Is Rove It?

[mirror]

For a couple of years now investigators have been trying to discover who leaked the information to reporters (Novak, etc) about Valerie Plame being a covert CIA operative, which is a criminal activity in the US.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is now insisting that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testify before the grand jury.

This is beginning to have to the earmarks of the Nixon "Watergate Scandal" all over it.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear mirror,

For a couple of years now investigators have been trying to discover who leaked the information to reporters (Novak, etc) about Valerie Plame being a covert CIA operative, which is a criminal activity in the US.

Rove said "Joe Wilson's wife is fair game", (from "The Politics of Truth, by Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame )Joe's offense? Revealing the 'uranium connection' between Iraq and Africa to be a fabrication.

Karl Rove ordered 'the hit', but who was he to declare that a reporter could break the law? The right hand man of the Pres, and beyond prosecution. He will receive a presidential pardon when GW. retires, and they should have no problem dragging out the case until that time.

[mirror]

Unless there are some changes and the Democrats take back control of the Congress in 2006. Too much to hope for, I suppose.

I hear both reporters, not Novak of course, are going to jail within 24 hours.

[GostHacked]

Really I am surpised Novak is not being prosecuted for his actions of leaking the information. He is the one who really broke the story.

There is no real Investigative Reporting done these days in the U.S it seems. All your major news sources seem to be controlled by something. And you think North Korea has a tight grip on the information.

What was it the judje said?

OH - "Second, at a time when journalists seek a reporter's privilege akin to the attorney-client privilege, they ought to recognize that an attorney can be compelled to testify if his client communicates to the attorney for the purpose of committing a crime or fraud. ... Third, journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality -- no one in America is."

Taken from http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/06/reporter...empt/index.html

Good time for this to be back in the spotlight.

All I can say is that this is systematic elimination of all of Bush's opposers.

[BHS]

Unless there are some changes and the Democrats take back control of the  Congress in 2006. Too much to hope for, I suppose.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good luck with that.

[mirror]

So things are finally beginning to change on the Rove front. The corporate media have finally begun to take an interest in the case, and for 2 days now the White House has refused to answer over 100 reporter questions. Ridiculous. What a sad representative of democracy America has turned out to be.

[BHS]

So things are finally beginning to change on the Rove front. The corporate media have finally begun to take an interest in the case, and for 2 days now the White House has refused to answer over 100 reporter questions. Ridiculous. What a sad representative of democracy America has turned out to be.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What are you talking about? This has been all over the media for months.

That's ridiculous, to say that an off-the-cuff leak to the media puts America's entire reputation as a democracy in question.

The reason Rove won't go to jail is that he won't be convicted, because he didn't break the law. If you don't believe me, look at the law that he's accused of breaking, and the facts of the leak.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear BHS,

That's ridiculous, to say that an off-the-cuff leak to the media puts America's entire reputation as a democracy in question

Exposing a CIA operative is not an 'off the cuff leak', it is a serious criminal offense, and in my mind, treason. Further, it was done as revenge for Ambassador Joseph Wilson's exposure of the fraudulent WMD claims of the US/UK coalition that Saddam had sought uranium from Nigeria. I urge you to read "The Politics of Truth", by Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame.

[mirror]

tfb

Good of you to bring this up.

Rove is just a symptom here, not the disease. The disease was going to war over the pretext of WMD in the first place. Finally the US media are beginning to wake up, but it is too late for the people of Iraq. Perhaps and hopefully other nations will be spared the American bullies war machine.

[Black Dog]

The reason Rove won't go to jail is that he won't be convicted, because he didn't break the law. If you don't believe me, look at the law that he's accused of breaking, and the facts of the leak.

If there's no question of him breaking the law, why the grand jury investigation?

As for the facts of the leak:

Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--a crime is committed when a government official "intentionally discloses any information identifying" an undercover intelligence officer.

Rove is said to have told Time's Matt Cooper that Joseph Wilson's wife (according to the e-mail from Rove) "apparently works at the agency on wmd issues."

he may not have said "Valerie Plame, but the law makes no distinction. By disclosing Wilson's wife's relationship to the CIA, Rove was passing classified information to a reporter, information that identified an undercover intelligence officer.

Furthermore, even if one disregards the AAPA, there's still the matter of Rove uttering false statements and the possibility taht he could be indicted under the Espionage Act for willfully communicating "information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States".

Those are the facts. What's your spin?

[mirror]

I have been wondering what attempts at diversion Bush would attempt to save his sorry buddy Rove's ass. Here it comes: "China is prepared to use N-weapons against the USA".

Only now this treason story has taken over Washington, and finally the Washington press corps. It has gone too far and only more bad news for Bush/Rove will be coming down the pipes from here on in with this issue.

I wonder what it is going to end being called: Karlgate? Plamegate?

[Shakeyhands]

Well, the SPIN machine has started in earnest.. Now the claim is that it was the media that told Rove about Plame..... it really is disgusting, my money says that within the next 6 hours every Bush supporter will be towing this latest lie.

