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Lawrence O'Donnell: Rove's I-did-not-inhale Defense
Huffington Post ^ | 7-4-05 | Lawrence O'Donnell

Posted on 07/04/2005 3:17:36 PM PDT by STARWISE

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years.

The next day, Luskin was forced to open the first hole in the Rove two-year wall of silence about the case. In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Luskin then launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute ( U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

So, Rove's defense now hangs on one word—he "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Does that mean Rove simply didn't know Valerie Plame was a covert agent? Or does it just mean that Rove did not know that the CIA was "taking affirmative measures" to hide her identity?

In Luskin's next damage control session with the press, let's see if any reporter can get him to drop the word 'knowingly' from the never-disclosed-classified-information bit.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cialeak; cooper; karlrove; luskin; newsweek; odonnell; plame; robertluskin; rove
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To: STARWISE
O'Donnell wants to know what they talked about awfully bad, doesn't he?
41 posted on 07/04/2005 4:00:02 PM PDT by Reactionary
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To: STARWISE
Liar! Liar! Liar! I'm with you all the way, Larry! Yeaaaaargh!

42 posted on 07/04/2005 4:04:58 PM PDT by StAnDeliver
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To: Republican Red

He let him rant for a while. A couple callers called Drudge on it, saying the guy was unbelievable and a sack.


43 posted on 07/04/2005 4:06:39 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
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To: STARWISE

Larry O'Donnell, the Pouter,
Blames Karl Rove for Valerie's outer.
Larry spits and he spins
Weaving "outs" out of "ins"
But he can't change the mind of this doubter.




44 posted on 07/04/2005 4:10:50 PM PDT by syriacus (Libs LUV a Justice who's ready, for approval from Dick, Chuck and Teddy.)
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To: syriacus; cyncooper
I think what Lawrence is trying to say in his latest whine is this:

1) Hey everyone! Remember me? Well, I'd like you to forget how I boasted I had not one, but TWO - that's right - TWO 'authoritative" sources RIGHT IN THAT OLE GRAND JURY ROOM telling me what went down.

2) I'd like you to also forget that I demanded Karl Rove waive his right to legal counsel, and spill what he said "WORD-FOR-WORD" to everyone in the secret grand jury proceedings. That's right, I demanded Rove do that - break the law, Karl!

3) What I'd like to focus on now (since I've had a long chat with my own lawyer), is what was PUBLICLY said by uh, oh yeah, Rove's lawyer. THAT's the new target of my whine - Rove's LAWYER. And we're moving from PRIVATE SECRET GRAND JURY TESTIMONY I BOASTED ABOUT KNOWING to uh, oh yeah, "public statements" by Rove's lawyer (Sorry Dem Sen Chuckie Schumer, but my lawyer said to do it this way).

4) And, uh, remember when I sounded like a jerk by demanding Karl publicly break the law by disclosing his secret testimony? Well, again -- FORGET I SAID THAT. Instead, looky here! I have the CITE of a real LAW. That's right, I am now trying to be LEGAL in what I blab to the public. (Maybe someday I can get a gig as a paralegal if I get canned from my "senior political analyst" job.)

5) And as for all you FREEPERS out there who keep posting REAL stuff that refutes me, and who make fun of my writing, well, phooey on you! I am going to keep ranting (but now in the way my lawyer says I can rant).

Signing off, Lawrence Lassie O'Donnell (woofing away to another uh, incorrect well).
45 posted on 07/04/2005 4:24:58 PM PDT by summer
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To: small voice in the wilderness

My post #45 is dedicated to you. :)


46 posted on 07/04/2005 4:31:21 PM PDT by summer
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To: summer
It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Oh my, I skimmed his little screed so hadn't caught that part.

As you point out this is a lie. We know what that makes Lassie O'Donnell:

A Creepy Liar!

47 posted on 07/04/2005 4:35:12 PM PDT by cyncooper
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To: BurbankKarl
If Rove leaked the name, we would have heard about it right away....particularly during the election season.

Of course Rove didn't "leak the name" (as the inept phrasing goes).

