Poodle Blair Gets no Bone; Time for Rove WIthdrawal?

LEAK-GATE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/join

This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/leakgate.htm

Post message: LEAK-GATE@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: LEAK-GATE-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: LEAK-GATE-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

List owner: LEAK-GATE-owner@yahoogroups.com

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be...
The People cannot be safe without information." -- Thomas Jefferson
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html

My Groups | LEAK-GATE Main Page

A chilling day for the First Amendment —Tribune News Service
===========================================================================
David Corn
July 08, 2005
Poodle Blair Gets No Bone; Time for Rove WIthdrawal?
http://www.bushlies.com/

I almost--almost--felt sorry for Tony Blair, as I watched him on the telly this morning trying to sell the G8 agreement that was more disappointment than achievement. He did his best not to sugarcoat the agreement, but he still couldn't stop the spin (to mix a metaphor). He said that progress on global warming was made because he was able to coax George W. Bush into a "dialogue" on the matter and because Bush signed the communique which declared that global warming is a serious issue and that "we know enough to act now." Well, Bush may know enough to act, but he still has adamantly refused to take any significant action to address global warming--even though he promised to do so after rejecting the Kyoto accord in 2001. The Bush administration--perhaps reluctantly--has already acknowledged that global warming is real and requires action. True, once in a while an energy company lobbyist working within its ranks rewrites a report to say global warming ain't much to fret about, but officially the administration accepts the premise that it is a problem requiring a remedy. Yet Bush has done nothing to develop an effective remedy. Thus, Blair achieved nothing, vis a vis his pal from Washington, at this G8 on this critical issue, no matter how nicely Blair spins the agreement. Only goes to show: you can go to war for this fellow--even though your own foreign secretary says the primary case is "thin"--and you can assume enormous political risk in order to help him, and you will get nada in return. Even a poodle receives a bone once in a while.
******
I posted the below dose-of-reality on HuffingtonPost.com. In case you haven't seen it:

Time for Rove WIthdrawal?

What's a I-wanna-see-Rove-go-to-jail fanatic to do now?

For the past few weeks, the Plame/CIA leak was in the news far more so than it had been ever since the CIA first asked the Justice Department in September 2003 to investigate the leak from Bush administration officials that outed an undercover CIA official working on WMD issues (Valerie Wilson, a.k.a. Valerie Plame), who was married to a critic of Bush's war in Iraq (former Ambassador Joseph Wilson). That leak first appeared in a Bob Novak column published on July 14, 2003; Novak cited two unnamed "senior administration officials" as his sources.

What drew all the recent attention to the investigation was the face-off between special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and two reporters--Time's Matt Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller. Fitzgerald, in pursuit of the leakers (who may have violated a federal law making it a crime for a government official to identify a clandestine CIA official), wanted Cooper, who cowrote a Time article that also reported that unnamed government officials had said Valerie Wilson was a CIA official, and Miller, who had written nothing on this subject, to testify before his grand jury and talk about what their sources had told them. Initially they both resisted. And the ensuing clash--as troubling as it was for those of us who care about protecting reporter-source confidentiality--was a goldmine for anyone trying to figure out what has been happening with Fitzgerald's investigation. His inquiry has been surprisingly low on leaks, and it had been hard to suss out what he was doing and whether he was achieving any progress. But his fight with Miller and Cooper pushed facts and hints into the public record.

As regular readers of this blog know, Fitzgerald's tussle with these reporters moved Karl Rove to the top of the suspects list. Though much remains unknown, it does seem probable--as Lawrence O'Donnell has blogged about here and as Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reported--that the source Fitzgerald has so much wanted Cooper to talk about is Rove. Why is Fitzgerald intensely interested in Rove? We can only guess at this moment. But it's not unreasonable to presume this is because Fitzgerald considers him a chief suspect--even though Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has told reporters that Rove did not name Valerie Plame as a CIA official to any reporter and that Fitzgerald has informed Rove he is not a target. (For a thorough analysis--by me--of what the recent court proceedings do and do not tell us about Fitzgerald's investigation and Rove's place in it, click here.

