Quote :

"roguewolf: the fact Bush used faulty intel the Brits let him docter to use for war in Iraq will all be conquincidently missed..."

Don't forget good 'ole Joe Wilson! (you know, the husband of this "undercover" CIA soccer mom)

As far as the yellowcake scandal goes, his own report to the CIA confirmed everything the Brits were telling Dubya...

7/7/2005 7:29:35 AM

my own belief is that tgd has decided to be a troll.

he used to be much more mature and enlightened than this.

7/7/2005 8:24:48 AM

Quote :

"Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... " Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well. "Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper," Luskin told NEWSWEEK."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek/

7/10/2005 5:40:56 PM

Strange how Rove leaked the information 1 week after Joseph Wilson's, "What I didn't find in Niger" article was published.

If he didn't believe he did anything wrong, why did it take so long to "come clean"?

7/11/2005 5:51:51 AM

Equally curious: why would he come clean if he did something wrong?

This is politics, you have underlings for that sort of thing...

7/11/2005 5:33:33 PM

G gordon liddy

7/12/2005 9:32:11 AM

Quote :

"Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identity of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, 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, shall be fined not more than $25,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

-50 USC 421(b)

7/13/2005 10:40:17 AM

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=330333#7086204

7/13/2005 10:44:50 AM

look guys, I'm really sorry, but bush himself said that whoever did this would be fired and that whoever did it had broken the law.

argue all you like, you can't argue with the president's words. obviously he doesn't make the laws, but the point is, even he thought rove was doing something illegal.


oh, and in response to shafer,

1.)Shafer insinuates that prosecution would have to prove that the leakers learned of Plame's status in the course of an authorized conversation or briefing. But the law quoted only says the leaker has to have authorized access to the information. If they were authorized to have access to the information, it doesn't matter if they learned of the information during an "unauthorized" conversation. (I'd even argue that the leakers had authorized access to the information based upon learning it in a hallway conversation, unless they were expressly forbidden access to such information.)

2.) Wishful thinking Jack! Nobody blurted out anything. And if the Plame wasn't undercover, why would the leakers need to tell Novak? There's no need to show any malicious intent, the act of making a statement itself establishes an intentional act.

3.) Ah, but we do -- the CIA told Novak not to disclose the name. The statute doesn't require the CIA to assassainate Novak to keep the information concealed, any act by the CIA to conceal the fact will do. The mere fact that the CIA identified Plame as a covert agent is an affirmative measure to conceal the relationship. The mere fact that the CIA established a cover to begin with is an affirmative act. And the fact that others may have know Plume's status -- if you believe someone like Cliff May -- doesn't mean that the CIA was not taking measures to conceal the fact, it means the measures weren't entirely sucessful.

Shafer's hed is "Stop the Investigation!," and there's no doubt it reflects his desires. But when does law enforcement stop an investigation of crime because it doesn't have all the evidence necessary for a conviction at the beginning of the investigation?

http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2003_09_28_rogerailes_archive.html#106526870792082682

more arguments here

http://corrente.blogspot.com/2003_09_28_corrente_archive.html#106529798864945394

Shafer ignores the background to passage of the Act. Here's what one person had to say at the Act's signing:


The Congress has carefully drafted this bill so that it focuses only on those who would transgress the bounds of decency; not those who would exercise their legitimate right of dissent. This carefully drawn act recognizes that the revelation of the names of secret agents adds nothing to legitimate public debate over intelligence policy. It is also a signal to the world that while we in this democratic nation remain tolerant and flexible, we also retain our good sense and our resolve to protect our own security and that of the brave men and women who serve us in difficult and dangerous intelligence assignments. (emphasis added)

[Edited on July 13, 2005 at 11:07 AM. Reason : ,]

7/13/2005 11:00:40 AM

Here's a pretty good timeline of events:

Quote :

