Tuesday, July 05, 2005

PLAME IT ON ROVE

I imagine most of you have heard a thing or two about the so-called “Valerie Plame Affair” – in which someone in the White House leaked the top-secret identity of Plame, an undercover CIA agent, in apparent retaliation for her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s criticism of the White House’s cooking of intelligence in the build-up to the Iraq War.

Let’s pause and let that sink in for a moment: 1) The White House was fixing intelligence to use as propaganda for their proposed invasion of Iraq. [Again, I refer you to the Downing Street Memos] 2) Joe Wilson was sent by the CIA on a fact-finding mission to Africa to vet the story that Saddam Hussein was trying to by nuclear material there. 3) He reported back that this was not true. 4) George W. Bush told you, the American people, that it WAS true in his State of the Union Address. 5) Wilson was highly critical of this lie and said so in an op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, noting that “some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” 6) In retaliation for this criticism SOMEONE in the White House blew his wife’s CIA cover. 7) The CIA indicated that it told reporter Robert Novak that revealing Plame’s identity could cost agents their lives.

Is blowing the cover of one of our active international spies giving “aid and comfort to the enemy”? If so, this person committed treason under Section 2381 of the U.S. Code. In any event he did commit a SERIOUS crime in violation of section 421 of Chapter 15 of Title 50. I have included both sections at the bottom of this message if you’re curious. Title 50 covers EVERYTHING we need to know about “War and National Defense.” Chapter 15 covers “National Security.” So, I think you’ll agree we’re in serious territory, the kind of territory Republicans like to run an election on.

Oh, who is the criminal who blew Agent Plame’s cover? Why, it’s none other than “Bush’s Brain” – Karl Rove.

Lawrence O’Donnell broke the story on The McLaughlin Group five days ago, and now that July 4th weekend is over it should explode this week in the mainstream press (though they’ve become so craven and cowardly, who knows if they’ll actually do their job?)

Here’s what O’Donnell is saying at the moment.

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years. The next day, Luskin was forced to open the first hole in the Rove two-year wall of silence about the case. In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Luskin then launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute ( U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

So, Rove's defense now hangs on one word—he "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Does that mean Rove simply didn't know Valerie Plame was a covert agent? Or does it just mean that Rove did not know that the CIA was "taking affirmative measures" to hide her identity? [The CIA itself has already refuted this latter defense.]

In Luskin's next damage control session with the press, let's see if any reporter can get him to drop the word 'knowingly' from the never-disclosed-classified-information bit.



George W. Bush has obtained outside counsel to represent him this whole mess. Why would he do this “when numerous government attorneys are available to him - for instance, in the White House Cousel’s Office?” Well, as John Dean – he of Watergate fame – explains, “The answer is that the President has likely been told it would be risky to talk to his White House lawyers, particularly if he knows more than he claims publicly. Ironically, it was the fair-haired Republican stalwart Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who decimated the attorney-client privilege for government lawyers and their clients” during the Whitewater and Lewinsky probes.

Likewise, the Valerie Plame Affair is not an isolated incident, as the connection to Iraq intelligence suggests. Josh Marshall notes on Talking Points Memo that “I've gotten hints or suggestions from several sources over the last month that new information is bubbling to the surface, not about who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, but who was behind the underlying caper that started the whole drama afoot in the first place: those phoney Niger uranium documents.” And of course, Jeff Gannon/Guckert (remember him?) was one of the few reporters who received the Plame story. Wow. The Bush White House is one weird den of thieves.

What can you do? Well, the criminal investigation is being handled by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States Attorney from Chicago, who does not report to the Justice Department regarding his investigation. That’s a good thing. You can call your Congresspeople and make sure they are giving their full public support to the investigation and making sure Fitzgerald has all the resources he needs. Make sure you tell them that you are one of their constituents. More importantly, I’d say you should call your local newspapers and ask them to cover this important story. If they don’t, write a letter to the editor.

Speak truth to power!


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US Code Title 50, Chapter 15
Section 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources

(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall befined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents. Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(d) Imposition of consecutive sentences. A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be
consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment.

U.S. Code Section 2381. Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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