Was Karl Rove the source of the Plame leak. . .

"Loophole?" it's the key to the entire statute!

 

and let's nip this in the bud too. here's the relevant portion of the espionage act

As regards Rove:

1.Rove must have had access to classified information indicating Plame was a covert operative.

2.Plame's covert status with the CIA must have been classified information, and Rove must have known it to be classified.

3.Rove must have believed that it could harm the defense of the United States or advantaged another nation to release the information.

4.Rove must have intentionally released the information to a person not authorized to receive it.

Was Plame's status with the agency classified at the time the information was released? If so, did Rove know it to be classified?

If Plame was, in fact, going to work every day at CIA Headquarters in Langley, then her employment with the CIA can hardly have been classified, since she could be observed working there daily. Did Rove's knowledge of Plame's status at the CIA come from his access to classified knowledge, or did it come from some other parties who already knew of Plame's place of employment. The public record indicates that her employment at the CIA was known by some members of the press prior to Rove's conversation with Time's Matthew Cooper.

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=2240

 

politically motivated charges!?!?!?!?

basso you are smarter than that

This is not a republican or democratic thing! This is an American thing. This is about someone possibly compromising national security in wartime! That is treason!

 

Couple of things here. First, if this reporter had done his research, he'd know that "agency operative" refers to an undercover member of the CIA Directorate of Operations. Second, he'd know that Novak knew this:

http://www.hillnews.com/marshall/101503.aspx

 

not really, since Novak uses the term "political operative" just as often in his writing.

 

only if you're smoking the same stuff the guys at moveon.org are, and i thought you were smarter than that.

 

And yet he uses <I>agency</I> operative only in the proper context...

 

not a NOC:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050715-121257-9887r.htm

 

Of course, if this were true, no crime would have been committed and there wouldn't be a 2 year grand jury investigation... I'm guessing the Spec. Prosecutor clarified this with the CIA a while back.

Oh, and the link you provided doesn't work, just FYI.

Here's another about this issue:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507070001

 

By the way, is there a good reason that a dozen different sources, including the CIA which asked for the investigation in the first place, said she was undercover while one random ex-agent says she wasn't and you choose to believe the one?

 

Basso he just has to blow her status. If she is an NOC, but he only publically states that she works for the CIA, her status is blown. He doesn't have to label her status.

As far as the espionage act it is pretty clear by the standards you laid out that Rove would be in jeopardy just on what his lawyer has said alone.

Again it is interesting to see such staunc 'patriots' as yourself defending someone who took away a valuable human resource who was highly qualified in the war on terror.

Also please note that it is possible to do that without actually breaking the law. But as long as the guy who harmed the CIA and the U.S. ability at fighting terror is a GOP guy in Bush's whitehouse then it looks like it is ok to you.

I believe the country should come before politics.

 

fixed the link, and you seem to be confused about the purpose of a grand jury. it's to determine whether a crime was committed.

 

ahhh, nice to see you back-tracking on your previous "Rove committed treason" stance. feeling a little less confident now?

 

There's a point that's probably worth raising with our scofflaw Republican friends. All of their arguments now amount to excuses, like those of a small child caught stealing cookies: Joe Wilson's a liar. Plame's covert status wasn't protected well by the CIA. It was just a short phone call. Rove really wanted to speak about welfare reform. Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa. Plame sent Wilson to Africa. Rove leaked Plame's identity in the interests of good journalism. Wilson went on too many TV shows. On and on and on.

The salient point is not that each of these claims is false. The point is that they're irrelevant. It's the mid-life version of 'He hit me first!' or 'He called me a name!' or other such foolery.

No presidential advisor should ever disclose the identity of a covert agent at the CIA. That doesn't require elaboration.

If it's done knowingly, it's a felony. Joe Wilson could be the biggest hack in the world. Plame could have cooked the whole trip idea up to damage the president -- as some GOP loopsters are now claiming -- and it wouldn't matter.

Rove (and, though we're not supposed to say it yet, several of his colleagues) did something obviously wrong and reckless. And they probably broke several laws by the time it was all done.

Pretty much every Republican in Washington today works for Karl Rove. So they can't deal with that fact. But fact it is.

And nothing was done amiss? If Rove et al. didn't do anything wrong, why have they spent two years lying about what they did? No law was broken? Then what is Fitzgerald looking at? Why is a grand jury investigating Rove? A prosecutor like Fitzgerald, a Republican appointee, wouldn't be throwing journalists in jail unless he thought he was investigating a serious crime.

What's their answer to that? They have none. Rove runs the Washington Republican party, owns it. So it's anything but hold him accountable.

-- Josh Marshall

 

It doesn't look good for Karl Rove
By John Dean
FindLaw Columnist
Special to CNN.com


(FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect."

Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super-secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson."

