Redstate

Nick Danger and I are having a debate on your diary story that will have the left losing it all together.

Andrea Mitchell, according to Powerline, has finally admitted Plame's employer was no big secret (which I had guessed years ago).

Now it is an investigation into something much different!

http://tppb.redstate.org/story/2005/7/10/185531/068

Guess what? I did'nt know she was a CIA agent.

Now, what if I was someone in a position to harm national security and the knowledge of her status would further my cause.

I wonder how different your tune would be? By leaking her status to the media, Rove told the world.

I don't know, this story is worrying me, Karl Rove is the mastermind behind a lot of Bush's success and it is hard to believe he didn't know what he was doing here..I just hope the story doesn't get blown up in the msm too much..Something smells fishy here and it concerns me.

Nice theoretical mind game, but here are some facts about life in and around DC.  The elites know a lot about each other and what they do.  Andrea Mitchell confirmed today on MSNBS Plame's employer was known around these circles.  Plame's name is not going to risk anything in national security and never did.

On the other hand, if Plame and her husband used government funds to cook up false information about Saddam's nuclear intentions, leaving us in the dark to his true intentions, then that is definitely illegal and definitely puts us all at risk.

So, if they did cool up these stories to leak to the press then I gather, by your logic, they should be prosecuted since their actions harmed national security.

OK, but if Plame and her husband did misinform us as a nation about Saddam's nuclear intentions (which it is clear they were wrong, the only question is was it deliberate) then that is truly misuse of resources to lie to the American people.

I assume your fears would drive you to call for a complete investigation of Plame and Wilson now?

When Fitzgerald is done, he simply announces that it is purely a political matter, and best left to the first amendment, thorough debate, and regular elections to resolve?

I hesitate to say Amb. Wilson's wife's status was an open secret, since there doesn't seem to be much that was secret. Making someone famous doesn't seem to be a crime. What Time and Newsweek have reported doesn't seem anywhere near a crime. There are several statutory "technicalities" to jump through ("covert", "knowledge", "5 years"), not to mention this would be a very difficult case, particularly if it is a first impression, of the law designed to prevent another Agee episode. The facts here don't come close to matching those facts.

The right will think career bureacrats nepotistically conspired to down Bush, not necessarily a crime, and the left will think Bush and Rove lied, nothing new there, and there opinion doesn't make a crime.

Now - if what Ken Starr did was horrible because he politicized the legal process when his "target" committed no crime, what is there to say if Prosecutor Fitzgerald takes the Starr lesson to heart, and refers a non-crime back to the political process?

Further, what if Rove and Libby, and any other administrative staff call on the Grand Jury to publish their testimony? Talk about an open legal process, and unexplored vistas of bureaucratic honesty!

Plame's name is not going to risk anything in national security and never did.

You say this with some authority. Is this based on any specific knowledge or it just conjecture?

Recall if you will that it was the CIA that requested the Justice Department begin a inquiry that has lead to the present situation. Take into account also that Plame is still employed by the CIA.

Now, a simple question for you:

Since the CIA requested the DOJ inquiry, would Plame still be in their employ if the CIA suspected Plame of wrongdoing?

If Time Magazine or the New York Times had proof that Karl Rove was behind the Plame leak, there is absolutely no way they would have spiked such a potentially devastating story heading in to the '04 elections.

Especially after the CBS memos/October surprise berating President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service were proven to be fraudulent.

How hard is it to fire a CIA employee, particularly one of good repute and long standing reputation, who may have political leanings, and may have erred slightly in exercising discretion when dealing with relatives, the press, and electioneering?

That's a long, complicated question, but I think it covers all the bases.

So, yeah, maybe they wouldn't necessarily fire her right away, and yeah, maybe she did something indiscreet, and maybe she did something wrong.

I dunno about criminal, though.

But, that's what a special prosecutor is for.

As Powerline points out, it is not clear that Valerie Plame was a "covert agent" for purposes of the statute Rove is accused by the left of violating

Two questions then:

  1) Why did the CIA (who would certainly know if she were covert) refer the matter to DoJ for a criminal investigation in the first place?

  2) Why did Judge Hogan's statement the other day make it clear that he thought a crime had been committed? (And why were 8 pages of the record redacted for nationl security  purposes if that crime is just perjury over the outing of a non-covert agent?)

