Lots of people in blogland commenting on the latest chapter in Rovegate, which today has the New York Times reporting the following:
WASHINGTON, July 14 – Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.
After hearing Mr. Novak’s account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: “I heard that, too.”
The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.
Hmmm. So let me get this straight: Karl Rove sought to retaliate against American patriot Joe Wilson by illegally and unethically “outing” his covert CIA “operative” wife (and to hear Democrats like Harry Reid tell it, AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR NATION’S VERY SECURITY!)—and he did all this by… waiting for both Robert Novak and Matt Cooper to contact him…?
Man. The Force is strong with this one.
Anyway, here’s what’s “new” today—if by “new” we mean something like, “finally acknowledged as a possibility by someone in the anti-Bush segment of the mainstream press.” Though to be honest with you, I’ve heard speculation to this affect for what seems like several years now. Again, from the Times piece:
The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove’s conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity.
On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as “no partisan gunslinger.” Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, “Oh, you know about it.”
That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove’s account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was similar in its message although the White House adviser’s recollection of the exact words was slightly different. Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson’s name.
As Tom Maguire points out, the Times piece gibes with Novak’s Oct 1 2003 column. Which, if we’re to believe these accounts (and I suspect many Democrats won’t) raises the question of who, exactly, was the first official Novak spoke to—the true “leaker” of what seems to be one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington.
My money’s on O.J.
Others commenting: Timothy Noah, Mickey Kaus, Kevin Drum, Powerline, Baseball Crank, Tiger Hawk, Decision ‘08, Steve Soto, Sister Toldjah, Bennelli Bros., Mac Mind, Betsy’s Page, UNCoRRELATED, Just Johnny, Mark Kleiman (who has been pushing the Espionage Act prosecution angle, examined nicely by Dale Franks here), Cliff May, Ace, David Limbaugh, Rick Moran, Jon Henke, John Podhoretz, Mark in Mexico, Confederate Yankee, The Achoress, Captain Ed, PoliPundit, and Michelle Malkin.
Glenn has a nice roundup of reaction here.
****
update by way of Kate, more from Wizbang. See also, Another Rovian Conspiracy, Kerfuffles, and Reidblog—whose spittleflecked rant against a cartoon version of rightwingers (who, as Reid would have it, have committed some sort of logical faux pas in asserting, over time, more than one reason why the Rove / Plame story is all foam and no latte —BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!) is worth reading just for giggles.
I’m putting money on Elvis.
Show me the armadillo!
Now, in order to prove that Rove is really innocent of all imaginable charges, Bush must allow a Clinton era prosecutor to launch a grand jury investigation that will spend the entire month of August questioning Rove and others for eight hours a day about everything and anything vaguely related to Wilson, Plame, Niger, Uranium, yellow cake, brown rice, etc until the prosecutor has enough mountains of testimony to make it possible to find something that Rove can be indicted for (eg, saying he never talking to someone but we later learn that they once shook hands at a fundraiser in 1988), bankrupted, etc.
Otherwise, how will Bush and Rove show they have nothing to hide?
Not that it matters much, since the Left is busy self-destructing and all (and the likelihood of criminal charges against Rove has dropped lower than the chance I’ll be charged for those hits of grade-A hash I took in the early 90s), but …
has anyone in the vaunted MSM bothered to check to see if a guy like Rove could even get the name of an agent like Plame?
I mean, he had a security clearance and all, but does that mean he even had the ability to pick up a phone and get some agent’s secret identity? (Even it it were secret, which in this case, it doesn’t look like it was.)
Isn’t there a need-to-know standard for doling out that info, even for relatively high-level advisers?
Don’t they keep records of such inquiries?
I think it would actually be easier to determine whether Rove (or Source No. 2) got Plame’s name/identiy from the CIA as opposed to getting it from some reporter.
This is my favorite part:
“The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove’s conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case.”
And the press wants a Shield Law? LOL!
My money’s on Wilson as the NYT’s protected source. He has all the sober gravitas of… George Costanza.
