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

Miller may face criminal charge
Reporter may face criminal charge
Miller may be pressured more to discuss source
Saturday, July 16, 2005
By Howard Kurtz and Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers in the CIA leaks investigation are concerned that special prosecutor Patrick 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, Va., 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 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 that White House senior adviser Karl Rove had with reporters, two sources say Miller spoke with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, during the key period in July 2003 that is the focus of Fitzgerald's investigation.

The two sources -- one who is familiar with Libby's version of events, and the other with Miller's -- said the previously undisclosed conversation occurred a few days before Plame's name appeared in Robert Novak's syndicated column on July 14, 2003. Miller and Libby discussed former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, who had recently alleged that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, according to the source familiar with Libby's version.

But, according to the source, the subject of Wilson's wife did not come up.

Miller and the Times have said the reporter has chosen jail to keep promises she made to protect the identity of confidential sources. But Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, has told the New York Times that he provided reporters with assurances that they could rely on the waivers releasing them to talk to Fitzgerald. Tate did not return phone calls placed for this story Thursday and yesterday.

Hogan has publicly chided Miller for "alleging" that she was protecting the identity of a source who the judge said had freed her to speak about their conversations.

Miller has said she was reporting on Wilson's criticism of administration claims that Iraq was seeking uranium for weapons of mass destruction, but did not write a story.

One of Miller's attorneys, veteran First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, declined yesterday to confirm the meeting with Libby or to discuss any waivers his client may have received. "Judy's view is that any purported waiver she got from anyone was not, on the face of it, sufficiently broad, clear and uncoerced," Abrams said.

Four other reporters, including two from The Washington Post, have answered some of the prosecutors' questions after receiving specific waivers from their sources, including Libby.

Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter also subpoenaed in the case, avoided Miller's fate July 6 by agreeing to testify about his conversations with Rove. But three days earlier, Cooper's attorney, Richard Sauber, said in an interview yesterday, Fitzgerald told him during negotiations over Cooper's testimony that his client could well face criminal contempt charges.

Fitzgerald was playing "hardball" and "was trying to get Matt and Judy to comply with the judge's order," Sauber said, adding that he did not consider the threat "over the top."

"Fitzgerald indicated personally to me that was one of his options," Sauber said of their July 3 conversation. He quoted Fitzgerald as telling him: "I'm going to ask the judge to remind these people they risk criminal contempt, and it is certainly an option for me."

Sauber said he is "convinced" that Fitzgerald "still might" file criminal charges against Miller.

Abrams said he remains concerned about the same possibility but hopes that it will not come to pass. "Any resort to criminal law would constitute a sad, even tragic, escalation of this controversy," he said.

Sometimes the threat of criminal contempt can be a prosecutor's strongest tool to obtain information. If Fitzgerald seeks a criminal contempt finding, the judge could order Miller held for as much as six more months and impose other penalties. Criminal contempt findings are very rare, legal experts said.

0 Replies

Karl Rove's Nondisclosure Agreement
Karl Rove's Nondisclosure Agreement

Rep. Waxman released a fact sheet today that explains that the nondisclosure agreement signed by Karl Rove prohibited Mr. Rove from confirming the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Wilson to reporters. Under the nondisclosure agreement and the applicable executive order, even "negligent" disclosures to reporters are grounds for revocation of a security clearance or dismissal.

Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives

July 15, 2005

Fact Sheet

Today, news reports revealed that Karl Rove, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff and the President's top political advisor, confirmed the identity of covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson with Robert Novak on July 8, 2003, six days before Mr. Novak published the information in a nationally syndicated column. These new disclosures have obvious relevance to the criminal investigation of Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Counsel who is investigating whether Mr. Rove violated a criminal statute by revealing Ms. Wilson's identity as a covert CIA official.
Independent of the relevance these new disclosures have to Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation, they also have significant implications for: (1) whether Mr. Rove violated his obligations under his "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement" and (2) whether the White House violated its obligations under Executive Order 12958. Under the nondisclosure agreement and the executive order, Mr. Rove would be subject to the loss of his security clearance or dismissal even for "negligently" disclosing Ms. Wilson's identity.