" Niger uranium From dKosopedia, the free political encyclopedia. Niger uranium or yellowcake forgery is often used as shorthand to refer to the controversy surrounding and a set of false documents that were used in the justification of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The documents suggested that Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. Both President George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address and Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the United Nations Security Council cited the forgeries as "indisputable" evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. In the case of the former, 16 words in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address on January 28, 2003. The President was attempting to bolster his case for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq by force, and told Congress and the American people: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The fact that this claim was based on a report that the American intelligence community believed to be false, and the fact that the White House knew this well in advance of the speech, formed the basis for the controversy. The incident cast light both on the tendency of the Administration to use intelligence of dubious quality to make its case and on the competing aims of, and rivalries between, the National Security Council, the Office of the Vice President, the CIA, and the State Department. Italian Intelligence Reports The Niger Embassy in Rome, Italy, was burglarized on the evening of Jan. 1, 2001. Along with a few minor valuables, Italian police believe the thieves also took blank letterhead stationery and official seals of the government of Niger. In late 2001, the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service, SISMI, sent reports to the CIA claiming that the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, Wissam al-Zahawie, had visited Niger in February 1999 to attempt to arrange the purchase of "yellowcake" uranium from Niger. The trip was public knowledge at the time, but the implication that a uranium purchase was discussed had never been made before. Because the report contained no documents to back it up, it was not given much credibility in the American intelligence community. But the information was nonetheless given to Vice President Dick Cheney, whose office repeatedly put pressure on the CIA to investigate the possibility that Iraq was trying to restart its nuclear program. In February 2002, three different American officials made efforts to verify the reports. The deputy commander of U.S. Armed Forces Europe, Marine Gen. Carlton Fulford, went to Niger and met with the country's president. He concluded that, given the controls on Niger's uranium supply, there was little chance any of it could have been diverted to Iraq. His report was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, was also present at the meeting and sent similar conclusions to the State Department. At roughly the same time, the CIA sent Ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate the claims himself. Wilson had been posted to Niger 14 years earlier, and throughout a diplomatic career in Africa he had built up a large network of contacts in Niger. He concluded that there was no way that production at the uranium mines could be ramped up or that the excess uranium could have been exported without it being immediately obvious to many people both in the private sector and in the government of Niger. He returned home and told the CIA that the reports were false. The CIA passed this conclusion on to the White House, the FBI, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. In early October 2002, George Tenet called Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, asking Hadley to remove reference to the Niger uranium from a speech President Bush was to give in Cincinnati on Oct. 7. This was followed up by a memo asking Hadley to remove another, similar line. Another memo was sent to the White House expressing the CIA's view that the Niger claims were false; this memo was given to both Hadley and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice."

You can read the rest here:

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Niger_uranium

7/18/2005 10:48:42 AM

Quote :

"TGD (haven't typed that in a while ): I'm still mystified at the outrage of Valerie Plame being "outed"...when the fact she worked for the CIA was public knowledge when it happened. We're not talking super-duper-ultra-secret-uber-classified-OMF-UNDERCOVER-AGENT!!1 stuff here. She was a fucking analyst in Langley when she was "outed." She was schmoozing at DC dinner parties with her embarassment of a husband Joe Wilson when she was "outed." She was raising two 3-year-old twins when she was "outed.""

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8598301/site/newsweek/page/2/

Quote :

"The GOP's spinners are making it seem that because Plame had a desk job in Langley at the time she was outed, she wasn't truly undercover. As Mahle says, that reflects a total ignorance about the way the CIA works. Being outed doesn't just waste millions of taxpayer dollars; it compromises hundreds of other people in the field you may have worked with in the past."

7/18/2005 11:34:06 AM

I guess Bush has changed his standards regarding firing WH staffers.

Quote :

"Bush: Aides Who 'Committed a Crime' Will Be Fired By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- President Bush, whose White House is facing increasing pressure in the investigation of the public identification of a covert CIA operative, said today that he would fire anyone found to have committed a crime. Last year, he had said he would fire anyone who had leaked such information. Thus, his remarks today appeared to shift his standard, allowing continued service in his administration until the commission of a crime had been established, rather than simply the determination that classified information had been leaked."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-071805leak_lat,0,2743579.story?coll=la-home-headlines

7/18/2005 4:51:37 PM

OMF AT LEAST HE'S CONSISTENT

GOD, I HATE AMERICA.

7/18/2005 5:06:34 PM

Quote :

":Q Given – given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent's name? THE PRESIDENT: That's up to – Q And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so? THE PRESIDENT: Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts. "

http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/2004seaisland/bush040610.html

Bush agreed to fire anyone who leaked the information, not whether or not the person had committed a crime.

7/18/2005 7:50:23 PM

Did OJ go to jail? How about Kobe?

Okay.

