Posted on 03/25/2005 2:30:46 PM PST by swilhelm73
"The nation's largest news organizations and journalism groups" filed a brief in federal court Wednesday arguing that "a federal court should first determine whether a crime has been committed in the disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's name before prosecutors are allowed to continue seeking testimony from journalists about their confidential sources," the Washington Post reports:
The 40-page brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argues that there is "ample evidence . . . to doubt that a crime has been committed" in the case, which centers on the question of whether Bush administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame in the summer of 2003.
[snip]
This column and the Journal have both long argued that there probably wasn't a crime in the "outing" of Plame, but until recently this put us in a distinct minority among mainstream journalists.
As we noted last month, editorials and columns in the New York Times were particularly aggressive in asserting that a crime had occurred and demanding an investigation. The Times did a turnabout, declaring on Feb. 26 that there is a "real possibility that the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity . . . may not have violated any law." The New York Times Co. did not sign the amicus brief, presumably because its reporter Judith Miller is a party to the case. Likewise for Time Inc.; Time's Matthew Cooper is also threatened with jail for refusing to disclose his sources.
We hope that Miller and Cooper prevail--that they keep their sources confidential and never spend a night behind bars. We also hope our colleagues in the news business learn to be more skeptical about politically motivated criminal accusations.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Freepers could have told them this conclusion from the gitgo and saved everyone time and money.
Heheheh. Excellent!
As the worm squirms. Tune in manana.
well quite frankly I think it is a valid point and remember kiddies, if they win this motion, the Dems will be crying, Wilson will be further discredited and the leakers will be safe....
I remember it well - when this brouhahaha first come to light, Mr. Wilson drudged it up again in time for his book promotion tour and in time for the middle of the Presidential campaign,
that most of the legal pundits didn't think, even if the leakers were found, that a crime had been committed with the way the particular statute is written, it was written to cover a very different set of circumstances and has a mens rea requirement ie. intent that would be difficult to prove because:
I also recall that Bob Novak claimed that the fact Ms. Plame was a CIA operative was the worst kept secret in Washington and in fact I also recall a few Washington columnists backed up Novak on that supposition...I think, now my memory fails me here, but I think Novak says he knew she was in the CIA before he was told that that she was the one that volunteered her husband Joe Wilson for the mission to Niger to check out the uranium claim.
so if you didn't think it was a secret to begin with, you haven't met the mens rea requirement of the statute
Given the Wilson-Plame cover story and photo shoot for Vanity Fair to promote Wilson's book and given Wilson was totally discredited later by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Iraq on the very issue of the uranium claim, I'm inclined to give Novak the benefit of the doubt
more puzzling however is why old Novak's butt on the line too, did he fess up?
hmmm you think Cooper and Miller are protecting a Democrat, never thought of that angle, actually I've always like Judith Miller, she had major egg on her face when Saddam had no WMD because that beat was her bread and butter....
again Novak brought the story to light and yet he's not sitting in jail....or at risk of it
Oh let me find what the Senate Intelligence report said about Wilson and his testimony, priceless, just another DNC liar,
ballsy these people are, ballsy.....
if you are going to lie, stick with it people, and make sure any evidence to the contrary has disappeared, LOL
Or maybe he was trying to distract attention from the implication that his attack on the Bush administration's foreign policy was related to his wife's work at CIA? Back when Wilson stared his denial on this, the conflict between the CIA and the Bush administration was more covert that overt, at least in the public eye. Now that it's become more overt, in retrospect it seems like Novak's article was a turning point in drawing public attention to the CIA's undermining of Bush's foreign policy. I wonder if the sources being protected here are CIA/intelligence community opponents of Bush's foreign policy.
OK here is the synopsis of the argument that Bush was not lying in the SOTU address, he may have been wrong, I'm not convinced he was wrong
_________________________________
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger .
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html
___________________________
{and in fact the UK's own investigation showed the British indeed had independent intelligence for the claim and they never backed down)
on to Mr. Wilson, from the same site cited above...
The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported July 7, 2004 that the CIA had received reports from a foreign government (not named, but probably Britain) that Iraq had actually concluded a deal with Niger to supply 500 tons a year of partially processed uranium ore, or "yellowcake." That is potentially enough to produce 50 nuclear warheads.
The Senate report said the CIA then asked a "former ambassador" to go to Niger and report. That is a reference to Joseph Wilson -- who later became a vocal critic of the President's 16 words. The Senate report said Wilson brought back denials of any Niger-Iraq uranium sale, and argued that such a sale wasn't likely to happen. But the Intelligence Committee report also reveals that Wilson brought back something else as well -- evidence that Iraq may well have wanted to buy uranium.
Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."
The lying leftist bastards at the NY Slimes are an amazing group of liars of the lying lefties.
Actually, it would be good to see some jail time for some of the top liars who pushed this bs. Apparently, Peter King is working for this justice behind the scenes, and those involved in the Yellowcake/Wilson/Plame scam are very scared of what may happen.
"I've noticed that many on the "right" were arguing that no crime was committed when it was thought (by force of Wilson's egotistical claims) that the perp was Rove, Libby, or one of the "neo-cons."
Probably some of the same pseudo conservatives who cheer the murder of Terri.
If we ever are able to find out how deep the funding of bs like this from $oro$ and other evil super rich left wing facists, it will be an amazing story. A lot of pseudo conservatives might have to fly to France and ask for asylum if that ever happens.
"Then there's that thing about his vanishing second wife."
Huh?
Please explain.
That was Shermy who said that.
Thanks, I need some more coffee.
Shermy, how about Frog Walk Joe's missing wife?
Mark Steyn: How a serial liar suckered Dems and the mediaBUSH LIED!! Not.
BLAIR LIED!!! Not.
But it turns out JOE WILSON LIED! PEOPLE DIED. Of embarrassment mostly. At least I'm assuming that's why the New York Times, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, PBS drone Bill Moyers and all the other media bigwigs Joseph C. Wilson IV suckered have fallen silent on the subject of the white knight of integrity they've previously given the hold-the-front-page treatment, too.
Frog Walk Joe Wilson is one of the top serial liars of the left, and they have a lot of serial liars.
Thanks for the ping and the reminder.
She's mentioned in Vanity Fair. Met in Africa. Married 12 years or so. She was a French diplomat. In Vanity Fair he talks about how she and Wilson attended a dinner with one of Saddam's top arms purchasers on the eve of the invasion of Kuwait.
In his book this wife is wholly absent and unmentioned. Wilson specifies he went to the dinner "alone."
Jumpsuits and shackles,
As the blogosphere cackles,
The Left's so annoyed--
Yes. . .that's schadenfreude.
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