Posted on 07/04/2005 7:11:53 AM PDT by MikeJ75
MSNBC commentator Lawrence O'Donnell, who broke the news Friday that notes taken by Time magazine's Matthew Cooper indictate that top Bush advisor Karl Rove leaked the name of CIA employee Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak, said Sunday it's likely that Rove broke no laws.
Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledged on Saturday that his client had indeed spoken to Cooper before the Novak column hit in July 2003. But Luskin insisted that Rove never revealed Plame's identity.
Speaking to WABC Radio host, Internet guru Matt Drudge late Sunday, O'Donnell noted: "What [Luskin] has said is very careful lawyer language. . . We live in a world where we have to discover, in the 90s, that there are people who aren't sure what the meaning of 'is' is."
The MSNBC talker posited:
"That could simply mean he did not use the words 'Valerie Plame.' He may have said [Joseph] Wilson's wife, for example. He may have said all sorts of things that still fit what we're talking about."
But even if Rove was behind the disclosure, it doesn't mean he broke any law, he argued.
"[Luskin] is insisting that Karl Rove did not commit a crime," O'Donnell told Drudge. "That may very well be the case."
The MSNBC talker said he had studied extensively the statute allegedly broken in the Plame case, concluding that is "a very difficult statute to violate."
For one thing, he said, "Perhaps [Plame] really wasn't a covert agent - doesn't fit the statute's definition of covert agent. I think that's possible."
Another factor that could mitigate allegations of an illegal disclosure, said O'Donnell, was that whoever revealed Plame's identity "would have had to intentionally disclose it knowing that the CIA is trying to hide it.
"Karl Rove may not have known that," he added.
If indeed Rove was behind the disclosure: "All [of the above] would add up to the fact that no crime was committed in the transmission of this information by Rove to Cooper," O'Donnell said.
Quite an admission from a Democrat.
No, O'Dingbat is trying to spin his friends out of jail.
Rove released the reporters in question from confidentiality months ago. They could testify about what he told them to the Grand Jury any time without a problem, if Rove was the source.
The Dims demanded this Investigation because they were sure they could use it to get Rove.
Instead they have fragged themselves.
Now they are desperate to find an out.
Now, blowing Plame's cover, if that was really done, is no longer a big deal, if that will keep their friends out of jail.
So9
Could someone connect the dots here. Since Novak broke the story and revealed that Plame was a CIA "operative" what difference does it matter if Rove talked to Cooper before that. I'm missing the link. What is it?
"Is O'Donnell back on his meds?"
O'Donnell's back? I haven't seen him on MSNBC since his meltdown on Scarborough Country last October. But then again, I don't watch MSNBC that much anyhow.
Yup. Almost certainly correct. Although we need not necessarily assume "well liquored." As we've seen, Mr. Wilson IV seems to have a penchant for finding innovative ways of yelling, "hey, over here! Look at me!"
Democrat hate for anything Bush.
If it is possible to connect any dots, no matter how far apart or unrelated they are and it might bring down a Bushie, it's worth trying.
Of course, they forget in their hate that real people get hurt. This time it will be them again.
For this lunatic O'Donnell to do such a fast backpedal means only one thing: Democrats hands are dirty and they are about to get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.
The entire trumped up investigation of "who outed Valerie Plame" (a left-wing activist in CIA desk jockey's clothing) made her name far more famous than any Novak column did and served only to divert attention from the real question of the serial anti-Americanism of Valeria Plame and her equally despicable and equally leftist husband Joseph Wilson.
What a waste of the considerable talents of US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (Northern District-Illinois) who needs all the time at his disposal to investigate the Chicago Demonratic Machine and the corrupt RINO operations of the likes of our despicable former governor Lyin' George Ryan who may cheat prison by dying of old age before he can be tried.
"Excuse me. O'Donnell didn't break any news. What O'Donnell did was tell a lie."
"That's a lie! It's another lie! That's a lie! Absolute lie!" - Lawrence O'Donnell, October 22, 2004
Another NewsMax mishmash.
Too bad there isn't a reliable conservative media outlet that can assemble facts in a coherent manner.
At any rate, Rove was not behind revealing that Plame recommended her husband for the trip.
I'm also sure there was no crime in revealing her role, whoever did so. There may well be other wrongdoing that Fitzgerald is looking at related to this Wilson-created scam.
Why?
You aren't thinking Rove did something wrong, I hope. If so, you couldn't be more wrong.
She'd have to have cover to blow, first...whoever revealed her role was blowing Wilson's "I'm a truthteller" cover, not some super-secret double naught spy's cover.
I doubt it. It was someone who worked with his wife, probably.
O'Donnell is always bordering on hysteria, and in some ways it is completely understandable.
After all, being born with a coat-hanger sticking out of your head probably doesn't do much for your self esteem.
And in Larry's case, it took him 6 years to remove it, and 6 more to figure out why it was there in the first place.
Well, America thanks you anyway Mrs. O'Donnell. It was a good try.
She was undercover at one point. No question about that. That is not an ambiguous point.
If she was (there actually is some question about it), it was years before---approximately ten years---well outside the time limit on the law in question.
And before you start up with "she would have had assets still!", you'd have to explain why others who worked undercover at the same time speak out about their experience publicly, thereby showing that there does come a time when the information is no longer going to pose harm to any "assets".
Why is this sneering lunatic still on TV? (Larry, not Chuck Schumer, that is...)
No, I was (apparently ineffectively) trying to comment on the lack of a prison term for Berger. Hope I didn't cast aspersions on Mr. Rove.
I see.
:)
All of a sudden the same peolple who thought nothing of perjury by a President a very concerned about enforcing an obscure law which may not have even been violated.
Desperate.
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