7/18/2005 7:52:46 PM

As said above, Bush agreed to fire anyone who leaked the information. He didn't originally have a "jail" requirement.

7/18/2005 7:54:25 PM

actually, no. the reporter backed him into that statement. i wouldn't consider that in any way, shape or form a statement from bush that he would fire the leaker. nice try, pryderi

7/18/2005 8:10:17 PM

aaronburro:

Quote :

"the reporter backed him into that statement. i wouldn't consider that in any way, shape or form a statement from bush"

Huh? The reporter made him say it, so he didn't say it?

7/18/2005 8:43:10 PM

well goddamn, i didn't know i could just make people say what i needed them to say for my stories. i've been going about this all wrong. my job as a reporter is about to get a whole lot easier.

7/18/2005 8:46:33 PM

^^^ That's incredibly weak. Even for you.

anyways:

Quote :

"McClellan: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."

[Edited on July 18, 2005 at 8:47 PM. Reason : ^^^]

7/18/2005 8:47:06 PM

actually, no, my point is that the reporter cornered him and no matter what dubya said, he would say something horrible. thus, being the brilliantly stupid person that he is, he said something other than "we'll see how it plays out." I personally don't want my president making a snap decision like that, especially when he has been backed into a corner by a fucking reporter with an agenda.

i'm not surprised that you all couldn't figure that one out for yourself...

7/18/2005 10:06:53 PM

Quote :

"actually, no, my point is that the reporter cornered him and no matter what dubya said, he would say something horrible. thus, being the brilliantly stupid person that he is, he said something other than "we'll see how it plays out." I personally don't want my president making a snap decision like that, especially when he has been backed into a corner by a fucking reporter with an agenda. i'm not surprised that you all couldn't figure that one out for yourself..."

You really are representative of the typical Bush supporter. Deaf, dumb and blind. The WH press secretary also speaks for the president. See McClellan's statement above.

7/18/2005 10:16:43 PM

too bad I'm not a bush supporter. would you like your "jump to conclusions mat" now?

I'm just glad that I'm not a deaf dumb and blind bush hater who gargles down every bit of dubya-bashing-cum that michael moore spews.

[Edited on July 18, 2005 at 10:31 PM. Reason : ]

7/18/2005 10:30:02 PM

you made me do it aaronburro

Quote :

"Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn't Michael Bolton. Samir: You know there's nothing wrong with that name. Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it... until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys. "

7/18/2005 10:36:42 PM

oooooooooooooooooooook

7/18/2005 10:47:18 PM

lol

7/18/2005 10:57:53 PM

Quote :

"Should Karl Rove Be Fired If He Leaked Classified Information? Yes No All 75% 15% Republicans 71 17 Independents 74 17 Democrats 83 12 And then this: Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll. This view is highly partisan; barely over a tenth of Democrats and just a quarter of independents think the White House is fully cooperating. That grows to 47 percent of Republicans -- much higher, but still under half in the president's own party. And doubt about the administration's cooperation has grown as much among Republicans -- by 22 points since September 2003 -- as it has among others. These results mean two things -- first of all, the efforts by the GOP and their allies to muddy the waters and turn this into a partisan issue are failing. Second, this illustrates a growing disconnect between the GOP elite and the rest of the country. While the party leadership, conservative punditry and wingnutophere place the elephant above the stars and stripes (see last night's rant), it's clear that the vast majority of the Americans still place their country first. And that thankfully goes for the Republican rank and file. Most people -- Red, Blue, or Independent -- still know the difference between right and wrong, and aren't willing to let partisanship cloud their judgment. "

http://www.dailykos.com/

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=949950

[Edited on July 18, 2005 at 11:24 PM. Reason : http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=949950]

7/18/2005 11:24:25 PM

check that hair gel, dumbass

7/18/2005 11:39:40 PM

so is this story about to get buried under supreme court nominee shenanigans

7/19/2005 1:53:33 PM

i thought the same thing when i saw the headline. i actually thought the same thing yesterday, that bush would be smart to speed up the nomination to distract people. my wish came true this afternoon.

but if it's clement and she's as non-controversial as the media is making her out to be right now, this story might not keep people's attention for very long.

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 2:09 PM. Reason : second part]

7/19/2005 2:08:11 PM

Quote :

"This scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a CIA operative who posed for Vanity Fair."