Rove was referring, of course, to former Ambassador Joe Wilson's acknowledgment of his trip to Africa, where he discovered that Niger had not, in fact, provided uranium to Iraq that might be part of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program.

Cooper's email indicates that Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney; rather, Rove claimed, "it was ... [W]ilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [WMD] issues who authorized the trip." (Rove was wrong about the authorization.)

Only the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, and his staff have all the facts on their investigation at this point, but there is increasing evidence that Rove (and others) may have violated one or more federal laws. At this time, it would be speculation to predict whether indictments will be forthcoming.

Identities Protection Act
As I pointed out when the Valerie Plame Wilson leak first surfaced, the Intelligence Identities And Protection Act is a complex law. For the law to apply to Rove, a number of requirements must be met.

Rove must have had "authorized access to classified information" under the statute. Plame was an NCO (non-covered officer). White House aides, and even the president, are seldom, if ever, given this information. So it is not likely Rove had "authorized access" to it.

In addition, Rove must have "intentionally" -- not "knowingly" as has been mentioned in the news coverage -- disclosed "any information identifying such a covert agent." Whether or not Rove actually referred to Mrs. Wilson as "Valerie Plame," then, the key would be whether he gave Matt Cooper (or others) information that Joe Wilson's wife was a covert agent.

Also, the statute requires that Rove had to know, as a fact, that the United States was taking, or had taken, "affirmative measures to conceal" Valerie Plame's covert status. Rove's lawyer says he had no such knowledge.

In fact, there is no public evidence that Valerie Wilson had the covert status required by the statute. A covert agent, as defined under this law, is "a present or retired officer or employee" of the CIA, whose identity as such "is classified information," and this person must be serving outside of the United States, or have done so in the last five years.

There is no solid information that Rove, or anyone else, violated this law designed to protect covert CIA agents. There is, however, evidence suggesting that other laws were violated. In particular, I have in mind the laws invoked by the Bush Justice Department in the relatively minor leak case that it vigorously prosecuted, though it involved information that was not nearly as sensitive as that which Rove provided Matt Cooper (and possibly others).

Leak prosecution precedent
I am referring to the prosecution and conviction of Jonathan Randel. Randel was a Drug Enforcement Agency analyst, a Ph.D. 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, count 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.

Precedent bodes ill for Rove
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 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."

"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."

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.

Given the nature of Valerie Plame Wilson's work, it is unlikely the public will ever know if Rove's leak caused damage, or even loss of life of one of her contracts abroad, because of Rove's actions. Dose anyone know the dangers and risks that she and her family may face because of this leak?

It was just such a risk that convinced Judge Story that "for any person with the agency to take it upon himself to leak information poses a tremendous risk; and that's what, to me, makes this a particularly serious offense." Cannot the same be said about Rove's leak? It dealt with matters related to national security; if the risk Randel was taking was a "tremendous" risk, surely Rove's leak was monumental.

While there are other potential violations of the law that may be involved with the Valerie Plame Wilson case, it would be speculation to consider them. But Karl Rove's leak to Matt Cooper is now an established fact.

First, there is Matt Cooper's e-mail record. And Cooper has now confirmed that he has told the grand jury he spoke with Rove. If Rove's leak fails to fall under the statute that was used to prosecute Randel, I do not understand why.

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).

John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to President Nixon.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/15/dean.rove/

 

Determining that does not require talking to reporters or anyone else. If she was not undercover, then no crime was committed, period. You would think the special prosecutor would have checked that first and ended the grand jury at that point if that were the case.

Given that he didn't, and that he has gone on to trying to figure out who leaked the name and why, that indicates that leaking the name could have been illegal. The ONLY way that can be the case is if she was undercover.

 

I'm not at all less confident. A felony was committed. The only thing left is to determine if Rove is the one that committed it. It sounds like Rove blew her cover prior to it coming out in a paper. Therefore he would seem to have committed a crime.

I'm not convinced that he will do time for his crime, or whoever committed it.

I remarked about the treason stance, because some people's cries of patriotism and love of country, support of troops, etc. are quickly shoved to the back burner when the folks that they support politically come under fire.

Like I said country should come before politics. It is your perogative to believe and act differently. But it makes your previous cries of patriotism ring false.

I was merely remarking on the odd shift that has come from the board's 'liberals hate America' crowd.

 

you know mc josh, there are som many holes in your line of reasoning that it owuld take me the rest of the weekend to cover them all- so you can enjoy the lovely catskills in peace, , i'm taking a pass, indeed on this entire thread. should mr. fitzgerald comment or return an indictment over the weekend, i'll gladly jump back in, but my obsession w/ Joe Wilson doesn't reach the heights of Macbeth's w/ himself, so i'm taking the rest of the weekend off. enjoy the mountain air!

 

When there is no defense for your side, not saying anything might work.