[quote]vroom wrote:
Sasquatch, because it refers to a joint session, perhaps it is a typo from where the speech was posted? I certainly don’t know.
…
Here is a quote from a blog (similar in spirit to the quotes Boston brings us):
We now know that Karl Rove disclosed Plame’s status to at least two reporters, contradicting two year old White House denials that Karl Rove had “no involvement” in the leak. [/quote]
To borrow from the Dan Rather and from Bill Clinton, that may be “true but not accurate.” It all depends on your definitions: disclose, leak, confirm, etc.
This is new to me. When did we find out Fleischer had the memo, and when did we confirm Rove was the person who confirmed to Novak? Either there is new info, or both of these are wrong.
“Yeah I heard that too.”
This may be true, but isn’t at issue. The fact at issue was whether Plame fit under the statutory definition of “undercover operative,” which I still don’t believe she does.
This is wrong. See my two or three posts previously on this.
PLAMEGATE UPDATE [John Podhoretz]
Okay, this is getting complicated in exactly the way that attempting to study a tempest in a teapot is complicated – because it’s so small. Scooter Libby says he learned of Valerie Plame’s identity from Tim Russert. Evidently, Russert told the special prosecutor he did not reveal Valerie Plame’s name to Scooter Libby
Is somebody lying? Maybe – but on the other hand maybe there’s a lot of weaseling going on here and some of it is Tim Russert’s. Knowing as his lawyer must have that the criminally dangerous portion of the statute being invoked requires the actual use of Plame’s name, maybe Russert told the special prosecutor he didn’t use the NAME. “Joe Wilson’s wife” is not Valerie Plame’s name. In addition, if both men used the “to the best of my recollection” terminology when talking before the grand jury, then there will be no way to reconcile these details.
You can’t indict one person for perjury in a two-way conversation if their testimony conflicts – I mean, I guess you could, but you could never make the case stick without independent confirmation.
Libby is a high-powered Washington lawyer of long-standing who has dealt with highly complicated negotiations with federal prosecutors. Forget questions of integrity, though I believe there’s no reason to doubt his integrity. I just don’t see how he would destroy his life and career by committing perjury so blatantly, which would not only expose him to jail but also to disbarment and an inability to support himself for the rest of his life.
Here’s the thing: Government officials are panicked about getting caught out perjuring themselves because they get courses on it and know people who have been thrown into the hoosegow for it. Scooter Libby saw friends and colleagues sucked into special-prosecutor investigations throughout the 1980s, and knows what a living hell that could be.
Journalists, by contrast, are far less likely to imagine that they might find themselves cross-wise of a grand jury, and therefore far more likely to be innocently loose-lipped. I’m not saying Russert did anything wrong, because I still think there was no crime committed here. But the presumption that he would have spoken the absolute truth before a grand jury and Scooter Libby would have dissimulated doesn’t necessarily jibe with the truth.
Posted at 09:16 AM
Until someone explains the purpose of even discussing Wilson with journalists after the CIA and state department debunked the Niger claims then anyone defending the GOP on this one is willfully being dishonest.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
This may be true, but isn’t at issue. The fact at issue was whether Plame fit under the statutory definition of “undercover operative,” which I still don’t believe she does.[/quote]
Uh, I am willing to bet money that you have neither a security clearance nor sit on this grand jury so your opinion means $h!t.
Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in a 2003 phone call that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues, according to an account by Cooper in the magazine. Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency, but has said through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.
In July 2003, Robert Novak, citing unnamed administration officials, identified Plame by name in his syndicated column and wrote that she worked for the CIA. The column has led to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame’s undercover identity. New York Times reporter Judith Miller ? who never wrote a story about Plame ? has been jailed for refusing to testify.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
This may be true, but isn’t at issue. The fact at issue was whether Plame fit under the statutory definition of “undercover operative,” which I still don’t believe she does.
Marmadogg wrote:
Uh, I am willing to bet money that you have neither a security clearance nor sit on this grand jury so your opinion means $h!t.
I have one word for you…
chewbacca[/quote]
I have one word to address most of your recent posts on this thread: So?
Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in a 2003 phone call that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues, according to an account by Cooper in the magazine. Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency, but has said through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.
In July 2003, Robert Novak, citing unnamed administration officials, identified Plame by name in his syndicated column and wrote that she worked for the CIA. The column has led to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame’s undercover identity. New York Times reporter Judith Miller ? who never wrote a story about Plame ? has been jailed for refusing to testify.[/quote]
vroom,
I must admit that I don’t quite see what you’re getting at with what you bolded.
