[Mb-civic] Plame, By Any Other Name

[Michael Butler]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 19:10:42 EDT
To: djinbaqr at tiscali.co.za
Subject: (no subject)

And the story begins to get some real traction......keep your fingers
crossed!! MD> 
>  Plame, By Any Other Name
> By Dan Froomkin
> The Washington Post
> 
>  Monday 11 July 2005
> 
>  There is no longer any question that top presidential adviser Karl Rove is
> a key player in the Valerie Plame case.
> 
>  In fact, what Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame
> is apparently one of the last things special prosecutor Patrick J.Fitzgerald
> is trying to determine before he wraps up his investigation into whether Plame
> was illegally outed as a CIA agent.
> 
>  Newsweek yesterday described e-mails from Cooper relating his July 2003
> interview with Rove. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told The Washington Post
> yesterday that his client spoke to Cooper, but did not identify Plame by name.
> Luskin also said Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the
> probe.
> 
>  But let's look at what we can conclude from all this:
> 
>  
> The latest news reports indicate that Rove is the source who Cooper was
> trying to protect until last week -- and that Rove tipped Cooper about Plame
> three days before Robert Novak published his now-famous column exposing
Plame's 
> identity.
> 
> 
> Fitzgerald has asserted in his court filings that testimony from Cooper and
> now-jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller is all he needs to wrap up
> his investigation into whether a crime was committed. So what Rove said about
> Plame would therefore appear to be either one of two things -- or the only
> thing -- that Fitzgerald is still trying to nail down.
> 
> 
> Rove and his lawyer's denials that he was involved in telling reporters
> about Plame now appear to be at best based on Clintonian hairsplitting about
> whether he literally used her name and identified her as covert or he simply
> described her as the CIA-employed wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the
> administration critic that White House was eager to discredit at the time.
> 
> 
> President Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan's denials that Rove was
> involved in the Plame matter now appear to be at best based on the position
> that their responses to broad questions about Rove and Plame were met with
> narrowly constructed responses specifically about whether Rove leaked
"classified 
> information." Or is it possible Rove lied to them?
> 
> 
> And McClellan's frequent implication that, if Rove talked to reporters about
> Plame it was only after Novak's column had already come out, now appears
> suspect. If Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, longtime friend and
> deputy chief of staff is actually indicted by Fitzgerald -- which now appears
to 
> be a possibility -- it would be an enormous blow to Bush's second term. Until
> Fitzgerald wraps up his highly secretive investigation, however, that's all
> just speculation.
> 
>  So let's ask ourselves some more practical questions instead:
> 
>  
> Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?
> 
> 
> Taking into account Bush's previous statements about leaks, does this mean
> he now has no choice but to fire Rove?
> 
> 
> Did Rove keep all this from Bush?
> 
> 
> Or did Bush know, but chose to keep silent and do nothing? For some quick
> background, here is what Rove has said directly about Plame:
> 
>  As ABC News's The Note reported on Sept. 29, 2003, ABC News producer Andrea
> Owen and a cameraman approached Rove that morning as he walked toward his
> car.
> 
>  Owen: "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent
> to the press?"
> 
>  Rove: "No."
> 
>  At which point, Rove shut his car door.
> 
>  Then on August 31, 2004, Rove spoke to CNN's John King .
> 
>  King: "Did someone in the White House leak the name of the CIA operative?
> What is your assessment of the status of the investigation, and can you tell
> us that you had nothing to do with. . . .
> 
>  Rove: "Well, I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing
> broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her
name."
> 
>  Here is McClellan in a Sept. 16, 2003 briefing :
> 
>  "Q Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover a CIA
> operative. . . . Did Karl Rove do it?
> 
>  "MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous."
> 
>  On Sept. 30, 2003 , Bush himself was asked if Rove had a role in the CIA
> leak.
> 
>  "Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration
> who leaked classified information," he said. "If somebody did leak classified
> information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And
> this investigation is a good thing."
> 
>  And here is McClellan in an Oct. 7, 2003 briefing: "If someone in this
> administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of
> this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates,
> that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to
conduct 
> their business. . . .
> 
>  "If someone sought to punish someone for speaking out against the
> administration, that is wrong, and we would not condone that activity. No one
in this 
> White House would condone that activity. . . .
> 
>  "It's absurd to suggest that the White House would be engaged in that kind
> of activity. That is not the way this White House operates."
> 
>  This Just In
> 
>  On MSNBC, Bob Kur reported out of this morning's off-camera gaggle with
> McClellan: "Well, they're being pummeled with questions here this morning.
Very 
> interesting turn of events. The White House spokesman just a few minutes ago
> was asked about the latest developments about Karl Rove and he says he can't
> comment because it's an ongoing criminal investigation -- and yet reporters
> went after him with questions saying that during this ongoing investigation at
> earlier stages, he was willing to stand at the podium and say flat out that
> Karl Rove was not involved in the leak of the C.I.A. operative's identity.
> 
>  "Well, so those are some tough questions to be answered here at the White
> House today."