Quote :

"Once we were locked into the war, and no WMDs could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity. The administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up, asserting that the various warning signs about the uranium claims were lost "in the bowels" of the bureaucracy or that it was all the CIA's fault or that it didn't matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive rationales to justify the war. But the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. Next to White House courtiers of their rank, Wilson is at most a Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The brief against the administration's drumbeat for war would be just as damning if he'd never gone to Africa. But by overreacting in panic to his single op-ed piece of two years ago, the White House has opened a Pandora's box it can't slam shut. Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king."

http://www.iht.com/protected/articles/2005/07/17/opinion/edrich.php

Bush is toast.

7/19/2005 6:08:56 PM

[TGD Quote]

7/19/2005 6:09:40 PM

nah, there isn't much of anything else to be said. this is really no different than Rathergate, which teh L3ft was equally convinced of for a few days even after everything got completely and totally exposed about 30 minutes after it aired.

it basically all boils down to a boonedocks quote, not one of mine...

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ---]

7/19/2005 8:01:03 PM

haha naw, i was referring to the "W is going down!!!!!1" in response to "toast"

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 8:13 PM. Reason : or was boonedocks the one that made that one?]

7/19/2005 8:12:10 PM

Quote :

"nah, there isn't much of anything else to be said. this is really no different than Rathergate, which teh L3ft was equally convinced of for a few days even after everything got completely and totally exposed about 30 minutes after it aired."

You do know that the facts were true regarding Bush's National Guard service, but the memo Rather reported on was fake. Right?

7/19/2005 9:21:56 PM

remind me again... who ended up finding "all the facts" about dubya's service or lack thereof? what were those facts again? or are you just spewing partisan bullshit again and touting conjecture as fact?

7/19/2005 9:24:36 PM

Quote :

"CBS located and interviewed Marian Carr Knox, who was a secretary at Ellington Air Force from 1956 to 1979, and Colonel Killian's assistant on the dates of the memos. According to Knox, she did not type the memos and the memos were not written by Killian, though she believed they reflected the truth about Lieutenant Bush.[43] She also stated she had no first hand knowledge of Bush's time in the Guard.[44] Referring to the disputed memos, Knox commented "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another." Knox also shared her views, which did not air, that President Bush was "unfit for office" and "selected, not elected".[45]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate


McClellan on the firings:

Quote :

""CBS has taken steps to hold people accountable … and we appreciate those steps," said Scott McClellan, White House spokesman. The White House was gracious, but seemed to want more from today's report, CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod reports. "We also hope that CBS will take steps to prevent something like this from happening again," McClellan said. "

Too bad the WH won't hold Rove accountable.

7/19/2005 9:38:36 PM

you do realize that wikipedia is not a valid source, as anybody can put any piece of bullshit in there they want to, right?

Quote :

"CBS located and interviewed Marian Carr Knox, who was a secretary at Ellington Air Force from 1956 to 1979, and Colonel Killian's assistant on the dates of the memos. According to Knox, she did not type the memos and the memos were not written by Killian, though she believed they reflected the truth about Lieutenant Bush.[43] She also stated she had no first hand knowledge of Bush's time in the Guard.[44] Referring to the disputed memos, Knox commented "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another." Knox also shared her views, which did not air, that President Bush was "unfit for office" and "selected, not elected".[45]"

so, let me get this straight... she doesn't know anything about dubya's service, but she is SURE that the info in the memo is correct... yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....

7/19/2005 9:54:56 PM

Quote :

"marko: haha naw, i was referring to the "W is going down!!!!!1" in response to "toast" [Edited on July 19, 2005 at 8:13 PM. Reason : or was boonedocks the one that made that one?]"

hahaha gotcha, no that one's mine It's released under the GPL though

Quote :

"TGD: W is going down!!1"

7/19/2005 10:06:29 PM

Uhhh IIRC, what pryderi's saying is accurate.

7/20/2005 12:20:53 AM

as much joy as it would bring to my heart, Rove is going to come out of this a hero somehow

7/20/2005 6:26:39 AM

John Negroponte and Eliot Abrams were both convicted of crimes back in the '90s. They're part of the Bush administration now...should they be fired, given the standard of being convicted of a crime?

[Edited on July 20, 2005 at 9:00 AM. Reason : and John Poindexter.]