If you’re referencing the dispute between Libby and Russert, I think it’s immaterial to Novak’s source – as far as I can tell from all this, that’s a separate tempest in a separate teacup. A little mini-tempest in an espresso cup I guess…
If you’re referencing back to the interesting theory that the leaker could be from the State Department, I’d remind you that “the Administration” is often used for shorthand for anyone in the executive branch, especially at the appointee level, so I don’t think it’s applicable there either.
If you’re referencing something else, please explain.
BostonBarrister wrote:
This may be true, but isn’t at issue. The fact at issue was whether Plame fit under the statutory definition of “undercover operative,” which I still don’t believe she does.
Marmadogg wrote:
Uh, I am willing to bet money that you have neither a security clearance nor sit on this grand jury so your opinion means $h!t.
I have one word for you…
chewbacca
I have one word to address most of your recent posts on this thread: So?[/quote]
The caricature you portray in the “Politics and World Issues” board would be rip roaring funny if that was your design.
Why do you bother sticking up for politicans that you are neither related to nor even know that you exist?
With all your education you refuse to be honest with even yourself and look at this situation objectively.
BostonBarrister wrote:
This may be true, but isn’t at issue. The fact at issue was whether Plame fit under the statutory definition of “undercover operative,” which I still don’t believe she does.
Marmadogg wrote:
Uh, I am willing to bet money that you have neither a security clearance nor sit on this grand jury so your opinion means $h!t.
I have one word for you…
chewbacca
I have one word to address most of your recent posts on this thread: So?
The caricature you portray in the “Politics and World Issues” board would be rip roaring funny if that was your design.
Why do you bother sticking up for politicans that you are neither related to nor even know that you exist?
With all your education you refuse to be honest with even yourself and look at this situation objectively.
Spin, spin, spin, deflect, deflect, deflect…
It is sad at this point really.
Ignorance kills.
[/quote]
I suppose that because our form of government is premised on the populace keeping itself informed and making decisions for itself isn’t much of a reason, as far as you’re concerned.
And obviously you don’t wish to discuss facts or probabilities, or much care about the whole thing. Why bother with those pesky sorts of things when you can just say “Spin spin spin” and they are removed from your brain. For me, I just like to be informed and figure stuff out. While I’ll grant that it’s much more fun to quote South Park (a truly great show), constantly repeating yourself doesn’t add much overall, except to the impression that you’ve blown a circuit or OD’d on meds.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I suppose that because our form of government is premised on the populace keeping itself informed and making decisions for itself isn’t much of a reason, as far as you’re concerned.
And obviously you don’t wish to discuss facts or probabilities, or much care about the whole thing. Why bother with those pesky sorts of things when you can just say “Spin spin spin” and they are removed from your brain. For me, I just like to be informed and figure stuff out. While I’ll grant that it’s much more fun to quote South Park (a truly great show), constantly repeating yourself doesn’t add much overall, except to the impression that you’ve blown a circuit or OD’d on meds.
[/quote]
ROTFLMFAO!
FYI - The reason Gonzales was not nominated just came out this weekend.
He was my horse for the vacant SCOTUS spot.
Oh well…this ‘conspiracy’ not only knocked Gonzo out of the box but Bolton is deader than a door nail because he lied on his Senate confirmation questionaire.
This is getting juicier by the second.
The coverup is worse than the crime…it depends on who you ask.
I’m getting a lot of angry email from people about the Plame stuff. Here’s the basic problem. The “left” – to use a convenient label – takes it as a given that Plame was outed with the specific intent at least to punish and intimidate Joe Wilson and at most to put Plame’s life in danger. The “right” takes it as a given that Plame was outed in order to cast light on Joe Wilson’s credibility or lack thereof – probably inadvertantly and without knowledge of her status. The problem is that, as of right now, neither of these positions are provable. I am pretty convinced of the “right” position, just as Josh Marshall & Co. are convinced of the “left” position.
But the problem with so much of my angry email is that my correspondents take it as a given that I agree with their assumptions. “You’re willing to defend anything this administration does!” shriek many. No, I can think of lots of things this administration has done I’m unwilling to defend. “You think it’s okay to out covert operatives during a war to punish political opponents!” Again, no: I don’t think that’s okay at all. I just don’t believe that was what happened. If that did happen, if Karl Rove or Mary Matalin or Scooter Libby in any way intended to have Plame harmed in order to shut up Wilson, I think that would be very, very bad. But I don’t think that happened, and all of these people calling me a partisan hack could at least take that into account when they sputter their e-spittle at me.
