I don't know anymore. I think it would be too transparent, but they have done some other overtly transparent things in the past that have gone largely unnoticed, and had little effect on the administration. I would think changing the wording on scientific studies to make the impact on the environment seem less, would have been huge news. Especially when that is combined with replacing qualified experts with oil executives and other folks that have a history of being in favor of big energy businesses. That stuff was pretty blatant and they got away with that, practically unscathed. There is a little more attention on this issue now, but given the past incidents I don't know what they are capable of.
I think the Administration is capable of firing Fitzgerald, seeing as how Rove has to be wetting his pants right about now (not to mention Libby, who's been largely overlooked... so far), but even given how joined at the hip Bush and Rove are, Bush is ultimately about one thing. Bush. If he thinks firing Fitzgerald will somehow take the heat off Rove and save the "situation," I think his father, and many others, will tell him in words which would not be allowed here, "Hell NO!!! Are you nuts??" Fitzgerald has been very low key. There have been few, if any, leaks from his side. He's kept such a low profile that one could even worry if he was doing anything, if they didn't read "the fine print" of the on-going investigation. If the White House has been rattled by the sudden interest of the White House press corps in doing their job, and smelling blood in the water, then anyone there of intelligence would know that firing Fitzgerald would make that seem like a garden party. I just don't see it. This is/was merely someone's trial balloon, to gauge possible reaction, possibly on their own ticket. It ain't going to happen. Keep D&D Civil!!
creditibility gap? 10/5/01: Bush Pulls Security Clearances From 92 Senators http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/26/bush-pulls-security/ “We can’t have leaks of classified information. It’s not in our nation’s interest.” - President George W. Bush, 10/9/01 President Bush’s defiant statement came in the immediate weeks following 9/11, as the administration clamped down on the information it provided to Congress. President Bush issued an order limiting access to classified intelligence only to 8 members of Congress — the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. What precipitated this course of action? Gannett News Service reported on 10/1/01 that Bush was restricting information because, “The Washington Post reported last week that various lawmakers had been told there would be more terrorist attacks if the United States retaliated.” Here’s what the Washington Post reported: Asked whether more terrorist attacks are inevitable if the United States retaliates, [Sen. Richard] Shelby said, “You can bet on that.” … U.S. intelligence officials have told members of Congress there is a high probability that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden will try to launch another major attack on U.S. targets here or abroad. [Washington Post, 10/6/01] So at this slightest whiff of evidence that information was being leaked, President Bush pulled classified intelligence access for 92 senators. There was no ongoing criminal investigation nor was there evidence that all the members who had their access limited had leaked information. And now he refuses to hold Karl Rove and Scooter Libby to anywhere near the same standard, despite confirmation of their involvement in the leak of an undercover CIA agent’s identity.
Just think, they weren't indited, or found guilty of a crime either. Yet in that instance Bush still pulled the security clearance.
“We can’t have leaks of classified information. It’s not in our nation’s interest.” - President George W. Bush ___________ I have to ask is TS - top-secret really the same thing as classified? clas·si·fied - Arranged in classes or categories. top-se·cret - Containing information whose unauthorized disclosure would pose the gravest threat to national security. Yes, both words are adjectives, but that is really where the similarities end.
