Posted on 07/10/2005 12:12:27 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.
Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute "personal consent" from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. Another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, refused to identify her source and chose to go to jail instead.
For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
It makes no difference to me whether a government official is a Democrat or a Republican. I apply the same standards of behavior to both parties. The troll that I replied to wrote: "Sounds like Rove did blow cover which is a violation of the law." But this poster gave no analysis of the relevant law and gave no reason why he thought Rove's actions were a violation of the law. The poster just made an assumption that Rove has violated some kind of law and presented no evidence. That is the kind of troll-like behavior that results in a poster being identified as a "troll" by we FReepers.
There's a very good discussion of the relevant law right now at Powerlineblog.com, under the heading "Closing in on Karl." According to this analysis, it's highly unlikely that Rove violated the law and that also applies to any Democrats who may have done the same thing. The law in this area isn't written so strictly that one careless mistake in one conversation can get a person sent away for "hard time."
I don't think anyone's life was placed in danger by Rove's comments to Cooper, because apparently it was widely known within Washington that Wilson' wife worked for the CIA. She was not working overseas as a covert agent where her activities could get her in trouble if she was identified. To answer your question, it is not OK for a Republican to willfully engage in a pattern of behavior intended to identify a covert agent of the CIA and place that agent in danger. If it turns out that a Democrat was the source for other journalists, I will say the same thing because I don't think Wilson's wife was actually a covert agent under the law.
I would refer the gentleman to post #214.
Will they never learn.....use the "cone of silence".......!
The identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame was compromised twice before her name appeared in a news column that triggered a federal illegal-disclosure investigation, U.S. officials say.
Mrs. Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In a second compromise, officials said a more recent inadvertent disclosure resulted in references to Mrs. Plame in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana.
The documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them, the officials said.
That Russian spy was Aldrich Ames, the date was before his arrest in 1994. In order for Rove to have broken the law, she would have to be a covert agent in the last five years. Fact was, she had not been a covert agent for nine years.
In all the other discussion I missed this comment.,, reading back over it I had to laugh out out loud. Sounds like you've never been to Niger. I haven't either but I've been to an adjacent dirt poor country where even they look down on Niger... imagine a giant dessert twice the size of Texas with a life expectancy in the low 40's even before they became AIDS ravened and less than one acre in 10,000 has crops.... there are no junkets to Niger... it was a good line though.
I wouldn't grow accustomed to call Houston Chronicle articles "mythical" but so be it:
Rove fired from Bush Sr's '92 campaign over leak to Novak. Karl Rove was fired from the 1992 re-election campaign of Bush Sr. for allegedly leaking a negative story about Bush loyalist/fundraiser Robert Mosbacher to Novak. Novak's piece described a meeting organized by then-Senator Phil Gramm at which Mosbacher was relieved of his duties as state campaign manager because "the president's re-election effort in Texas has been a bust." Rove was fired after Mosbacher fingered him as Novak's source.
(Sources: "Karl and Bob: a leaky history," Houston Chronicle, Nov. 7, 2003, ; "Genius," Texas Monthly, March 2003, p. 82; "Why Are These Men Laughing," Esquire, January 2003)
I'm going by Joe Wilson's own account of his trip. I was merely being colorful in using the word "junket".
And I hope I didn't sound negative (about your reply) - I got that you were being colorful... I was, however, being negative about Niger. We're talking about a land locked country that has been debating whether to ratify the Law of the the Sea Treaty for 10 years.
By the way, the standard for what constitutes a scandal was raised so high by Bill Clinton that none of Bush's people will ever participate in a ture scandal in the eyes of the public.
Post #254: "ture scandal" should read "true scandal."
No question, Niger's no place anybody in their right might would want to be. I didn't mean to suggest that Wilson's motivation for going there was cocktails and the scenery. He was there to get himself some credibility before attacking Bush on the yellowcake story. That's all he was there for.
The Houston Chronicle is incorrect. Karl Rove didn't work on Bush Sr.'s 1992 campaign and so, could not be fired from it, however much the Houston Chronical might wish that were the case. Rove remained in Texas state politics until 2000, and was not involved with the 92 national presidential campaign. He was fired from a committee called Victory 92, and not about Mosbacher Sr. as many claim, but because he was accused about a leak concerning Mosbacher Jr. To this day there was and is no evidence that Rove was the leaker and the reporter, Novak, made it clear Rove was not his source on the matter. Which may be why even your citation includes the word "alleged." Alleged is about as much as they can claim to have on the guy, and allegations are like opinions, everyone has one.
Way to go, Carl in Alaska!! You took the words right out of my mouth.
First of all, Karl Rove did NOT mention anyone's name.
Second, Valerie Plame was NOT some undercover, covert, operative. She was a paper pusher who arranged her husbands trip to Niger. The White House did NOT arrange the trip, which is the point Karl Rove was trying to make.
Third, if anyone blew her cover, it was Ms. Plame herself, who had a photograph of her and hubby published in Vanity Fair magazine.
This whole thing is so ridiculous, I'm convinced Karl Rove thought it up just to make the democRats and liberals look even dumber than they currently are. I find it hard to believe that the liberals and the democRats took the bait, and have fallen into the trap.
Karl Rove to the liberals: GOTCHA AGAIN!!!
hehehehehe
The poor DU'ers are starting to realized that they've been snookered again by Karl Rove. They took the bait and fell into the trap. Know wonder the DU'ers are called "DUmmies". Just when you think they can't get any dumber, they do!!
BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHA
Excellent point. This is strong evidence that Ms. Plame was not a covert operative, because obviously covert agents keep a low profile and don't get their names and pictures published in Vanity Fair....lol. My hunch is that the special prosecutor is going to conclude that nobody broke the law and nobody is going to be indicted, and I wouldn't be suprised if Joseph Wilson himself was Novak's source.
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