Rove Source of Plame Leak?

[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 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

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

[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 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 s -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 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 do ented 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 cir stances 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 do ents, 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 s 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, 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 iden y 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 s -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 do ents that these allegations were based on, British Government do ents 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 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

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 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.

, 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 do ents.

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.”

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 trifecta, or given the most recent Rove cir stances, quadrifecta, let me simply provide you with a few pieces for your reading pleasure:

Washington Notes

Ray McGovern

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

[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 iden y 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

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

[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

[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 Iden ies Protection Act requires that the leaker have learned the iden y 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 do ented 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 do ents 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 do ents 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 Iden ies 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 iden y 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

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 is claiming that a State Department file marked 'Secret' discussed Valarie Plame iden y, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified.

Plame's Iden y 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 do ent, 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 iden ies 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 iden y 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

[AFE7FATMAN]

Yoni or NBAdan

If Judith Miller talks will she get another Pulitzer?
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.