Karl Rove's Nondisclosure Agreement

Executive Order 12958 governs how federal employees are awarded security clearances in order to obtain access to classified information. It was last updated by President George W. Bush on March 25, 2003, although it has existed in some form since the Truman era. The executive order applies to any entity within the executive branch that comes into possession of classified information, including the White House. It requires employees to undergo a criminal background check, obtain training on how to protect classified information, and sign a "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," also known as a SF-312, promising not to reveal classified information.[1] The nondisclosure agreement signed by White House officials such as Mr. Rove states: "I will never divulge classified information to anyone" who is not authorized to receive it.[2]

The Prohibition Against "Confirming" Classified Information

Mr. Rove, through his attorney, has raised the implication that there is a distinction between releasing classified information to someone not authorized to receive it and confirming classified information from someone not authorized to have it. In fact, there is no such distinction under the nondisclosure agreement Mr. Rove signed.

One of the most basic rules of safeguarding classified information is that an official who has signed a nondisclosure agreement cannot confirm classified information obtained by a reporter. In fact, this obligation is highlighted in the "briefing booklet" that new security clearance recipients receive when they sign their nondisclosure agreements:

Before ... confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, ... confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.[3]

The Independent Duty to Verify the Classified Status of Information

Mr. Rove's attorney has implied that if Mr. Rove learned Ms. Wilson's identity and occupation from a reporter, this somehow makes a difference in what he can say about the information. This is inaccurate. The executive order states: "Classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar information."[4]

Mr. Rove was not at liberty to repeat classified information he may have learned from a reporter. Instead, he had an affirmative obligation to determine whether the information had been declassified before repeating it. The briefing booklet is explicit on this point: "before disseminating the information elsewhere ... the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified."[5]

"Negligent" Disclosure of Classified Information

Mr. Rove's attorney has also implied that Mr. Rove's conduct should be at issue only if he intentionally or knowingly disclosed Ms. Wilson's covert status. In fact, the nondisclosure agreement and the executive order require sanctions against security clearance holders who "knowingly, willfully, or negligently" disclose classified information.[6] The sanctions for such a breach include "reprimand, suspension without pay, removal, termination of classification authority, loss or denial of access to classified information, or other sanctions."[7]

The White House Obligations Under Executive Order 12958

Under the executive order, the White House has an affirmative obligation to investigate and take remedial action separate and apart from any ongoing criminal investigation. The executive order specifically provides that when a breach occurs, each agency must "take appropriate and prompt corrective action."[8] This includes a determination of whether individual employees improperly disseminated or obtained access to classified information.

The executive order further provides that sanctions for violations are not optional. The executive order expressly provides: "Officers and employees of the United States Government ... shall be subject to appropriate sanctions if they knowingly, willfully, or negligently ... disclose to unauthorized persons information properly classified."[9]

There is no evidence that the White House complied with these requirements.

ENDNOTES

[1] Executive Order No. 12958, Classified National Security Information (as amended), sec. 4.1(a) (Mar. 28, 2003) (online here).

[2] Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, Standard Form 312 (Prescribed by NARA/ISOO) (32 C.F.R. 2003, E.O. 12958) (PDF here).

[3] Information Security Oversight Office, National Archives and Records Administration, Briefing Booklet: Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement (Standard Form 312), at 73 (emphasis added) (PDF here).

[4] Executive Order No. 12958, sec. 1.1(b).

[5] Briefing Booklet, supra note 3, at 73.

[6] Executive Order No. 12958, sec. 5.5(b) (emphasis added).

[7] Id. at 5.5(c).

[8] Id. at 5.5(e)(1).

[9] Id. at 5.5(b).

0 Replies

Privacy is easy to breach
The method this reporter used is probably the same method others around the world used to find out it Plane had been involved in any activies in their countries. ---BBB

Privacy is easy to breach
By David Lazarus
Friday, July 15, 2005
San Francisco Chronicle

The fracas over whether Karl Rove, one of President Bush's most trusted advisers, publicly outed an undercover CIA operative highlights the ease with which personal information on virtually anyone can be obtained.

It also points to the need for privacy laws -- and, in this case, national-security laws -- recognizing the harm that can be done with only a few computer keystrokes.

That harm, as a slew of recent security breaches makes clear, can include identity theft, credit card fraud and other invasions of one's personal-data space.

It can also represent a graver danger if the work you do is of interest to terrorists and other enemies of this country.

I found out how significant this threat can be when I attempted to identify the CIA agent in question for myself, based solely on what Rove is known to have told a journalist.

