My last attempt to write about this mornings Rove articles in the NY Times and Washington Post was disjointed and confusing. I’m going to give it another shot.
Here is the story, as spun in the articles. After Wilson published his editorial in the New York Times, Rove was contacted by a reporter. Rove cannot remember the name of this reporter. The reporter informed Rove that Wilson’s wife was in the CIA, and that she had something to do sending Wilson to Niger. He/she did not divulge the name of Wilson’s wife, and Rove didn’t ask.
Okay. Full Stop.
If this is true:
1. A normal reporter, even if they were confident in the accuracy of this information, would ask Rove to confirm it. They would not assume that Rove didn’t know.
2. If Rove didn’t know whether or not it was true, he would tell the reporter that he didn’t know. He would then find out whether it was true. He might, or might not get back in touch with the reporter to confirm the story.
3. If he confirmed that she was working at the CIA, and that she was in a position to have some influence over her husband’s trip, he also would have confirmed that she was working undercover. He also would have learned her name.
4. If Rove confirmed this to the reporter, he broke the law.
Next: Rove receives a phone call from Novak. Novak asks whether he can confirm that Wilson’s wife, now named as Valerie Plame, works at the CIA. Rove does not confirm it, but he affirms that he has heard the same rumor.
If this is true:
1. It’s clear that Novak cannot independently confirm that Wilson’s wife works at the CIA.
2. This, by definition, means that she is working undercover.
3. Rove will break the law if he confirms it. However, merely stating that he has heard that rumor may not be a violation.
4. Novak misrepresented Rove when he wrote, “Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger…” According to this new-spun story, Rove was in no position to confirm that.
Following the story, Rove is now armed with the information that Wilson’s wife is named Valerie Plame and he has heard from two separate reporters that she not only works at the CIA, but that she is undercover, and that she had something to do with her husband’s trip.
It is only now that he decides to spin the story the same way it was already spun to Novak by someone else. Namely, that Wilson is unreliable because his trip was a boondoggle arranged by his wife.
So, when Matt Cooper asks him about Wilson, he decides to go on double super secret background and leak classified information.
If this is true:
1. He is breaking the law because Plame’s identity is still a secret to the general public.
2. It is no excuse that he didn’t repeat her name; he clearly identified her as Wilson’s wife.
3. Cooper is not authorized to receive classified information.
4. It doesn’t matter whether he encouraged Cooper to reveal her identity.
At each step along the way, Rove potentially broke the law. And that is assuming that his self-serving version of events is true.
Meanwhile, the question arises: Who told the first reporter, and then Novak, about Wilson’s wife? And is it possible that they did so without consulting Rove at any point during the process?
Finally, Rove did not volunteer all of this self-serving information to the prosecutor. He clearly has been hoping that Cooper’s emails would not come to light. He probably never expected Cooper to testify about their conversation. And he did not offer information about his call to Cooper with the investigators. How is this not an obstruction of justice?
Good stuff. That’s why the man has his own blogo … place, ladies and gentlemen.
(However, about volunteering information: doesn’t the fifth amendment allow you to not “give away” stuff?)
I’ll be re-reading your analysis a few times.
to explain how the 5th amendment is applied in Grand Jury investigations.
If Rove took the fifth, things will really get interesting. So much for full cooperation.
Of course, if we’re talking about Judith Miller then “normal reporter” goes out the window.
Yes – if it did indeed happen that the first info Rove got was from a reporter it almost certainly was Miller. No wonder they need her testimony – because where did she get it from?
From Chalabi?
In a May 1 e-mail to Times colleague John Burns, The Post reported, [Judith] Miller said: “I’ve been covering Chalabi for about 10 years, and have done most of the stories about him for our paper. . . . He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper.” …
Several military officers say Miller led MET Alpha members to Chalabi’s compound in a former sporting club, where they wound up taking custody of Sultan, who was on the Pentagon’s “deck of cards” of the 55 most wanted Iraqis. The April trip to Chalabi’s headquarters took place “at Judy’s direction,” one officer said.