We're all (left & right) just reading tea leaves right now, none of us know much of anything.  But the only thing that does seem clear to me ia that this whole "she wasn't covert" angle is wishful thinking by the right. There's simply no investigation at all to begin with if she wasn't.

Unless...they're looking at a violation of the Espionage Act, instead.

But I think your second point disproves your first. I'll give the media some credit for learning from CBS's disaster.

If we may all recall, Bush Sr. kicked Rove off his election committee precisely for revealing sources in confidence.

W has said that he would do everything in his power to find the identity of the person who broke Plame's cover. He also urged members of his administration to come forward with any information they had. Are we to believe that W didn't know it was Rove, or that Rove ignored the President?

Either way, Rove has to go. Regardless of partisan affiliation, outing Plame was borderline treason, in my opinion. It was Bush Sr that pushed to make acts like this a federal offense.

"How hard is it to fire a CIA employee, particularly one of good repute and long standing reputation...

I don't know. But ask the same question in a different way and I think you'll find the germs of a answer.

Question: Does it take a federal inquiry by a Special Prosecuter to fire a CIA employee suspected of wrongdoing?

Answer: Probably not.

I've commented elsewhere that if she is a "covert" agent, we are in a world of hurt. What good could possibly come from a covert agent married to an apparently flamboyant bon vivant, who live and work in huge governmental bureaucracies, in DC?

We really need better cover than what little that provides.

Now - 5 years ago if she lived in, say, France, and taught ESL to arab immigrants in night school, and travelled widely through the Balkans for recreation, we'd be in another category.

And, of course, I'm making this all up out of whole cloth, so if the MSM is sitting on this story, good for them.

It would take a conviction.

But I don't think she'll be convicted, I don't think she committed a crime, but everywhere I've ever worked (other than a family run business) if a spouse sent a spouse on a trip at the expense of the business, there'd be a whole lot of questions, and in most places I've worked it would be impossible since spouses weren't even allowed within the same operating divisions, and if they married into such a situation, one of them got moved.

The briefest hints of CIA management practices here (I hestitate to say facts, to avoid the "known facts" dilemma) don't look good, and that seems to be a concern Rove had as clearly expressed in the Cooper emails.

One of the main points the right is making is that Rove likely didn't "out" Plame.  If he learned of her employment at CIA through DC parlor talk, instead of by reading classified documents, then what's there to "out?"  No outing, no treason.

I guess you couldn't answer my point about Plame and Wilson sowing misinformation.

How about this - prove Plame's employer risked national security even though everyone in DC apparently knew she worked for the CIA?

And please answer my question - does Plame and Wilson lying about Saddam's nuclear intentions not put our national security at risk?  If we are given now proven false information we cannot make informed decisions on what actions to take, agreed?

No dodging this time!

So as to not have to face the possibility Plame and Wilson lied about Saddam's nuclear intentions.  Wrong information on Saddam's intentions directly effect our national security and our decisions.  And yes, it is a crime to use government money to perputaute a lie or falsehood, especially on national security.

Why wouldn't it be???

I guess you missed Esan Jordan's act then.

To use federal funds to lie and misinform, especially on national security issues which determine whether we send our men and women into harms way....

If you think there is an argument against this fact you are trulty grasping for some face saving way out for Plame, Wilson and the media.

I suggest you don't hold your breathe.

There are some adults working at some of the MSM outlets.

One can only hope!

There is a crime if Plame and her husband conspired to use federal funds for him to make up a fake story regarding Saddam's nuclear intentions.  We already know that Wilson's story is wrong (i.e., a fake).

Now the question is was it a deliberate fraud by Plame and Wilson.  One has to think it is reasonable to make sure one way or the other.

I've lost track of the Espionage Act reference. What's the speculation there? Link or description please.

Thanks.

You'll get different answers.

And please answer my question - does Plame and Wilson lying about Saddam's nuclear intentions not put our national security at risk?  If we are given now proven false information we cannot make informed decisions on what actions to take, agreed?

That, I most definately agree with. Of course lets remind the readers that your allegation is conjecture of the purest sort.

Now, answer this question and no dodging!

Assuming your allegation is true and the CIA requested a federal inquiry of Plame, why then is she still in their employ? Does it take a federal conviction to fire CIA agents these days?

Is completely irrelevant.  IF Karl Rove KNEW tht she was a covert agent he broke the law.  It DOESN'T matter whether his outting had an impact or not.

I'd scream as loud as I can about this issue, for as long as I can, in the hopes of gaining the following tactical benefits.

