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Posted on 07/13/2005 10:33:50 PM PDT by Crackingham
"The fact is, Karl Rove did not leak classified information." So said Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican Party.
"I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name." So said Karl Rove of Valerie Wilson/Plame last year on CNN.
"He did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." So said Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, after Newsweek reported Rove had been a source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper but before Newsweek revealed a Cooper email that said Rove had told Cooper that "wilson's wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues."
The White House may be stonewalling on the Rove scandal, but the Rove camp--aided by its echo-ists in the conservative media--has been busy establishing the twin-foundation for his defense: he did not mention Valerie Wilson/Plame by name; he did not disclose classified information. The first of these two assertions is misleading and irrelevant; the second is wrong.
According to Cooper's email, Rove told Cooper that "Wilson's wife"--not "Valerie Plame," or "Valerie Wilson"--worked at the CIA. But this distinction has absolutely no legal relevance. Under the relevant law--the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--a crime is committed when a government official (not a journalist) "intentionally discloses any information identifying" an undercover intelligence officer. The act does not say a name must be disclosed. By telling a reporter that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA officer, Rove was clearly disclosing "identifying" information. There was only one Mrs. Joseph Wilson. With such information in hand, Cooper or anyone else could easily have ascertained the name of this officer. (A Google search at the time would have yielded the name--and maiden name--of Wilson's wife.) Revealing the name is not the crime; it's disclosing information that IDs the officer. Imagine if a government official told a reporter, "At 3:15, a fellow in a green hat, carrying a red umbrella and holding a six-pack of Mountain Dew, will be tap-dancing in front of the Starbucks at Connecticut Avenue and R Street--he's the CIA's best undercover officer working North Korea." That official could not defend himself, under this law, by claiming that he had not revealed the name of this officer. The issue is identifying, not naming. Rove and his allies cannot hide behind his no-name claim.
A reading of this law also indicates that if Cooper's email is accurate then Rove did pass classified information to Cooper. It's possible that Rove did so unwittingly. That is, he did not know Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA was classified information. But he and his posse cannot say the information he slipped to Cooper was not classified.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime to identify "a covert agent" of the United States. The law defines "covert agent," in part, as "a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information." (My emphasis.)
This definition clearly recognizes that the identity of an undercover intelligence officer is "classified information." The law also notes that a "covert agent" has a "classified relationship to the United States." Since the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate the Plame/CIA leak and the Justice Department affirmed the need for an investigation and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, once handed the case, pursued the matter vigorously, it is reasonable to assume that Valerie Wilson fits the definition of a "covert agent." That means she has a "classified relationship" with the government.
By disclosing Valerie Wilson's relationship to the CIA, Rove was passing classified information to a reporter.
OMG!
Thank you very much. That makes sense. So the parties of this brief are trying to convince the appeals court to have an en banc hearing of the need for contempt charges based on the fact that Rove didn't break the law, no need for an investigation, so no need to reveal a source, boom! contempt charges dropped..is that kinda the idea?
"OMG!"
My thoughts exactly Echo Talon. Believe it. S**T like that I could not make up in a million years. I try to keep in mind that they do not represent anything like the average Dem....if they did I would be Very Very afraid.
I'd like to know who told Rove what he told Cooper? And why did Rove tell Cooper? And before the moonbats flame me for not being "on the correct talking points". No, I'm not a sicko commie spy from DU.
I was listening to Limbaugh today and he played audio were more than a few MSM talking heads said the White House was stonewalling this thing. Glad to see that this reporter got the talking points memo [sarcasm]...
I can't wait either. Wilson has to go down for that bullcrap story he came up with. This Corn guy was shooting his mouth off about this from the very beginning if I recall correctly. He's just another lefty nut case. It's all going to come tumbling down on the Democrats shortly, and then the weasles will cry about Rove and how cunning he was setting this all up. Then yhey will quickly find something else to cry about and sweep this failed Democrat dirty politic scandel under the carpet.
I don't understand why this grand jury,what is it's purpose?
Still? LoL! Last I looked, around election time, they were going on about Rove. He's the source of all their woes it seems. What a bunch of lunatics. What's really hilarious is the Democrat party acts on everything those moonbats at DU dream up.
Corn looks for a scandal next to any "R" that isn't named McLame or Shays. No biggie here. No crime, no foul.
Last I looked, around election time, they were going on about Rove.
They have REALLY cranked it up a few notches since those days in November Nathan. They are practically having spontaneous emmissions over their keyboards over this. They now see this little non-event as the thing that will bring down the whole Bush administration. And they can rarely post a comment any longer that is not laced with obscenities. Something you do not see here too often I might add, even when we are talking about Bill or Hillary. I really do hope that they do not have the influence you mentioned them having. I love following them, but it can be difficult because unless you are a member you cannot search DU for articles/posts. And lets face it, just about everyone here is like me and would be banned after their first post as I was.
The secret agent and the retired diplomat in their January 2004, Vanity Fair spread.
Undercover CIA agent Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) and her husband Joseph Wilson, retired (unemployed) diplomat, who was sent by the CIA (But not the Bush admistration.) at the suggestion of his own wife, to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy 'yellowcake' uranium.
"Truman, Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey"
They are spinning in their graves like Dervishes Mad Mammoth. I would bet that all three of them be a Republicans if they suddenly & magically returned now.
I think they're scratching something closer to their brains.
She used to surf the web trying to find out if there were anymore Plame family members about.
Not sure if she did that at work or at home.
She did her inquiries in her own name too ~ nothing undercover about it.
Really! David Corn would sell his own mother if it would help democrats gain asvantage. If there's one thing Corn has proven in spades, it's that he's first and formost a liberal dem partisan.
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