Certainly seems like Rove is now knee-deep in at least one lie, because Matt Cooper claims he learned of Wilson’s wife, but not her name, from Rove, and not the other way around. Unless I am just still groggy, Rove did claim that all he did was confirm what Cooper told him, right? I will post the transcript and commentary when I find it.
*** Update ***
And let me just add that Podesta’s feigned concern for the health of the administration falls short of credible- ‘Rove should resign because he is hurting the President…’
Patrick
At most, it seems like he said / he said, no?
Stormy70
Cooper is married to a Democratic opertive by the name of Mandy Grunwald. Somehow, I do not believe in his neutrality. I am waiting for Fitzy to show his damn cards. The rest of this is speculation. Didn’t Cooper burn Rove once? Sorry, I don’t trust the media anymore, so I’ll need more that this guy’s word.
ValC
All he did was confirm what Cooper told him? At the very least Rove should have lost his security clearance by now. I can’t believe anyone seriously thinks that’s a defense in this case.
space
Just for the record, I think it will be difficult to nail Rove under the most frequently cited statute, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Not because he didn’t have the requisite intent to “out” her, but because it will be difficult to show that he did so with the intent to harm the country.
Indeed, it would be a powerful legal defense — but political suicide — to take the stand and declare “I never meant to harm the country, I simply wanted to exact revenge on my personal enemies.” Bingo, acquitted.
Having said that, it is clear that the statute covers indirect disclosures, of which “Wilson’s wife” would certainly quallify. For instance, saying “that guy who operates the balloon-juice blog is a CIA operative” would qualify, if true, even if I didn’t use “John Cole.”
So, quibbling over whether or not Rove said her name or not is really pointless.
space
Just for the record, I think it will be difficult to nail Rove under the most frequently cited statute, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Not because he didn’t have the requisite intent to “out” her, but because it will be difficult to show that he did so with the intent to harm the country.
Indeed, it would be a powerful legal defense — but political suicide — to take the stand and declare “I never meant to harm the country, I simply wanted to exact revenge on my personal enemies.” Bingo, acquitted.
Having said that, it is clear that the statute covers indirect disclosures, of which “Wilson’s wife” would certainly quallify. For instance, saying “that guy who operates the balloon-juice blog is a CIA operative” would qualify, if true, even if I didn’t use “John Cole.”
So, quibbling over whether or not Rove said her name or not is really pointless.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Ah, I’ve been waiting for this talking point to be played. But, Stormy70, do you believe NBC’s Andrea Mitchell when she says “everyone” knew Plame worked for the CIA? Did you believe the NYT story saying Rove learned Plame’s identity from a reporter?
over it
Wow. I did not know that John was in the CIA. Cool!
;)
Stormy70
Since the Plame’s seem to be Washington party animals, with their pictures making the society pages, it would not surprise me. However, I don’t care about Andrea Mitchell. I think this is all speculation until Fitzgerald releases any info, but that hasn’t stopped the Left’s theories getting more and more far-fetched every day. Wilson has been discredited, and his wife is no more covert than I am. Was she ferrying around her toddlers while spying? She didn’t think her husband printing lies against the Administration wouldn’t flush her out as the person to send her husband to Niger? Go back and read my comments from three weeks ago. I’m tired of repeating everything for people who will never believe anything but what they hope is true. We are at an impasse until the Grand Jury is done.
The media is in this scandal up to their necks, and several have been called to testify, including Russert, so I do question their neutrality. Especially since they are pissed because one of their own is sitting in jail. Until they come clean with what they know, than why should I trust any of the media players directly involved with this scandal.
space
Regarding Cole’s update. If I had a nickel for everytime Republicans displayed disingenous concern for the Democratic party, I’d be wealthier than George Soros. So, commenting on “feigned concern” angle, I’d only note that it is less disingenous to display concern for the office of the Presidency, even if held by a political opponent, than it is to display feigned concern for the opposition paty.
sammy
Stormy – you don’t trust Cooper’s credentials due to the fact that he’s married to a “Democratic Operative.” I’m wondering if you have the same concern for every journalist with ties to a Republican organization? Or Mary Matalin? Or Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Bob
And I think the guy who bags Cooper’s groceries at the supermarket is Demo, too. Damn, they’re all around.
Stormy70
I at least know their biases, and they are not claiming neutrality, like Cooper. Like I said, these reporters are part of the story, so why is Russert the one to interview Cooper? Russert testified before the Grand Jury, why isn’t he telling us all he knows? He’s a former democratic opertaive as well, pretending to be neutral, and I do not buy it. Plus, the MSM hate this administration because they don’t pander to the media. I don’t trust the media because most are democratic hacks. Hell, Russert acts like he’s picking out china when any democrat gets on his show.
