Bush Aide Accused of CIA Leak
Julian Borger
The Guardian
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/100203D.shtml
Wednesday 01 October 2003
Reporters told wife of former US ambassador was an agent
President George Bush's closest political adviser, Karl Rove, was yesterday at the centre of a criminal investigation into allegations that he leaked the name of a CIA agent in an attempt to suppress criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, in what is fast becoming the administration's worst scandal since coming to office.
The White House fended off calls for an independent inquiry but urged its staff yesterday to cooperate with a jus tice department investigation.
Over the next few days, FBI agents will question Washington journalists and administration officials about claims that Mr Rove and others in the White House deliberately blew the cover of Valerie Plame, a CIA expert on weapons of mass destruction.
Under US law, it is a serious crime to reveal the identity of a covert US intelligence official, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $50,000 (�31,250) in fines.
If Mr Rove was implicated, it would seriously damage the president's standing at the start of his re-election campaign and rob him of an electoral mastermind who orchestrated his rise to the Texas governorship and then the presidency.
One veteran of the Clinton administration compared it to the Hutton inquiry. "In the Kelly case there's a body but no crime. Here there's no body but there is a crime," he said.
Ms Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former US ambassador who in July accused the White House of misleading the nation over claims of Iraq's attempts to buy uranium in Africa. In a New York Times commentary he said he had been sent to Niger to check such claims in 2002 and found them to be baseless.
A few days after Mr Wilson went public with his allegations, a conservative columnist, Robert Novak, wrote that he had been told by "two senior administration officials" that Mr Wilson had been sent on the Niger mission at his wife's suggestion.
Reporters at Time magazine and NBC News and a handful of others were also tipped off about Ms Plame, and Democrats claim the source in each case was Mr Rove. According to some accounts, Mr Rove did not mention Ms Plame by name but referred to "Wilson's wife" being a CIA employee.
At a public meeting in August, Mr Wilson, a staunch Democrat himself, said: "It's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."
Mr Novak and the other journalists involved have refused to name their sources. Their lawyers are expected to claim protection from the law under the first amendment of the constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech.
But a 1972 supreme court ruling, Branzburg v Hayes, states "the first amendment does not relieve a newspaper reporter of the obligation that all citizens have to respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a criminal investigation".
Mr Novak claimed he was told by CIA officials that Ms Plame was an analyst, not a covert operative. But intelligence analysts have argued that the CIA director, George Tenet, would not have called for an inquiry if the identification of Ms Plame had not caused potential damage to national security.
Charles Schumer, the Democratic senator leading the campaign for an independent counsel inquiry, said yesterday: "When you reveal the name of an agent, it's like putting a gun to that agent's head. You are jeopardising their life in many cases. You are jeopardising the lives of the contacts that they have built up over the decades. You are jeopardising the security of the nation."
President Bush welcomed the investigation as "a good thing". "There's just too many leaks, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
The White House has turned down Democratic demands for the appointment of an independent counsel to look into the matter. The inquiry will instead be carried out by the FBI under the supervision of the attorney general, John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist.
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/100203D.shtml
===================================================
MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case
Editor & Publisher
Saturday 02 July 2005
New York - Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name - and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.
Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:
"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.
"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."
Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.
-------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070205Z.shtml
=====================================================
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS ON LEAK-GATE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale! http://www.apfn.org/APFN/LEAKGATE.HTM
Julian Borger
The Guardian
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/100203D.shtml
Wednesday 01 October 2003
Reporters told wife of former US ambassador was an agent
President George Bush's closest political adviser, Karl Rove, was yesterday at the centre of a criminal investigation into allegations that he leaked the name of a CIA agent in an attempt to suppress criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, in what is fast becoming the administration's worst scandal since coming to office.
The White House fended off calls for an independent inquiry but urged its staff yesterday to cooperate with a jus tice department investigation.
Over the next few days, FBI agents will question Washington journalists and administration officials about claims that Mr Rove and others in the White House deliberately blew the cover of Valerie Plame, a CIA expert on weapons of mass destruction.
Under US law, it is a serious crime to reveal the identity of a covert US intelligence official, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $50,000 (�31,250) in fines.
If Mr Rove was implicated, it would seriously damage the president's standing at the start of his re-election campaign and rob him of an electoral mastermind who orchestrated his rise to the Texas governorship and then the presidency.
One veteran of the Clinton administration compared it to the Hutton inquiry. "In the Kelly case there's a body but no crime. Here there's no body but there is a crime," he said.
Ms Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former US ambassador who in July accused the White House of misleading the nation over claims of Iraq's attempts to buy uranium in Africa. In a New York Times commentary he said he had been sent to Niger to check such claims in 2002 and found them to be baseless.
A few days after Mr Wilson went public with his allegations, a conservative columnist, Robert Novak, wrote that he had been told by "two senior administration officials" that Mr Wilson had been sent on the Niger mission at his wife's suggestion.
Reporters at Time magazine and NBC News and a handful of others were also tipped off about Ms Plame, and Democrats claim the source in each case was Mr Rove. According to some accounts, Mr Rove did not mention Ms Plame by name but referred to "Wilson's wife" being a CIA employee.
At a public meeting in August, Mr Wilson, a staunch Democrat himself, said: "It's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."
Mr Novak and the other journalists involved have refused to name their sources. Their lawyers are expected to claim protection from the law under the first amendment of the constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech.
But a 1972 supreme court ruling, Branzburg v Hayes, states "the first amendment does not relieve a newspaper reporter of the obligation that all citizens have to respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a criminal investigation".
Mr Novak claimed he was told by CIA officials that Ms Plame was an analyst, not a covert operative. But intelligence analysts have argued that the CIA director, George Tenet, would not have called for an inquiry if the identification of Ms Plame had not caused potential damage to national security.
Charles Schumer, the Democratic senator leading the campaign for an independent counsel inquiry, said yesterday: "When you reveal the name of an agent, it's like putting a gun to that agent's head. You are jeopardising their life in many cases. You are jeopardising the lives of the contacts that they have built up over the decades. You are jeopardising the security of the nation."
President Bush welcomed the investigation as "a good thing". "There's just too many leaks, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
The White House has turned down Democratic demands for the appointment of an independent counsel to look into the matter. The inquiry will instead be carried out by the FBI under the supervision of the attorney general, John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist.
-------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/100203D.shtml
===================================================
MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case
Editor & Publisher
Saturday 02 July 2005
New York - Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name - and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.
Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:
"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.
"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."
Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.
-------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070205Z.shtml
=====================================================
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS ON LEAK-GATE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale! http://www.apfn.org/APFN/LEAKGATE.HTM