“Gravitas of George Costanza”…..that’s a keeper!
Aren’t we forgetting an obvious suspect for Source Number One? In other words: what did the dolphin in the peacoat know, and when did he know it?
And, per QandO, a number of media companies (NY Times included) filed a brief with the court stating that it’s unlikely a crime even occured.
If no crime occured, there’s no “there” there.
So, what is everybody all bent out of shape about?
Also, why is the NYT writing stories about leaked information BASED ON LEAKED INFORMATION ABOUT AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION?
Even under the circumstances described in today’s stories, was Rove’s behavior ethically acceptable? And if so, why didn’t he come forward sooner?
Did press secretary Scott McClellan know Rove was Novak’s second source when he insisted that it was ridiculous to suggest that Rove was involved? What did Rove tell Bush about this, and when?
And who is this new anonymous leaker?
And of course, we still don’t know about Novak’s first source and his or her motives.
Then there’s the:
“The Jonathan Randel Leak Prosecution Precedentâ€Â
Randel was a Drug Enforcement Agency analyst, a PhD 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, Court 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.
Karl 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 Karl 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.â€Â
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.
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).
Your questions are coming at this from the perspective of today’s news cycle, Ghost Dansing. Rove signed a waiver and has cooperated with Fitzgerald’s investigation, so—when looked at from the perspective that he is NOT in fact the leaker (assuming, for the sake of argument, today’s NYT story is true)—it makes sense that he wouldn’t “come forward,” because he never thought himself anything other than a latecomer to the party, having had Novak mention the leak to him.
I’m going to let the investigation concluded before I go convicting Rove of any kind of crime. And I’ll include with that the proviso that I’ll likewise refrain from making ethical judgments against Rove until I have all the facts.
What I will say, though, is that I question the ethics of many of those who are quick to convict Rove of any number of crimes before all the facts are in. Because from where I’m sitting, it’s beginning to look like they backed the wrong horse.
When the DNC party chair is unwilling to convict Usama bin Laden even after the terror leader admits to being behind the 911 attacks, but yet he is quite happy to convict Karl Rove without a shred of evidence that Rove committed a crime—well, he—and those like him—are the last people who should be lecturing anyone about ethics.
The media needs access to leaks. There are also a puzzling number that want Rove’s head on a platter. The juxtaposition of simultaneously arguing that leakers should be protected whilst arguing that Rove should be fired is like listening to the Wookie Defence.
Apparently Wilson told Wolf Blitzer on CNN this morning that Plame wasn’t covert at the time of Novaks piece.
That fuggin Rove is so slick now he has Wilson believing his lies!
Saw that. But what matters is the 5-years prior, in terms of the the law.
What Wilson seems to be doing is covering his own ass as the leaker—essentially laying the ground work that Rove’s leak, in that it comes from an official source, differs, legally, from his own.
Thanks, MJ.
It seems to me Wilson couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. You know this buffoon soaked up all the attention from all the right people and swelled his already enormous self-regard to a bursting point where he was blabbing to the waitress, postman, gas station attendant, housemaid…
Has Rove ever been to Aruba?
If we all pull together we can see each other through this unprecedented threat to our existence as a nation, and go down in history as the Even Greater Generation. But for that to happen, someone is going to have to have the COURAGE to confront the questions no one has dared ask. Such as, what was the role of Jeff Gannon’s GAY PORN COCK OF LIES in all this?
According to Wilson’s book, Plame hadn’t been abroad or undercover since ‘97(in which case where did the twins come from).
The problem is who can believe Wilson’s book?
It’s too bad that there isn’t a need to conserve blog comment space as a valuable resource, because the left side of the dial always seems to burn through it like cattle farmers in the Brazilian rain forest.
Now they’ve got a weekend to come up with other crimes Rove probably committed, other laws he broke.
I suppose the above scenario could play out, but it would take a number of facts for which there is at present no public evidence (liberal wishes to the contrary), and makes certain assumptions that are arguable at best (e.g. the knowledge of Plame’s employment at the CIA being “sensitive” information).
