Posted on 07/12/2005 3:10:12 PM PDT by Dog
Stick with me--this is a long post.
Byron York has a vital detail in his must-read piece right now on the main part of the NRO website. Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, tells Byron that Time's Matt Cooper called Rove to talk about something else and that only secondarily did the subject of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame come up.
This is important, because it means Rove wasn't "retailing" the information about Wilson and Plame -- wasn't reporter-shopping to drop a dirty dime on those involved -- but was rather a passive source, answering a phone call at the reporter's behest and presumably changing topics to the sexier one at issue at the reporter's behest as well.
Since Rove-centric psychos can devise any scenario whereby he manipulates people into doing everything he wants, I doubt this detail will change any minds in Daily Kos-ville. But it offers an important and nagging clue to the continuing antics of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What do I mean?
It means that clearly information was circulating around Washington about the identity of Wilson's CIA operative wife Valerie Plame. The presumption has thus far been in most quarters that the only people who could have known about this were administration officials.
But what if that's not right? What if the original source for the "Wilson got the job from his CIA wife" was, in fact, a reporter? After all, we know that the vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has testified he learned of Plame's identity from a journalist.
Wilson had gotten very cozy with a couple of them -- Walter Pincus of the Washington Post and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times among them. What if he spilled the beans to enhance his own standing in the story somehow, to bolster his supposed findings?
What if -- and here's where it gets really interesting -- what if the real target of Fitzgerald's investigation is now none other than the jailed Judith Miller of the New York Times? What if she let it all slip and in the giant game of telephone around the nation's capital, Miller was the original source? What if he needs her notes to discern whether Miller knew or didn't know of Plame's supposedly covert status?
Fitzgerald already has a major bone to pick with Miller. He believes she materially and dangerously impeded his investigation into a terrorist-financing scheme run by the Holy Land Foundation.
When Miller found out that Fitzgerald was on the verge of indicting Holy Land, she called the Foundation for comment -- and right after her call the Foundation commenced a shredding party that ensured prosecutors would find little paperwork to go on when they raided the Holy Land offices.
As the Washington Post put it, "On Dec. 3, 2001, Times reporter Judith Miller telephoned officials with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based charity accused of being a front for Palestinian terrorists, and asked for a comment about what she said was the government's probable crackdown on the group. U.S. officials said this conversation and Miller's article on the subject in the Times on Dec. 4 increased the likelihood that the foundation destroyed or hid records before a hastily organized raid by agents that day."
Fitzgerald sought her phone records on that occasion to uncover the source of a potential leak in his own office and was blocked by a liberal New York judge named Robert Sweet. Miller didn't get so lucky this time. Fitzgerald thinks Miller has a loose tongue, and for good reason. It's possible he's trying to figure out what other mischief her loose tongue might have caused.
Chew on that for a while. I'm exhausted. Posted at 05:55 PM
Ergo, Karl Rove got "burned" through trying to be helpful on a matter not at all directly related to PLAME in the phone call. And Cooper, and mad, mad, mad, mad liberal MSM (and their Democrat shills) trying to twist this story into something it is not.
Thanks for the link. I liked this part:
"...becasue INR analysts did not believe that Niger would be likely to engage in such a transaction and did not believe Niger would be able to transfer uranium to Iraq because a French consortium maintained control of the Nigerien uranium industry."
A French consortium maintained control. I wonder if it was the same French consortium that received the oil-for-food bribes???
I sleep well at night with the confidence that these folks can know just about anything they want, when they want.
Not that Karl Rove said anything about Plame; but that when issue B in that phone call COOPER made to Rove...
It's got to be a lib, if the NYT is maintaining her "silence". Somebody they're embarrassed about outting. heheheh!
It really is nice that there are grownups in the WH that see the big picture.
Indeed, I've been asking why we aren't referring to Rove as a whistleblower, who should be protected by the whistleblower laws covering federal employees. Deep Throat and Daniel Ellsberg actually did break laws, and they are held up by the media as whistleblowing heroes.
Sorry about that, my post was sloppy. "Cooper burned Carl Rove" is a quote from the Byron YorK Story I was quoting.
I left out the link.
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200507121626.asp
Here is that post in a little better context
Lawyer: Cooper “Burned” Karl Rove Rove’s attorney talks to NRO.
The lawyer for top White House adviser Karl Rove says that Time reporter Matthew Cooper "burned" Rove after a conversation between the two men concerning former ambassador Joseph Wilson's fact-finding mission to Niger and the role Wilson's wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, played in arranging that trip. Nevertheless, attorney Robert Luskin says Rove long ago gave his permission for all reporters, including Cooper, to tell prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about their conversations with Rove.
In an interview with National Review Online, Luskin compared the contents of a July 11, 2003, internal Time e-mail written by Cooper with the wording of a story Cooper co-wrote a few days later. "By any definition, he burned Karl Rove," Luskin said of Cooper. "If you read what Karl said to him and read how Cooper characterizes it in the article, he really spins it in a pretty ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to reporters to try to get them to them to report negative information about Plame."
I'm also new to the formatting around here and was afraid to try to format more of the story. I'm sorry for any confusion.
Wasn't Walter Pincus bragging about being have to get his on classified documents?
Bush orders an investigation. That right there, threw them for a loop. I knew as soon as he called for a Special Counsel that it was a Dem/Lib in trouble.
And if Valerie Plame wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times.
Hey! You! Stop Stalking Me from Thread to Thread! ;-)
I have to do it, see? It's my job to make sure FR runs "right" and that nobody ignores me. I'm paranoid, ya see? I feel the need to have people pay attention to ME!
:-)
I heard Brit say that and was surprised---that was "old news" from none other than the 9/11 Commission report.
Glad all these details are finally getting more attention.
Turning back to her characterization...it speaks volumes about how seriously our super spy took the reports and the proposed mission to check it out.
Glad you're on the case setting out what has been out there all this time.
The "Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development" was once named "The Occupied Land Fund", but geez, that was waaaaay too revealing ...
ping
I think Wilson spilled the beans to his mistress, Judith Miller. LOL.
Welcome, Grondram -- you are doing fine. I jumped the gun when I saw the words "Cooper burned Carl Rove" in your post having already read the article at NRO. That phrase jumped out at me then; and I jumped on the phrase in re your post. Not that I thought you had written it; but was quoting it.
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