Looks like Bush has a precedent to let Rove off the hook... ______ Bill Clinton Pardoned Nat'l. Security Leaker On January 20, 2001, President Clinton pardoned Samuel Loring Morison, a civilian analyst with the Office of Naval Intelligence. In 1984, Morison had been convicted of providing classified satellite photos of an under-construction Soviet nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly. He received a two-year jail sentence. In pardoning Morison, Clinton dismissed the advice of the CIA. "We said we were obviously opposed - it was a vigorous 'Hell, no,'" one senior intelligence official told the Washington Post at the time. "We think ... giving pardons to people who are convicted of doing that sends the wrong signal to people who are currently entrusted with classified information." Morison is the only person ever successfully prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act, the law invoked by Democrats who want to nail Rove after it became clear that he didn't violate the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. But it's going to be difficult for Dems to feign national security outrage over Plame's outing when the husband of their party's presidential front-runner let an actual convicted leaker off the hook. Last week, when Sen. John Kerry called for Mr. Rove to be fired, with Hillary standing by his side, she nodded silently. When reporters asked her what she thought of the alleged Rove outrage, she offered only, "I'm nodding." full article
This article has the clearest declaration of the CIA's position on the Plame leak that I have seen in print- Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed. Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified. That sounds pretty clear cut. The CIA say she was under cover and Valerie Plame did not authorize the misssion. Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net White House Effort To Discredit Critic Examined in Detail By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, July 27, 2005; A01 The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case. Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street. In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed. Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said. It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation. All that is known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed, what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on. Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003 to determine whether any government official knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a CIA employee to the media. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has said his wife's career was ruined in retaliation for his public criticism of Bush. In a 2002 trip to Niger at the request of the CIA, Wilson found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from that African country and reported back to the agency in February 2002. But nearly a year later, Bush asserted in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, attributing it to British, not U.S., intelligence. Fitzgerald has said in court that he had completed most of his investigation at a time when he was pressing for New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify about any conversations she had with a specific administration official about Plame during the week before Plame's identity was revealed. Miller, who never wrote a story about the matter, is in jail for refusing to comply with a court order to testify. Court records show Fitzgerald is seeking information about communications she had with the Bush official between July 6 and July 13, 2003, when the White House was attempting to discredit Wilson and his allegations. Fitzgerald appears to believe that Miller's conversations may help him get to the bottom of the leak and the damage-control campaign undertaken by senior Bush officials that week. Using background conversations with at least three journalists and other means, Bush officials attacked Wilson's credibility. They said that his 2002 trip to Niger was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but CIA officials say that is incorrect. One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is that she had arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier on an unrelated matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post. Miller's role remains one of many mysteries in the leak probe. It is unclear whom, if anyone, she spoke to about Plame, and why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case. Also murky is the role of Novak, who first publicly identified Plame in a syndicated column published July 14, 2003. Lawyers have confirmed that Novak discussed Plame with White House senior adviser Karl Rove four or more days before the column identifying her ran. But the identity of another "administration" source cited in the column is still unknown. Rove's attorney has said Rove did not identify Plame to Novak. In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an interview. The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post, asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about Wilson, Wilson said. He first revealed that conversation in a book he wrote last year. In the book, he said that he tried to reach Novak on July 8, and that they finally connected on July 10. In that conversation, Wilson said that he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source." Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said. Unknown to Novak, the person was a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said. Novak and his attorney, James Hamilton, have declined to discuss the investigation, as has Fitzgerald. Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed. Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified. In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name." Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle over who would be held responsible for Bush using the disputed charge about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument. Based on the questions they have been asked, people involved in the case believe that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort to discredit Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush from the Niger controversy. Wilson unleashed an attack on Bush's claim on July 6, 2003, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," in an interview in The Post and writing his own op-ed article in the New York Times, in which he accused the president of "twisting" intelligence. Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words to remain in Bush's speech. As part of this effort, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not think Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Tenet was interviewed by prosecutors, but it is not clear whether he appeared before the grand jury, a former CIA official said. On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech. He said the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed." A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement. The prosecutors have talked to State Department officials to determine what role a classified memo including two sentences about Plame's role in Wilson's Niger trip played in the damage-control campaign. People familiar with this part of the probe provided new details about the memo, including that it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage who requested it the day Wilson went public and asked that a copy be sent to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to take with him on a trip to Africa the next day. Bush and several top aides were on that trip. Carl W. Ford Jr., who was director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the time and who supervised the original production of the memo, has appeared before the grand jury, a former State Department official said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069_pf.html
We have it from yet another CIA official that Plame was under cover at the time. With collaboration after collaboration by CIA officials, this pretty much blows the 'she wasn't undercover, but a desk jockey' argument out of the water. Let justice be done.
That's okay! We can let whoever is president in 8 or 10 years pardon Rove after he's spent two or three years in jail and his career and reputation is in tatters.