Geoff
The fact that an investigation is still ongoing is enough to debunk the above nonsense. That, and the ever-more ridiculous spin the right-wing noise machine has had going (see above for a subset) since Rove was confirmed as at least one source of information that should never have been revealed. The investigation might not turn up indictments, it all depends on how effective Rove and his partners in political payback at the cost of national security were at covering their tracks.
Stormy70
Read this. He is saying some of the same things I am about Russert.
Tim F
Hmm, Darrell made that claim and then failed to find any substance for it. Can you succeed where Darrell failed? The world waits for you, Robot Boy.
Tim F
My money says no.
Tim F
The NYT story reports that a single anonymous source claims that Rove learned of Plame’s identity from a reporter. If you want to be skeptical of the media, Robot Kid, then you have to apply your skepticism about things that you want to be true so badly that you give yourself a hernia wishing so hard.
Christie S.
Exactly. So, let’s hope Fitz gets on with it.
Halffasthero
“We are at an impasse until the Grand Jury is done”
Exactly.
Cliff
AFAIK The claim (by an anonymous lawyer / person briefed on the case) that Rove (testified that he) merely confirmed that “wilson’s wife, a cia wmd operative, sent Wilson” was in re his conversation with Novak, not Cooper.
The interesting thing to me in the Time piece is that Rove apparently said some soon-to-be-declassified info would knock down Wilson’s story’s credibility.
So here’s a hypothesis: what if the WH indeed didn’t know Plame’s NOC status? What if there was a confluence of two things here — let’s get back at these irritating CIA wmd analysts who won’t go along with us, starting with this Valerie chick; and let’s kill this Wilson story — and the State Department memo that was worked up as a result didn’t include the info that Plame was NOC, because they never bothered finding out.
At that point, they’re spreading their story about Wilson being picked by his wife, etc., while saying the info (the State Department memo) will be declassified soon…but then when they try to declassify it, they find out they *can’t*, because she is NOC. Whoopsie!
I wouldn’t put this type of bungling past these amateurs in the OSP and WHIG.
Sojourner
It’s such fun watching Stormy make this shit up and sell her soul for the Bushies. The “patriotic” right doesn’t seem to have a problem with outing CIA agents and companies fronting for the CIA. The “patriotic” right doesn’t feel the need to follow the law.
They are such funny little people.
Jon H
Hey Stormy.
Ever notice we never, ever, see the names of people Plame was working with at CIA in 2003? Or the name of her boss who sent Wilson to Niger?
There are very few people at CIA whose names ever get published. It doesn’t matter that these people work at CIA headquarters. They still protect their identities.
fishbane
and his wife is no more covert than I am.
Ah, that explains a lot. Thanks, Stormy.
Andrei
LMAO.
Cooper was prepared to go to jail for Rove as his source until his get out jail free card in the form of a general waiver signed by many in the Administration was enforced. (My guess on this by the way is that a lot of people in WH didn’t expect a “general” waiver to hold, but when reveiwed by lawyers involved, found out it probably did and that they needed to allow them to work or suffer even worse consequences later on.)
As for Miller, she reported on material very favorable for this adminsitration, with stories that supported the lead up to the war. A Pre-emptive war that so far has produced no WMDs, a war a against a dictator so threathening to us that we wiped out his army and took out his government in less than 4 weeks, and a war that was entirely mismanaged on the back-end so as to make the region more unstable than it was before we started it.
Get your head out of the sand. Start being patriotic and QUESTIONING your leaders. The most American thing you can do is to stand up and demand your government operate on the level with its people, especially when it pertains to things like PRE-EMPTIVE WAR.
It’s becoming very clear thorugh this scandal that thi administration doesn’t operate on the level with its people, even with matters like going to war. That cannot be tolerated.
We are a nation built on rebellion, questioning authority, and not cow-towing to kings and monarachies. The “rock and roll” part of sex, drugs and rock and roll. if you will. Right now, the Bush family is feeling more and more like a royal family, and people seem to be shouting God Save the King no matter what the consequnce. (And FWIW, If Hilliary wins the nomation for the Dems in 2008, we will officaly have lost all our sense of deceny as Americans. 20 years of backk and forth families fighting for control of this country is as bad as it gets. We can do better.)
In times like these, why don’t you ask yourself something more like “What would Thomas Jefferson do?”
