16 words continue to Haunt the President: The new flap over the Novak Leak

Look, I would provide a link but the story is turning up everywhere, so there is little need unless someone asks.

Here are the facts as I know them:

1. Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent to africa to find the truth of the uranium charge, which he found was false and overblown.

2. The Bush Administration believed that his wife, an agent or employee of the CIA, was responsible for his appointment, and therefore was not credible.

3. Two White House Officials leaked the name of Wilson's wife, also leveling the bias charge, to conservative columnist and talking head Bob Novak, who printed the story.

4. The revealing of a CIA operative is a federal offense. However, it is not certain whether or not she was a covert operative covered under that federal statute.

5. At least six other journalists were contacted by the two White House officials, all of which declined to print it. Bob Novak denies being approached.

6. Wilson claims this is a smear campaign against him and his wife for speaking out against the Bush administration. He believed that it was to serve as a warning, but supposedly it was simply a matter of revenge.

7. Wilson has leveled charges against Karl Rove, who denies it. What makes this interesting is that Rove was fired by Bush Sr in the early 90's for leaking such smearing information to a conservative columnist...surprise surprise, it was Bob Novak.

8. The CIA has filed with the Justice Department. The Justice Department is beginning a probe.

9. The probe is under the authority of Ashcroft, who is under the authority of Bush. Democrats are screaming a conflict of interest and demand a special prosecutor, which the White House doesn't wan to grant. Luckily for them, Clinton allowed the Special Prosecutor charter to expire. Still, the Administration and its supporters don't want a special prosecutor, because they know that it's just a license to investiage indiscriminantly until the find something.

10. This story is old, the column was months ago and except for a few liberal columnists (Paul Krugman) no one covered it until the Justice Department got involved.

I think this particular story deserves it's own thread. What do you guys think? It's a classic washington WHODUNNIT case. If it was Rove, it would be a huge problem for the Administration. They can't very well preach about fighting terror when they are undermining their own agencies purely for political vengeance.

Do you think the President knew? Personally, I doubt it. Do I think it was a crime? I don't know, that's for the lawyers. I know Presidents have used less than ethical means to dispose of critics and opponants, but this seems particularly underhanded, they went on a smear campaign not against him, but his wife! (Seems like typical GOP behavior to me...) Do you think this should stay in the Attorney General's Office or should he be non-partisan and hire a special prosecutor?

This has larger implications regarding the war i Iraq, but I wanted to hear people's thoughts. Not that I can't predict what most of you will say.

 

I don't know if teh President had anythign to to with it, but I wouldn't put it past Karl Rove. This is a man who got his START in politics by initiating smear campaigns and this just smells like something he would do.

 

Does this mean I can retire the Dubya thread? Because all of the same dirty laundry and arguments are just going to be re-hashed here, anyway.

*I* was trying to initiate discussion about this topic within the exisiting thread, but whatever. If the story turns out to be anything, it certainly can support an independent thread...I just don't want this one to get too far off-track.

 

The Dubya thread is meant to include all attacks on him, his actions, and his administration, all praise on him, his actions, and his administration, in every and any area of policy.

This thread is specifically regarding the recent scandel, of which Bush may or may not be involved, so I don't see the problem.

 

First, the accuser has already admitted that he falsely implicated Karl Rove as the leaker or having authorized the leak. He also has said his wife was NOT endangered by the leak

Sources:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/9/29/143328.shtml

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2001/11/29/102844

Second, I understand that there was a lack of concern among the left in the 1980s when Senator Patrick Leahy leaked information that placed not only placed agents at risk, but got at least one source killed.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2001/11/29/102844

 

Interesting thread, if I do say so myself.

Thank you Obi-Wan, for that very, well, "left" explanation of the situation. Personally, I think it's way too early to make conclusions of what happened.

Obviously somebody did something wrong. Was it the White House? I'm not sure. For all we know right now, the former ambassador (who is a Democrat, but I'm not crying conspiricy yet) maybe lying. It's too early to jump to any conclusions.