7/20/2005 8:59:29 AM

This NY Times op-ed column was in yesterdays N&0... thought it was good for a chuckle.

Quote :

"The truth shifts to Rove's side By JOHN TIERNEY, The New York Times NEW YORK -- We are in the midst of a remarkable Washington scandal, and we still don't have a name for it. Leakgate, Rovegate, Wilsongate -- none of the suggestions have stuck because none capture what's so special about the current frenzy to lock up reporters and public officials. The closest parallel is the moment in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when a mob eager to burn a witch is asked by the wise Sir Bedevere how they know she's a witch. "Well, she turned me into a newt," the villager played by John Cleese says. "A newt?" Sir Bedevere asks, looking puzzled. "I got better," he explains. "Burn her anyway!" another villager shouts. That's what has happened since this scandal began so promisingly two summers ago. At first it looked like an outrageous crime harming innocent victims: a brave whistle-blower was smeared by a vicious White House politico who committed a felony by exposing the whistle-blower's wife as an undercover officer, endangering her and her contacts in the field. But if you consider the facts today, you may feel like Sir Bedevere. Where's the newt? What did the witch actually do? Consider that original list of outrages: The White House felon -- So far Karl Rove appears guilty of telling reporters something he had heard, that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. But because of several exceptions in the 1982 law forbidding the disclosure of a covert operative's identity, virtually no one thinks anymore that he violated it. The law doesn't seem to apply to Wilson because she apparently hadn't been posted abroad during the five previous years. The endangered spies -- Valerie Wilson (Plame) was compared to James Bond in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out she had been working for years at CIA headquarters, not exactly a deep-cover position. Since being outed, she's hardly been acting like a spy worried that her former contacts are in danger. At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd. And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair. The smeared whistleblower -- Wilson accused the White House of willfully ignoring his report showing Iraq had not been seeking nuclear material from Niger. But a report from the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that his investigation had yielded little valuable information, hadn't reached the White House and hadn't disproved the Iraq-Niger link -- in fact, in some ways it supported the link. Wilson presented himself as a courageous truth-teller who was being attacked by lying partisans, but he himself became a Democratic partisan (working with the John Kerry campaign) who had a problem with facts. He denied that his wife had anything to do with his assignment in Niger, but Senate investigators found a memo in which she praised his qualifications. Rove's version of events now looks less like a smear and more like the truth: Joseph Wilson's investigation, far from being requested and then suppressed by a White House afraid of its contents, was a low-level report of not much interest to anyone outside the Wilson household. So what exactly is this scandal about? Why are the villagers still screaming to burn the witch? Well, there's always the chance that the prosecutor will turn up evidence of perjury or obstruction of justice during the investigation, which would just prove once again that the easiest way to uncover corruption in Washington is to create it yourself by investigating nonexistent crimes. For now, though, it looks as if this scandal is about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared, and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he did not commit. And so far the only victim is a reporter who did not write a story about it. It would be logical to name it the Not-a-gate scandal, but I prefer a bilingual variation. It may someday make a good trivia question: What do you call a scandal that's not scandalous? Nadagate. (John Tierney is a columnist for The New York Times.)"

7/20/2005 9:05:41 AM

Quote :

"When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd."

OH MY GOD HE REVEALED HER IDENTITY MORE.

7/20/2005 11:47:23 AM

Quote :

