Posted on 07/13/2005 10:33:50 PM PDT by Crackingham
"The fact is, Karl Rove did not leak classified information." So said Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican Party.
"I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name." So said Karl Rove of Valerie Wilson/Plame last year on CNN.
"He did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." So said Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, after Newsweek reported Rove had been a source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper but before Newsweek revealed a Cooper email that said Rove had told Cooper that "wilson's wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues."
The White House may be stonewalling on the Rove scandal, but the Rove camp--aided by its echo-ists in the conservative media--has been busy establishing the twin-foundation for his defense: he did not mention Valerie Wilson/Plame by name; he did not disclose classified information. The first of these two assertions is misleading and irrelevant; the second is wrong.
According to Cooper's email, Rove told Cooper that "Wilson's wife"--not "Valerie Plame," or "Valerie Wilson"--worked at the CIA. But this distinction has absolutely no legal relevance. Under the relevant law--the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--a crime is committed when a government official (not a journalist) "intentionally discloses any information identifying" an undercover intelligence officer. The act does not say a name must be disclosed. By telling a reporter that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA officer, Rove was clearly disclosing "identifying" information. There was only one Mrs. Joseph Wilson. With such information in hand, Cooper or anyone else could easily have ascertained the name of this officer. (A Google search at the time would have yielded the name--and maiden name--of Wilson's wife.) Revealing the name is not the crime; it's disclosing information that IDs the officer. Imagine if a government official told a reporter, "At 3:15, a fellow in a green hat, carrying a red umbrella and holding a six-pack of Mountain Dew, will be tap-dancing in front of the Starbucks at Connecticut Avenue and R Street--he's the CIA's best undercover officer working North Korea." That official could not defend himself, under this law, by claiming that he had not revealed the name of this officer. The issue is identifying, not naming. Rove and his allies cannot hide behind his no-name claim.
A reading of this law also indicates that if Cooper's email is accurate then Rove did pass classified information to Cooper. It's possible that Rove did so unwittingly. That is, he did not know Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA was classified information. But he and his posse cannot say the information he slipped to Cooper was not classified.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime to identify "a covert agent" of the United States. The law defines "covert agent," in part, as "a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information." (My emphasis.)
This definition clearly recognizes that the identity of an undercover intelligence officer is "classified information." The law also notes that a "covert agent" has a "classified relationship to the United States." Since the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate the Plame/CIA leak and the Justice Department affirmed the need for an investigation and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, once handed the case, pursued the matter vigorously, it is reasonable to assume that Valerie Wilson fits the definition of a "covert agent." That means she has a "classified relationship" with the government.
By disclosing Valerie Wilson's relationship to the CIA, Rove was passing classified information to a reporter.
David Corn... the Nation... *sigh*
True. Reading DU heavily and it is just about all Rove all the time. More than just every other posting. The left is really hanging its hopes on this. I swear to God I read a posting regarding the cancellation of the shiuttle flight and the poster was glad it was cancelled because she was afraid the administration would blow up the shuttle to divert attention from the Rove issue. When this turns into a going nowhere, nohow issue, they are going to be VERY disappointed. But do not fear, they will then use it as ammo for their tinfoil hat theories of CONSPIRACY. They never accept that they are wrong on anything.
Totally, on the bunch of idiots! The left has nothing, never does, this is all 2 years old, even tho' the investigation is current, another lefty-forced investigation I would guess, and total waste of good of tax dollars on the usual NOTHING. They keep trying to make something out of that nothing. It's sickeningly laughable. It's their old m.o. of constantly repeating something to then make it a fact. They must love digging their own graves, they keep doing it over and over again.