Chief presidential adviser Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he talked with two journalists before they divulged the identity of a CIA officer but that he originally learned about the operative from the news media and not government sources, according to a person briefed on the testimony.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/15/cia...e.ap/index.html

[GostHacked]

I have been wondering what attempts at diversion Bush would attempt to save his sorry buddy Rove's ass. Here it comes: "China is prepared to use N-weapons against the USA".

Only now this treason story has taken over Washington, and finally the Washington press corps. It has gone too far and only more bad news for Bush/Rove will be coming down the pipes from here on in with this issue.

I wonder what it is going to end being called: Karlgate? Plamegate?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Read the article. This is not a distraction at all, it is a concern however. And the rest of that statement reads.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4685535.stm

"A senior Chinese general has warned that China might respond with nuclear weapons against the US if Washington attacked his country over Taiwan."

So as long as the US stays out of Taiwan, the Chinese won't retaliate. This has been going on before all the new evidence of Rove came out. So no it is NOT a distraction from the Rove investigation which I have now accpeted as, and heard in some circles as 'Palmegate.'

[BHS]

Dear BHS,

That's ridiculous, to say that an off-the-cuff leak to the media puts America's entire reputation as a democracy in question

Exposing a CIA operative is not an 'off the cuff leak', it is a serious criminal offense, and in my mind, treason. Further, it was done as revenge for Ambassador Joseph Wilson's exposure of the fraudulent WMD claims of the US/UK coalition that Saddam had sought uranium from Nigeria. I urge you to read "The Politics of Truth", by Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, I'm sure his book is super objective.

The reason Rove won't go to jail is that he won't be convicted, because he didn't break the law. If you don't believe me, look at the law that he's accused of breaking, and the facts of the leak.

If there's no question of him breaking the law, why the grand jury investigation?

As for the facts of the leak:

Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--a crime is committed when a government official "intentionally discloses any information identifying" an undercover intelligence officer.

Rove is said to have told Time's Matt Cooper that Joseph Wilson's wife (according to the e-mail from Rove) "apparently works at the agency on wmd issues."

he may not have said "Valerie Plame, but the law makes no distinction. By disclosing Wilson's wife's relationship to the CIA, Rove was passing classified information to a reporter, information that identified an undercover intelligence officer.

Furthermore, even if one disregards the AAPA, there's still the matter of Rove uttering false statements and the possibility taht he could be indicted under the Espionage Act for willfully communicating "information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States".

Those are the facts. What's your spin?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're ignoring the fact that the law only applies to agents involved in covert operations overseas, either currently or within 5 years of the leak. Which by Joe Wilson's own admission is not the case.

Making false statements to a news reporter isn't a crime, last I checked. (Unless you libel someone, which isn't the case here.)

Furthermore, merely stating that someone works for the CIA isn't prosecutable under the Espionage Act, which is why none of the Dems who are hysterically pursuing Rove on this issue have brought it up. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act is their only shot, and it's a loser.

[mirror]

The tide has turned and it is curtains for Rove. He's done like dinner and now it's just a matter of time for Fitzgerald to mop up the final details. But the much broader and more significant picture is that this is finally going to seriously undermine Bush while his popularity is at an all time low. The Democrats must be looking at the 2006 elections with renewed energy & vigor led on by none other than Senator Hilary Clinton.

It doesn't look good for Karl Rove

[mirror]

Here's an article which explains what has happened and why this is such an nightmare situation for Rove . It was OK for the president to lie to the American people about the war in Iraq, but now that the Washington Press Corp realize that they have been lied to by Bush & Co., they will be relentless in acquiring their pound of flesh.

White House in panic over spy scandal

Tomorrow should prove to be an interesting day! Stay tuned.

[mirror]

I think Rove is done like dinner, but will they be able to get Bush as well is now the big question. Politically and legally this White House crowd is in deep do do:

Follow the Uranium

"I am saying that if anyone was involved in that type of activity which I referred to, they would not be working here."

- Ron Ziegler, press secretary to Richard Nixon, defending the presidential aide Dwight Chapin on Oct. 18, 1972. Chapin was convicted in April 1974 of perjury in connection with his relationship to the political saboteur Donald Segretti.

"Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn't be working here at the White House if they didn't have the president's confidence."

- Scott McClellan, press secretary to George W. Bush, defending Karl Rove on Tuesday.

That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

[BHS]

I think Rove is done like dinner, but will they be able to get Bush as well is now the big question. Politically and legally this White House crowd is in deep do do:

Follow the Uranium

"I am saying that if anyone was involved in that type of activity which I referred to, they would not be working here."

- Ron Ziegler, press secretary to Richard Nixon, defending the presidential aide Dwight Chapin on Oct. 18, 1972. Chapin was convicted in April 1974 of perjury in connection with his relationship to the political saboteur Donald Segretti.

"Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn't be working here at the White House if they didn't have the president's confidence."

- Scott McClellan, press secretary to George W. Bush, defending Karl Rove on Tuesday.

That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're delirious.

(At first I felt bad about adding such and abrupt and useless comment to the thread, but then I realized that I was replying to a short and mostly pointless post, which made me feel better about it. So there you go.)

[mirror]

Say what?

And your reasons are?

[BHS]

Say what?