Either way, I don't think it will affect the President too much. I doubt he was involved. Although a scandel is never a good thing, so we'll see what happens. Most likely the media will beat it to death for two weeks and then move onto a new story.

 

What I don't understand is why the Republicians are so against an insependant counsel. I mean, they were the ones in the 80's who passed the law which made leaking classified information a felony.

Most likely the president had nothing to do with it, but isn't it better to be 100% sure. The Democrats aren't trying to politial grandstand over this, they are trying to make sure laws weren't broken.

What does the Right have to fear?

 

the law which made leaking classified information a felony.

Which is the base of the issue here.

According to the Classified Information Procedures Act: to have the offense characterized as criminal, and punished as a felony, the information must be related to national defense and prosecutors must prove that the information can be useful to a foreign government or someone who might harm the United States.
(http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs)

Even if the story here might have been improper, it hardly qualifies as an offense here, under the law.. so that point is all but moot..


Secondly, the independent council authorization is a muddled mess, that goes both ways..

Remember, after the last fiasco with the prior administration, the Demmies let the authority lapse.

Back then they called it a "major waste of tax money.."

If they were the ones who revoked its charter before, they can hardly cry foul when the current administration doesn't reinstate it..

Now, Bush could have taken the higher ground and willingly reinstated the independent council authority, but such is the nature of party politics..

I'm sure he isn't, not because there is something major here, but because he is shoving it back into the Demmie's faces...

 

From the latest Capital Games by David Corn:

Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a felony for an official who possesses classified information to reveal the identity of a covert officer. The punishment is up to ten years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $50,000. (This law was championed by George H.W. Bush, former CIA director and father of W.)

Would that not be the damnedest thing if Dubya (or ANYONE in his administration) were to be found guilty of this felony as defined in the act pushd through by daddy?

Admittedly, the source of this info is a highly biased writer but if you read the entire article, you'll find that Corn is biased by very personal experience, and NOT purely media hearsay.

 

Sure Garth:

However, our illustrations were part of the same legal package:

..was employed by the CIA and worked on counter-proliferation matters...

His wife was NOT a covert agent, which means she would have been employed in the Clandestine Service Division

I guess because the public is not really knowledgable about the CIA, and it is considered to be so mysterious, that this issue is easy to exploit..

However, merely working for the CIA does not make a person a covert operative, covered by the law..

Just like simply working for the FBI does not make a person a Special Agent..

EDIT: I'm not saying that, if true, the act was improper..I just don't see how it would fall under the legal statute...

 

First, the accuser has already admitted that he falsely implicated Karl Rove as the leaker or having authorized the leak. He also has said his wife was NOT endangered by the leak.

So leaking classified information is ok?

Second, I understand that there was a lack of concern among the left in the 1980s when Senator Patrick Leahy leaked information that placed not only placed agents at risk, but got at least one source killed.

Why do conservatives point out the stupid things that liberals did to defend the stupid things they do? Are we all 5 year olds?

 

Singularity,
the point is that, the mere fact that she worked for the CIA would not be considered "classified" in the first place.

True classification involves a specific procedure and determination regarding information and the potential harm of the info..

 

Mr44 - information that would compromise a CIA operative's situation is classified. Such is the reason why most of the circumstances around how anti-terrorist intelligence is gathered is sensitive and classified information.

 

16 words continue to Haunt the President: The new flap over the Novak Lea

I seem to have heard that RObert Novak himself say's it was not a White House Source that gave him this information, but I guess when you have nothing to offer the nation politically, this is all you have to offer.

And remember how excited you people were over the 'Iraq tried to obtain the nucleur material from niger' story? Amazing how you folks are obsessed over a few words the President says, especially when they turn out to be BS.

 

information that would compromise a CIA operative's situation is classified

And maybe we should start by defining what a mysterious "CIA operative" is?