Also note the assertion that Rove was incorrectly discrediting Plame, when in fact Plame did have a role in sending her husband to Africa. I admit accusing someone of nepotism is trying to discredit them….if it’s a false accusation. (Like that doesn’t happen every day in DC.) And it still isn’t as serious as outing a secret agent.
I guess all this beats coming up with solutions to the difficult problems we face. I have to admit, it is more fun.
Until the hopes raised by new scenarios get dashed too.
The overview of this is that it’s a ridiculous non-story that only people inside the Beltway, or people in the MSM care about, but the thing that strikes me about it is that it’s the ultimate example of the insidious, backstabbing nature of the MSM.
As a rule, I don’t watch network news, so I’ve only seen four stories on this, but as God is my witness, in EVERY SINGLE ONE of the packages I’ve seen, EVERY point has been either incorrect, misleading, or an outright lie. It’s truly mind-boggling.
Four MSM stories, that is.
Jeff, be real…sheesh…do you guys believe everything that comes out of Rove’s and his Rovite’s asses too? Criminy! Not even you are that naive and blinded by the ‘angel-light’ created by these prevaricators…
(The CATO Institute, gawd…it’s amazing all the politcally backed institutes that have popped out of the woodwork the past 10 years…used to be, these groups were non-political)
Remember that the guy the Democrats want to hang their hat on, Joe Wilson, is evidently discredited by … telling the truth about him.
Ask notorious liberal fifth-columnist and hateful leftist President George H.W. Bush whether this is a serious matter of national security or a purely partisan witch hunt.
Hint: start with the handwritten letter he apparently wrote to Wilson and Plame after she was outed.
Today: Associated Press
Vice President Dick Cheney’s top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter’s story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity.
The White House refused last week to repeat those assertions when it was revealed that Rove had told Time reporter Matt Cooper that the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently works at the CIA and that she had authorized his trip to Africa. The CIA dispatched Wilson to check out a report that the government of Niger had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons.
Cooper said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he spoke to Libby after first learning about Wilson’s wife from Rove.
According to Cooper, Libby and Rove were among the government officials referred to in Cooper’s subsequent Time story that said Wilson’s wife was a CIA official and that she was involved in sending her husband on a trip to Africa.
Cooper’s article was headlined, “A War on Wilson?”
On Sunday, Cooper also said there may have been other sources for that information. He declined to elaborate.
In a first-person account in the latest issue of Time, Cooper said Rove ended their telephone conversation with the words, “I’ve already said too much.” Cooper speculated that Rove could have been worried about being indiscreet or “it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else.”
Ira: sounds just about like Whitewater to me…fairplay and all….
Well, there is the chance he didn’t have the whole story.
And of course, there’s the part where Wilson himself admits she wasn’t a covert agent.
And the part where she went to CIA headquarters to work each day.
And so on. But you keep right on clinging to that thread of hope that somebody in the Bush administration really really did do something to jeopardize national security—not because you care about national security (did you mind when the NYT “outed” an actual covert CIA prison transport operation?)—but because all you care about is partisan politics.
Me, I had nothing at all against Joe Wilson until he tried to finesse information for partisan notoriety at the expense of real national security concerns.
Hint: start with the Butler Report and the SSCI report and don’t stop until you find yourself cursing Joe Wilson for putting you in jeopardy for a few slaps on the back from Dem party hacks and an outside chance as Kerry’s Deputy Secretary of State.
Sinequanon —
Well, the AP report you cite neglects to mention that it was Cooper who brought the story up to Libby.
And because both Libby and Rove were simply responding with “you heard that too?” to Cooper, why on earth would they believe they’d “leaked” information that the reporter who introduced it to them already knew.
See? Sometimes the simplest explanation is the easiest.
What’s this then?
“Cooper said on NBC’s “Meet the Press†that he spoke to Libby after first learning about Wilson’s wife from Rove.”
