File photo: Unnamed source for Novak, Wilson, MoveOn, Schumer, et al.
CNN's Novak, CNN's Clark, MoveOn's Wilson, Tenet's Plame--they're trying to sex up the dossier--it'll blow them up real good.
Posted on 09/29/2003 8:04:09 AM PDT by The_Victor
The naming of the intelligence officer's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak came shortly after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, had undermined Bush's claim that Iraq (news - web sites) had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
Wilson has publicly blamed Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, for the leak, although Wilson did say Monday he did not know whether Rove personally was the source of Novak's information.
"He wasn't involved," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has confirmed that the Justice Department has received a letter from CIA Director George Tenet to look into the matter. The department and the FBI (news - web sites) are trying to determine whether there was a violation of the law and, if so, then whether a full-blown criminal investigation is warranted, the official said.
"It's a serious matter and it should be looked into," McClellan said.
Asked whether Bush should fire any official found to have leaked the information, McClellan said: "They should be pursued to the fullest extent by the Department of Justice (news - web sites). The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct — and that would not be."
Schumer, D-N.Y., said matter should be investigated from someone outside the Bush administration.
"If there was ever a case that demanded a special counsel, this is it," he said. "This is a very serious national security matter where there is a clear conflict of interest for the attorney general because it could involve high-level White House officials."
The Justice Department had no immediate comment on Schumer's request.
On Sunday, Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said she was unaware of any White House involvement in the matter.
"I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate," she told "Fox News Sunday."
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) also denied knowledge of the matter.
The flap began in January when Bush said in his State of the Union address that British intelligence officials had learned that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium in Africa.
In an opinion piece published in July by The New York Times, Wilson said he told the CIA long before Bush's address that the British reports were suspect and the administration has since said the assertion should not have been in Bush's speech.
A week after Wilson went public with his criticism Novak, quoting anonymous government sources, said Wilson's wife was a CIA operative working on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
The Washington Post on Sunday quoted an unidentified senior administration official as saying two top White House officials called at least a half-dozen journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Disclosing the name of an undercover CIA agent could violate federal law. "I know nothing about any such calls and I do know that the president of the United States would not expect his White House to behave in that way," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Wilson said Monday he believes the White House leaked his wife's name "to intimidate others and to scare them and to keep them from coming forward and speaking." Wilson had said in a late August speech in Seattle that he suspected senior Bush adviser Karl Rove. But on ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday, he backtracked somewhat from that assertion. "In one speech I gave out in Seattle not too long ago, I mentioned the name Karl Rove," he said. "I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment. I don't have any knowledge that Karl Rove himself was either the leaker or the authorizer of the leak. But I have great confidence that, at a minimum, he condoned it and certainly did nothing to shut it down." The White House has denied that accusation. Powell told ABC's "This Week" that he thought that if the CIA believed the identity of one of its covert employees have been revealed, it had an obligation to ask the Justice Department to look into the matter. But he added: "Other than that, I don't know anything about the matter." Rice said the matter has been referred to the Justice Department and "I think that's the appropriate place. ... Let's just see what the Justice Department does." Pressed whether anyone at the White House raised concerns that the Wilson matter posed a problem for the administration, she replied: "I don't remember any such conversation." Wilson said Monday that if the administration actually took an intelligence asset "off the table," that would have been "a dastardly deed ... coming from an administration that came to office promising to restore dignity and honor to the White House. It was contemptible."
If it's NOT true I want someone's head rolling.
This question has been posed to me a number of times on this thread and it's a good one. I'll admit, I have no answer for it other than speculation.
It could be that Novak erroneously assumed that since other reporters were given this top-secret information about Wilson’s Wife that it was out in the open and thus fair game. But yeah, even this is not quite ethical.
There is probably a lot more involved here. However, if Novak knowingly published this information which did in fact blow the intelligence cover of Wilson's Wife (and perhaps others) to embarrass the administration or for some other nefarious motive then, yes, Novak really screwed up here and his integrity has become highly questionable.
My statement regarding Novak's integrity comes from a wide spread general impression of Novak by many in the press and politics over many decades. I'm interested as any to hear more details on this story. It could very well be that Novak does not come out of this with clean hands.
THAT is exactly what Andrew Gilligan did. In fact, just like the BBC/Kelly case, we have now mysteriously gone from "sourcES" to just "SOURCE". I've followed the Kelly case from the start, and still follow the Kelly case and Hutton inquiry closely.
I've been saying ever since this story sort of washed ashore after months in limbo that this is the Blair witch hunt redux.
These things are NOT always "approved" ANYWHERE. As I have explained before, the media is NOTORIOUS (I am NOT accusing Novak of this, but if he's a freeper on this thread, he can back me up) for making calls to various government agencies and talking to ANYONE - it could be a RECEPTIONIST for all they know, and they will claim it as an "anonymous government official"
YOU appear to be condemning Rove, without facts, and then trying to unsuccessfully spin your words to say you're not, while in the next sentence youu say things like "well, approval HAD to come from higher up. YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THE SOURCES or SOURCE is, and yet you keep making intimations of whom you believe is the guilty party.
No, it didn't. It rarely ever works that way. There are orchestrated leaks and there are the more common, agenda driven leaks that might have got approval from higher up, but higher up within the PARTY, not the department.
The game of politics has been with us thousands of years, and I'm surprised so few people understand it.
If Rive IS ONE of the leaks, then he deserves prosecution. If he ISN'T, he deserves an APOLOGY...but you know what? He won't get one.
I said this thing would turn into a circus when it finally washed ashore, like a needle-laden wave on the beach...and it has.
Your link is from NewsMax. I found that nowhere in the article can such a quote from Wilson be found. NewsMax seems to be caught in a lie here.
The CIA says the Whitehouse leaked a secret. That's a fact.
That was my understanding of her job as well. While it's not unheard of for an anylist to have a "dual use" as an operative, OR - especially for the Clinton CIA, for various levels of the agency not to know a darned thing about what their colleagues are really doing - this may or MAY NOT BE the case with Wilson's wife. I'll await details. Novak may be in the clear on this.
Oh, what a tangled web they weave, when first they practice to deceive!!
CNN's Novak, CNN's Clark, MoveOn's Wilson, Tenet's Plame--they're trying to sex up the dossier--it'll blow them up real good.
"The CIA says the Whitehouse leaked a secret. That's a fact." says Way2Serious while accusing NewsMax of lying.
OK, show me where the CIA says that.
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