Chalabi said in a brief interview that he had not arranged the handoff with Miller in advance and that her presence that day was “a total coincidence. . . . She happened to be there.” …
One military officer, who says that Miller sometimes “intimidated” Army soldiers by invoking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Undersecretary Douglas Feith, was sharply critical of the note. “Essentially, she threatened them,” the officer said, describing the threat as that “she would publish a negative story.”
An Army officer, who regarded Miller’s presence as “detrimental,” said: “Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat,” this person said, and MET Alpha “was allowed to bend the rules.” …
These snips are from an old Howard Kurtz column.
Rove’s ass is toast and that Bush and others will begin to bail on him as Fitzgerald announces indictements…
Postulate this: Cheney is the one that asked for the verification of purchase from the CIA based on the Italian’s report. His office staff [presumably had security clearances] set up the trip through CIA contacts, who recommended “a former Ambassador to Gabon” – what’s his name? – to interview gov’t/industry principals in Niger.
Those staffers communicated directly w/CIA analysts who produced the “squishy report” on yellowcake. That report would have been discussed in the WH meetings in context of the upcoming State of the Union speech [16 words].
Following SOTU speech, Wilson slams the prez. Up to that point there was no danger of anyone leaking Valerie Plame’s name – no one knew who she was, because she was only marginally involved in selecting her husband: she reminded the analysts who the “Ambassador” was, and asked him to make the trip on their behalf.
When the fecal matter hit the whirling blades after the NYT editorial, the WH backtracked from Wilson to his wife – not named – and from the below suggestion got her real name and activity from someone on the NSC staff. All of this activity could easily have been done through Rice’s offices:
In fact, Novak wrote in one of his later columns, that the leak came from a person who was “no partisan gunslinger.” That sounds like an NSC staffer to me. And as Newsweek also reported (you can count on Michael Isikoff to dig this stuff out), Valerie Plame’s CIA identity was likely known to senior intelligence people on the NSC staff, for apparently one of them had worked with Ms. Plame at the CIA. [John Dean, FindLaw Art, 10 Oct ’03].
Ad infinitum: there are simply too many players and too much information gathered by Fitzgerald to nail anyone’s political ass to the wall. Speculation, like mine above, is useless without indictments by the Grand Jury.
You’re spot on with your analyses about the political fallout. I’ll wait for the indictments for the real fallout. Could be a whole herd of frogs marched to Justice.
The story from Rove also is that he was trying to stop Cooper at least from publishing a false story about Wilson’s trip. That is his excuse. What noble guy, huh.
What this latest information reveals is that he also had the opportunity to stop the leaking of a undercover agents identity and instead confirmed the information and in doing so promoted it’s publication by both Novak and Cooper.
I’m not a government official but if I suspected that my neighbor was undercover CIA even I would know to keep my damn mouth shut about it.
And…
All of this leads to the follow up questions…
Who else in the White House was involved?
Is this where Libby, Hannah, and Cheney come into the picture?
Was this coordinated between them and Rove?
And what did the President know and when did he know it?
Is all of this going on under his nose without him knowing it? In which case he is confirmed to be the incompetent idiot and stooge so many of us think he is.
Or were the discussions on “handling” Wilson held in his presence in which case he is guilty of conspiracy?
In the end it Will go back to the man in charge…Darth Cheney. The “second senoir WH official” had to be Libby. Remember when it came up that Cheney had visited the CIA over 10 times? Sorry I can’t remember when that came up last week. It was said at that time that no other sitting VP had ever done that. What/Who was he after? You get one guess. This is a great analysis Booman.
I have heard on the radio that Ambassador Wilson and Rove attend the same church. I do not know if Valerie Wilson also attended said church. I also do not know if Rove and Wilson ever spoke socially at church. It seems likely, though, that Rove would know Mrs. Wilson’s name from the church community, even if only through the grapevine. The name of Wilson’s wife was not a secret, only her status as CIA. His insistence that he didn’t know her name seems disingenuous at best.