Jon H
Here’s something interesting…
I wonder if the GOP is calculating relative values for all the players at the White House, figuring out who, if anyone, to sacrifice, in order to save others.
Will they let Libby hang, trying to save Rove? Will they let Cheney hang, in an attempt to save Rove?
It’ll be interesting to see who cuts deals and who has to go the distance.
CaseyL
This question is repeatedly asked, and the wingers repeatedly can’t answer it:
If Plame was not a covert agent within the time period covered by the laws prohibiting disclosure of covert agents’ identities, why would the CIA request a criminal investigation of the disclosure of Plame’s identity?
Any of the resident wingers want to take a crack at it? Stormy? Darrell? Rick?
Jess
“Get your head out of the sand. Start being patriotic and QUESTIONING your leaders. The most American thing you can do is to stand up and demand your government operate on the level with its people, especially when it pertains to things like PRE-EMPTIVE WAR.”
Thanks, Andrei–it’s always good to be reminded of the larger picture. This is ultimately about government accountability, the key to a successful democracy.
scs
I just want to say that I think it’s suspicious that the New York Times had no front page article on this today. I wonder if that’s because the “Rove is a criminal” story is bascially a non-story now, or at least not as big a story as once thought. The real story now is who was the original source, and it wasn’t Rove. Evidence seems to point to Colin Powell with his memo on the plane. Now that it could be Powell, no one seems to care anymore, cause the main point in this seems not to be to find out who did it, but to get Bush.
Doug
“Rove is a criminal”. That’s an awfully narrow way to look at it. It’s almost inconsequential to the political story whether or not Rove broke a law. The story is that it looks like Wilson went to Africa and found no evidence of Iraq trying to get yellowcake from Niger. It looks like he reported that back to the CIA. Bush had a claim about Nigerian yellowcake yanked from a speech he gave in Cincinnati, apparently because his fact checkers found it to be too weak a claim for the President to make. Some how, the same claim made its way back into the President’s State of the Union address. Wilson then went public calling the President’s assertions bullshit. That’s when Rove comes into the story, trying to retaliate against Wilson by going after his wife, outing a CIA agent in the process. Then the White House spends two years calling assertions of Roves’ involvement “ridiculous.”
It’s all of this stuff that has the White House in hot water. They’re getting caught behaving badly in several ways, almost the least of which is whether Rove is in technical violation of a law.
As for the New York Times handling of the issue — I can’t say, I don’t know what they have or haven’t written. But, I suspect Judith Miller’s involvement is playing a role in how the White House covers it.
Doug
Jeeze, I can’t get anything right today. I meant to say that Judith Miller’s involvement probably plays a role in how the New York Times is covering the issues.
scs
Wilson then went public calling the President’s assertions bullshit. That’s when Rove comes into the story, trying to retaliate against Wilson by going after his wife, outing a CIA agent in the process.
Wrong man. Nice try though. If you read the accounts of Novak and Pincus, another reporter from WaPo who heard about it, their ORIGINAL source was NOT Rove. It was a “non-partisan”, “senior administration official”, who is now, they hint, a FORMER official. Theories are that the original source was Colin Powell, as he was seen running around Air Force One with a memo on the topic. But anyway, we know it wasn’t Rove. Rove is not the big story here. Its the original source, whoever that is, that got all this rolling.
scs
FYI – This is my theory how it all went down that I posted in another segment below.
So Colin Powell found out about Plame on the plane after he read the memo. He told Judith Miller, Bob Novak, Pincus, and Cooper when they called him to get an update on his Africa trip. Miller called Rove and told him. Novak and Cooper called Rove to confirm and Rove admitted that he had heard the story too.
There, the story is solved.
Doug
Well, you still have Rove talking to Cooper about Plame. Unless that’s just false, the White House has a problem in that they called Rove’s involvement with Plame “totally ridiculous.” And there is still the matter of why Bush got his yellowcake statements so wrong in his State of the Union address when there was intelligence available calling his claim into grave doubt, at the very least.
JP
In times like these, why don’t you ask yourself something more like “What would Thomas Jefferson do?”
Throw up?
scs
Well maybe. I don’t know what Rove actually said in the past about what he said to reporters. I think he may technically get by as he didn’t actually say her name perhaps and didn’t perhaps know at first she was undercover. The investigation will determine whether he gets busted or not.
In terms of the yellowcake- the President said in his speech the Brits had info about an attempted purchase. And your point is? The Brits obviously thought they had info about that and STILL say they had info about that, so what’s so wrong to include that in the speech?