And leave an identity. Sheesh, pretty weasel-like.
I am not defending Wilson. Not sure where that stellar observation came from bud/sal or whoever the hell you are.
I am bringing up information presented today.
This situation smacks of the same shit that has been going on since day one with Bush. Lies, lies and more lies. I’m sick of it. And, I’m sick of people like you thinking its all right. You impeached a president over whether or not he had a blow job for crying out loud!
What do you mean, “leave an identity”? It is me, the site administrator, Jeff! Is that not showing up in the name area? It is for me. And I can assure you I had nothing to do with impeaching Clinton.
Cooper saying he learned anything from Rove is a matter of semantics. It is clear from what Cooper wrote and testified to that he brought it up to Rove, and that Rove simply responded with something along the lines of “you heard that too?” So Cooper has another source—a third and original source—that he has yet to name.
As to the part about you defending Wilson, I was addressing “goatchowder,” and our comments overlapped.
What’s up with the need for a text string purporting to be some kind of identity? So you can launch an ad-hominem politely?
Clinton wasn’t impeached for the blow job. It was, get ready, the lying about it. Under oath.
I saw Bill Press last week, manly decrying the “treason” of Rove, pounding the table with his shoe for effect. It must have made him feel real good to defend the nation for once.
*You impeached a president over whether or not he had a blow job for crying out loud!*
It should be noted that Clinton didn’t lose his Arkansas law license as a result of a blowjob. In fact, most attorneys I know are very pro-blowjob, even when the individuals taste in blowjob administrators is “questionable”. As such, it is my hypothesis that there was more to warrant Clinton’s loss of his license besides being on the receiving end of a blowjob from a 19 year old overweight beret wearing intern.
Sorry Jeff, but when it apparently your post on this page, it shows up: Posted by – permalink
Kinda wierd.
I know Clinton was impeached because of a lie over a blowjob by a 19 year old. Criminy. And, I know YOU didn’t impeach him personally.
I also know what Cooper wrote in his Time reveal all article. Enough said.
Let talk about Scooter (god, would you die if someone called you that as an adult?) Libby.
Let talk about the Prez changing his mind, protecting the guy that knows all his secrets and backing out on his word. (I knew it wasn’t good for anything anyway, never has been, and wasn’t when he was gov of Tx or when he bankrupted several companies. Hell, Bush Sr doesn’t even like him much.) Frankly, the guy is a lousy excuse for a human being.
And, I am not playing partisan. I just don’t like or respect him. He has zero integrity. He doesn’t listen to anyone but corporations he has ties with and never listens to the citizens of this country, except for platutudes and uses fear tactics to keep everyone in line.
And, I do have a problem when anyone whose job should be undisclosed for security purposes is outed. Its never good. Its even worse when the government does it themselves. How can you trust anyone anymore?
Hmm. Wonder why the name is not showing up. Have to check into that.
To address your concerns / points: first, I don’t believe the President changed his mind or walked back his earlier statements. Tom Maguire has been doing an excellent job tracking this, so I direct you there..
He also has the latest on Libby, Andrea Mitchell, et al here. From what I understand, Libby appears to have done just as Rove had and said something to the effect of “yeah, I heard that, too.” And the fact that Cooper contacted Rove and Libby, as I’ve said before, militates against the idea that Rove was out to get Wilson.
The amicus brief filed by the media on behalf of Judith Miller and Matt Cooper points out that Plame had been outed by the CIA years before. It is simply disingenuous to say that, by concurring with what a reporter already knew, either Libby or Rove “outed” someone who drove to work at CIA headquarters every day. There are 10,000 or so CIA employees, and it is not a crime to identify the vast majority of them as such.
I’m willing to wait for the investigation to wind down. But for what it’s worth, it’s my suspicion that Rove’s assurance to McClellan that he wasn’t involved with the leak has to do with the fact that the reporter he spoke to brought the story up to him—meaning that he did not “leak” the information so much as unofficially, on deep background, corroborate it.