1. Start the meme of Karl Rove as a traitor, willing to sell out CIA agents for political gain.  The more that sticks, the better it is for my side. It doesn't have to be accurate; it simply needs to persist in the public eye.
   
2. Keep the "was-Karl-Rove-guilty-of-something-wrong" discussion going.  The longer you keep discussing someone's possible guilt, the more people will believe there must be something to the allegations.  If not must, then might be.  See the Where There's Smoke There Must Be Some Fire philosophy.
   
3. The longer the discussion goes on, the longer that Rove's side has to deal with it.  That can distract the WH and GOP from focusing on targets it would rather go after (e.g, Social Security reform, judicial nominations).  If, for example, some WH or RNC staffers have to be assigned to researching administration defenses against "Rovegate", they can't be doing other, more productive things.
   
4. Force Rove underground.  Use insinuations of "treason" to intimidate him away from conservative or GOP public forums. Make it dicey for other GOP figures to be seen publicly with him, or admit that they take advice from him. If successful, I'd limit his effectiveness in advising/mentoring the GOP efforts for the 2006 midterm and 2008 Presidential elections.  Remember when the Justice Department got John Gotti's longterm lawyer removed from defending him, and then Gotti finally got convicted?  As a DNC operative/Kos Disciple, I'd be hoping for the same kind of effect.

The goal wouldn't be to get rid of Rove altogether.  IMHO as Larry/Kos, that would be unrealistic.  Rather, I'd try to burden Rove, and those he supports.  A burdened Rove/GOP is a less effective one.  And, there are plenty of battles ahead in the next few years.  The weaker my opponent is, the better my chances are.

And, given the slim DNC and DailyKos record of political successes in the past few years, I'd be looking for every break I could get.  See the Let's Throw It At The Wall And See What (If Anything) Sticks philosophy.

Here is what Bush said about the leak...

Q: Mr. President, on another issue, the CIA leak-gate. What is your confidence level in the results of the DOJ investigation about any of your staffers not being found guilty or being found guilty? And what do you say to critics of the administration who say that this administration retaliates against naysayers?

PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I'm glad you brought that question up. This is a very serious matter, and our administration takes it seriously. As members of the press corps here know, I have, at times, complained about leaks of security information, whether the leaks be in the legislative branch or in the executive branch. And I take those leaks very seriously. "

..And, you know, there's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it. And if this helps stop leaks of - this investigation in finding the truth, it will not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked - and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.

SPIN SPIN SPIN GUYS. ROVE IS A TRAITOR Plain and simple.

work for the New York Times or Time Magazine.

I'm not up on the "talking points". I am going by what I read in the press.

And even Powerline starts their Rove article with this: "It appears that Karl Rove was indeed the person--or one of the people--who told one or more reporters that Joe Wilson's wife worked in the CIA."

Now, considering W's previous insistence that he would do everything to find and punish the culprit(s) behind this dirty deed, how can Rove get off the hook? He shouldn't, of course.

W should show the same integrity that his dad did 15 years ago and kick Rove to the curb.

no, it does not take a conviction to fire an federal employee.  It begins with a process of forced leave while an internl inquiry is made for routine stuff. If there is a criminal investigation she may be on leave, she may not.  No move will be made really until the grand jury hands down its decision.

As for speculation - the only speculation in my thesis is they planned this.  She did authorize him to go, she is the expert on WMDs and should know the information he brought back was bogus, he made his accusations in the press, and they both got all sorts of media attention as celebrities....

LOL!  It's either criminal conspiracy or criminal ineptitude right now.

Yes there are...

A few.

Knowing someone works at the CIA doesn't mean you know they are covert - in fact just the opposite.  If someone let's on they work at Langley it is highly doubtful they are covert....

However we DON'T know what Karl Rove knew.  You are making CONJECTURE that he didn't know.  

All the democrats and liberals do is obssess about their failures:

(1) FL 2000

(2) Tax Cuts 2001

(3) Tax Cuts 2002

(4) Iraq

(5) Senate loses in 2002 (Cleland)

(6) Texas Air National Guard

(7) Swift Boats

(6) OH 2004....

You think this works???

You wrote: "She did authorize him to go".

This is news to me since the general understanding is that she recommended her husband for the trip to Niger. On what facts do you assert that she "authorized" the trip?

Links please.

