Posted on 07/13/2005 3:28:51 PM PDT by Jean S
Please allow me to share with you some of the things I don’t know.
I don’t know what Valerie Plame’s status with the CIA was in July 2003 when Robert Novak wrote his column mentioning that she was an “agency operative” and had recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. Was Plame a covert agent then? If not, how recently had she been a covert agent?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know what’s going on with The New York Times’ Judith Miller.
Since top presidential adviser Karl Rove and top vice-presidential adviser Lewis Libby signed strongly worded waivers releasing all reporters from any pledges of confidentiality, why hasn’t Miller testified? Does that mean her source was someone else who has not signed a confidentiality waiver?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Miller is involved in all this at all, since she never wrote a story about it. Was she some sort of “carrier,” as is now being theorized, and actually helped spread word of Plame’s identity?
I don’t know.
For that matter, I don’t know what Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper was doing either. Rove’s lawyer says Rove signed the waiver about a year and a half ago and has never changed it. Why was that waiver not acceptable to Cooper for 18 months and then, on the brink of going to jail, Cooper agreed to testify?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about the role the other journalists caught up in the case — Tim Russert, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler — played. Apparently on the basis of waivers signed by sources, they all gave information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What did they say?
I don’t know.
And of course I also don’t know what is happening with Novak. Given Fitzgerald’s aggressiveness in dealing with all figures in this case, Novak must have made some sort of accommodation. Did he testify? Refuse to testify?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why many in the press, most notably The New York Times, were once so enthusiastic about the Fitzgerald investigation. On Dec. 30, 2003, the Times published an editorial headlined “The Right Thing, At Last,” which said, “After an egregiously long delay, Attorney General John Ashcroft finally did the right thing yesterday when he recused himself from the investigation into who gave the name of a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak.” Why did the Times do that?
I don’t know.
And then, why did the Times change its position and condemn Fitzgerald who, the paper said, “can’t even say whether a crime has been committed.” Why would the Times say that, when it had once been so sure that a crime had been committed?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know about the actions of Joseph Wilson. For example, in his book, The Politics of Truth, he wrote, “The assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. ...Valerie could not — and would not if she could — have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to [Niger].” But later, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in its bipartisan report, said that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that [Wilson’s] wife, a CPD employee [a reference to the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division], suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the deputy chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from [Wilson’s] wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both [Niger’s prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’” So why did Wilson say his wife played no “substantive role” in it?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Wilson’s defenders accuse the White House of “smearing” him. What was the smear? Was it a smear to say that Wilson got the Niger assignment, at least in part, because his wife recommended him? If so, then the Senate committee “smeared” him, too. If not, what is the smear?
I don’t know.
And finally, I don’t know about Karl Rove’s public statements on the case. Last year on CNN, he said of Plame, “I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.” Even if he hadn’t passed on Plame’s name — just mentioned her as Wilson’s wife — why not just say nothing, especially since the whole thing is under criminal investigation?
I don’t know.
The bottom line is, some of the most critical facts in the whole Wilson/Plame/CIA matter are just not known, at least not known by anyone outside of the Fitzgerald investigation.
But don’t worry. At least we can be sure that we will someday know them, right?
I don’t know.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
Don't forget that Cooper is married to Mandy Grunwald, another of Hillary's creatures.
Need I say more?
Because if they succeed in getting Rove, they'll immediately make the argument that he was authorized to leak Plame's identity by someone higher up in the White House, probably Dick Cheney, and then they'll start baying for his head while they link him back to President Bush.
And then, the articles of impeachment.
That is EXACTLY what Alan Colmes just brought up on Hannity & Colmes
Now wouldn't that be special ;-)
No.
And my latest theory is this: Brit Hume said tonight that some OTHER reporter is the one who told Karl Rove that Joe Wilson was married to Valerie Plame. Now this was when Joe Wilson was telling everybody that Cheney went for him.
So I am thinking that Rove was honestly trying to warm Cooper off; in fact, Byron York just said on Hannity & Colmes that Rove knew while he was talking to Cooper that George Tenet was going to make a statement that very night that contradicted some of what Wilson was claiming.
But back to Miller: it's my opinion that Judith Miller just might be the "reporter" who told Karl Rove that Joe Wilson was married to Valerie Plame of CIA fame -- and she heard it from some big Democrat and that is who SHE is covering for.
"What we're not sure of is whether or not a)Rove actually leaked Plame's name, or something else and b)whether or not Plame was actually undercover at the time, or had been undercover within the five years before the leak, either of which would make releasing her name illegal."
Please give us the rest of the requirements in the 1972 law that make an improper revealing of a covert agent's name illegal. No one at this point really believes any law was broken wrt to Plame, not even the Washington Compost or the NY Slimes.
You're cherrypicking:
From 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.
Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.
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.
Wierd. I don't even have cable. :)
BTW, are you unfamiliar with the fact that the reason the White House was so upset was because Wilson claimed he went for Cheney -- and that Cheney HAD TO HAVE SEEN HIS REPORT before Bush spoke those words in the State of the Union address, so they lied?
In fact, he never made a written report and Cheney never even knew he went.
Read pages 47 to 57 of that report........the BIPARTISAN Senate Intelligence Committe Report said he lied about practically everything.
If no one believes any law was broken, why is there still an ongoing investigation?
Did Colmes just say "It was well known she was undercover?"
ROFLMAO.
But look at the chronology of this....
Wilson writes a story slaming Bush and lying about his trip.
Then in a way to get info a reporter asks Rove about his thoughts and Rove basically de-bunks Wilson.
Wilson is then proven a liar by the Senate and the press is now zeroing in on who leaked Wilson's wife's name? This just does not add up
Consider:
a. Judith Miller is a Washington-based reporter for the New York Times, specializing in WMD issues.
b. Valerie Plame is a Washington-based employee of the CIA, specializing in WMD issues. She also happens to socialize in circles frequented by the media.
My bet is that they knew each other. And I agree that Miller may well have been a source for others. And her source, in turn, was the wife of that renowned media hound, Joseph C. Wilson IV (if not Wilson...)
Saw the commercial while channel surfing earlier.
Ahhh Makes sense...forgot about the forever Nixon land they live in
There are a few other elements to 50 USC 421.
Section (a) or (b) (either one alone) recites the necessary elements. The amicus brief filed by the media in this case argues that disclosing Plame's name does not clearly satisfy these elements, mostly because the US did not "take affirmative measures to conceal such covert relationship," but also for other reasons.
§ 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources
Release date: 2005-03-17(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
-PJ
Even better: today during the White House press conference, when he was asked that same question, Bush said that he thought it was too early to make judgements about this case, that we should wait until we have the facts.
On ABC tonight, they reported "The president refused to take a stand on whether Karl Rove should be fired or not."
Because someone most probably lied and committed perjury in their testimony before the grand jury. It's the cover up that usually creates the problem. No one today is arguing the original disclosure was illegal except the totally uninformed or those who wish not to be informed. Miller is the one who is the key. She prefers a few months in jail to fingering one of her leftist presstitute pals.
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