Posted on 02/22/2005 10:14:45 AM PST by areafiftyone
The former prosecutor who helped draft the law that Democrats say was violated when someone in the Bush administration leaked a CIA worker's name to columnist Robert Novak now says that no laws were broken in the case.
Writing with First Amendment lawyer Bruce Sanford in the Washington Post recently, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing explained that she helped draft the law in question, the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Says Toensing, "The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct."
For Plame's outing to have been illegal, the one-time deputy AG says, "her status as undercover must be classified." Also, Plame "must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years."
Since in neither case does Plame qualify, Toensing says: "There is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as 'covert.'"
The law also requires that the celebrated non-spy's outing take place by someone who knew the government had taken "affirmative measures to conceal [the agent's] relationship" to the U.S., a prospect Toensing says is unlikely.
Other signs that no laws were broken include the fact that after Plame was outted, the CIA's general counsel took no steps to prosecute Novak, as has been done to other reporters under similar circumstances.
Neither did then-CIA Director George Tenet or his deputy pick up the phone to tell Novak that the publication of her name would threaten national security and her safety, as is also routinely done when the CIA is serious about prohibiting publication.
In fact, the myth that laws were violated in the Plame case began to unravel in October 2003, in a column by New York Times scribe Nicholas Kristof, who explained that Valerie Plame had abandoned her covert role a full nine years before.
"The C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given [Plame's] name [along with those of other spies] to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994. So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons."
Kristof also noted that Plame had begun making the transition to CIA "management" even before she was outted, explaining that "she was moving away from 'noc' – which means non-official cover ... to a new cover as a State Department official, affording her diplomatic protection without having 'C.I.A.' stamped on her forehead."
Noted the Timesman: "All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put [Plame's] life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over."
So why – with a special prosecutor now threatening to toss Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller in jail if they don't give up their sources in the Plame case – aren't their lawyers invoking the "no laws were broken" defense?
Explains the National Review's Rich Lowry: The Miller-Cooper defense hasn't made this argument because it would be too embarrassing to admit that the Bush administration's "crime of the century" wasn't really a crime at all, especially after a year and a half of media chest-beating to the contrary.
"It was just a Washington flap played for all it was worth by the same news organizations now about to watch their employees go to prison over it," says Lowry.
"That's the truth that the media will go to any length to avoid."
No Democrats will blame Israel.
Well well well. I wondered what the hoopala was when the story first broke knowing she was no longer covert (hadn't been for 5 years) and was assigned to desk duty inside the USA. My question is why it took Victoria Toensing these many months to define the law. If her political leanings are any indication, she's owed a big thank you for the egg on some faces.
Maybe she did and we missed it; we missed the article in January!
Lord Hutton Defends Narrow Scope of Inquiry
Galloway, and others in the socialist arms of British politics both in office and at academia USED Dr. Kelly. They hounded him, they harassed him, they maligned him. It was death by press. And Mr. Kelly is alleged to have committed suicide over it. (I don't find that improbable, given what I dug up and learned about the man's character -- a proper Brit, betrayed, and taken advantage of.)
It was so-called "sexed-up" in the MSM in order to place a buzzy little trap to ensnare PM Tony Blair, and to "insidiously" release "intel data". While the British gimps were doing this to PM Blair, our own homegrown Gimps were attempting same to Presient Bush.
JJ? You got a handy link to that Rockefeller memo, pls?
Oh, come on, Rich Lowry. A "flap" where the President is accused of lying and retaliating against the supposed whistle blower?
I'd like those who perpetrated the big lie against the Bush administration to be forced to admit that's what they did.
Rockefeller memo
Here is the full text of the memo from the office of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa.) on setting a strategy for pursuing an independent investigation of pre-war White House intelligence dealings on Iraq.
We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:
1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.
For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman [Sen. Pat Roberts] has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.
The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and cosigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority. [We can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.]
2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it.
In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional views will also, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.
The Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission [i.e., the Corzine Amendment.]
3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.
The best time to do so will probably be next year, either:
A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public. Additional views on the interim report (1). The announcement of our independent investigation (2). And (3) additional views on the final investigation. Or:
B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.
In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information.
SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.
The approach outlined above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration's dubious motives.
Someone check the Blogs!
Oh, you should see their latest "revelations"...GWB was a practicing homosexual while at Yale and the evil Karl Rove has sequestered the information. That and they think Gannon/Guckert is Johnny Gosch, the kidnapped kid of the alleged Bush Sr. child sex ring infamy.
Wow! Didn't Wilson say in a Canadian speech that he would see Karl Rove goose stepped off and in handcuffs over the leak, implying Rove was the leaker?
This is one of many desperate Dem moves to create a scandal the MSM couldn't resist. Like other desperate Dem moves, think CBS, they don't realize that their are people who will demand evidence to back up the charges. (Especially FReepers!)
Now the MSM is entangled in an intricate web of their own design.
(Which pajamas does one wear to watch MSM web weaving?)
The Plame Game: Was This a Crime?
I saw and posted on this particular thread. I noted that they do a great job of debunking the conventional wisdom about the supposed crime being committed. However, they don't seem to consider that Fitzgerald's direction may be veering off the conventional path. Still, for outlining what constitutes the outing crime and how all facts point to that not being the case here, I deemed it a keeper.
The Appeals Court JUST issued their ruling last week upholding the contempt citations for Judith Miller and Matt Cooper. The prosecutor can't be hustling along if the grand jury's quest for testimony is being delayed by such court activity.
JesseJane: Thank you. Yours on the Rockefeller memo is perfectly placed within the context of this thread title. Hats off to you.
Question...is this prosecutor a dem or Republican? That might actually be more interesting in relation to this story.
He is no hero.
Read his testimony here.
He had no business meeting with those reporters. I admit the man was operating with a conscious, evidently, since he saw fit to kill himself. I can only surmise he was overwhelmed with shame if not guilt.
LOL!
Well, I guess that takes care of her twerpy husband's 15 minutes of fame.
On this you and I completely agree. I've posted as much for quite awhile.
Newsmax has something interesting to say? Wow.
See my post #55. I do not consider Kelly as hounded or a victim. He willingly met with those reporters when he was not supposed to.
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