> 
>  The News
> 
>  Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek: "It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July
> 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an
> e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. 'Subject: Rove/P&C,' (for personal
> and confidential), Cooper began. 'Spoke to Rove on double super secret
> background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . . ' Cooper
proceeded to 
> spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He
> finished, 'please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]' and
> suggested another reporter check with the CIA."
> 
>  The White House, back in July 2003, was eager to discredit Wilson, who was
> publicly asserting that he had found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy
> uranium from Niger and had made that clear to administration officials before
Bush 
> included the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address.
> 
>  Isikoff writes: "In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to
> make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. . . . Cooper wrote that Rove
offered 
> him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper
> that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by 'DCIA' -- CIA Director George
> Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's
wife, 
> who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction]
> issues who authorized the trip.' "
> 
>  Isikoff was on MSNBC this morning and said: "Karl Rove has never before
> acknowledged that he had spoken to Matthew Cooper or anybody else about the
> Wilson matter prior to the Novak column. The White House initially dismissed
> claims that Karl Rove was involved, in any way involved, in the outing of
Valerie 
> Plame as totally ridiculous and even as recently as last week, Karl Rove's
> lawyer was saying that it was -- that Rove was never a confidential source for
> any reporter on this matter. The e-mail conclusively disproves those
> statements."
> 
>  Joe Hagan writes in the Wall Street Journal: "After a week of seemingly
> contradictory reports, one fact appears to have solidified: Karl Rove, the
White 
> House deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's election
> victories, was a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent
> Matthew Cooper in his July 2003 article about a Central Intelligence Agency
> operative. . . .
> 
>  "The unmasking of Mr. Rove marks an important milestone in the case. On the
> one hand, the details of Mr. Rove's discussion with Mr. Cooper -- especially
> if he didn't name Ms. Plame -- may exculpate him of the intentional, illegal
> disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA operative. Much will depend on
> whether Mr. Rove truthfully described any conversations in testimony before
the 
> grand jury. If he did, that would clear him of even a perjury charge and any
> criminal liability.
> 
>  "That said, the disclosure that Mr. Bush's top political strategist
> discussed the CIA employment of Mr. Wilson's wife amounts to a political
> embarrassment for Mr. Rove and the White House. A presidential spokesman had
previously 
> given what appeared to be an unequivocal public assurance that Mr. Rove
> hadn't been involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame as a CIA operative.
Discovery 
> that earlier denials may have been carefully parsed would represent another
> blow to the administration's credibility, compounding damage from the
> underlying issue that initially brought Mr. Wilson into the spotlight."
> 
>  Josh White writes in The Washington Post: "White House Deputy Chief of
> Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at
> the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two
> years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify
> her by name. . . .
> 
>  "Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates
> a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named
> and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.
> 
>  "While the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a
> focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that
> Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a
target 
> of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and
> was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm."
> 
>  Adam Liptak writes in the New York Times: " 'A fair reading of the e-mail
> as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear
> that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose
> Plame's identity,' Mr. Luskin said."
> 
>  Over at Time, where they certainly know what's going on, Bill Saporito
> simply writes: "And who was Cooper's source? A number of news organizations
named 
> Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser. Time's editors have
> decided not to reveal the source at this time."
> 
>  On TV
> 
>  ABC's Good Morning America show today reported that "Presidential adviser
> Karl Rove may be in hot water with his boss now that his lawyer admitted he
> gave sensitive info to a reporter -- a leak that's at the center of a federal
> investigation. Here's ABC's Jessica Yellin."
> 
>  Yellin: "He is one of the president's most trusted advisors, credited as
> the architect of the Bush campaign but now Newsweek magazine is reporting that
> Karl Rove is also one of the people who leaked secret information about a
> covert C.I.A. Agent to the media.. . . .
> 
>  "Since the beginning of the investigation, President Bush has taken the
> position he does not tolerate leaks. . . .
> 
>  "Legal experts say based on these e-mails Rove did not break the law, he
> did not name the woman or reveal that she was an undercover agent. But Rove
> must still answer to the president. The White House has maintained that anyone
> who leaked the identity of a C.I.A. Operative is not welcomed in the
> administration."
> 
>  CNN, which happens to be owned by the same people who own Time magazine, is
> being oddly silent on the Rove issue this morning.
> 
>  And on Fox News, they're not taking it too seriously.
> 
>  On Fox News's Fox and Friends this morning, Kelly Wright reported: "Amid
> the difficult task of choosing a candidate for the Supreme Court and waging
the 
> war on terror, the White House is also dealing with a report about top White
> House adviser Karl Rove."
> 
>  But, he concluded: "Bottom line here, guys, when you read between the
> lines, Karl Rove never mentioned anyone's name. "
> 
>  Steve Doocy had a follow-up question: "Kelly, did I hear you right? Matthew
> Cooper wrote that the information that he had received was on double
> supersecret background ?
> 
>  Wright: "That's right. According to this report that we're getting. . . .
> 
>  Doocy: "Well, it must not be too double supersecret because we know about
> it now!"