When you think about it, this dynamic explains most of the really nasty partisan spats in Washington. The anti-Clinton crowd often believed that the left really agreed with the right about the underlying crimes and lies but was willing to forgive them for expediency’s sake. Today, the anti-Bush crowd thinks all conservatives really secretly accept that Bush is a stupid liar but we’re unwilling to admit it because we’re partisan power-worshippers. The reality is that most – certainly not all – ideologues and even a majority of partisans argue in good faith most of the time. And both sides would be better served if they understood that.
Either you have access to better info than I do, or you assume far too much – at least if this is what you’re referencing concerning Gonzalez is merely Joe Biden’s questioning him on his handing this investigation over to a special prosecutor, which is all I’ve heard.
ADDENDUM
Ah, now I see. Some more fantastic allegations have been raised – that Gozalez was part of a cover-up effort…
Hmm…
This writer, at least, doesn’t think that’s very likely, given the timeline of the publicity of the story:
From Dusk 'Til Dawn
We are still on the Plame leak case - the WaPo makes a bigger deal than necessary of then-White House Counsel Gonzalez’s decision to notify Chief of Staff Andrew Card immediately about a criminal probe into the affair by the Justice Dept., and then waiting twelve hours to notify the rest of the staff ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401058.html ):
[i]Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday that he spoke with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. immediately after learning that the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity. But Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, waited 12 hours before officially notifying the rest of the staff of the inquiry.
…
In the New York Times yesterday, columnist Frank Rich cited news reports from 2003 that when Gonzales was notified about the investigation on the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, he waited 12 hours before telling the White House staff about the inquiry. Official notification to staff is meant to quickly alert anyone who may have pertinent records to make sure they are preserved and safeguarded.
Asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about the column, Gonzales said the Justice Department had informed his office around 8 p.m. and that White House lawyers said he could wait until the next morning before notifying the staff. He did not say why he called Card.
“I specifically had our lawyers go back to the Department of Justice lawyers and ask them, ‘Do you want us to notify the staff now, immediately, or would it be okay to notify the staff early in the morning?’ And we were advised, go ahead and notify the staff early in the morning, that would be okay.” He said most of the staff had left by the time the Justice Department called and that “no one knew about the investigation.”
But he acknowledged telling one person: “the chief of staff. And immediately the next morning, I told the president. And shortly thereafter, there was notification sent out to all the members of the White House staff,” Gonzales said. [/i]
Inquiring minds have wondered why the Justice Dept waited until the evening of the 28th to tell Gonzalez the obvious, but any criminal conspirators had plenty of warning.
And my second point is really a question - is forewarned forearmed in this case? Just what might an evil conspirator do with a twelve hour head start (which was really a head start going back to July?) E-mails, for example, are protected by a Federal records law; I imagine that other White House documents are similarly protected. I suppose personal diaries could be scrubbed, but, post-Whitewater, every staffer in Washington knows that might be subpoenaed.
It would have been helpful for the WaPo reporter to flesh out the implications of a twelve hour gap; if we can believe Gonzalez, the Justice Dept. was unworried, and I am not sure why they should have been.
During the last two media cycles, the press has begun devoting more attention to the sketchy 12 hour gap. There is the appropriate speculation that the Bush White House may have ramped up their cover-up efforts during the 12 hour gap. Speculation that there may have been a Midnight Massacre of evidence.
Frank Rich says:
As White House counsel, [Alberto Gonzales] was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson?s wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must “preserve all materials” relevant to the investigation.
Think Progress relays:
On CBS’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer noted that this time gap would have “give[n] people time to shred documents and do any number of things.” Gonzales argued that he asked for and received permission from the Justice Department to wait until the next morning to order White House staff to preserve all documents regarding their contacts with journalists about Valerie Plame.
Given that the Bush White House is now stonewalling the AP when asked “whether Card passed that information to top Bush aide Karl Rove or anyone else”, I think it is safe to assume that the Bush White House took full advantage of a 12 hour window before they would officially be told to preserve the evidence.
So how much information could have been shredding in a Midnight Massacre? Well, it depends upon the shredding equipment. We compared four different shredders to estimate the volume of information that could have been destroyed during the 12 hour gap.
InnoDesk Paper Shredder
This light-weight, battery-powered personal shredder is a compact and even features a strap.
While this shredder is the “perfect size to shred receipts or other personal items at home or when traveling” ? it does not offer a cross-cut so it probably lacks the security necessary to work in the White House (where everyone but the senior Bush Administration staff takes security very seriously).