Not to sound direct, but you do know there are different departments within the organization, right?

Only those agents who work in the Clandestine Service Division have their identities protected by necessity.

Analysts, Linguists, technicians, geographers, computer engineers, to name a few, just work for the CIA..There is nothing secret about their job, beside the actual information they deal with..

With these postions, you can go to a party and say, "yes, I'm an analyst for the CIA."

Since she was not a clandestine service agent, nothing criminal should be inferred as a result of her "outing."

Sure, it falls under the poor taste category, in the sense that it is nobody's business what her job is, but I just don't see a criminal case here..

 

The CIA leak

Robert Novak
October 1, 2003

WASHINGTON -- I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.

The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.

This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the Agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last week

 

I'll just add:

exactly...

and leave it at that..

 

What doesn't Ken Star have anything useful to do?

Back then they called it a "major waste of tax money.."
I think there is a BIG difference between investigating whether the president got some from an ugly intern...or whether the president (directly or indirectly) endangered a member of our own intelligence community, to further the cause of his personal agenda (I mean, war on terror in Iraq)

Shall I hold the rug...or grab the broom?

 

Critical Mass

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 1, 2003; 8:56 AM


Wilsongate is not Watergate. But at the moment, if you're breathing the autumnal air inside the Beltway, it sure feels like it.




The mystery of who in the Bush administration outed Joe Wilson's wife as a CIA operative has the White House in full damage control mode, the Democrats in full outrage mode and the press in full investigative mode (at least those reporters who didn't get the potentially illegal leaks).

The president took the high road before the cameras, praising the Justice investigation as "a good thing" (really?) while his counsel warned staffers not to destroy documents or e-mail. Tom Daschle was out demanding a probe by an independent prosecutor, not John Ashcroft. Republican chief Ed Gillespie was hitting Wilson as a "pretty partisan Democrat." Bill Kristol said the leaker should resign soon because he'll probably be fingered. Former ambassador Wilson was all over the tube, from Charlie Gibson and Paula Zahn and Keith Olbermann Monday night to Ted Koppel and Alan Murray and Gloria Borger last night. The detective story is at the top of every newscast and talk show, and the press is vacuuming up every detail.

The leakers' motivation, at least, is becoming clear. One journalist who was given the information by an administration official, before the now-famous Bob Novak column appeared, told me Monday that "they thought Wilson was having a good ride" in the media. "They just thought Wilson was being turned into a saint."

Is this a third-rate burglary, or something more? The level of intensity itself will fuel the story in the coming days. First, my news report from today's Washington Post on the controversy:

"The Indiana man who fired off an e-mail yesterday to CNN, where columnist Robert Novak works as the co-host of 'Crossfire,' didn't pull any punches:

" 'Robert Novak is guilty of publicly exposing the identity of a CIA agent. He has committed a crime and should be arrested immediately. Just because he is a journalist doesn't give him the right to break our laws.'

"In fact, Novak committed no crime in revealing, based on information from 'two senior administration officials,' that the wife of a prominent critic of President Bush's Iraq policy worked for the CIA. Journalists are not covered by the law barring the release of such information. But his role in outing the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson has unleashed a torrent of criticism against the media for protecting unnamed officials who put out damaging information.

"Novak, 72, who has written the syndicated column he started with the late Rowland Evans for four decades, said yesterday that he was 'surprised' at the public reaction. In his July 14 column, he noted, he mentioned the CIA work of Wilson's wife in the sixth paragraph, 'almost in passing.'

" 'It was not a big deal, until this routine Justice Department investigation was revealed this week,' he said. 'All the facts were out there for months and you didn't have this kind of firestorm.'

"Indeed, only a handful of journalists bothered to follow up Novak's column until the CIA's referral of the case to the Justice Department was reported last weekend by MSNBC.com and The Washington Post. Wilson, who had beensent to West Africa to examine Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy 'yellowcake' uranium in Niger -- and concluded that the charge was bogus -- complained about his wife's outing in a series of interviews but at first drew little media attention.