Turns out Rove and the Wilsons are all Episcopalians. Now I don’t know anything of substance about the Episcopalianism, but if it’s like some other churches with congregations numbering in the thousands it’s entirely possible that they could have just sailed right past each other every single Sunday and never met. I know that even in my own congregation with only about 200 people on any given Sunday, there are people who I only know by sight and I have no idea what their names are.
….but, but, man, this is Karl Rove weare talking about! Everyone and his dog knows Karl!!!!!!!!
I daresay when this whole sorry affair started there were probably a lot fewer people who would have known who he was. And even so, more to the point, he might not have known them.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that even if they went to the same church, it’s not a given that they knew each other from it.
is that these criminals have had 2 years since the shit hit the fan when Novak’s column appeared to get loads of top-tier legal advice and talk amongst themselves to develop a strategy to get their sorry asses off.
It’s like getting a posse together 2 years later to go after them, they have a huge head start.
I wrote this here @ Booman Trib in another thread, (Reaction to Isikoff Story), back on 7/10.
With todays’ news propaganda pieces in NYT and WaPo, it looks as though there might be some substance to these perspectives after all. As to exactly who the original govt. leaker is, I still think it’s probably a NSC official, though of course a fun long shot would be the execrable John Bolton.
While I have no doubt Rove orchestrated the whole disclosure and coverup, I think it’s doubtful that even Inspector Javert (Fitzgerald) will be able to get him behind bars because Rove set it up so that someone else was the “first leaker”, ergo, the guilty party.
in the Washington Post’s EDITORIAL this morning.
http://tinyurl.com/bmq8p
Mr. Rove’s Leak
Easy to debunk, if you source the Sidney Blumenthal
article in Salon.com.
Here’s the paragraph:
Both the Butler Commission and the 9/11 Report whitewashed the governments that commissioned them.
A point by point rebuttal would make a good diary.
(I’m off to a meeting downtown.)
Karl Rove’s America
I overslept this morning and am still on my first cup of coffee. (Hello, wacky world!)
Can you tell me if Amy Goodman’s report jives with your reading and your observations?
And there is a new twist in the role of right-wing columnist Robert Novak, who first publicly named Valerie Plame. The New York Times is reporting that it has confirmed that Rove spoke with Novak as he was preparing his July 2003 article that exposed Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative. The paper says its source is “someone who has been officially briefed on the matter.” Rove has told investigators that he learned Plame’s name from Novak, as well as the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq. After hearing Novak’s account, The Times says Rove told Novak, “I heard that, too.” The previously undisclosed telephone conversation allegedly took place on July 8, 2003. The Times’ source says the call was initiated by Novak. Six days later, Novak’s column reported that two senior administration officials had told him that Wilson’s wife “had suggested sending him” to Africa. That column was the first time in which Plame was publicly identified as a CIA operative. Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting that Rove told investigators that he first learned about Plame from a journalist and that he later learned her name from Novak.
…Rove swing for this, all our speculation right now is just that, speculation. And that speculation is based on a few facts, some leaks of dubious provenance, some spinning and our desire to torpedo the president’s lead henchman. Nothing we say or do is going to affect what Fitzgerald does, and he (and perhaps a few on his staff) are the only ones who really know where this investigation is headed.
When he gets around to doing whatever he does, a lot of left bloggers – although I’m not picking on you in particular, Booman – are going to (or should) have red faces for their adamant predictions of what will happen and who will go down. Because, given all the contradictions on those blogs, not everybody can be correct.
Personally, I’m just happy to see the White House in apparent disarray, wondering, like the rest of us, what Fitzgerald will do. And hoping, of course, that this case builds some resonance with one that got started in the White House 33 years ago.
It is good to see you over here commenting. How are you doing?
…and my wife is improving every day, meaning I have less and less Internet time because she has “a few things” for me to do every day.
Thanks for asking.
Really good news!
Hadn’t hear anything for a while – I’ve probably been hanging out in the wrong parts of the blogosphere.
Best wishes to both of you.
I am so happy that she is dong better. Let us know if there is anything we can do. I send her my prayers for a fast recovery. Hugs…
As far as I am concerned, Novak should be in a jail cell all of his own. Anyone, who would go to the extreme length that he did to do this story on only once but twice, should know better and he is the most guilty one here. As I have said before here, he, Robert Novak had a choice to publish all his vile mouthed feces. He did this without any reservation, what so ever! The other reporters who were called, chose not to write the articles and did so with professionalism.