But now Fitzgerald's fight with Miller and Cooper is done. Miller is sitting in a jail in Virginia, dispatched there by federal District Court Judge Thomas Hogan until she cooperates with Fitzgerald or his grand jury expires in four months. Cooper is a free man. Time magazine, over his objections, surrendered his emails and notes to Fitzgerald. Still, Fitzgerald wanted Cooper to testify before the grand jury. Cooper was prepared to say no and be imprisoned. Then at the last-minute, Cooper declared that his confidential source--Rove?--had granted him a personal waiver to speak to the grand jury about his conversations with this source. But this waiver did not allow Cooper to speak in public about this source.

With the Miller and Cooper cases resolved, we will be left with no new tea leaves to read. Fitzgerald's investigation will proceed under the cloak of secrecy that covers (or is supposed to cover) all federal criminal probes. Some, of course, leak. (Remember Ken Starr?) But Fitzgerald's inquiry has been rather tight. I've had Justice Department officials tell me that they tend to hear nothing about Fitzgerald's actions. Cooper's upcoming testimony to Fitzgerald's grand jury will be confidential. So what he says--or does not say--about Rove will only become public if it leaks or if Fitzgerald ends up issuing indictments and he uses Cooper's testimony to support the indictments.

So while it's been an exciting time for anyone yearning for details about Fitzgerald's work or for anyone wishing ill for Rove, those days may be over, as the investigation, like a submarine that occasionally has to surface, dives back into the deep, dark water. Let's hope this vessel does spring a leak or two--though none that harm the career of an honest public servant or that undermine national security.

Posted by David Corn at 11:42 AM | Comments (24)
July 07, 2005
More Trouble for Rove in Plame/CIA Leak Case?

I just posted a piece at www.TheNation.com analyzing what happened at yesterday's dramatic courthouse hearing on the Plame/CIA leak case, paying particular attention to what it might mean for Karl Rove. To see the article, click here. If you've already read it, please check out the piece I also published today on Bob Novak's role in this affair and other postings below. The leak case keeps getting more and more intriguing, even as Fitzgerald, who seems to be truly interested in finding out what happened, undermines reporter-source confidentiality by chasing Judith Miller (of whom I am no fan) into the jailhouse.

P.S. There have been troubles this week with Movable Type, and these problems seem to affect the comments section. If you have not been able to post comments, please keep trying and please be patient. My wizard masters tell me that this is beyond our control (can you believe that?) and that somewhere there are some people doing some things--that I certainly do not understand--to remedy the situation. Though I have done absolutely nothing wrong, I apologize for the inconvenience and for any disappointment that may have been caused.

Posted by David Corn at 06:12 PM | Comments (73)
Novak Squealed

As Judy Miller ofThe New York Times takes up residence in a prison because she refuses to disclose a source to prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who's investigating the Plame/CIA leak, I thought it was a good time to ponder Bob Novak's apparent cooperation with Fitzgerald. Consequently, I wrote the below piece that was posted today at TomPaine.com, which I encourage you to visit regularly.

Novak Squealed
By David Corn
July 07, 2005
www.tompaine.com

As Judith Miller of The New York Times sits in jail for refusing to reveal a source to Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Bush administration leak that identified CIA officer Valerie Wilson (nee Plame), the question remains, why is Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who published the original leak, enjoying his freedom?

Not that Novak should be a target for prosecution. Under U.S. law--particularly the Intelligence Identities Protection Act--only U.S. government officials who intentionally disclose the identity of an American intelligence official are fair game for a prosecutor. The journalist to whom they leak cannot be prosecuted. This is a good thing. We do not want reporters being tossed into the hoosegow for publishing secrets obtained from the government. England has an official secrets act; we former colonists do not. (I wish more people understood the legal distinction between Novak's leakers and Novak. I receive loads of e-mails from people who indignantly ask why Fitzgerald hasn't charged Novak with a crime.) But the issue is this: While other reporters have resolved to be imprisoned to protect their sources (whether these sources deserve protection or not), what has Novak done? The obvious answer: He has squealed.

To be fair, we don't know for sure. Novak has declined to answer any questions about the investigation and his interactions with Fitzgerald. But here are two pretty solid assumptions.

1. Fitzgerald wants to know the name of the two unidentified Bush 'senior administration officials" Novak cited in his July 14, 2003, column that outed Valerie Wilson, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a White House critic. That's the whole point of his investigation.