The results were troubling, to say the least.

First, a little background:

The key issue this week has been whether Rove broke the law when he reportedly told a journalist, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, that the wife of a prominent administration critic works for the CIA in the sensitive field of weapons of mass destruction.

Rove's role was confirmed by an e-mail sent by Cooper to his bureau chief. The e-mail, obtained by Newsweek, concerned former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had written a 2003 opinion piece challenging one of the White House's main justifications for an invasion of Iraq.

Wilson had been dispatched to Africa by the CIA in late 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger. He found no evidence to support this allegation. Nevertheless, the claim was included in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.

Cooper wrote in his e-mail that he'd been told by Rove that Wilson wasn't sent on the trip by either the CIA director or by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cooper wrote: "It was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized the trip."

Novak jumps in

Cooper didn't write a story about this right away. But shortly after Cooper's exchange with Rove took place, syndicated columnist Robert Novak did publish a piece about Wilson.

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," Novak wrote. He cited two "senior administration officials" as saying that Plame was responsible for sending her husband to Niger.

According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it's a federal crime if anyone "as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identity of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information."

It's not my place to say whether Rove crossed that line in his discussion with Cooper. But I can say what I was able to do with the information Rove reportedly supplied.

First of all, I knew from published reports that the full name of the author of the critical op-ed piece was Joseph C. Wilson IV. A Google search quickly told me that he was born in 1949.

So I went to ZabaSearch.com, which readers of this space know is a powerful online people-search tool that rapidly combs through public records - - for free.

My first nationwide search for a Joseph C. Wilson born in 1949 turned up too many matches, so I narrowed the search by guessing that he likely lives in Washington, D.C.

Bingo. Now I had his home address. But I didn't know his wife's name.

So I went to the Web site of LexisNexis, a prominent data broker, and did a public-records search for Joseph Wilson in Washington, D.C., subsequently narrowing the search with Wilson's street address. Bingo again.

"Spouse name: Wilson, Valerie E."

For non-subscribers, LexisNexis is available online on a pay-per-search basis. It's also accessible via acquaintances at universities, law schools and a wide variety of private companies.

I did another LexisNexis search for Valerie E. Wilson in Washington, D.C. This confirmed she lives at the same address as Joseph C. Wilson. It also took me the next step.

"Former name: Plame, Valerie E."

I now had the identity of a covert CIA agent (who was using her maiden name as part of her cover as an energy-industry analyst working for a firm called Brewster Jennings & Associates, now known to be a CIA front company).

It took me less than a half-hour to identify her.

I then went back to Google and got a map of Plame's neighborhood and directions to her home. Google also allowed me to study a high-resolution satellite photo of Plame's house.

I could see that the property appears to be in a quiet residential community and looks approachable from all sides. It also offers ready access by car to major thoroughfares.

And I now possess all this information simply because I know (from Karl Rove, via Matt Cooper) that Joseph Wilson's wife "apparently works at the agency on WMD issues."

Little effort required

Rove's questionable judgment aside, this episode underlines how little effort is required in this info-rich age to identify and locate virtually anyone. You don't even need that person's name.

This should alarm anyone who relies on a measure of secrecy for his or her well being, as well as all others who value their privacy.

It also should serve as a wake-up call for legislators that existing privacy and national-security laws haven't kept pace with dazzling improvements in information technology.

The intent of current laws might be to keep certain info under wraps. The reality is that nearly all data are exposed and accessible, there for the taking by anyone with a computer and a small measure of resourcefulness.

With little effort, I pinpointed a working CIA agent. I did so only to make a point.

Can we be sure that the intentions of the next person to commence such a search will be as benign?

0 Replies

NYT ponders if Judith Miller was the leaker
July 16, 2005
Questions of Who Told What to Whom, and When, May Be Crucial in Leak Case
By ADAM LIPTAK
New York Times

Although enormous attention has recently been focused on the question of what information might have passed from government sources in Washington to reporters, the case involving the disclosure of a covert C.I.A. operative's identity has also pointed out that information sometimes flows the other way.

This week a person who was formally briefed on the matter said that Karl Rove, the senior adviser to President Bush, talked about a C.I.A. operative with the columnist Robert D. Novak before Mr. Novak wrote about the case on July 14, 2003.