The fate of Rove hangs on completely on Fitzgerald. Rove will resign if and when he is named as a target of of the Grand Jury. Bush will not need to fire him. On the other hand if Fitzgerald is not just another hot shot looking to make a name for himself he will make a public statement that, based on Cooper's testimony and Rove's testimony, the evidence does not support what political enemies are asserting. Every legal expert, left AND right have stated that given what is now publicly known Rove has not broken the law or the spirit of the law
That's the perfect illustration of the libs standing around, scratching their heads and trying to get this damned conspiracy to start.
can someone tell me if Valerie Plame drove herself to work everyday out of her driveway to the CIA building in Langley what did she tell all her friends where she worked?
if one of her friends wanted to send her flowers at work where did they send them?
if anyone ever wanted to know where she worked couldn't they just follow her to work everyday and conclude she was employed at the CIA?
My father taught at Langley High School in the middle 70's and half his kids had as their parents employment-- the CIA
I had a couple classmates in Virginia who openly said their dad's worked for the CIA in Langley,, thats as far as it went but that's as far as Rove went,,,,
and since according to Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC it was pretty much known before all this Rove stuff among the Washington press corp that Wilson's wifey worked at the CIA what's all the crap about Rove mentioning it?
Someone told those lefty children they were driving to get ice-cream. Unfortunately, they're really going to the denstist to get all their teeth pulled...without novacaine.
Rove specifically spoke about this to dispute a story about Cheney sending Wilson by offering that it was Wilson's wife who sent him.
That's very conveniently overlooked by the left--just as they keep wailing that "we went into Iraq over WMD," they keep ignoring that Wilson was credible to them because "he was hand-picked by Dick Cheney to look into this". Now that that's "inoperative" the libs dismiss it. It was the foot in the door they needed to bring up this topic.
I'm just astonished at the left's sudden concern for leaks. Since freakin when????
Imagine if the left--journalists and DU posters--were this concerned with terrorists?
Why would Rove have or need access to classified material in the first place?
BINGO!
Corn was not concerned for the same reason the ACLU, which goes apes*it if they see a Bible or a cricifix on public property (unless it's dipped in urine), has no problem with us handing out Korans at Gitmo.
No principle. Just politics.
Agreed! See my post 52.
Hmmmmm? Poor David - I guess he didn't notice that Robert Novak wrote his article with Valerie's name in it - PRIOR TO THE CONVERSATION ROVE HAD WITH COOPER.
Or .. David didn't happen to see that Wilson put his own wife's name on his website.
Vaalerie was not an operative (or covered agent) - she was an analyst.
DON'T ANY OF THESE MEDIA PEOPLE EVER GET THEIR INFORMATION CORRECT.
The space shuttle? That is truly mentally sick. I wish that kind of thinking was rare, but it is not. It appears to be fairly acceptable in many Democrat quarters. (Remember Howard Dean's comments about 9/11?)
These people prove over and over that they cannot be trusted with the powers of government.
Two recent examples show how reckless and vicious GOPers can get. When the news broke weeks ago that former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger had removed classified documents related to terrorism and notes from a secured viewing room at the National Archives, leading Republicans and conservative commentators—including House Speaker Denny Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay—went berserk. With little information available about what Berger had done—he claimed he had taken papers out with him by accident and returned most of them later—they accused Berger of stuffing documents down his pants and suggested he had swiped documents to cover up misdeeds or mistakes committed by the Clinton administration and to prevent the 9/11 Commission from finding out truths that would trouble or embarrass the Clinton gang.
But days ago, The Wall Street Journal reported, “Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks….The conclusion by archives officials and others would seem to lay to rest the issue of whether any information was permanently destroyed or withheld from the commission.” This, of course, doesn’t explain what actually happened, but it does take the fizz out of attacks initiated by Republicans before the facts were in.
What's sauce for the goose ....
An amicus brief is an opinion filed during a trial by someone who is not a party to the litigation, but who believes that the court's decision may affect its interest. Amicus means "friend," so amici curiae is plural for "friend of the court." En banc means "full bench" and is when all the members of an appellate court are there to hear an argument, not just the three judges who normally preside over an appellate case.
Good catch!
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