NOw, back to Rove. He, as a person who should have known not to do any talking whatsoever on anything of this nature, did talk to reporters. He called Matthews and said the VP, Joe Wilson’s wife, was fair game. So to claim himself innocent is bullshit.
He and others should all go to jail for compromising our national security. Plain and simple. Do not, and I repeat, do not let this whole mess confuse you. Some of this has already been let out. Andrea Mitchal already clearified some of this last night on the tube. By confusing matters is what this WH is very good at…besides all this bru ha ha is about fixing the intel to fit the policy in the first damn place. This just goes to show the truth of the matter in the first place. Besides, VP’s work was on WMD and her contacts might have been so compromised now that we have lost much value to things. I heard that all the embessy’s in DC are trying to figure out if they had any contact with her an dher cover business to let themselves be cleared of any wrong doing too. Ihope you see where I am coming from here.
Remember the first time bush mentioned this about Niger, was in his speach in Cinn. Ohio, and this had to be their turning point for all this mess. Joe Wilson only wanted to report back to the CIA and let it be know that there is nothing to this and that it was a snafu.
Sidney Blumenthal is digging himself something of a hole on Democracy Now … debating Norman Solomon.
You can watch/listen. (I’m watching on LINK TV via DISH.)
Blumenthal has all the excuses … describing the powerlessness of the Democrats … but refuses to accept any responsibility for the Democrats going along with the war, etc.
Why can’t Novak have two completely different sources, say Hannah or Libby as the political person, and Rice or Powell as the non-partisan official? In other words, is Rove directly involved in Novak’s story?
One would think that anyone in the Iraq Working Group might well have known Plame’s identity. Especially if Wilson is write that they had a meeting and decided to do a workup on him — that workup in istelf would not necessarily be against the law.
Rove in saying “I’ve heard that too” if those were his exact words did not say HOW he had heard that, and thus it is not per se a denial of KNOWING .. it does not even address the question of if he KNEW, and gives him deniability to the charge that he told — the statement is so vague that IF you believe it, by itself there is probably no criminal liability.
The followup phone calls once Novak’s article had been published, however, are a clear violation of the law. Rove may not have realized that. If in fact he did call Matthews and Mtichell and tell the former that Plame was now fair game, then he would seem to believe that since her name was published no secrecy needed to be continued. But that is NOT how the law reads, and that act by itself is a clear violation of the espionage act, serves as a confirmation of Plame’s identity, and may well violate the IIPA, particularly subsection (b).
I think our focus may be wrong. I think Fitzgerald can legally nail Rove for the phone calls AFTER Novak’s column appeared.
Unfortunately, this is also the most dangerous part of the Republican spin. They’re attempting to set up the following:
I think that as usual the Democratic establishment is swallowing a Rove lure, hook, line, and sinker.
In our passion for getting revenge on Bush and his administration, we leap to conclusions that can’t be proven and, in the process, make ourselves look bad. Over and over.
Hillary’s on tape now saying that Rove is guilty. This will be quickly forgotten in the blogosphere (probably in about a week, when the next “scandal sure to take Bush down” comes along–anybody still remember the DSM?), but in the 2006 and 2008 campaigns, she’ll be starring in Republican TV spots making “unfounded accusations” against the administration.
Why are we so gullible?
Rove may or may not be charged and found guilty of a crime. There is no doubt at all that Rove actively called reporters and gave them Valerie Plames name and CIA affilitation. He also declared her “Fair Game.”
Rove knew or should have known that his actions were damaging the defense of America. Fitzgerald may find it difficult to make that stick, but Rove is as guilty of treason as Philip Agee or Benedict Arnold. (I don’t think either of them were ever convicted, either.)
It is the Republican Party which is guilty of harboring and protecting a traitor to America and an unscrupulous bully. Their coordinated action to defend Rove (see Bilmon) has the Republicans stepping over the line. They have become the party of treason and the defenders of traitors.