2. Fitzgerald at some point must have asked Novak to name names. After all, he requested that Matt Cooper of Time and Miller reveal their sources. (Cooper narrowly avoided going to prison on Wednesday when his source--Karl Rove?--gave him permission to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury. Previously, Time magazine turned over his notes and e-mails to Fitzgerald.)

Fitzgerald has not slapped Novak with a subpoena. Thus, Novak in some manner, shape or form cooperated with Fitzgerald. Otherwise, he would be in the same--or similar--legal quicksand as Miller.

Novak owes it to his fellow journalists--and to his readers--to explain how he has escaped the powerful claws of prosecutor Fitzgerald. In fact, had Novak offered such an explanation prior to the final actions in the Cooper and Miller cases, it might have strengthened their legal position. But Novak elected to remain silent and adopt a protect-my-backside crouch. He has said he will "reveal all" only when the leak case is completed.

With that stance, he leaves the door wide open for speculation. So let's accept the invitation.

We've established it's likely that Novak somehow cooperated with Fitzgerald. That would mean that he disclosed to Fitzgerald the identity of these two senior Bush administration officials. Would Fitzgerald accept anything less? And that would present two possibilities: Novak either burned his sources, or he named them with their permission. (White House aides, such as Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, have signed waivers allowing reporters to testify about their conversations with them.) My guess is that it was more of the latter. I've known Novak for years; I co-hosted Crossfire with him several times. He does fancy himself a newsman, and I don't think he would be a complete rat (or risk becoming known as a complete rat) regarding the protection of sources.

So the odds are that Novak talked with the approval of his sources. Which leads us to the next question: What did he say? Fitzgerald obviously would not be satisfied with merely the names of the sources. He would want to know what these people told Novak. It's theoretically possible that Novak hung them out to dry and said something like, They told me quite clearly that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA official, and they knew they were blowing her cover. Such a statement would place Novak's sources in legal jeopardy. But would Novak, a conservative ideologue, cooperate with Fitzgerald--with the permission of his sources--knowing that he could be sending senior Bush officials to the slammer? His standing as a hero in the conservative world would certainly be diminished if that occurred. Consequently, I find such a scenario hard to believe.

That brings me to my best guess of what did happen: Novak told Fitzgerald a story that helps his sources. It went something like this:

Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald, Bush Aide X and Bush Aide Y both told me that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA and that they suspected she had sent Joseph Wilson on his now-infamous trip to Niger where he determined it was highly unlikely that Iraq had been shopping there for uranium to be used in a nuclear weapons program. But neither one of these two fine Americans told me that she was an undercover operative at the CIA. If you will again look at what I wrote, I referred to her as an "Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." I never reported she was in a secret position. In fact, the use of the word "operative"--which I suppose could connote a clandestine position but does not necessarily do so--was mine alone. These sources merely said to me she was employed at the CIA. As a newspaper columnist, I used the most evocative term I could think of at the time. I take full responsibility for that.

And to make everything neat and tidy, Bush Aide X and Bush Aide Y each essentially said the same thing to Fitzgerald:

I heard hallway chatter that Valerie Plame was at the CIA and that she had something to do with Wilson's trip to Niger. I passed this on to Novak and Time magazine. I was never aware that she was working undercover or that by sharing this gossip I would be disclosing confidential information that identified a covert official. After all, as you know, Mr. Fitzgerald, not every CIA employee is a clandestine official.

Voila. No crime. A thuggish act of political retribution that destroyed a CIA officer's career and undermined national security, yes. But no crime. The relevant law--the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--says that an offender has to "intentionally" disclose information "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies [a] covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

Ignorance can be a defense under this act. A person indicted by Fitzgerald could argue that he (or she) didn't know that Valerie Wilson was working undercover. Case in point: After Rove was recently named in media reports as one of Cooper's source, his lawyer said Rove, who has appeared before Fitzgerald's grand jury, "never knowingly disclosed classified information" (my emphasis) and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA."

If the above scenario is how things played out (or close enough), Novak could indeed defend himself by saying he was protecting his sources--protecting them from prosecution. But in such a situat