But the person said Mr. Rove told Mr. Novak that he had already heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard the operative's name, Valerie Wilson.

In the investigation into the disclosure of her identity, the question of who told what to whom, and when, may have legal significance. The investigation started as an inquiry into whether the two officials who shared information with Mr. Novak for his column identifying Ms. Wilson violated the law. One of those officials is now known to be Mr. Rove.

A 1982 statute makes it a crime for people with authorized access to classified information to knowingly identify covert agents. If officials learned the information solely from reporters rather than from confidential files, they probably did not violate the law. Even if they came to know the information in both ways, the fact that it was in public circulation would suggest that it was not particularly secret.

But the 1982 law is only one source of potential legal exposure. The special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, may also be expected to compare the officials' accounts of how they heard about Ms. Wilson, who was referred to in early news reports by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, with other accounts and documents.

Four reporters have testified in the investigation: Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, Tim Russert of NBC News and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. In their testimony, all four discussed their interactions with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Mr. Pincus has also testified about a conversation with a second source, whose identity is not known. Mr. Cooper testified for a second time on Wednesday, about a conversation with Mr. Rove.

All of the reporters said they testified with their sources' permission.

Reporters often play a role in circulating information, particularly in Washington. It can be incidental, in, say, the premise of a question. It can be a way to test or confirm a piece of information. And it can be part of an effort to trade information or curry favor.

Mr. Kessler and Mr. Pincus said they did not discuss Ms. Wilson with Mr. Libby, and Mr. Cooper has not spoken publicly on the issue.

Mr. Russert's testimony last August provides intriguing clues. A statement issued by NBC at the time suggests that Mr. Libby had told Mr. Fitzgerald that he had heard about Ms. Wilson from Mr. Russert.

According to the statement, lawyers for Mr. Russert and Mr. Fitzgerald reached an agreement under which Mr. Fitzgerald questioned Mr. Russert only about Mr. Russert's end of a conversation in early July 2003 with Mr. Libby. That would be an unusual way to go about pursuing a leak inquiry, but it is consistent with an attempt to try to establish that Mr. Russert provided information to Mr. Libby.

Mr. Russert, however, according to the NBC statement, said "he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a C.I.A. operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby." Indeed, the statement said, Mr. Russert first learned the information from Mr. Novak's column.

A spokeswoman for NBC declined to elaborate on the statement yesterday.

Mr. Novak has not said whether or how he cooperated in the investigation.

A sixth reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, is in a Virginia jail for refusing to testify in the case. Ms. Miller never wrote about the matter.

According to the federal appeals court, which rejected her appeal in February, Ms. Miller has received two subpoenas seeking testimony and documents "related to conversations between her and a specified government official" in the days before Mr. Novak's article appeared.

In court papers filed earlier this month urging that Ms. Miller be jailed, Mr. Fitzgerald said that "the source in this case has waived confidentiality in writing."

George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company, said Ms. Miller would not say who that source was. "She has never received," Mr. Freeman said, "what she considers an unambiguous, unequivocal and uncoerced waiver from anyone with whom she may have spoken."

Mr. Freeman declined to say what efforts, if any, Ms. Miller and her lawyers have made to obtain a satisfactory waiver.

Asked whether Ms. Miller provided information about Ms. Wilson's identity to the source to whom Mr. Fitzgerald referred, Mr. Freeman said: "Judy learned about Valerie Plame from a confidential source or sources whose identity she continues to protect to this day. If the suggestion is that she is covering up for her source or some fictitious source, that is preposterous. Given that she is suffering in jail, it is also mean-spirited."

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

Two words. Sandy Berger

Sandy Berger was fined $10,000 and had his security clearance revoked, he took several (I belive 50) classified documents all pertaining to the millennium attacks, and destroyed I believe 3 of them. To my knowledge no one knows exactly what was in those documents, because no one without the proper security clearance ever saw them. Therefore acutely limiting the amount of damage it may have done to national security.

There are currently at least two senior administrators, who have; in all likelihood, completely destroyed possibly dozens of ongoing operations, put many covert agents, their families, friends and contacts in mortal danger, and made another terrorist attack like the ones on 9/11 in our country imminently more probable.

And all I keep hearing is how Joe Wilson was a bad bad man, and how Karl Rove may not have technically broken the law.

Did Sandy Berger deserve his sentence, Absolutely.

