Rove/Plame

My pal Random Thought asked me post something for him. So here it is. Keeps me from having to post things constantly so I think I like the idea of a guest blogger. And the response to my last one was poor. I was hoping some lawyers might offer some thoughts. But I imagine they were instead doing other important things.

Here it is:

There’s so much BS flying around about those whole affair I thought I’d do some fact-checking on my own. So here are the allegations:

1. Karl Rove, advisor to the President, leaked the name of a covert CIA official to a reporter as political retaliation for Joe Wilson saying the administration lied about Iraq trying to buy yellow-cake from Niger.

2. The President promised to fire anyone in his administration who leaked the information.

3. Karl Rove broke the law.

Addressing #1. Let’s look at what the reporter Matt Cooper says Rove said. Unfortunately, there are only bits an pieces of Emails that Cooper sent to his editor. Here is what I can find:

NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. ... Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA" -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... "

Best as I can find, is that Rove explained how someone, who is a piece of crap (own personal opinion here), and had little if any knowledge of the subject at hand was sent to Niger to research if Iraq had sought to buy yellow cake (used in nuclear weapons) from Niger.

Joe Wilson had gone around telling anyone who would listen than (ok to be fair, he explicitly implied) he’d been sent by the CIA and the VP’s office. He wasn’t. He proceeded to lie about what he found as well. “…First of all, that is not the way this White House operates. The President expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing.”

On February 11, 2004 (or close to it, the story is 11 Feb) the President said, "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.”

He doesn’t specifically say he’s going to fire anyone but I’m not going to split hairs here. He must mean it. How do I know? Because he says “if the person has violated the law.” No President, whatever you may think of him, wants the political liability of a convicted felon working for him.

But that phrase is key, “if the person has violated the law.”

I’m not convinced a law was broken. But if it was, he should be prosecuted and fired.

Addressing #3. Was a law broken? This really is the crux here. Personally, I can’t find where one was broken (not counting obstruction). She wasn’t covert. Heck, her boss and neighbors knew what she did and said she never tried to hide it. She worked at a DESK!

Those up in arms over this really look like jackasses, to put it frankly. Not all of the information is in on this. The leak itself doesn’t appear to be a crime. Obstruction charges may be coming because for some moronic reason the White House has acted like this is a big deal and it has something to hide. Of course, maybe it does. But we’re gonna need to wait.

Their carefully worded statements so they are telling the truth only in a legalistic manner and not in spirit show poorly. It’s nothing new. All administrations are like this. Not saying we shouldn’t expect more. We should. But we shouldn’t be surprised when we get this.

All of this can, of course, change with new information coming out.

A question:

Do you really think this is a bigger issue than the former National Security Advisor walking out of the National Archives with top secret documents on the way the previous administration handled terrorism stuffed into his pants and shirts?