"Plame's Identity Marked As Secret Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 21, 2005; A01 A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials. Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post. The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials. Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret. Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation. The memo may be important to answering three central questions in the Plame case: Who in the Bush administration knew about Plame's CIA role? Did they know the agency was trying to protect her identity? And, who leaked it to the media? Almost all of the memo is devoted to describing why State Department intelligence experts did not believe claims that Saddam Hussein had in the recent past sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Only two sentences in the seven-sentence paragraph mention Wilson's wife. The memo was delivered to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on July 7, 2003, as he headed to Africa for a trip with President Bush aboard Air Force One. Plame was unmasked in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak seven days later. Wilson has said his wife's identity was revealed to retaliate against him for accusing the Bush administration of "twisting" intelligence to justify the Iraq war. In a July 6 opinion piece in the New York Times, he cited a secret mission he conducted in February 2002 for the CIA, when he determined there was no evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program in the African nation of Niger. White House officials discussed Wilson's wife's CIA connection in telling at least two reporters that she helped arrange his trip, according to one of the reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and a lawyer familiar with the case. Prosecutors have shown interest in the memo, especially when they were questioning White House officials during the early days of the investigation, people familiar with the probe said. Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, has testified that he learned Plame's name from Novak a few days before telling another reporter she worked at the CIA and played a role in her husband's mission, according to a lawyer familiar with Rove's account. Rove has also testified that the first time he saw the State Department memo was when "people in the special prosecutor's office" showed it to him, said Robert Luskin, his attorney. "He had not seen it or heard about it before that time," Luskin said. Several other administration officials were on the trip to Africa, including senior adviser Dan Bartlett, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and others. Bartlett's attorney has refused to discuss the case, citing requests by the special counsel. Fleischer could not be reach for comment yesterday. Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, have been identified as people who discussed Wilson's wife with Cooper. Prosecutors are trying to determine the origin of their knowledge of Plame, including whether it was from the INR memo or from conversations with reporters. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the memo made it clear that information about Wilson's wife was sensitive and should not be shared. Yesterday, sources provided greater detail on the memo to The Post. The material in the memo was based on notes taken by an INR analyst who attended a Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA where Wilson's intelligence-gathering trip to Niger was discussed. The memo was drafted June 10, 2003, for Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who asked to be brought up to date on INR's opposition to the White House view that Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa. The description of Wilson's wife and her role in the Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA was considered "a footnote" in a background paragraph in the memo, according to an official who was aware of the process. It records that the INR analyst at the meeting opposed Wilson's trip to Niger because the State Department, through other inquiries, already had disproved the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Attached to the INR memo were the notes taken by the senior INR analyst who attended the 2002 meeting at the CIA. On July 6, 2003, shortly after Wilson went public on NBC's "Meet the Press" and in The Post and the New York Times discussing his trip to Niger, the INR director at the time, Carl W. Ford Jr., was asked to explain Wilson's statements for Powell, according to sources familiar with the events. He went back and reprinted the June 10 memo but changed the addressee from Grossman to Powell. Ford last year appeared before the federal grand jury investigating the leak and described the details surrounding the INR memo, the sources said. Yesterday he was on vacation in Arkansas, according to his office."

Game, set and match.

7/20/2005 11:40:17 PM

not so much, dumbass.

Quote :

"a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it"

there you have it. If they can't prove Rove read that memo before he allegedly "leaked" Wilson's name, then there aint no case yet. Good work trying to spin, though.

Furthermore, you haven't addressed the fact that the CIA had already outed her BEFORE that memo. Thus, what fucking purpose does writing "secret" on it do for protecting her identity?

better luck next time, though.

oh, btw, address this, dipshit:

Quote :

""The truth shifts to Rove's side By JOHN TIERNEY, The New York Times NEW YORK -- We are in the midst of a remarkable Washington scandal, and we still don't have a name for it. Leakgate, Rovegate, Wilsongate -- none of the suggestions have stuck because none capture what's so special about the current frenzy to lock up reporters and public officials. The closest parallel is the moment in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when a mob eager to burn a witch is asked by the wise Sir Bedevere how they know she's a witch. "Well, she turned me into a newt," the villager played by John Cleese says. "A newt?" Sir Bedevere asks, looking puzzled. "I got better," he explains. "Burn her anyway!" another villager shouts. That's what has happened since this scandal began so promisingly two summers ago. At first it looked like an outrageous crime harming innocent victims: a brave whistle-blower was smeared by a vicious White House politico who committed a felony by exposing the whistle-blower's wife as an undercover officer, endangering her and her contacts in the field. But if you consider the facts today, you may feel like Sir Bedevere. Where's the newt? What did the witch actually do? Consider that original list of outrages: The White House felon -- So far Karl Rove appears guilty of telling reporters something he had heard, that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. But because of several exceptions in the 1982 law forbidding the disclosure of a covert operative's identity, virtually no one thinks anymore that he violated it. The law doesn't seem to apply to Wilson because she apparently hadn't been posted abroad during the five previous years. The endangered spies -- Valerie Wilson (Plame) was compared to James Bond in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out she had been working for years at CIA headquarters, not exactly a deep-cover position. Since being outed, she's hardly been acting like a spy worried that her former contacts are in danger. At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd. And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair. The smeared whistleblower -- Wilson accused the White House of willfully ignoring his report showing Iraq had not been seeking nuclear material from Niger. But a report from the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that his investigation had yielded little valuable information, hadn't reached the White House and hadn't disproved the Iraq-Niger link -- in fact, in some ways it supported the link. Wilson presented himself as a courageous truth-teller who was being attacked by lying partisans, but he himself became a Democratic partisan (working with the John Kerry campaign) who had a problem with facts. He denied that his wife had anything to do with his assignment in Niger, but Senate investigators found a memo in which she praised his qualifications. Rove's version of events now looks less like a smear and more like the truth: Joseph Wilson's investigation, far from being requested and then suppressed by a White House afraid of its contents, was a low-level report of not much interest to anyone outside the Wilson household. So what exactly is this scandal about? Why are the villagers still screaming to burn the witch? Well, there's always the chance that the prosecutor will turn up evidence of perjury or obstruction of justice during the investigation, which would just prove once again that the easiest way to uncover corruption in Washington is to create it yourself by investigating nonexistent crimes. For now, though, it looks as if this scandal is about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared, and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he did not commit. And so far the only victim is a reporter who did not write a story about it. It would be logical to name it the Not-a-gate scandal, but I prefer a bilingual variation. It may someday make a good trivia question: What do you call a scandal that's not scandalous? Nadagate. (John Tierney is a columnist for The New York Times.)""