And your reasons are?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My reasons are that I don't agree with any of your reasons. Rove isn't going to be convicted of anything, and Bush isn't going to be impeached or asked to resign. I'm sure this "scandal" will have continuing political traction due to it's enormous popularity among MSM journalists and lefty fever swamp denizens, but it's all going to come to nothing. If they're (the Dems) incredibly lucky, and this story makes it to November 2006, it *might* swing the vote on one or two Senate seats, but not enough to make a significant difference.

[mirror]

I think if I was repeatedly lied to by people upon whom I was dependent on for information to do my job, and I had an opportunity in the course of my work for revenge against them I would probably take advantage of the opportnity. The Washington Press Corps has been repeatedly lied to by Bush & Co. I think, given the opportunity, which they now have, they will burn Bush. IMHO.

Rove should have been fired long ago for masterminding deceptions on Iraq

Surely protecting sources is about protecting people who take risks in order to get important information out to the public, not about protecting powerful officials who try to smear whistle-blowers and use the press to keep the public in the dark about crucially important matters — like the fabrication of the case for war.

Rove should have been fired long ago for masterminding deceptions on Iraq, but now more than ever.

And if journalists are willing to sacrifice themselves to defend a journalistic principle, they should skip the jail-time histrionics and just do their jobs properly. They could start with exposing the administration's deceit about Iraq, instead of leaving all the heavy lifting to Wilson.

[BHS]

I think if I was repeatedly lied to by people upon whom I was dependent on for information to do my job, and I had an opportunity in the course of my work for revenge against them I would probably take advantage of the opportnity. The Washington Press Corps has been repeatedly lied to by Bush & Co. I think, given the opportunity, which they now have, they will burn Bush. IMHO.

Rove should have been fired long ago for masterminding deceptions on Iraq

Surely protecting sources is about protecting people who take risks in order to get important information out to the public, not about protecting powerful officials who try to smear whistle-blowers and use the press to keep the public in the dark about crucially important matters — like the fabrication of the case for war.

Rove should have been fired long ago for masterminding deceptions on Iraq, but now more than ever.

And if journalists are willing to sacrifice themselves to defend a journalistic principle, they should skip the jail-time histrionics and just do their jobs properly. They could start with exposing the administration's deceit about Iraq, instead of leaving all the heavy lifting to Wilson.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What heavy lifting did Joe Wilson ever do? He went and drank tea with his official contacts in Niger, and then wrote a report about what they told him. The administration ignored his report and instead went with what British Intelligence was saying. So Joe gets all pissy and writes an op-ed about it in the NYT. That's the full extent of Joe's effort to expose "deceit" in the context of the Iraq invasion. All the stuff that came out afterwards about Plame has nothing to do with the war, except that it stems from Joe's aforementioned trip to Africa. And in any case, doing the cover of Vanity Fair isn't heavy lifting. Nor is acting as a kvetching fart-catcher for Chuck Schumer.

As far as the adminstration's "deceit" goes, haven't the MSM worked that whole angle into the ground? What fresh evidence of deceit have they found? If there's nothing new, where does this write want them to go with this? There's a point where readers start to tune out old news, and the MSM know this.

The Dems have been trying to get to Rove since before the 2000 election, because he's proven himself incredibly effective as a campaign manager and spin doctor. They've become completely paranoid/delusional on this issue. To paraphrase from an old issue of National Lampoon: "But hey, a million paranoid schizophrenics can't all be wrong." Right?

[Shady]

Exposing a CIA operative is not an 'off the cuff leak', it is a serious criminal offense, and in my mind, treason. Further, it was done as revenge for Ambassador Joseph Wilson's exposure of the fraudulent WMD claims of the US/UK coalition that Saddam had sought uranium from Nigeria. I urge you to read "The Politics of Truth", by Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame

Nothing could be further from the truth. It seems to me, after carefully examining all relevant information, that Karl Rove was simply trying to correct what he percieved as inaccurate statements uttered from Joseph Wilson. One only has to examine the Senate Intelligence Committe report to find that Mr. Wilson seems to have a difficult time keeping his facts straight. Example:

Report Disputes Wilson's Claims on Trip, Wife's Role

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Washington Post

[mirror]

That story in the Washington Post is over 1 year old.

Try this more recent one, actually today's edition.

Why are we NOT surprised that Dick Cheney is involved in this up to his eyeballs? As I have already said Rove is done like dinner but now there are bigger fish to fry.

The only recollection I have of something unravelling like this is Watergate.

Reporter: Top Cheney Aide Among Sources

or this story:

Reporter: Rove was first source on CIA leak

White House political aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell a Time magazine reporter that the wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy was a CIA officer, the reporter said in an article Sunday.

Time correspondent Matthew Cooper said he told a grand jury last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the "agency," or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the call by saying "I've already said too much."

He said Rove did not disclose the woman's name, Valerie Plame, but told him information would be declassified that would cast doubt on the credibility of her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, who had charged the Bush administration with exaggerating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs in making its case for war.

[Shady]

That story in the Washington Post is over 1 year old.

I'm aware that the Senate Intelligence Committee report is over a year old, however, I don't feel as though it makes Joe Wilson's lies any less relevant.