Just to satisfy my own curiosity...

So in this Valerie Plame "leak", if/when the grand jury doesn't indict Karl Rove and the Independent Counsel's report fully exonerates him, what will be your response?

A. "Of course it exonerates him, the Independent Counsel is a partisan political hack of the fanatical right. He would never indict one of his own."

B. "Of course it exonerates him, the Bush Administration destroyed all of the evidence during the cover-up."

C. "Of course it exonerates him, the whole story was a plot by Rove himself to take the focus away from the Supreme Court, buying Dubya more time to review potential nominees."

D. "Of course it exonerates him, the whole story was pure political hype generated by legislators, bureaucrats and reporters who have nothing better to do during the summer."

7/15/2005 11:23:49 AM

A

7/15/2005 11:25:25 AM

Quote :

"B. "Of course it exonerates him, the Bush Administration destroyed all of the evidence during the cover-up.""

7/15/2005 11:25:54 AM

it'd be so easy to make the inverse of this thread

7/15/2005 11:32:17 AM

From what I understand is that no crime was even committed. It is a crime to leak the name of a cover CIA operative while overseas or leak their name within 5 years of having been on a covert op.

Plame hasn't been covert in over 10 years.

There is no story here.

7/15/2005 11:32:55 AM

C

7/15/2005 11:41:14 AM

whether illegal or not it is fucked up and wrong

7/15/2005 11:48:32 AM

^there doesnt even appear to be any evidence that he did something wrong anymore.

7/15/2005 11:57:02 AM

Quote :

"whether illegal or not it is fucked up and wrong"

In what way? The leak was not that she was a CIA operative but that she was pulling her husbands strings. For the sake of transparency, her husband should have been the one that outted her, not Rove.

7/15/2005 11:59:57 AM

karl rove raped me

7/15/2005 12:07:48 PM

i'd say none of the above, because knowing the secrets of karl rove is like knowing everything about god, only like, evil

7/15/2005 12:09:42 PM

HATING FREEDOM IS OK IF YOU ARE JUST GETTING BACK AT SOME BITCH YOU DONT LIKE

7/15/2005 12:11:58 PM

This whole thing is ridiculous. The law, first and foremost, criminalizes the outing of an operative's name with the intent to blow their cover as a covert op. SHE WASN'T A FREAKIN COVERT OP ON ANY SORT OF COVERT MISSION.

What Rove said was that this whole trip to Africa, non-payed and subsidized fully by US taxpayers, was his wife's doing, not the administrations (as Wilson claims, Cheney sent him there).

Wilson wrote an op-ed in the NYT claiming Bush lied in the State of the Union address where he claimed "the British government has learned that Saddam has tried to purchase nuclear weapons from Africa."

Wilson claims that was based on his report which was doctored......... lets forget that whole THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT HAS LEARNED line.

Rove was responding to this by saying Wilson was sent not on behalf of the Administration but funded by his wife in the CIA.

There is no "blown cover" here.

Bring on the special prosecutor. This should be hilarious.

7/15/2005 12:17:47 PM

Quote :

"The law, first and foremost, criminalizes the outing of an operative's name with the intent to blow their cover as a covert op"

lets just twist the law some ok

7/15/2005 12:39:42 PM

if she had ever been covert that's f'ed up. she lied to people in sensitive positions abroad. who knows what sort of danger that could put her in now.

7/15/2005 12:47:56 PM

ok so far we've got

A = 1
B = 1
C = 1
D = 0

7/15/2005 1:18:34 PM

E. "Of course it exonerates him, everyone knows the Jews are to blame."

7/15/2005 1:26:14 PM

IF ITS NOT ILLEGAL AND DOESN'T MATTER
WHY DID BUSH VOW TO FIRE THE LEAK?

7/15/2005 1:27:45 PM

^probably because he knows the leaker isnt in the administration.

7/15/2005 1:32:11 PM

Quote :

"IF ITS NOT ILLEGAL AND DOESN'T MATTER WHY DID BUSH VOW TO FIRE THE LEAK?"

To get the democrats to shut the fuck up

7/15/2005 1:40:10 PM

I thought Karl "wasn't involved."

7/15/2005 1:58:57 PM

I thought Bush vowed to fire anybody who broke the law in his Administration.

Not to fire the leak.

7/15/2005 2:31:03 PM

i dunno

i don't really care

but i love that we're playing the technicality game

7/15/2005 2:33:09 PM

I thought that Friday was sloppy joe day. Boy was I disappointed.

7/15/2005 2:33:55 PM

E. That lawyer is worse that the OJ prosecutor

7/15/2005 2:38:01 PM

Quote :

"lets just twist the law some ok"

Quote :

"(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify 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 under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

There.... she wasn't undercover... just because someone works for the CIA does not mean you can't say their name or else the waitress at a restaurant could be accused of "blowing their cover"

I didn't twist any law. You just listen to whatever the media tells you and don't care to look things up for yourself. Consider this a service.