The refusal to call them on Rove’s treason and the Parties’ unified support of his treason is simply another example of Democrats being unwilling to defend America when it comes down to fighting off a threat because the process is too dirty.
Their treasonous behavior opens them to the charge. Stop letting them get off scott free for their treason.
OK. Mark Kleiman described violation of the Espionage Act this way:
Rove would have had to not realize that giving information about a covert CIA officer to Novak with intention to have him print her name, agency, and relationship to Joe Wilson “…could be used to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation.” Rove is much too smart to not know that.
Karl Rove committed treason against the United States, and every Republican who speaks out in his defense is condoning that treason.
Karl Rove is clearly a traitor, and in supporting him, the Republican Party has become the party of treason.
With so many players involved, we may never know (unless this White House totally comes apart, like Watergate) who said what to whom.
So then the question becomes can they control the damage by spin alone, and if that isn’t enough, who is going to be the fall guy. Can they afford to lose Karl? I suspect they’ll “throw someone else to the sharks” first, hoping that will appease the media and kill the firestorm.
Want to hear something really loopy? I was out at lunchtime today and heard Rush Limbaugh playing in a gas station: He’s claiming Wilson outed his wife! Very neat for the cabal if they can pull that one off – solves the problem and discredits Wilson in one shot. My thought immediately was “that theory has Karl’s fingerprints all over it.”
Will indictments / a trial be necessary to get the truth out? Or is the pressure built up by having a leak-free White House for so many years finally going to cause the truth to “ooze out through the (now-opening) pores?” I haven’t decided on that one yet.
to spin more lies. I am home for lunch and watching
Mehlman rapidly spinning how BOTH the NYT and Newsweek have cleared karl of any wrong doing and that all this amounts to is the dems smearing poor Karl for political purposes. Give me a f’ing break. THEN, he satarts the meme “We all should wait for the investigation to be done and not prejudge the media”. Did not Bush himself the other day say something to the effect that the media is just printing heresay and rumours and he would not prejudge Karl over some media reports? Now Mehlman says the same media has “cleared” Karl of any wrong doing? FLIP FLOP. The are in full throttle defensive mode and I for one laugh at their stupidity. Hey CNN, how about a dem rep to reply to Mehlman’s false allegations?
I was just reading Billmon’s latest post – yeah, I know I say that alot, but damn that guy is good – about the anonymous leaks today that support Rove, like the one in the NY Times (liberal media, eh?), and I thought, “You know what? Any journalist that prints anything these assholes say off the record better be prepared to either go to jail or burn these guys at the first opportunity.”
These latest leaks are yet another example of why it is NOT okay for people to hide behind source protection for journalists. These leakers are doing nothing but playing a partisan game and any “journalist” that goes along with it is doing themselves, their readers and their profession a disservice.
Billmon’s latest post
That was entertaining. Thanks.
These latest leaks are yet another example of why it is NOT okay for people to hide behind source protection for journalists
To me, they’re yet another example of some journalists needing to look up the word “ethics” in the dictionary and to apply them as actual human beings once in a while.
And, if I’m confused – as one who has been closely following this story – just imagine how confused Joe and Jane public are who only catch the soundbites.
I need to reread those newspaper articles. I follow your summary, Boo, but I’m not sure what they’re trying to spin here: that Reporter A got the leak from someone besides Rove and then leaked it back to Rove? Are they just trying to baffle us with their bullshit now? There is only a very small pool of people to draw from when it comes to knowing who is an undecover CIA operative, isn’t there?
John Dean has an interesting take on the criminal charges that could be brought against Rove. He makes a pretty compelling argument that all of the parsing of the Intelligence Act over “covert” and “intentionally” is perhaps irrelevant. He cites the case of Jonathan Randel, who disclosed internal DEA information and was vigorously prosecuted by the Bush Justice Department.
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.
When the judge sentenced Randel, he had this to say:
“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.”
I know that I tend to suffer from a bad case of generalized optimism, but I think (hope!) that there will be significant damage done in the coming weeks to both Rove and the Administration.