The Plame Leak Timeline

[academic punk]

Interesting theory, that makes good sense (unless I'm missing some piece of the puzzle):

1 - Rove tells Miller about Plame, committing the only POTENTIALLY clear crime in this matter.
2 - Miller tells Novak (and perhaps Cooper) about Plame's identity, but not how she learned of it. She does not print an article, lest she create a direct link back to Rove.
3 - Novak contacts the administration (say Rove and Libby) to confirm Plame's identity. As Novak brings it to Rove, Rove can claim it is already public knowledge. (This serves as the basis for Rove contacting Chris Matthews to say Plame is "fair game.")
4 - Like Novak, Cooper contacts Rove to confirm the Plame info he learned from Miller. Cooper initially chooses not to publish Plame's identity.
5 - Novak writes the article outing Plame. He arguably commits no crime, as he will contend - based on Miller's knowledge - that Plame's identity was already in the public domain.
6 - Cooper writes about Plame's outing.
7 - When Cooper and Miller are pressed by Fitzgerald to reveal their sources and testify, Rove releases Cooper, but not Miller, to identify his source. Rove can claim, probably accurately, that he only confirmed Plame's identity to Cooper, who already knew of it.
8 - Miller, loyal to the administration, is willing to go to jail to protect Rove and conceal evidence of the only demonstrable crime.

Far fetched?

[steve]

Not at all.
That's what I think too.

[LoungeMachine]

Matt Cooper's Source
What Karl Rove told Time magazine's reporter.


By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek


July 18 issue - It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.



Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute "personal consent" from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. Another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, refused to identify her source and chose to go to jail instead.

For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

The controversy arose when Wilson wrote an op-ed column in The New York Times saying that he had been sent by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate charges that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson said he had found no evidence to support the claim. Wilson's column was an early attack on the evidence used by the Bush administration to justify going to war in Iraq. The White House wished to discredit Wilson and his attacks. The question for the prosecutor is whether someone in the administration, in an effort to undermine Wilson's credibility, intentionally revealed the covert identity of his wife.

CONTINUED

[LoungeMachine]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek/

Read the whole story here.

[steve]

The problem is, Rove TECHNICALLY probably didn't out Plame - he "hinted" to some underling that so-and-so's wife is undercover CIA...then said patsy told Time and the Judith Miller.

Said underling/patsy is a low-level White House employee, perhaps only an intern, and Judith Miller would feel bad about outing this nobody.

Meanwhile, not only did we lose a loyal, valuable employee in the war on terror, but her and her family's personal safety has been jeopordised.

[steve]

What doesn't make sense in this whole thing, though is the reporters using the confidentiality argument.

In most cases X reporter receives a tip from Y confidential source, and protects Y because of retribution for being a whistleblower...REPORTING a crime.

In this case, X reporter receives a CRIME (witnesses Y source commit crime), and protects Y because of retribution for COMMITTING a crime.

Am I missing something??

[steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/10/AR2005071001000.html

Rove Told Reporter of Plame's Role But Didn't Name Her, Attorney Says

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 11, 2005; Page A01

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove's lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name.

Rove had a short conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, three days before Robert D. Novak publicly exposed Plame in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson had come under attack from the White House for his assertions that he found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that he reported those findings to top administration officials. Wilson publicly accused the administration of leaking his wife's identity as a means of retaliation.

The leak of Plame's name to the news media spawned a federal grand jury investigation that has been seeking to find the origin of the disclosure. Cooper avoided jail time last week by agreeing to testify before the grand jury about conversations with his sources, while New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to discuss her confidential sources.

To be considered a violation of the law, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that the government was actively concealing the covert agent's identity.

Cooper, according to an internal Time e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine, spoke with Rove before Novak's column was published. In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a "big warning" that Wilson's assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip," according to a story in Newsweek's July 18 issue.

Rove's conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.

Although the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm.

Instead, Luskin said, Rove discussed the matter -- under the cloak of secrecy -- with Cooper at the tail end of a conversation about a different issue. Cooper had called Rove to discuss other matters on a Friday before deadline, and the topic of Wilson came up briefly. Luskin said Cooper raised the question.

"Rove did not mention her name to Cooper," Luskin said. "This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."