Ativa X1800
This is a solid shredder with extra heavy-duty features that allow the Ativa X1800 to even shred CDs. For added security, it shreds paper into confetti-style bits with its cross-cut mechanism.
It can hold 18 sheets per pass and shred 7 feet per minute, making it suitable for minor cover-ups but it is probably not of the quality necessary for a Republican Administration.
Fellows 480C
This is the type of high capacity business shredder you would expect to see in a place such as the White House. It shreds 24 sheets at a time and is powerful enough to shred staples and even paper clips.
For users engaging in a conspiracy to destroy evidence, it offers a “continuous-duty motor” which can shred 30 feet a minute. The specs on the Fellows480C say it can shred 10,000 pages per day, or at least 5,000 pages during the 12 hour gap.
GBC 606X
This is the type of shredder you expect a guy like Karl Rove to own. The GPC6060X boasts a 43-gallon collection bin, a 16" throat and “shreds up to 20,000 pages per day” on continuous duty.
A single GBC 6060X could have shredded 20 reams of paper during the 12 hour gap due to the 25’ per minute shredding speed. For all-nighters, it features an “exclusive in-cabinet basket jog-foot pedal” which compacts shreds to allow for longer shredding time between bag changes. Again, a single GBC 6060X could have shredded 10,000 pages that night.
–
P.S. Pittbulll, it works both ways buddy, I wouldn’t be slamming people if they weren’t hammering on me. Seems like fair is fair to me.
This provides some interesting fodder for conversation:
Steal This Headline!
The last month’s excitement in the Plame investigation has left all sorts of Loose Ends and Stories Unpursued. With a slow news month looming before us, enterprising journalists (and bloggers!) might be able to turn some of the following ideas into bylines. Here we go:
"Russert - “I Told Libby About Plame”: Ok, why would Tim Russert let a rival reporter break this news? Good question. Maybe he would like to avoid the awkwardness of outing himself on his own show; maybe no one ever cared enough to ask. (Maybe it’s not true - let’s find out).
In any case, Russert let NBC release a weaselly denial after he testified to Fitzgerald under circumstances that caught the imagination of Adam Liptak of the Times:
[i]Mr. Russert's testimony last August provides intriguing clues. A statement issued by NBC at the time suggests that Mr. Libby had told Mr. Fitzgerald that he had heard about Ms. Wilson from Mr. Russert.
According to the statement, lawyers for Mr. Russert and Mr. Fitzgerald reached an agreement under which Mr. Fitzgerald questioned Mr. Russert only about Mr. Russert's end of a conversation in early July 2003 with Mr. Libby. That would be an unusual way to go about pursuing a leak inquiry, but it is consistent with an attempt to try to establish that Mr. Russert provided information to Mr. Libby.
Mr. Russert, however, according to the NBC statement, said "he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a C.I.A. operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby." Indeed, the statement said, Mr. Russert first learned the information from Mr. Novak's column.
A spokeswoman for NBC declined to elaborate on the statement yesterday.[/i]
“He did not know her name?” And he didn’t call her an operative. Well, that covers it!
Mr. Russert was virtually speechless two weeks ago when the subject arose on his own show ( MSN )- maybe a reporter could pry a story out of him.
“Joe Wilson Interviewed By Fitzgerald”: the case can be made that Joe Wilson has been interviewed by Fitzgerald’s investigators. Well - did the investigators ask about the forgeries that baffled the Senate? ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html?referrer=emailarticle ) Or, for our friends on the left, was Wilson able to infer any targets of the investigation?
And why do we think that Wilson has chatted with Fitzgerald’s people? Elementary - per the WaPo ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069_pf.html ), Fitzgerald has taken testimony from a fellow mentioned (but not named) in Wilson’s book. Presumably, Fitzgerald would want confirmation of the person’s identity and a contemporaneous account from Wilson. It appears that Wilson spoke to the WaPo for their story, so he is not incommunicado.
And a side note - in the WaPo, it says that “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.” And no doubt he did. But in his book, Wilson quoted Novak as saying “Wilson’s an asshole. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She’s a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him”.
Hmm - “sent” is not as strong as “arranged”, especially following the broad “The CIA sent him”. And where is the word “operative”, which appeared in Novak’s column? ( Robert Novak: Biography and Latest Articles )
Lots of questions for Mr. Wilson, if anyone cares to ask.