And don’t tell me Joe Wilson went down and disproved it. Any attempted purchase by Iraq would have been done on the down low. As nifty as Joe is, any inspections he made of the mines and any reassuring words from his government contacts down there is not any proof at all as to what was attempted to be done on the sly at the mines.
eileen from OH
The thing that infuriates me in all this discussion is the justification to Rove, Libby, et al for what they did. Wilson’s the bad guy. Plame wasn’t really undercover. Everybody knew she was CIA. It was an honest attempt to stop a false story.
Of course, all of that assumes that Rove, Libby, etc., had thought through all that themselves. Did they conclude, on their own, that it was okay to talk about a CIA agent? I’m assuming (and perhaps this is dumb) that the fact she even WORKED at the CIA, regardless of what she did, would have given them at least a teensy bit of hesitation.
OR, if you think they didn’t decide on their own, do you think they asked someone at the CIA “Hey, this Joe Wilson is a partisan hack and he lied in this report. His wife works at the CIA, right? She’s not covert or anything, right? So can we mention her, to expose this liar? We won’t mention her by name, okay? How about if we don’t start the story, but just kinda pass it along if someone asks – no names, of course?”
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or a security clearance, to know that the words “works at the CIA” is a red flag. Did they check just what that meant?
The spin from Mehlman, etc., ASSUMES that Rove and Libby went through the same thought process before they opened their mouths at all, regarding a CIA employee.
eileen from OH
Jon H
scs writes: “And don’t tell me Joe Wilson went down and disproved it”
But it wasnt just Wilson. It was Wilson and a couple other people. If I recall correctly, there was a general, and a State Dept. person. Who said the same thing Wilson did.
JH
I think John was groggy because Cooper told Russert that he called Scooter Libby in the VP’s office and mentioned Plame to him. According to Cooper, Libby said “I heard about that too.” According to the anonymous “lawyer briefed on the matter”, Rove claims that he was informed about Plame by Novak several days (I believe July 8th) before Cooper called him on July 11, 2003. In his memo, Cooper said that Rove told him Wilson’s wife was behinf him going to Niger. As far as we know, Rove that is what Rove told investigators. As far as I know Rove has yet to comment on Cooper’s memo.
scs
You all are missing the point. Rove was not the origianl source! An unnamed admistration official, not Rove, was the first source. Shouldn’t that guy get most of the blame?
CaseyL
scs: Assuming there is indeed such as person as “an original source that isn’t Rove” (and I’d like more than Rove’s unsupported word on that one, thanks), it was *Rove* on the phone to Novak and Cooper and whoever the other 4 reporters were that the story was shopped to.
And, as Tim Russert and Bob Schieffer pointed out on today’s talkshows, Rove had no business shooting off his mouth in any case:
“SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not…confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure….So by confirming a story from Robert Novak or sharing information with Matt Cooper, no matter where it came from, if, in fact, it was classified information, without seeking to determine whether it was declassified, it is an unauthorized disclosure.”
In other words, it doesn’t matter where Rove got the info*. What matters is that he told other people.
*Though, yes, if there was some other senior Administration official who started the ball rolling, so should their head, along with Rove’s.
Problem is, that unnamed “other source” could be… well, there’s a limited number of people it could be, who are 1) senior enough to have the info, 2) senior enough to have access to Rove, and 3) arrogant enough to not care if they out a covert agent. Who could that be? Dick Cheney, maybe? Or Scooter Libby, Cheney’s Chief of Staff?
I hardly think finding out that the leak originated with the Veep or the Veep’s Chief of Staff can be considered an improvement over it originating with Rove.
scs
Well Caseyl, you have to go back and follow the info for this. To repeat, NOVAK said he had another source FIRST, before Rove. Pincus from the Washington Post said he had another source besides Rove. On the other hand, I just read that Cooper said Rove told him first, although I read before that Rove said he just confirmed what Cooper already knew. Rove said he heard it first from a reporter – Judith Miller, perhaps. The original source, according to Novak, is a non-partisan senior admin official – hence not Libby. My theory is its Powell. If Rove was just a link in a chain of info that many knew, thanks to the original source, I still don’t think he should get the blame yet. We need to find out more about the original source first.
Phil Smith
Getting the right guy is an improvement. None of us knows who that is at this point.
I’ve made no bones about it, that’s all I want out of this. I want to know who burned a CIA asset and why. I want them punished to the full extent of the law. I’m just trying to figure out if that’s Rove, Libby, Rove and Libby, or somebody else.