Did he deserve a stiffer sentence, maybe. I wouldn't have batted an eye at it. (His name has come up on these forums before, you could search my post history and I would bet you wouldn't find me defending him anywhere.)

But if you're suggesting that "your guy(s)" should get off scott free because you feel "our guy" only got a slap on the wrist then that only goes to prove your obvious partisanship on this particular issue.

Furthermore:

JW if you can't understand the difference between removing some documents from the national archives(most of which have to do with yourself), and blowing the cover of not just one agent (once again covert or not) but her whole cover organization...

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to pull your debating privileges on all subjects pertaining to national security; including, but not limited to: Immigration, The Patriot Act, The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, The Ongoing War on Terrorism, and the ongoing debate on why McG should dump his current Icon and go back to the clicky mouse Icon. :wink:

(Kidding about that last paragraph I've enjoyed the majority of your posts on all above subjects, even if not agreed. Cool

)

0 Replies

Coach -- did you read the post directly above mine (wherein I typed "Sandy Berger")?

That's the one to which I was replying.

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

Coach -- did you read the post directly above mine (wherein I typed "Sandy Berger")?

That's the one to which I was replying.

Try composing complete sentences. Maybe then, readers could understand WTF you are talking about. That is assuming that it is not really your intention to convey mindless innuendo. LOL

0 Replies

After all this time, one must assume that IS her intention, really.

A rainy Saturday morning here. So here are some early thoughts I had after reading this piece:

Quote:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/the_intelligenc.html

The Intelligence Challenge: Can We Trust Our President?
By Brent Cavan, Jim Marcinkowski, Larry Johnson, and Jane Doe

We trained and worked at the CIA with Valerie Plame. We presented the following statement at a hearing on Capitol Hill in October 2003. In light of the latest White House sanctioned assault on Valerie Plame and her character, our testimony remains relevant and accurate. All of us were undercover. Brent Cavan and Larry Johnson worked as analysts in the Directorate of Intelligence. Jim Marcinkowski and Jane Doe were case officers and served overseas. Jane Doe's real name is not being used because she was involved in counter terrorism operations and could be at risk if her identity were divulged. We've got each other's back.

We slogged through the same swamps on patrols, passed clandestine messages to each other, survived a simulated terrorist kidnapping and interrogation, kicked pallets from cargo planes, completed parachute jumps, and literally helped picked ticks off each other after weeks in the woods at a CIA training facility. We knew each other's secrets. We shared our fears, failures, and successes. We came to rely on each other in a way you do not find in normal civilian life. We understood that a slip of the tongue could end in death for those close to us or for people we didn't even know. We were trained by the best, to be the best. We were trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. They may not appreciate what they have created.

Our joint training experience forged a bond of trust and a sense of duty that continues some eighteen years later. It is because of this bond of trust that the authors of this piece and two other colleagues, all former intelligence officers, appeared on ABC's Nightline to speakout on behalf of the wife Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a sensitive undercover operative outted by columnist Robert Novak. The Ambassador's wife (we decline to use her name) is a friend who went through the same training with us. We acknowledge our obligation to protect each other and the intelligence community and the information we used to do our jobs.

We are speaking out because someone in the Bush Administration seemingly does not understand this, although they signed the same oaths of allegiance and confidentiality that we did. Many of us have moved on into the private sector, where this Agency aspect of our lives means little, but we have not forgotten our initial oaths to support the Constitution, our government, and to protect the secrets we learned and to protect each other. We still have friends who serve. We protect them literally by keeping our mouths shut unless we are speaking amongst ourselves. We understand what this bond or the lack of it means.

Clearly some in the Bush Administration do not understand the requirement to protect and shield national security assets. Based on published information we can only conclude that partisan politics by people in the Bush Administration overrode the moral and legal obligations to protect clandestine officers and security assets. Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer. You have set a sickening precedent. You have warned all U.S. intelligence officers that you may be compromised if you are providing information the White House does not like. A precedent, as one colleague pointed out during our brief appearances, allows you to build out a case based on previous legal actions and court decisions. It's a slippery slope if it lowers the bar.

Ambassador Wilson's political affiliations are irrelevant. Political differences serve as the basis for the give and take of representative government. What is relevant is the damage caused by the exposure that Ambassador Wilson's wife as a political act intended to undermine Wilson's view.

