]

Yoni or NBAdan

If Judith Miller talks will she get another Pulitzer? :lol
Dam the women is sooooo conected with dis-enfranchised former CIA employees. I bet she is in more trouble with Fitzgerald than a Lot of folks think and the NYT is just about ready to take a big hit-again.

Has a crime been committed?

Has classified info been leaked? DId Rove read the quoted memo above?

Has the info that Valeria was an agent resulted in the death of anyone?

If the answer is no to the above, with the exception of the 1st question-than I don't care and I think most Americans could give a sheet less also.