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 2:42 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2005 2:40:31 PM

part c of that same section:

Quote :

"Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

7/15/2005 2:43:34 PM

Didn't know "twisting the law" was as easy as quoting it.

7/15/2005 2:46:39 PM

What are yall still arguing about what the law says for?

We know from the leaked grand jury testimonies from Rove and Cooper that Rove and Libby were not the ones who originally leaked the names to the press.

Now whoever leaked the grand jury stuff is definately guilty of a crime...

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 2:53 PM. Reason : ]

7/15/2005 2:52:56 PM

Quote :

"msb2ncsu: E. "Of course it exonerates him, everyone knows the Jews are to blame.""

Funny thing is, that was actually in my original draft of the post almost verbatim...

7/15/2005 2:55:52 PM

Quote :

"At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtml

Sounds covert enough to me that people shouldn't be shouting out her name across international newspapers.

7/15/2005 2:58:42 PM

I hate shouting newspapers.

7/15/2005 3:05:08 PM

I can't believe the absolute denial by you people that anything wrong has happened.

Oh wait, yes I can.

7/15/2005 3:13:40 PM

can i just run these down to make sure i got the story right?

1. he didn't leak it, thats obsurd, it's ridiculous
2. he should be rewarded, he did the country a favor
3. its not a crime, he didn't say her name
4. it's not a crime, she wasn't "covert"
5. he heard it from someone first and was just discussing it

did i get the order right?

7/15/2005 3:18:05 PM

I'd like to hear the arguements that they make regarding both Karl Rove and the administration lying about the issue.

7/15/2005 3:21:50 PM

Quote :

"I can't believe the absolute denial by you people that anything wrong has happened. "

I WILL LISTEN TO WHAT EVER THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SAYS I SHOULD

7/15/2005 3:22:58 PM

Quote :

"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."

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

7/15/2005 3:27:00 PM

Also from the article...

Quote :

"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.)"

Is that part true? The last I'd heard was that she was the one who authorized the trip. Must be that damned liberal media twisting the facts again...

Another gem:

Quote :

"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)."

---

And for the record, as one of the closest advisors of one of the most powerful families and political circles in the country we live in--and at a time during which they are in power due to his own efforts, I don't think that the odds are very good we'll see anything happen to him.

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 4:33 PM. Reason : ...]

7/15/2005 4:30:47 PM

yeah i saw that first bit too. but since the article didn't have anything to back it up, i chose not to include it.

7/15/2005 5:19:41 PM

Great article!

Quote :

"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."

7/16/2005 1:12:02 AM

We'll see what the grand jury testimony has to say. He lied to the American people and/or the administration at the very least...

That said, I hope he sticks around. Between Rove and Tom Delay, Dems couldn't ask for better posterchild's for GOP corruption.

7/16/2005 1:17:58 AM

Quote :

"Judge Story acknowledged that Randel's leak did not appear to put lives at risk, nor to jeopardize any DEA investigations."

so, in other words, the judge didn't give a shit if any law had actually been broken, but he just called the guy guitly anyway...

7/16/2005 1:33:19 AM

^as quoted before:

Quote :

"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."

7/16/2005 2:48:50 AM

"The Rove Report" is actually a good name for the fox news show he'll get when bush is no longer president.

7/16/2005 10:37:06 AM

have all you guys on the right been defending the "leak" as not a leak when it happened?
I'm just curious since I can't recall if you guys were defending the Administration then as you are now.

My question is were you guys all up in arms about this as you are now when it happened?

7/16/2005 2:00:41 PM

D

7/16/2005 3:17:39 PM

I dunno if he did anything wrong in "leaking" her name. It doesnt matter because this administration doesnt let anything happen to its members, regardless of anything.

7/16/2005 3:28:41 PM

^ see, that's the piont. If we had asked a month ago if leaking her name was wrong, 99% of you would have said yes. And if this goes to a grand jury and they decide Rove belongs in jail, then yes, he will be gone - not much the admin can do about that.

7/16/2005 5:00:47 PM

Quote :

"roguewolf: I'm just curious since I can't recall if you guys were defending the Administration then as you are now. My question is were you guys all up in arms about this as you are now when it happened?"

There isn't much to quote from in the TWW archives I could find, but considering this is a sampling:

Quote :

"1337 b4k4: see the other thread already made about this...this is being blow[n] out of proportion. [etc.] (10/02/03)"

Quote :

"kdawg(c): Intelligence Analyst = Desk Job =/ covert operative [etc.] (09/30/03)"

I'd say [yes]. I know my viewpoint on it hasn't changed.

But IIRC I'm a shameless political whore, so maybe I don't count as a good example.

[Edited on July 16, 2005 at 9:02 PM. Reason : ---]

7/16/2005 9:02:05 PM

Quote :

"And if this goes to a grand jury and they decide Rove belongs in jail, then yes, he will be gone - not much the admin can do about that."

I, George W. Bush, hereby pardon Karl Rove.

7/17/2005 1:19:14 AM