> 
>  Hairsplitting . . . From Cooper?
> 
>  Adam Liptak in the Times attempts to reconstruct the events of Wednesday
> morning, when Cooper announced: "A short time ago, in somewhat dramatic
> fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."
> 
>  Sounds like a phone call directly from his source, doesn't it?
> 
>  But Liptak writes: "Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his
> confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source,
who is 
> now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.
> 
>  "The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone
> calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr.
Luskin 
> and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. . . .
> 
>  "Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment
> on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word
> 'personal' to mean specific."
> 
>  But what Cooper said he got -- and what Miller says she hasn't gotten from
> her source -- is an explicit assurance that he was no longer bound by his
> confidentiality pledge. And Liptak writes: "Mr. Luskin said he had only
> reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald."
> 
>  Liptak, by the way, also raises the question of whether Cooper got an
> explicit assurance before he testified in August about his conversations with
I. 
> Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
> 
>  Previous Statements
> 
>  Blogger Billmon has put together an excellent collection of previous White
> House statements vouching for Rove, so I don't have to.
> 
>  Questions for the Media
> 
>  Here are some questions for my fellow journalists:
> 
>  
> For those covering the latest developments: How does it matter whether Rove
> literally used Plame's name or not?
> 
> 
> Why, as the Think Progress blog has been asking, did no one in the White
> House press corps ask McClellan even one question about Rove's involvement
last 
> week as the story was starting to unfold?
> 
> 
> Has Karl Rove routinely hidden behind confidentiality to spread damaging
> information about the White House's enemies?
> 
> 
> Should there maybe be a new category of "I'll-go-to-jail-for-you" on
> background reserved exclusively for whistle-blowers?
> 
> 
> Will any of you ever grant Karl Rove confidentiality again? The Wild, Wild
> Web
> 
>  The left side of the Web is in a state of near ecstasy. And the right side
> is enraged -- primarily by the left side's ecstasy and the media's presumed
> feeding frenzy.
> 
>  On the left:
> 
>  The Nation's David Corn writes: "There now is clear-cut evidence that Rove
> was involved in -- if not the chief architect of -- the actions that led to
> the outing of Plame/Wilson. If he's not in severe legal trouble, he ought to
> be in political peril. . . .
> 
>  "[T]his is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it
> could gather on Joseph Wilson -- even classified information related to
national 
> security -- to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even
> if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of
> intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking
a 
> national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George
W. 
> Bush do about that?"
> 
>  Here's Tim Grieve on Salon.com: "It's plainly no defense to the crime of
> leaking the identity of a CIA agent to say that you didn't actually use her
> name: Federal law prohibits the intentional disclosure of 'any information
> identifying' a covert agent."
> 
>  On Huffingtonpost.com, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) writes: "Remember
> during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that
> President Bush was going to 'restore honesty and dignity to the White House?'
> How's that going?"
> 
>  On the right:
> 
>  Blogger Tom Maguire writes: "This Newsweek revelation may create some
> political heat for Karl, but it is far from clear that, if these notes
accurately 
> describe the conversation, Karl Rove had the intent and knowledge that are
> also elements of a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act."
> 
>  A post on the Powerline blog suggests: "The media feeding frenzy will,
> indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or
> perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and
other 
> pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food. This isn't a
top 
> presidential aide accepting an expensive gift, or engaging in lewd sexual
> conduct. It's a top aide providing truthful information to journalists in
> response to lies told to embarrass the administration and our government."
> 
>  Blogger Hugh Hewitt says its all particularly unseemly in the wake of the
> London transit bombings. "[T]he president values and trusts Rove, and the
> assault on Rove has nothing to do with outrage over injury to the national
> security and everything to do with bleeding Bush. The idea that the forces
that 
> defended Clinton's bald lies under oath are now 'outraged' over spun-up
pretend 
> perjury charges would be wildly amusing but for the fact that the tragic
> losses of the past few days have not interrupted the vendettaists for even a
> decent interval."
> 
>  Rove Speaks
> 
>  Rove was in Nebraska on Friday, talking about . . . Social Security.
> 
>  In town primarily for a fundraiser, Rove also stopped by the offices of
> Ameritrade.
> 
>  Nate Jenkins writes in the Lincoln Journal Star: "Rove spoke for about 15
> minutes at the online brokerage firm, answered a few written questions from
> employees, and then left without taking questions from reporters. He stuck
> solely to the Social Security message, not mentioning the bombings that left
at 
> least 50 dead in London. Nor did he address the pending investigation into
> whether Bush administration officials in 2003 illegally leaked the name of a
CIA 
> agent to reporters after the agent's husband, former ambassador Joseph C.
> Wilson IV, publicly criticized the Bush administration's arguments for going
to 
> war in Iraq. . . .
> 
>  "The event Friday was closed to the public, and Rove's message was
> delivered to a company that Ameritrade Chief Operating Officer J. Peter
Ricketts said 
> would not directly benefit from partially privatizing Social Security but
> that he said could 'in the grand scheme of things.' "
> 
>  -------
> 
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