"Novak, for his part, was engaged in a transaction -- accepting information in exchange for a promise of confidentiality -- that occurs around the clock in the news business, especially in the whispering world of Washington. By doing so, journalists sometimes put themselves in a box, unable to reveal who handed them information even when that information becomes radioactive or an investigation is launched. During the Clinton impeachment, for example, major news organizations re

 

Another point to consider is why Novak had to publish the lady's name in the first place. He could have made his journalistic point without publishing the name. But then again, Novak is also a clown.

 

Yeup. I think the neocons are forgetting that SIX other journalists were given this information. SIX were called and told to use this, and yet they were able to use their journalistic sensibilities to avoid printing it.

Even if she wasn't a covert operator, what was to be gained by printing her name? Why did White House officials leak this story to not one, but SEVEN different journalists?

Well, normally I take news from Internet Hooligan Matt Drudge with a grain of salt, so I apply the same standard here:

FORMER CIA OFFICIAL TELLS PBS: OUTED OFFICER 'HAS BEEN UNDER COVER FOR THREE DECADES'

A former counter-terrorism official at the CIA and the State Department claimed Tuesday night that outed CIA agent "Valerie Plame" was under cover for three decades and was not a "CIA analyst" as columnist Bob Novak has suggested.

Larry Johnson made the charge on PBS's NEWSHOUR.

"I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been under cover for three decades."

[The WASH POST reported on Wednesday that "Valerie Plame" is 40 years old]

MORE

Johnson continues: She is not as Bob Novak suggested a "CIA analyst." Given that, i was a CIA analyst for 4 years. I was under cover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the CIA unti I left the Intelligence Agency on Sept. 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it. The fact that she was under cover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous. She was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she works with overseas could be compromised...

"For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal... and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that, well, this was just an analyst. Fine. Let them go undercover. Let's put them go overseas. Let's out them and see how they like it...

"I say this as a registered Republican. I am on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear, of an individual who had no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it because the entire intent was, correctly as Amb. Wilson noted, to intimidate, to suggest taht there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision-making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy, and frankly what was a false policy of suggesting that there was nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend it was something else, to get into this parsing of words.

"I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this."

[REALAUDIO OF THE INTERVIEW]

Developing...

 

Hmmmm.........


Well, for now Justice can handle this with careerist investigators finding out who leaked it.

BTW, Novak said it was TWO Eminent people in the ADMINISTRATION, NOT the White House.


And the Wilson guy seems intent on getting Karl Rove.

His statements a month ago proved the man had an agenda.

I think it's highly likely the leakers are Clinton appointees who worked with friends in the press.

A manufactured scandal.

 

Does anyone have a link to the orginal column? I am really interested in what it actually said.

 

OWM

Either Larry Johnson or The Washington Post is fibbing.

She's been undercover for over three decades?

The Post reported today she's Forty years old



This is so transparent.

And Wilson himself is a strong supporter of the Kerry campaign who said last month he wanted to see Karl Rove led away from the White House "in handcuffs".

And he's now bragging to the press about he and his wife discussing who will play her in the made for TV movie.

Disgusting party hack.

This is one reason why I cannot stand either party.

 

you didn't hear Shane? She was part of the top secret "Tot-Force." Explosive rattles, radio bottles, and diapers with handguns secreted in them..

Just to add to the back-tracking:

From MSNBC today:

Wilson reduces Rove's role:

Wilson has blamed the White House political operation and senior political adviser Karl Rove for his wife?s name being made public. While he did not think Rove himself leaked the name, he told MSNBC TV, ?my sources tell me he condoned it.?

Wow, in just a few short days, he has gone from naming Rove directly by name, to claiming that he doesn't know who, but Rove must have known..

Those are quite the mysterious, all knowing sources that the Wilson family knows...

Looks like despiration to me..