Rove was the source of the Plame leak... so it appears

Ticomaya wrote:

parados wrote:

The question is only unanswered in your absolute world. It is very easy to see that the CIA, the DoJ and the prosecuter had to answer that question before they could even proceed. It might not stand up eventually but as for now it has been answered well enough to proceed.

In order to convince yourself of this, you have concluded that because the CIA has forwarded the matter to the DOJ, a crime must have been committed. That is not the standard. Perhaps you are not aware of it, but many charges are brought to prosecutors by law enforcement when there is not even evidence to show a crime was committed, and certainly not sufficient evidence to prove a case against the defendant. These cases often don't get charged, but sometimes do, and following the indictment, are weeded out at the preliminary hearing. Occasionally these cases make it to trial. Your statement that the question "has been answered" demonstrates a naivete one should not be proud to exhibit.

Your attempt to ignore the standard that CIA was required to meet and what they said they met is what shows naivete. The EO requires that they forward all POSSIBLE crimes to DoJ. It isn't POSSIBLE to be a crime if she wasn't covert. You can argue this all day Tico. It doesn't change the facts of what is required to rise to the standard of a crime in order be forwarded. The CIA forwarded the report as required by Executive Order for any evidence of a possible crime. The CIA lawyers examined the evidence BEFORE they forwarded it. In order for you argument to have any validity here Tico then the CIA lawyers would have to be incompetent and not understand what constitutes a crime. They forwarded it as REQUIRED by a EO that states POSSIBLE crimes are to be sent to DoJ. It could NOT be forwarded because they were "unhappy".

Are you positive this statement of yours is accurate: "It isn't POSSIBLE to be a crime if she wasn't covert."

Sources Tell 'Time' Bush Officials Learned Plame CIA Link Early--and Not from Media

By E&P Staff

Published: July 31, 2005 11:55 AM ET

NEW YORK Time magazine is reporting today on its Web site that according to its sources "some" White House officials may have learned that CIA officer Valerie Plame was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson "weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer."

The Time account reveals that in the first week of June 2003 the CIA's public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson's trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. "That office then contacted Plame's unit, which had sent Wilson to Niger, but stopped short of drafting an internal report," according to the magazine. "The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip from Carl Ford, head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research." Sources familiar with the memo "say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June." Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy too.

After Pincus' article ran on June 12, a former intelligence officer told Time, "there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others" about Wilson's trip and its origins.

The article concludes: "A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6. John McLaughlin, then deputy head of the CIA, confirms that the White House asked about the Wilson trip, but can't remember exactly when. One thing he's sure of, says McLaughlin, who has been interviewed by prosecutors, is that 'we looked into it and found the facts of it, and passed it on.'"

Ok, all A2Kers, if you are a covert operative, stand up and be counted.

If you are not, switch over to the Fitzgeral Investigation:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=56457&highlight=

It's getting really boring here.

BBB

Ticomaya wrote:

Are you positive this statement of yours is accurate: "It isn't POSSIBLE to be a crime if she wasn't covert."

Please explain how the CIA lawyers could investigate the possible criminal release of an undercover agent and determine that it was criminal if she wasn't undercover?

1. The CIA investigated the release of the name of an agent
2. The CIA determined the release of her name met the criminal standard.
3. The criminal standard requires that her status be classified and she had served overseas in the last 5 years.
4. The CIA as REQUIRED by law requested that DoJ investigate the possible criminal release of an agent's name.
5. The CIA didn't request the investigation on the basis of revealing classified information. The request was specific about the revelation of a covert agent.
6. The DoJ concurred with the CIA.

Until you can come up with another possible explanation Tico, I can only see one logical conclusion from the actions. The CIA could NOT contact the DOJ about a possible criminal release of an agent's name if that agent was not "covert" or "undercover". (Both words apply equally and are synonymous.)

First I would love to read you explain how they ain't for once. I think you like playing offense rather than defense.

What is the legal difference between covert and undercover? If you would, rather than throwing out some ambiguous legal definition, sum up your understanding of the legal definition with your reasoning in which you reached your understanding. If you already have in your mind, just pretend you haven't and do so again, please, to make it easier to recall.

The term ''covert agent'' means -
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an
intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed
Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member
is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within
the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship
to the United States is classified information, and -
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an
agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance
to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an
agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or
foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose
past or present intelligence relationship to the United States
is classified information and who is a present or former agent
of, or a present or former informant or source of operational
assistance to, an intelligence agency.

I am sure it is just as illegal to expose an undercover agent as it is a covert agent.

Correcting the CIA
Robert Novak (archive)

August 1, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A statement attributed to the former CIA spokesman indicating that I deliberately disregarded what he told me in writing my 2003 column about Joseph Wilson's wife is just plain wrong.

Though frustrated, I have followed the advice of my attorneys and written almost nothing about the CIA leak over two years because of a criminal investigation by a federal special prosecutor. The lawyers also urged me not to write this. But the allegation against me is so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I feel constrained to reply.

In the course of a front-page story in last Wednesday's Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei quoted ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow describing his testimony to the grand jury. In response to my question about Valerie Plame Wilson's role in former Amb. Wilson's trip to Niger, Harlow told me she "had not authorized the mission." Harlow was quoted as later saying to me "the story Novak had related to him was wrong."

This gave the impression I ignored an official's statement that I had the facts wrong but wrote it anyway for the sake of publishing the story. That would be inexcusable for any journalist and particularly a veteran of 48 years in Washington. The truth is otherwise, and that is why I feel compelled to write this column.

My column of July 14, 2003, asked why the CIA in 2002 sent Wilson, a critic of President Bush, to Niger to investigate an Italian intelligence report of attempted Iraqi uranium purchases. All the subsequent furor was caused by three sentences in the sixth paragraph:

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA [Harlow] says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."

There never was any question of me talking about Mrs. Wilson "authorizing." I was told she "suggested" the mission, and that is what I asked Harlow. His denial was contradicted in July 2004 by a unanimous Senate Intelligence Committee report. The report said Wilson's wife "suggested his name for the trip." It cited an internal CIA memo from her saying "my husband has good relations" with officials in Niger and "lots of French contacts," adding they "could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." A State Department analyst told the committee that Mrs. Wilson "had the idea" of sending Wilson to Africa.

So, what was "wrong" with my column as Harlow claimed? There was nothing incorrect. He told the Post reporters he had "warned" me that if I "did write about it, her name should not be revealed." That is meaningless. Once it was determined that Wilson's wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as "Valerie Plame" by reading her husband's entry in "Who's Who in America."

Harlow said to the Post that he did not tell me Mrs. Wilson "was undercover because that was classified." What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.'" According to CIA sources, she was brought home from foreign assignments in 1997, when Agency officials feared she had been "outed" by the traitor Aldrich Ames.

I have previously said that I never would have written those sentences if Bill Harlow, then CIA Director George Tenet or anybody else from the Agency had told me that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger herself or anybody.

The recent first disclosure of secret grand jury testimony set off a news media feeding frenzy centered on this obscure case. Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate committee reported much of what he said "had no basis in fact." The re-emerged Wilson is now accusing the senators of "smearing" him. I eagerly await the end of this investigation when I may be able to correct other misinformation about me and the case.