It is shameful on one level that the White House uses the news media, its own leaks, and junior Congressmen from Georgia, among others, to levy attacks on Ambassador Wilson. Moreover they discount what he has to say, his value in the Niger investigation, and suggest his wife's cover is of little value because she was "a low-level CIA employee". If Wilson's comments or analysis have no merit, why does the White House feel the need to launch such a coordinated attack? Why drag his wife into it?

Not only have the Bush Administration leakers damaged the career of our friend but they have put many other people potentially in harm's way. If left unpunished this outing has lowered the bar for official behavior. Further, who in their right mind would ever agree to become a spy for the United States? If we won't protect our own officers how can we reassure foreigners that we will safeguard them? Better human intelligence could prevent any number of terror incidents in the future, but we are unlikely to get foreign recruits to supply it if their safety cannot be somewhat assured. If more cases like Mrs. Wilson's occur, assurances of CIA protection will mean nothing to potential spies.

Politicians must not politicize the intelligence community. President Bush has been a decisive leader in the war on terrorism, at least initially. What about decisiveness now? Where is the accountability he promised us in the wake of Clinton Administration scandals? We find it hard to believe the President lacks the wherewithal to get to bottom of this travesty. It is up to the President to restore the bonds of trust with the intelligence community that have been shattered by this tawdry incident.

We joined the CIA to fight against foreign tyrants who used the threat of incarceration, torture, and murder to achieve their ends. They followed the rule of force, not the rule of law. We now find ourselves with an administration in the United States where some of its members have chosen to act like foreign tyrants. As loyal Americans and registered Republicans we implore President Bush to move quickly and decisively against those who, if not apprehended, will leave his Administration with the legacy of being the first to allow political operatives to out clandestine officers.

Posted by Larry Johnson on July 15, 2005 at 04:06 PM | Permalink

I believe the reason this issue is so dangerous for the WH is that it cuts to the very core of their platform; defense and national security on one hand, honesty (yeah, right) and credibility on the other hand.

I believe that the only thing left here is to see just how much damage will be done from this.

You Righties can crow about how this is being handled well, or will come to nothing in the end, but it seems to me that the media is firmly entrenched in this one and that the story isn't going to go away. Expect another month or two of this before it wraps up, would be my estimation; and think about how much damage that does the Republicans, no matter what the outcome....

Cheers to all

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

Quote:

Fire Escape

by Michelle Cottle
Only at TNR Online

This tip just in! White House sources reveal that the wife of top presidential adviser Karl Rove has been discovered to pose a serious national security risk because of massive debts that she has run up over the years--some from her penchant for the ponies, some from her long-standing addiction to oxycontin. As a result, Rove's wife is being placed on the CIA's watch list and will henceforth be barred from air travel, White House events, and any employment that would allow her access to sensitive information about our homeland security.

What Bush administration Deep Throat leaked this juicy bit of raw meat to me? No one. I made it all up. Every last word of it. To the best of my knowledge, Karl's wife is a perfectly lovely woman who wouldn't know a racing form or a prescription painkiller if it loped up and bit her on the backside. But let us say, just for the sake of argument, that all of the above were true. Before you could say "yellow journalism," White House officials would come out swinging, denouncing me for invading the Roves' private life and indulging in character assassination for cheap political purposes. They would have a point--and in times past I might have felt a wee bit guilty about such tabloid tactics. But now, I would simply smile virtuously and protest that I had done absolutely nothing wrong because, well, you see, I never actually revealed her name.

Would such an excuse be pathetic? Intellectually dishonest? Morally indefensible? You bet. But that is precisely the kind of hair-splitting hogwash we are being fed by those currently arguing that Karl Rove himself didn't do anything wrong when he apparently outed Joe Wilson's wife as a CIA operative. After months of denying Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame affair--dismissing such accusations as downright ridiculous--the White House can no longer deny Porky's status as a leaker. But it doesn't matter, you see, because, as Rove's compadres keep reminding us, he never actually uttered the words "Valerie Plame."

Please. This is the sort of verbal parsing that should make anyone not named Clinton die of shame. Wilson does have, after all, only one wife, and her identity is a matter of public record. This isn't nineteenth-century Utah, for God's sake.

0 Replies

The task of the White House is, by bizarro-land corollary, to speak power to truth.