I am telling you no covert agent let's on they work at Langley and few visit there for the very reason the place leaks like a seive...

I know because I grew up right outside its gates and you know who works intel stuff....

I gather you have some proof Rove knew Plame was a covert agent (especially when it has been established she wasn't)....

keep grasping.

Treason as defined in the Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

For some reason, I don't think Karl is "adhering to the Enemies of the United States, giving them Aid and Comfort".  The only people coming close to adhering to the Enemy are commonly found on the left.

Go to the first link after the end of the UPDATES to the Issikoff piece on Cooper's notes

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/258

is awfully low, all the way around.

It's kind of an amusing Rorshach test to watch the left and right speculate wildly based on preconceived beliefs about who the good guys and bad guys are.

Over the course of the last two days, you have contributed nothing to the discourse of this site but irritation. Hence, you are hereby sentenced to a lifetime on The Pile.

NOTE: You are not being sent to The Pile for believing that Rove was involved with the Plame leak. You are being sent to The Pile for being an annying troll, and also for this:

SPIN SPIN SPIN GUYS. ROVE IS A TRAITOR Plain and simple.

If you didn't get the message after this, you never will.

Toodles.

and have no easily traceable affiliation to the CIA.  

The fact that Andrea Mitchell admits that the press long knew that Plame worked for the CIA would make her useless as a CIA covert agent.  

I don't really care what covert agents do or don't do.  I'm fairly certain Valerie Plame wasn't the one  who told Rove so I fail to see how that matters.

I don't have any proof either way.  However the fact that DoJ currently believes a crime has been committed certainly doesn't help your obviously agenda driven cause.

we know Wilsons story is false? links please.

which part was of his story was false?

Unless I'm missing something, your linking to me quote by Rove (of all people).

So your source that Plame "authorized" the trip is Rove himself?

What else you got?

Has got that covered, man.  He's working hard and heavy on the case.

But it's hard to be dismissive now that my colleague Judy Miller has been taken away in shackles for refusing to name the source for a story she never wrote. No reporter went to jail during Watergate. No news organization buckled like Time. No one instigated a war on phony premises. This is worse than Watergate.

A minor enemy for Frank Rich is now Time Magazine, and against the rest of the world the case is open-and-shut:

That the Bush administration would risk breaking the law with an act as self-destructive to American interests as revealing a C.I.A. officer's identity smacks of desperation. It makes you wonder just what else might have been done to suppress embarrassing election-season questions about the war that has mired us in Iraq even as the true perpetrators of 9/11 resurface in Madrid, London and who knows where else.

And there you have it, the official version of the Truth from the New York Times.  Let's see how it plays out.

Do I get to officially call Frank Rich a Lefty now?  Or would that be gauche?

What specifically was wrong in Wilson's report?  

the fact that DoJ currently believes a crime has been committed certainly doesn't help your obviously agenda driven cause.

You are talking as though you know what crime is being investigated. I don't think you do. Consider the possibility that the crime is not outing Plame.

The user you have dialed... Ray.in.TX... has been disconnected, or is no longer in service.

And if you're curious about the reasons, you may observe his comments history, where he has never had a single useful thing to say, except to poke sticks in the eyes of anyone conservative who writes here.

My comments does NOT require me to know what they are investigating, although I can say what crime they were TOLD to investigate.  

Either the Plame outting was a crime or not remains to be seen.  But anyone who says that it isn't must at least explain what the DoJ is doing right now and why they would throw a reporter in jail if no crime has been committed.

Certainly it is possible that they are investigating some other crime but, again, what is your evidence that this is the case?

Is much ado about nothing to me, but let me add:

why they would throw a reporter in jail if no crime has been committed.

I understand that the reporter was jailed for contempt, for refusing to answer a question. This happens whenever you refuse to answer a questoin that a judge orders you to answer, regardless of the circumstances.

"There is a crime if Plame and her husband conspired to use federal funds for him to make up a fake story regarding Saddam's nuclear intentions.  We already know that Wilson's story is wrong (i.e., a fake)."

AJ, I'm confused. Where is the idea that Wilson's yellowcake analysis was "fake"? From all the reports I have read by both the MSM and blogs, right and left, I have yet to see anyone besides yourself claim that the voracity of Wilson's NYT piece is in doubt.

It seems strange that you are trying to split hairs about what Carl Rove knew regarding Plame's status at the CIA but are willing to assume that, despite having no evidence, Plame and Wilson were liberal operatives bent on bringing down the President.