But it is of note that Rove in fact was the very first one Joe Wilson publicly accused and it did make waves throughout demland (including media circles).

48 posted on 07/04/2005 4:37:31 PM PDT by cyncooper
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To: cyncooper
Based on the title of his latest whine, he seems to be comfortable with the freepers' previous drug references about him.


49 posted on 07/04/2005 4:39:41 PM PDT by summer
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To: summer
One of the articles I saw re Cooper and Rove was posted on one of these threads I posted this weekend; I think it was from American Prospect? Does that sound right? I know it was 2004, and someone posted it.

I posted it and I'll find it again. It demonstrates that it was reported back then that Rove spoke with reporters, contrary to Lassie's breathless "just now revealed" or however he phrased it.

Before I go dig up the link, I will say it reminds me of Richard Ben Veniste hectoring Condi Rice about the August 2001 PDB during the 9/11 Commission hearings. He asked her for the title of that Presidential Briefing and when she gave it he theatrically declared that only now, after all these years, was the title revealed. In short order I found an article from May 2002 when the existance of the PDB became known and none other than Ari Fleischer had given and newspapers then reported the title of that PDB.

50 posted on 07/04/2005 4:42:06 PM PDT by cyncooper
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To: cyncooper

LOL....thanks for wanting to re-post that link (not that it will help certain Dem lurkers, but thanks anyway). :)


51 posted on 07/04/2005 4:43:53 PM PDT by summer
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To: cyncooper

Inept?


52 posted on 07/04/2005 4:43:59 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
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To: summer
Link to my post about the March 2004 article.

Here is the portion I chose to post:

President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel's investigation of the matter.

But Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

53 posted on 07/04/2005 4:45:40 PM PDT by cyncooper
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To: BurbankKarl

Yes, inept. Her name was not a secret. What they mean is "leaked her employer" not "name". But time and again it is phrased "who leaked her name".

However, as others have pointed out, there is a mountain of evidence that her employment at the CIA was not a secret, either.


54 posted on 07/04/2005 4:55:45 PM PDT by cyncooper
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To: summer

Impressively clear summary of what's going on in Lawrence's head recently.


55 posted on 07/04/2005 5:06:30 PM PDT by syriacus (Libs LUV a Justice who's ready, for approval from Dick, Chuck and Teddy.)
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To: summer
LOL! Thanks for the dedication! I'll bet Rove is getting a big kick out of all this. Watch for him to throw more frisbees toward the swamp just to tell Lassie to fetch. And Lassie will. Because he has no sense. Regards, SVITW
56 posted on 07/04/2005 5:10:31 PM PDT by small voice in the wilderness (Quick, act casual. If they sense scorn and ridicule, they'll flee..)
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To: STARWISE; All

What's it up to now Lar...13 1/2, 14 minutes? Enjoy, babe, enjoy.


57 posted on 07/04/2005 6:21:08 PM PDT by olde north church (Why shop with the Son when the Father's place is still open for business?)
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To: Miss Marple
I think we should keep track of O'Donnell, and see how long it is before he is arrested for possession of cocaine.

Or when he has the inevitable arrhythmia.

58 posted on 07/04/2005 6:38:24 PM PDT by Stentor
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To: BurbankKarl

I was surprised Drudge gave this guy airtime too, but what the heck. O'Donnell was on McLaughlin Report, Matt's radio show, and wrote two tacky blurbs in Huffington Post.com. Nothing mainstream....or as O'Donnell complained yesterday, "his tale can't get no traction".

It will be hilarious to see if Chris Matthews has him on Hardball tomorrow night. They are close friends. Will O"Donnell honor his pledge to MSNBC not to go ballistic ever again?


59 posted on 07/04/2005 6:47:42 PM PDT by YaYa123 (@Lawrence O'Donnell really really really obsessed with nailing Karl Rove.com)
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To: Lunkhead_01

O'Donnell is a bigger nutcase than Tom Cruise and that is saying a lot. He is smug, self centered, paranoid - a typical Dimocrat.


60 posted on 07/04/2005 6:49:53 PM PDT by hgro (ews)
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