0 Replies

Cleverly written piece by Ms. Cottle. Notice how she cleverly manages to leave out the name of the one person who is currently sitting in jail (on the floor, by the way...seems they ran out of beds, tsk tsk).

Read back a few pages (carefully) and perhaps you'll see that "Plamegate" may just need to start being referred to as "Millergate". This story is just barely about Plame. It's about Judith Miller and it looks as if it could be very big, indeed!

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

Cleverly written piece by Ms. Cottle. Notice how she cleverly manages to leave out the name of the one person who is currently sitting in jail (on the floor, by the way...seems they ran out of beds, tsk tsk).

Read back a few pages (carefully) and perhaps you'll see that "Plamegate" may just need to start being referred to as "Millergate". This story is just barely about Plame. It's about Judith Miller and it looks as if it could be very big, indeed!

And what is amazing is that you think Miller's involvement will exonerate the WH. LOL

0 Replies

According to the NY Times yesterday, Novak asked Rove about Plame endorsing Wilson for the Niger job, (for which he was supremely qualified, by the way). Reportedly, Rove said, "So you heard about that, too?".

Confirming classified info that some other source revealed is the same as revealing classified info. There is no official difference.

So I would say that Rove is in trouble at this point.

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

Read back a few pages (carefully) and perhaps you'll see that "Plamegate" may just need to start being referred to as "Millergate". This story is just barely about Plame. It's about Judith Miller and it looks as if it could be very big, indeed!

From what I have read, the Plame story was given to Novak by another senior Administration official, and Novak called Rove, and Rove said, "So you heard about that, too?". That essentially confirms the story.

Miller is not an Administration official. So whatever happens to her would not appear to be central to the story.

Who was the Administration official who first told Novak about the story? Rove only confirmed it-who was the one who started it?

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

Coach -- did you read the post directly above mine (wherein I typed "Sandy Berger")?

That's the one to which I was replying.

and you proved the point of that article completely by bringing up Berger 2 years after he did it and months after he pled guilty.

Do we need to go pull up the comments by GOPers on the floor of the Congress about Berger. They will sound a lot like that article. Limbaugh is still bringing up Berger.

The article sounds pretty accurate to me based on reality of GOP response to Berger.

0 Replies

KW - Karl Rove has given carte blanche (in the form of a waiver) to any and all involved in this (non)story to use whatever they have that involves him (that includes his conversations, emails, etc.).

The only person sitting in jail is Judith Miller.

And, you think she's sleeping on the floor -- in jail -- to protect Karl Rove?

Uh-huh.

0 Replies

parados - If you want to think that there's been anywhere near the coverage of the crime Sandy Berger committed (a proven crime) versus the coverage this "scandalette" the MSM and Democrats have done their best to perpetrate -- where no crime has even been remotely proven, then be my guest.

I assure you, your perception won't match that of the general public.

0 Replies

Not Rove, but probably some other highly placed Admin official.

There is zero doubt in ANYONE'S mind that someone else besides Rove is involved in this case; so why is it hard to believe that Miller's source was different?

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

parados - If you want to think that there's been anywhere near the coverage of the crime Sandy Berger committed (a proven crime) versus the coverage this "scandalette" the MSM and Democrats have done their best to perpetrate -- where no crime has even been remotely proven, then be my guest.

I assure you, your perception won't match that of the general public.

Lets do a simple test here JW. Did Sandy Berger stuff documents in his socks?

0 Replies

JustWonders wrote:

Coach -- did you read the post directly above mine (wherein I typed "Sandy Berger")?

That's the one to which I was replying.

I did read the post but I really didn't understand how it applied to the post above, and still don't. Are you trying to say that you're too busy being outraged at the Berger story to also be outraged that our country is in danger of another 9/11 because a few people within the administration are either blindingly vengeful or criminally ignorant?
Well that can't be because you have the time to defend whomever in the administration.

Or are you implying that because you were so vigilant during the Berger period, that you're taking a well deserved break from worrying about national security?
But once again you're defending these Benedict Arnolds who leaked or confirmed these identities, so you're not exactly taking a break from the issue.

DOES SECURITY REALLY TRUMP EVERYTHING ELSE as the right has been so fond of saying the last few years, OR DOES IT ONLY TRUMP EVERYTHING ELSE WHEN IT FITS YOUR NEEDS?

0 Replies

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

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know