Please provide your source (poor choice of words, maybe) for these accusations.

are you saying that the leak, which reported that Plame recommended/authorized her husband was also a lie?

If I recall right they already answered that one, and she did in fact do so, but whatever floats your boat.

BTW I think it does matter who recommended/authorized Wilson to go, and frankly if Wilson was the best the CIA could send, then our CIA is more screwed up than I thought.

That Frank Rich lays it out pretty well right here:

The pettiness of this retribution shows just how successfully Mr. Wilson hit the administration's jugular: his revelation threatened the legitimacy of the war on which both the president's reputation and re-election campaign had been staked.

Now, Rich is of course defending his colleague at the Times.  And we know he's no fan of the Iraq war or the Administration.  But the choice of words is interesting, don't you think?  Usually, when someone is going for the jugular, they're not trying to give you a love bite -- they're trying to kill you.  Rich comes out fairly clearly in that op-ed and says that it was Wilson's motivation.  Take that for what you will, I suppose, depending on whose side you're on, but it's a pretty vivid metaphor, don't you think?

From that member of the Vast Right Wing Conspirace, the Washington Post:

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

In other words, virtually every word out of Wilson's mouth was a lie, and his wife was complicit in the cover-up. I just may do a FP story on this now.

Google is your friend.

Rove appears to more be telling the reporter why the whole Wilson story has a hole in it, and it appears he didn't use Plames name, only said that Wilson's wife recommended her.

At that point, the reporters chose to use her name, which makes me think there may have been more sources, or the fact that Wilson's wife and job were widely known-in all honestly I wonder if it wasn't as much a mistake by the reporters in using the name, as it was some evil intent in the leaker.

I honestly think the fact that Wilson got the job through nepotism is pretty germaine to the story itself, and think it casts some questions as to just how qualified Wilson was to investigate the allegations.

BTW I think it does matter who recommended/authorized Wilson to go

I also think it's important. Thats why when the parent poster asserted that Plame "authorized" Wilson, I asked for a reference. His reference? Rove.

and frankly if Wilson was the best the CIA could send, then our CIA is more screwed up than I thought.

Well, that might be your partisanship talking. What do you know about Wilsons professional qualifications to come to that conclusion?

Not sure I'm ready to join the "Wilson lied" camp. But I found this on NRO so my apologies to AJ.

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

The court can only ask you questions pertinent to the investigation.   They can't ask you any question they want and require you to answer.  

They wanted to know her source for SOME reason.  One possible reason is the reason provided by the AG's office when they ordered the DoJ to investigate this case.  I guess it is possible they asked that question to find out about some OTHER crime but given that the reason that they could compel Miller to asnwer the question and not invoke the journalism  shield law is because of the violation of a national security law, that really reduces the number of other possible reasons.

Very true indeed. Though, I would say the wild speculation has certainly run rampant on the right a lot more. Especialy today.

The idea that this is a investigation of Plame is kinda of absurd; She's still a CIA agent!

to Wilson's testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee?

According to FactCheck.org, Bush had justifiable reasons for believing that Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake from Niger. However it looks like current intelligence analysis by the US backs Wilson up.

Highlites:

1. "Once the CIA was certain that the Italian documents were forgeries, it said in an internal memorandum that "we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad." But that wasn't until June 17, 2003 -- nearly five months after Bush's 16 words.

Soon after, on July 6, 2003, former ambassador Wilson went public in a New York Times opinion piece with his rebuttal of Bush's 16 words, saying that if the President was referring to Niger "his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them," and that "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."  

2. "Tenet said the CIA had viewed the original British intelligence reports as "inconclusive," and had "expressed reservations" to the British.

The Senate report doesn't make clear why discovery of the forged documents changed the CIA's thinking. Logically, that discovery should have made little difference since the documents weren't the basis for the CIA's original belief that Saddam was seeking uranium. However, the Senate report did note that even within the CIA the comments and assessments were "inconsistent and at times contradictory" on the Niger story.

The final word on the 16 words may have to await history's judgment. The Butler report's conclusion that British intelligence was "credible" clearly doesn't square with what US intelligence now believes. But these new reports show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said, even if British intelligence is eventually shown to be mistaken."

So it looks to me like we have a Rove type situation. Wilson can be criticized by the right for playing politics but probably isn't guilty of a crime. Rove can be criticized from the left, etc.