Speculation mounts... I don't know if firing Fitzgerald from his US Atty. job would affect his special prosecutor status, but it might make things hard for him. And I'm not so sure the Bushies would want to piss this guy off too much. ---------------------- Politicians support reappointment of Attorney Fitzgerald BY JOHN CHASE Chicago Tribune WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald said Wednesday he believes there is mounting political pressure to oppose the reappointment of U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald this fall, given his aggressive prosecution of government corruption in Illinois. The former senator questioned whether House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the state's top Republican, would support the prosecutor when President Bush decides whether to extend his term in Chicago. But Hastert, who often battled with Sen. Fitzgerald while the two Republicans served together in Congress, quickly shot down the ex-senator's claims. Hastert's office said the decision rests entirely with President Bush and Hastert has no role whatsoever in whether the prosecutor keeps his job. Fitzgerald was the state's Republican U.S. senator in 2001 when he went outside Illinois' political and legal circles to recommend Patrick Fitzgerald, who was then a federal prosecutor in New York. Peter Fitzgerald contends that the subsequent indictment of former GOP Gov. George Ryan and the federal investigation of Mayor Richard Daley's City Hall have angered powerful politicians in both parties. The Fitzgeralds are not related. "I'd be pleasantly surprised if Speaker Hastert recommended Patrick Fitzgerald for reappointment," the former senator said in a telephone interview, echoing comments he made in a WGN-TV interview Wednesday. "But I'm beginning to sense that a lot of people, a lot of criminals, may hope that October brings them a new U.S. attorney in Chicago, one perhaps a little bit more malleable and acceptable to influence from leading Republicans and leading Democrats." Bush nominated Fitzgerald for the U.S. attorney's job in September 2001 and he officially began his four-year term a month later. Bush's nomination followed a long-held tradition in Washington that the top senator from the same political party of the president proposes candidates for judicial and federal prosecutor vacancies in their states. But because both Illinois senators are now Democrats, former Sen. Fitzgerald said Bush could seek the counsel of Illinois' highest-ranking Republican in Congress, Hastert, when he is considering Patrick Fitzgerald's reappointment. But officials with Hastert's office argued reappointment is a less formal process that will not involve the speaker. "This is a decision that rests with the Bush Administration," Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean said. "The speaker has chosen not to get involved in this matter and although he does not know U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald he believes that he is a qualified prosecutor." U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama support Fitzgerald's reappointment, according to their offices. Unlike elected officials, the end of Fitzgerald's first term as U.S. attorney does not necessarily mean he must leave office on that same day. Although Fitzgerald's term officially ends in late October, if he is not re-appointed by then he remains on the job until Bush nominates another prosecutor and the Senate confirms that nominee. The former senator did not discuss Patrick Fitzgerald's other role, as the special prosecutor in the investigation into whether Bush administration officials leaked the identity of a CIA employee to the media. A White House spokeswoman said no decision has been made, one way or the other, on reappointing Fitzgerald. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/12239742.htm
GEORGE H.W. BUSH: “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” [Speech at CIA, 4/26/99] http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/1999/bush_speech_042699.html
Plame Gave Money to Anti-Bush Group Wednesday, July 27, 2005 By Deborah Orin NYPOST.com WASHINGTON — Outed CIA spy Valerie Plame last fall gave a campaign contribution to go toward an anti-Bush fund-raising concert starring Bruce Springsteen, it was revealed Tuesday night. It's the first revelation that Plame participated in anti-Bush political activity while working for the CIA. The $372 donation to the anti-Bush group America Coming Together (search), first reported by Time magazine's Web site, was made in Plame's married name of Valerie E. Wilson and covered two tickets. The Federal Election Commission (search) record lists her occupation as "retired" even though she's still a CIA staffer. Under employer it says: "N.A." A special prosecutor is probing whether Plame's CIA identity was leaked to retaliate against her husband, Joseph Wilson (search), for attacking President Bush's Iraq policy after he went on an Iraq-linked CIA mission arranged by his wife. Wilson — who played an active role in Democrat John Kerry's (search) losing 2004 presidential campaign — said the anti-Bush concert was "great" and told Time that his wife "doesn't recall listing herself as retired." CIA rules allow campaign contributions, but the fact that Plame gave money to the anti-Bush effort is likely to raise eyebrows. Federal rules require a political-action committee to ask all donors to list their employers. "You don't have to provide it, but if you do, you shouldn't provide false information on those forms — like saying you're retired if you're not," said Larry Noble of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (search). America Coming Together is one of the anti-Bush activist groups bankrolled by Bush-opposing billionaire George Soros (search). He gave the group around $10 million. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe has raised questions about whether top Bush aides such as Karl Rove (search) played a role in outing Plame. Rove has said he relayed her role in arranging her husband's CIA trip, but didn't know she was undercover. White House officials say Rove was seeking to discredit Wilson's attacks on Bush by noting that Wilson only got picked for the CIA mission because of his wife. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Plame did arrange her husband's trip even though he repeatedly denied it.
The Federal Election Commission (search) record lists her occupation as "retired" even though she's still a CIA staffer. Under employer it says: "N.A." Plame lied to the FEC!!! She should have told the truth, outed herself, and have the GWB admin send her sweat *ss to prison.