While on the subject of Joe Wilson’s secret friend, here is another possible headline - “Eason Jordan, formerly of CNN, Cooperated With Fitzgerald’s Investigation”. Again, we are guessing, but in Wilson’s book ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/078671378X/ref=sib_rdr_toc/002-1434820-0568041?_encoding=UTF8&p=S00D&j=0#reader-page ), he says that after he learned from his friend that Novak was contemplating a column mentioning his wife, he called Eason Jordan of CNN (Novak’s “titular boss”) to urge Mr. Jordan to dissuade Novak. My strong impression is that Special Counsel Fitzgerald is running down every detail, so what did he ask Mr. Jordan, and how would Mr. Jordan characterize his chat with the investigators?
It is similar in theme to the Eason Jordan story, but different versions of this headline might capture attention: [Well Known Reporter] Cooperated With Plame Investigation. How many reporters have given evidence? Good question - let’s watch the NY Times puzzle with it:
Adam Liptak, July 16:
[i]Four reporters have testified in the investigation: Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, Tim Russert of NBC News and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.[/i]
Mr. Liptak notes that Novak’s status is not known, and that Judy Miller is in jail for civil contempt.
Anne Kornblut, July 27:
[i]Few if any reporters who traveled with Mr. Fleischer, Mr. Bartlett and the White House entourage that week have been called to testify before the grand jury.[/i]
Douglas Jehl, July 28
[i]In addition to Mr. Pincus, the [b]reporters known to have been pursued by the special prosecutor[/b] include Mr. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003, was the first to identify Ms. Wilson, by her maiden name, Valerie Plame; Mr. Cooper, who testified before a grand jury on the matter earlier this month; Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief of NBC News, and who was interviewed by the prosecutor last year; Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic reporter for The Post, who was also interviewed last year, and Judith Miller of The New York Times, who is now in jail for refusing to testify about the matter. It is not known whether Mr. Novak has testified or been interviewed on the matter.[/i]
Emphasis added - evidently, the Times has become less certain of this point over the last two weeks.
So, what other reporters might have caught the attention of the Special Counsel? Per this list from Newsday from March 2004 ( JustOneMinute: VPW - Newsday On WH Subpoenas ), we see quite a few names that appeared in the White House phone logs. Now, an entry in the phone logs does not mean a conversation occurred - sometimes it is just a message that the reporter called, but the person at the White House end never calls back. However, this seems like the sort of detail Fitzgerald would want to verify. Consequently, all of these reporters should have been contacted by investigators - have they been (or has no one asked?)?
[i]I had been told that [Ms. Plame was a CIA operative] ? but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of. [/i]
It may well be that insiders were well aware of her employment at the CIA. However, almost two years have passed and none of these insiders have come forward to say so. If Mr. May could amplify or clarify his anecdote, there is no time like the present.
Finally, “Former CIA Spokesman Documents Warning To Novak”: Bill Harlow, former CIA spokesperson, warned Novak not to publish information about Ms. Plame when Novak checked with the CIA in July 2003 ( http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/08/novak_is_back.html ). Ahh, but how forcefully did he warn him, and why did Novak ignore him?
We don’t know, but we know this - Wilson claims, again, in his book, that his wife alerted the CIA press office after the secret friend talked with Novak on July 8.
We also know that in a typical bureaucracy, a monumental miscommunication of this magnitude - nationally syndicated columnist ignores CIA press officer and outs covert agent - would have resulted in some internal soul searching, which would have led to memos or minutes with themes of “What Went Wrong” and “How We Will Improve”.
However, we have no doubt that, if the CIA was as agitated in July 2003 as Mr. Harlow describes it to have been, there will be plenty of evidence to document it. Someone ought to ask him about that.
OK, lots to do while we sit and wait for Novak (or Pincus, or Libby, or Rove, or Tenet) to have their Perry Mason moment, break down in tears, and confess.
[i]There is a procedure to follow if the spokesman or anyone from the public affairs dept (or whatever the CIA calls it) is asked to confirm any information involving someone's employment by the CIA. He must immediately check the status of that individual. If he doesn't, or if he does and the employee is undercover, he is to neither confirm or deny that information.
Harlow confirmed that Valery worked at the CIA. THEN he looked up her status. He blew it.
At that point all he could do is request that Novak not print, but the horse was already out of the barn.[/i]
Well, if the CIA press office really did get a heads-up from Ms. Plame about Novak on July 8 (and why would Wilson be wrong about this?), then Harlow has no excuse at all for not having apprised himself of Ms. Plame’s status prior to speaking with Novak.