1.  he wasn't a CIA agent
   
   
2.  he wasn't an expert in WMD's (and you can argue his wife may have been given her position at the CIA, but then does being the wife of a pilot qualify one to fly an airplane?)
   
   
3.  He was a beauracracy wonk in the State department, not a trained investigator
   
   
4.  In his own article where he says he found the yellow cake story unlikely, his main method of investigation was to sit around and drink tea and ask various leaders about SH wanting to illegally purchase yellow cake, and he took their "no's" as the honest to God's truth (now please not, if SH is buying yellow cake illegally, then that makes the country selling it to him wrong as well-now does it make sense that the leaders would fess up to trying to illegally arm SH while drinking their tea?).
   
   
5.  He appears to have not had the security clearance to access the documents he was investigating.

Am I allowed to be amused that the new CW is that the yellowcake memo was fake but accurate?

BTW, I'm enjoying watching the purges, it's helping make my late Sunday night at work interesting. Keep up the good work!

work regarding wilson.

He denied, denied, denied that his wife had any involvement in his assignment to go to Niger, turns out that she did recommend him.

Wilson in the end comes across as a partisan and to some degree fruitcake.

Wait, so you just purged Ray in TX?  That's unsettling, because I think his question was valid:  Even if Rove's statement to Cooper wasn't treason, doesn't it warrant a resignation?  Or at least a censure from the President?  

I encouraged you to read his entire comments history, which showed a total and complete functional uselessness toward the stated mission of this site.

As to your question, I have answered it on the front page.

Okay, I have been patient with her this weekend.

http://www.redstate.org/user/jasmine/comments

But seriously, how much longer do we need to endure?

Just sayin'.  Surely The Pile isn't too big yet.

Again we have a Karl Rove thing going on. hehe

No, I will say that, despite how many republicans on this site complain that lefty visitors only pretend to "want to understand the right" but secretly want to talk smack, I can genuinely say I have learned something on this thread.  It appears that Wilson's case is less than rock-solid (although US intelligence officials have not re-committed to their prior belief that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger) and it bears looking into.

However, the basic points of this case from the Plame side of things don't change. Whether or not Wilson's NYT piece was politically motivated, if a White House official outed a CIA agent they knew to be undercover that is an extremely serious matter. It comes down to a waiting game and we'll know what happens when the grand jury investigation is complete. But regardless of what Rove knew about Plame's status, it still represents a pretty cynical political play with potentially dangerous consequences.  As bad as the Democrats claim? Maybe, maybe not. But definately not a good thing.

I am not so sure there was evil intent here.

It sounds like the media was latching on to the Wilson story and running with it (and if you want a reminder of Wilson's honest go read the post Leon just made), and Rove at least with regard to Cooper was more telling him to back off the story, because all wasn't as it seemed (ie the man was recommended by his wife for the job-and not by anyone in the administration or the CIA director).  I don't know that I am seeing any intent beyond telling a reporter they didn't quite have the whole story.  Also, Rove didn't use her name or say she was an operative, when he contacted Cooper.

Not sure who else is involved (we know from Novak that two officials contacted him).

There really is no Niger at all!  

Nigerians are from Nigeria, right?  Have you ever met a Nigerite? Of course not.  It is just like North Dakota-- sure Minot, they are all airforce, they HAVE to say they were in North Dakota, but what if it really is South Dakota or Alberta, who would know?

Point taken (from the front page) on what may have been Rove's intentions, though he still deserves censure, if only for making the President look foolish.  If Plame's behavior was as egregious as it appears, then certainly she could have been fired, suspended, or transferred out of her covert position, with all relevant information forthcoming.  Rove may not have acted illegally, but he did act stupidly.  This will be the second time the President takes heat for Rove's misjudgment.    

time he has won a national election due to his evil genius.

Well, if I were an agent of a rogue state, I would certainly cross you off the list of people I'd ask if I wanted to know if Joe Wilson's wife is an agent or not.

(My point: it doesn't matter if you or any particular person didn't know she was undercover. If a reasonable number of people know it, her cover is as good as blown, because those that want to know can now find out with little difficulty.)

It is a crime to use federal funds to lie and misinform,  

Really?  I don't think it is.  NPR's staff isn't in stir yet.

sending gwb2008 to the pile. While the quote supplied (I haven't checked the authenticity of this) is informative the "SPIN SPIN SPIN GUYS. ROVE IS A TRAITOR Plain and simple" adds nothing to the discussion.