7/20/2005 11:58:04 PM

Quote :

"there you have it. If they can't prove Rove read that memo before he allegedly "leaked" Wilson's name, then there aint no case yet. Good work trying to spin, though."

Rove, Libby, Cheney...it doesn't matter. Someone in the upper echelon of the Bush administration leaked the information, and the resulting cover-up is going to bring them all down in a heap.

7/21/2005 12:09:19 AM

again, if they got the information from somewhere OTHER THAN THAT MEMO, then the "secret" written on the memo wouldn't matter one bit. dumbass.

oh, and you still haven't addressed the article I referenced for you to address, salisburyboy...er...pryderi

7/21/2005 6:16:18 PM

Even if Rove or any other administration official didn't "knowingly" leak the identity of a cia agent, and is not guilty of violating the 1982 identification of a cia operative, he/they may be in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641

see below:

Quote :

" It doesn't look good for Karl Rove By John Dean FindLawexternal link Columnist Special to CNN.com (FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect." Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super-secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson." Rove was referring, of course, to former Ambassador Joe Wilson's acknowledgment of his trip to Africa, where he discovered that Niger had not, in fact, provided uranium to Iraq that might be part of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. Cooper's email indicates that Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney; rather, Rove claimed, "it was ... [W]ilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [WMD] issues who authorized the trip." (Rove was wrong about the authorization.) Only the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, and his staff have all the facts on their investigation at this point, but there is increasing evidence that Rove (and others) may have violated one or more federal laws. At this time, it would be speculation to predict whether indictments will be forthcoming. Identities Protection Act As I pointed out when the Valerie Plame Wilson leak first surfaced, the Intelligence Identities And Protection Act is a complex law. For the law to apply to Rove, a number of requirements must be met. Rove must have had "authorized access to classified information" under the statute. Plame was an NCO (non-covered officer). White House aides, and even the president, are seldom, if ever, given this information. So it is not likely Rove had "authorized access" to it. In addition, Rove must have "intentionally" -- not "knowingly" as has been mentioned in the news coverage -- disclosed "any information identifying such a covert agent." Whether or not Rove actually referred to Mrs. Wilson as "Valerie Plame," then, the key would be whether he gave Matt Cooper (or others) information that Joe Wilson's wife was a covert agent. Also, the statute requires that Rove had to know, as a fact, that the United States was taking, or had taken, "affirmative measures to conceal" Valerie Plame's covert status. Rove's lawyer says he had no such knowledge. In fact, there is no public evidence that Valerie Wilson had the covert status required by the statute. A covert agent, as defined under this law, is "a present or retired officer or employee" of the CIA, whose identity as such "is classified information," and this person must be serving outside of the United States, or have done so in the last five years. There is no solid information that Rove, or anyone else, violated this law designed to protect covert CIA agents. There is, however, evidence suggesting that other laws were violated. In particular, I have in mind the laws invoked by the Bush Justice Department in the relatively minor leak case that it vigorously prosecuted, though it involved information that was not nearly as sensitive as that which Rove provided Matt Cooper (and possibly others). Leak prosecution precedent I am referring to the prosecution and conviction of Jonathan Randel. Randel was a Drug Enforcement Agency analyst, a Ph.D. in history, working in the Atlanta office of the DEA. Randel was convinced that British Lord Michael Ashcroft (a major contributor to Britain's Conservative Party, as well as American conservative causes) was being ignored by DEA and its investigation of money laundering. (Lord Ashcroft is based in South Florida and the off-shore tax haven of Belize.) Randel leaked the fact that Lord Ashcroft's name was in the DEA files, and this fact soon surfaced in the London news media. Ashcroft sued, and learned the source of the information was Randel. Using