In particular, Rove was urging caution because then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was about to issue a statement regarding Iraq's alleged interest in African uranium and its inaccurate inclusion in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet took the blame for allowing a misleading paragraph into the speech, but Tenet also said that the president, vice president and other senior officials were never briefed on Wilson's report.

After the investigation into the leak began, Luskin said, Rove signed a waiver in December 2003 or January 2004 authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had previously engaged in discussion, which included Cooper.

"His written waiver included the world," Luskin said. "It was intended to be a global waiver. . . . He wants to make sure that the special prosecutor has everyone's evidence. That reflects someone who has nothing to hide."

Cooper had indicated he would go to jail rather than expose a confidential source, but he agreed last week to cooperate with the grand jury after getting clearance from his source to testify. Luskin said Cooper had been clear to testify all along -- because of the waiver signed 18 months ago -- but that the waiver was "reaffirmed" on Wednesday, the day of a hearing to decide whether he and Miller would go to jail.

[steve]

There seem to be REALLY high standards for committing treason these days...
if this is true, apparently you can say anything about an undercover CIA agent...just not their name.
Organisation.
job description.
husband.
job assignment...

just not the name

[Nickdfresh]

ROVE's been getting away with treason for ages now since he has many fucktwit enablers...I guess the end justifys the means, even if the ends are not in one's best interests.

[academic punk]

It's insane that Rove did this, whatever word choice he employed.

Why?

In the interests of national security, do we really want Plame and her husband to bear ill will towards the country that they served? Who knows what secrets they know that they might be coerced into telling some other nation about?

And this whole thing with Fitzgerald having such difficulty getting the full story is crazy. The Patriot Act permits the govt to look into our bank, library, and personal records without our knowledge or permission, but these people can live outsdie that and not comply with the investigation?

Let them rot.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by academic punk
Let them rot.

How about instead they just run the entire world for awhile longer? :(

[academic punk]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
How about instead they just run the entire world for awhile longer? :(


Maybe, maybe not...

here's the latest:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/11/cia.leaks.ap/index.html

[Guitar Shark]

Bush will find some way to explain away Rove's actions. Rove is too powerful and Bush will be loyal to him, no matter how bad it gets.

[steve]

The only good that is coming out of this, IT SEEMS, is that a malicious action is FINALLY sticking to these teflonites and the media and the public has latched on to a worthy story for the first time since 9/11.

In this time of sensationalism, the story isn't yet going the way of the Dodo. I'm surprised.

Perhaps it's because it's something more concrete than the administration's other wrongdoings (like the WMD intelligence data manipulation...which is pretty apparent, but get's lost in people's minds as a "bunch of paperwork" and trumped by the idea that "it was worth it to lie to save the world from a monster", etc.)

Here you have something that straddles partisan politics and is BOTH sensational and newsworthy at the same time.

[academic punk]

Today's "update" substaniates the theory I presented at the origin of this post.

But bear this in mind: whatever else happened, when this all started Rove chose his words carefully and definitely allowed the impression that he had nothing to do with this exist. MILLIONS of dollars later, and this thing has snowballed, and suddenly it's revealed he DID in fact play an active role. That in itself, whether or not it's "illegal", is manipulative and unethical.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by academic punk
Today's "update" substaniates the theory I presented at the origin of this post.

But bear this in mind: whatever else happened, when this all started Rove chose his words carefully and definitely allowed the impression that he had nothing to do with this exist. MILLIONS of dollars later, and this thing has snowballed, and suddenly it's revealed he DID in fact play an active role. That in itself, whether or not it's "illegal", is manipulative and unethical.

I totally agree!
Though i am not convinced he did violate the law as it is written down, his actions in my opinion were indeed unethical.

But so is the attack on him by the left without the investigation being complete.
I say this because both Rove and Wilson/Plame defenders have motivations to harm the other, none of them what i call fair or realistic.

I don't know, nor can i tell from all the bickering, who did what for sure.
But i do think that Rove should lose his Security Clearance until this investigation is complete.

I actually think he should be fired just for ethics violations alone.
But nobody cares what I think about it i'm sure.

[thome]

My aproach to this story is the correct one.the reporter is the crime.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by thome
My aproach to this story is the correct one.the reporter is the crime.

Well, I certainly don't see the reporter to be blameless by any means.
There should have been some common sense and a bit of ethics in the reporting.
And she was reported by name by that journalist, which IS a crime as it is written.

Either way, I don't trust the entire lot of them.