However, I still say the barn door could have been re-locked simply by calling Novak’s editor.
1) Russert's misdirection play? Maguire notes that, on close inspection, the denial NBC put out about Tim Russert's possibly Plame-related conversation with Cheney aide "Scooter" Libby was kind of ... weasely and Clintonian!
Mr. Russert, however, according to the NBC statement, said [i]"he did not know Ms. Plame's [b]name[/b] or that she was a C.I.A. [b]operative[/b] and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby."[/i] Indeed, the statement said, Mr. Russert first learned the information from Mr. Novak's column.--NYT, 7/16/05 ( http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/politics/16reporters.html?ex=1279166400&en=0c7795306caf3283&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss ) [Weasel highlights added]
Under this too-precise denial, Russert might still have told Libby "You know his wife works for the CIA." Not that there would have been anything wrong with that!
(I’m assuming Russert didn’t know she was an undercover agent, which most CIA employees are not.) Indeed, I don’t see how you could not bring this up if you knew it and found yourself talking to Libby about Wilson’s CIA-sponsored trip to Niger. It’s the logical gossip to mention. But if that’s what happened, why would Russert pretend to deny it? … Sydney Schanberg has called on Russert to tell the public the truth ( http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0531,schanberg,66449,6.html ) (after all, there’s a big controversy over whether Bush aides like Libby found out about Plame from reporters like Russert or from classified documents).
What I hadn’t realized is that Russert may have gone beyond simply remaining silent and actually misdirected the public, allowing NBC to suggest, with its Luskinesque denial, that he didn’t tell Libby anything about Plame. …
2) The secret friend: Did you know that, according to Joseph Wilson*, the CIA press operation knew that columnist Robert Novak might "out" Valerie Plame several days before Novak published his column--and possibly even before CIA spokesman Bill Harlow took Novak's call ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069_pf.html ) and ineffectually attempted to dissuade him from identifying her? How did the CIA know? Because--in a bizarre Watergate-quality incident inadequately chronicled in the MSM--Wilson's "secret friend" had confronted Novak on the street, found out what Novak knew, and Plame herself subsequently "alerted the CIA press office," according to Maguire.
Given this heads up, why didn’t the CIA take more “affirmative measures” to protect Plame’s cover, if it was such a big deal? Measures like having George Tenet call Novak ( Robert Novak: Biography and Latest Articles )? Or was Tenet already talking to Novak …? (Novak’s original source has yet to be revealed, remember.)
*–admittedly, not a take-it-to-the-bank character. 11:07 A.M.
I never claimed that the grand jury could prove Rove is guilty of outing Plame but perjury and/or obstruction are real.
Patrick Fitzgerald is famous for indicting on perjury and/or obstruction.
BB’s panties are in a twist because he honestly things the GOP cares about him…lol.
Fitz will get pulled off of this case as Democrats in Illinois are just as sick of him as Republicans in DC are.
Watch the President replace him in September.
A logical/rational person would expect the MSM to blow that up but they will not as the journalists and editors like their 6 figure salaries and cushy lifestyles. I can not blame them because I would sit on my hands if I were them too.
If there are any guilty parties, I’m sure some behind the scenes sweatheart deal or applied leverage would easily have things slide…
And yes, I trust all politicians this much, not just the Bush administration. Are there truly people of character out there that simply believe in and do what is right even if it implies some personal risk?
[i]NEW YORK - Robert Novak, whose revelation of a CIA officer’s name in a 2003 column has sparked a federal probe, was suspended by CNN after he swore and walked off the set during a live taping of “Inside Politics.”
CNN correspondent Ed Henry said afterward that he had been about to ask Novak about his role in the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity, which the columnist has repeatedly refused to comment on.
The incident occurred Thursday as Novak and Democratic operative James Carville were handicapping the Senate candidacy of former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Novak said the opposition of the Republican establishment in Florida might not be fatal for her.
“Let me just finish, James, please,” Novak continued. “I know you hate to hear me, but you have to.”
Carville, addressing the camera, said: “He’s got to show these right wingers that he’s got a backbone, you know. It’s why The Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em that you’re tough.”
“Well, I think that’s bull---- and I hate that,” Novak replied. “Just let it go.”
As moderator Henry stepped in to ask Carville a question, Novak walked off the set.
A CNN spokeswoman, Edie Emery, called Novak’s behavior “inexcusable and unacceptable.” Novak apologized to CNN, and CNN was apologizing to viewers, she said.
“We’ve asked Mr. Novak to take some time off,” she said.[/i]