I was unfamiliar with the information that Wilson and Plame had been involved with providing false intelligence about yellowcake, Niger and Iraq.

I am looking forward to getting more insight into this whole affair and that's why I'm here.

Nice pun, in an offhanded sort of way...

And such gaffs made every last bit of his genius necessary to win.    

the countdown may have just begun.

10, 9, 8.......

Oh, I see you missed everything else Plame has admitted.

I'll tell you what.  I'll sit back and let you be surprised!

Since you are afraid to face the facts as reported noted by the reporter who was being challenged in the grand jury, and the evidence of the senate hearings on the matter....

I guess you will face it sooner or later.  Not that it matters to me!

Enjoy.

Plame has admitted her role.  Prove someone else was involved....

Waiting...

and laughing....

and waiting...

and smirking....

Get my drift???

Plame played a key role in Wilson going to Niger

No one else has been proven to play a role

Wilson had no training in WMDs, unlike his wife

His wife let him write an erroneous report to the CIA

His wife let him write an erroneous Op-Ed.

It has been determined many people in DC's social circles knew Plame was CIA since her twins where born in 1999 (same year as mine twins)....

So.

What does he left have?? Fantasies.

So were some of the nations biggest traitors...

Are you really that niave?

They are'journalists', ethics do not apply to them like doctors, lawyers, scientists...

Whether you care is irrelevant.  Whether it matters to the core and background to story matters a lot to educated people.....

Check out the Senate report.  It is polite - but blunt.

Check out these links in update III

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/258

Enjoy.

Sorry if my reading comprehension and memory is wrong, but I am honestly trying to understand the issue.

I am reading on the thread Wilson and Plame faked the story --in what way? or what does that mean?  Because I honestly thought it was established that the Niger documents were fake.  Or it is pertaining to something else?

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030719-120154-5384r.htm

snip

"The FBI is investigating the origin of forged documents indicating that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, and one candidate for the forgeries is an Iraqi opposition group, U.S. officials said. "

"President Bush chastised senior advisers, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and outgoing press spokesman Ari Fleischer, about the uranium intelligence flap and the White House's handling of it several times during the recent trip to Africa."

And please....

Why do you always jump the gun.  If I am misinformed then correct me.  I am honestly trying to see both sides of the story  because I have been hearing only the side that you call LEFT.

MSM gets the short end of this deal.

They scream for a special prosecutor to investigate the leak that outed Valarie Plame.  Cooper turns over his notes to the Grand Jury, Miller is in jail and WaPo is covering its behind.  The Supreme Court even refuses to protect them.

Strange things happen when one relies on 'known facts' and is agenda driven at the same time.

Hmmm...

rich is dreaming.  This has been news for years and nothing has ever come of it...

Dream on Frankie.

But Plame and Wilson have been proven wrong.

Geez, even Kerry dumped the fools.

It's 1:00 AM so I am not doing the web searches for you. Some of these can be found under update III here

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/258

But what happened is this.  (a) The Niger documents from the Italians (I believe) were lousy forgeries.  (b) Wilson's report that Saddam had never tried to get Yellow Cake from AFRICA were proven wrong.

It was such a disaster Kerry dumped him late in the campaign for being so stupidly wrong....

Nuff said.

Whether or not Saddam had attempted to purchase yellowcake from Niger, or whether the documents in question were genuine or not is not what's at issue here.

What's at issue is that Plame and Wilson lied repeatedly in attempting to establish this fact, which may later have turned out to be true.

In other words, for all I know or care, Bush may have missed those physicals and not showed up for duty for a couple of months in the TANG. But that doesn't excuse Dan Rather using bogus and false information in an attempt to prove his case. It properly exposes him as someone whose word isn't to be trusted.

Read the Washington Post story linked to in this post currently on the FRONT PAGE of RedState and you will see why Joe Wilson is a proven liar, according to a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Have you tried to google the statute yet????

Powerline has links to both the IIPA and the portion of the US Code defining "covert agent."

The IIPA is not espionage, or am I missing something? Is someone alleging espionage by either Rove on one side or Wilson/Plame on the other? Or are you using the term "espionage" to include the IIPA and any violations of it? There are several separate espionage statutes. Powerline's analysis is limited, and thorough, on what faces Rove under the IIPA.

Thanks.

That the IIPA is the specific statute which criminalizes the naming of "covert agents". I could be wrong about that, though.