his clout, soon Ashcroft had the U.S. attorney in pursuit of Randel for his leak. By late February 2002, the Department of Justice indicted Randel for his leaking of Lord Ashcroft's name. It was an eighteen count "kitchen sink" indictment; they threw everything they could think of at Randel. Most relevant for Karl Rove's situation, count one of Randel's indictment alleged a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641. This is a law that prohibits theft (or conversion for one's own use) of government records and information for non-governmental purposes. But its broad language covers leaks, and it has now been used to cover just such actions. Randel, faced with a life sentence (actually 500 years) if convicted on all counts, on the advice of his attorney, pleaded guilty to violating Section 641. On January 9, 2003, Randel was sentenced to a year in a federal prison, followed by three years probation. This sentence prompted the U.S. attorney to boast that the conviction of Randel made a good example of how the Bush administration would handle leakers. Precedent bodes ill for Rove Rove may be able to claim that he did not know he was leaking "classified information" about a "covert agent," but there can be no question he understood that what he was leaking was "sensitive information." The very fact that Matt Cooper called it "double super-secret background" information suggests Rove knew of its sensitivity, if he did not know it was classified information (which by definition is sensitive). United States District Court Judge Richard Story's statement to Jonathan Randel, at the time of sentencing, might have an unpleasant ring for Rove. Judge Story told Randel that he surely must have appreciated the risks in leaking DEA information. "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country," the judge observed. Judge Story concluded this leak of sensitive information was "a very serious crime." "In my view," he explained, "it is a very serious offense because of the risk that comes with it, and part of that risk is because of the position" that Randel held in DEA. But the risk posed by the information Rove leaked is multiplied many times over; it occurred at a time when the nation was considering going to war over weapons of mass destruction. And Rove was risking the identity of, in attempting to discredit, a WMD proliferation expert, Valerie Plame Wilson. Judge Story acknowledged that Randel's leak did not appear to put lives at risk, nor to jeopardize any DEA investigations. But he also pointed out that Randel "could not have completely and fully known that in the position that [he] held." Is not the same true of Rove? Rove had no idea what the specific consequences of giving a reporter the name of a CIA agent (about whom he says he knew nothing) would be--he only knew that he wanted to discredit her (incorrectly) for dispatching her husband to determine if the rumors about Niger uranium were true or false. Given the nature of Valerie Plame Wilson's work, it is unlikely the public will ever know if Rove's leak caused damage, or even loss of life of one of her contracts abroad, because of Rove's actions. Dose anyone know the dangers and risks that she and her family may face because of this leak? It was just such a risk that convinced Judge Story that "for any person with the agency to take it upon himself to leak information poses a tremendous risk; and that's what, to me, makes this a particularly serious offense." Cannot the same be said about Rove's leak? It dealt with matters related to national security; if the risk Randel was taking was a "tremendous" risk, surely Rove's leak was monumental. While there are other potential violations of the law that may be involved with the Valerie Plame Wilson case, it would be speculation to consider them. But Karl Rove's leak to Matt Cooper is now an established fact. First, there is Matt Cooper's e-mail record. And Cooper has now confirmed that he has told the grand jury he spoke with Rove. If Rove's leak fails to fall under the statute that was used to prosecute Randel, I do not understand why. There are stories circulating that Rove may have been told of Valerie Plame's CIA activity by a journalist, such as Judith Miller, as recently suggested in Editor & Publisher. If so, that doesn't exonerate Rove. Rather, it could make for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute (which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate). John W. Dean, a FindLawexternal link columnist, is a former counsel to President Nixon."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/15/dean.rove/

7/21/2005 7:36:02 PM