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."
"So Wilson won't go to jail for outing his wife?"
Too bad, huh? I was sort of looking forward to it.
frog-marched
Wilson wanted to see Rove "frog-marched" off in cuffs.
Cyn,
Thanks, I'll do that. Our views may differ in the end, but I am open to all that is out there. The truth matters!! :)
Thanks Alia!
So - isn't FR's radar signal long enough to get it out there?
Hey DRUDGE, RUSH/Hannity/FOX.....
Check out posts 77, 179, 189 and 196
Follow this chain of personalities:
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, man charged with conspiring to assasinate GWB has Ashraf Nubani as his lawyer. ( post 77)
Ashraf Nubani has defended the Global Relief Fund (post 179)
The GRF sued several MSM outlets including the NYT for libel but failed after being called a "terrorist organization". (post 189)
A veteran New York Times foreign correspondent (Philip Shenon) warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity (the GRF) that the FBI was about to raid its office
The fact that NYT was sued for libel about the alledged terrorism support by Global Relief is especially ironic. However you would think that after such treatment by GRF, the NYT wouldn't stick their necks out for this group but yet they did by tipping the GRF off on an imminent FBI raid on their offices. Very interesting.
think you are SO right!
He' a good friend of a master poker player -
Cyncooper, your collection of files, which you have shared in and through many threads, are awesome. And, I thank you.
Can you tell I'm still angry about this?
"But I believe ... leaking classified information from the CIA as Joe Wilson did by his op-ed piece in the NYT is against the law"
That has always been my belief. He was on an official trip for the CIA who had ownership of any information that he brought back - they alone had the authority to release it to the public.
I feel certain the investigation is on-going.. it's just a gut feeling.
I'm not sure if they had the sole authority to release it .. I think Congress can can also petition to have it declassified
But either way .. It was NOT Joe Wilson's place to do an op-ed piece on this information
I'm angry with Kelly.
He DID give the media the "sexed up" dossier comment.
He then attempted deceit in his testimony. I need to leave and don't have time to look it up, but one example is the female journalist he was in fact talking to...he is asked about meeting her and Kelly tries to deceive by saying how he met her only once and that was at a lecture and they'd only exchanged social niceties. Only later when a different questioner delves in a bit does he finally admit that he had spoken to her via the phone.
I believe there is a Grand Jury on that one also
Oh, and don't get me wrong. Of course I'm angry with the British press, too.
I'll never forget Blair being on an international trip when Kelly killed himself. Blair gets off a plane and is asked if he thinks he has Kelly's blood on his hands! He who had the knife in his back Kelly had stuck in it (from the way I see it).
Ahhhhhhhhhh... so that's where it is...
Thanks Mo1!
LOL! I kept saying no laws were broken. Speaking of Rove, Wilson ought to go for a frog march for defamation of character.
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