I just thought we were headed into new territory with some allegation of spying or sabotage (Agee, Ames, that Austrian incident a while back).

If you want a thorough timeline of this whole incredible mess, I can't recommend Tom Maguire enough. He's got a whole Wilson/Plame section, and most of his recent posts have been about it.

Yes - I keep returning there - I thought I was speculating wildly until AJStrata showed up. Hving gone back through some of the late 2003 articles, and then just reading Kilmer's link to the Telegraph article, maybe Strata has a point!

We should remember where the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story started:

* * *

"Valerie Plame should be 'frog-marched' out of Washington"

"... Joe Wilson's wife is not a foreign spy - she's a desk jockey at Langley (with a cushy place in Georgetown) who's responsible for ... wait for it ... tracking down WMD for our country!"

"Why on earth did someone with that very important responsbility pre-judge the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake story as "this crazy story"? I mean, its only our national security and stuff - no biggie."

"Someone let Val Plame know:  the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake "crazy story" turned out to be true."

"How many other WMD leads has Ms. Plame given short shrift? Do you know about any more "crazy" WMD leads, Val? Maybe you should go look at those files again. Does her high security clearance prevent her from getting fired for not giving a whit about national security risks for which she's the responsbile agent?"

"Not only did Ms. Plame dismiss one of the key pieces of intelligence regarding Iraq potentially creating the Arab bomb - she successfuly recommended her gadfly husband to be the sole investigator to go check out the lead! How many millions of dollars go to the CIA for intelligence gathering each year? And yet the only person we have to send to Niger to see if Saddam is building a nuke is ... the house husband of an agent at Langley?"

"What's next? Will Valerie Plame send the family golden retriever to look for missle silos in North Korea?"

"This is the real story that the mainstream press won't touch with a ten-foot-pole. What heads should roll at Langley for entrusting our national security to the whims of the Wilson-Plame family travelogue?"

* * *

Unbelievable.  Shameful.  Putting nepotism above national security.

Fire Valerie Plame now.  She's a very real risk to our national security.

-nikita demosthenes

Who are you quoting?

I'm quoting a post of mine from The Command Post from about a year ago.  If you follow the link to my site, you'll see my old post plus the post at The Command Post.

-nikita

Is that although it does call his motivations and circumstances for going into question, it does not address whether or not Saddam had tried to purchase Uranium from Niger.

When you say "virtually every word out of Wilson's mouth was a lie", you suspiciously neglect the many words he devoted to explaining why Niger would be an unlikely source for Saddam's nuclear ambitions.

Whatever his motivations, and despite the seemingly unbacked claims from AJStrata on this thread, it seems as though Wilson was in fact right that Saddam was not buying weapons material from Niger.  I've never seen or heard of any evidence (besides the widely debunked forged sales slips) that suggest that he was even seriously in a position to try.

Thanks for going back through with my theory in mind.  

It is speculation, but has the faux scandals keep dropping bt the way side the one thing that stays in place was Plame pushing Wilson to go and come back with factually inaccurate report.

As Holmes said (I believe), once all other options have been eliminated, the remaining option - no matter how implausible - must be the answer.

Thanks for digging it up.

Cheers, AJStrata

Is if, at the beginning of this, he reflexively did a Martha Stewart and tried to cover his tail. If he perjured or obstructed the investigation, even though it increasingly appears that no crime was committed, he will be at grave peril of being toasted.

Since Andrea Mitchell came out and stated Plame's employment at the CIA was common knowledge prior to Novak's piece - forget everything and anything having to do with Plame being outed by the administration.  That is now gone.

So why continue looking?  Plame and Wilson's actions now are the focus.

So as a spy you are required to be truthful?  I don't think that is so.  I don't think it is a crime for a government official to lie to the government.  It is like making a contract with yourself, there isn't another entity involved, so it ins't valid/ or criminal depending on whether you like parallel construction.

is a conscientious prosecutor.  During the course of investigation into a potential crime if perjury or obsctruction occurred.  I'm not claiming that it did but IF then those are indictable acts in and of themselves.

The fact that Fitzgerald continued going after testimony from Cooper and Miller and pressing forward seems to indicate to me, as a lay person, that he is pursuing something.  All of our conjecture is merely that -- conjecture.  Eventually, he will either seek indictments or he won't and then the issue will be put to bed.

If Wilson knowingly lied versu