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

While I always seem to agree with you in theory Garth..

I understand your point about percieved conflict of interest..

But don't you think that some of that is people just looking to find any kind of bias?

Could it be that Justice offered a delay, not because of anything "shady," but because of the sheer volume of information that probably had to be looked though?

I mean, if the government sent me an audit notice, it would probably take me 12 days just to find my 2000 tax return, and I'm one person!

An order that requires anyone with any knowledge of a leak to certify that they have verified all of their storage media is quite an undertaking...

People with different days off, vactions, etc.. had to be allowed for as well...

It's a fine line, but there is a difference between a "Mulder" and a "Scully.."

 

Yeah, they both know that the MAN is up to no good but only Mulder has the gumption to do anything about it.

 

Mr44:
It's a fine line, but there is a difference between a "Mulder" and a "Scully.."

That's the funniest thing I've ever heard you say, Mr44. HAR!

And how, of course, could I be a good judge of bias, because I, myself, am quite biased....









<off topic>










....by the fact that this man should not be president to begin with.

Who can be "fair and balanced?"

Not one of us. Bring in the Belgians, and have them take a look at the 2000 election while they're here! (And bring some waffles!)

 

Milk it baby, milk it......

Washington Post

==========================================

CIA Agent Valerie Plame Goes Undercover In Vanity Fair

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2003; Page C01

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson has been quite protective of his wife, Valerie Plame, in the weeks since her cover as a CIA operative was blown.

"My wife has made it very clear that -- she has authorized me to say this -- she would rather chop off her right arm than say anything to the press and she will not allow herself to be photographed," he declared in October on "Meet the Press."

But that was before Vanity Fair came calling.

The January issue features a two-page photo of Wilson and the woman the magazine calls "the most famous female spy in America," a "slim 40-year-old with white-blond hair and a big, bright smile." They are sitting in their Jaguar.

Plame is wearing a scarf and big glasses, which just adds to the aura of mystery. In a second shot on their terrace at the couple's home near Georgetown, she holds a newspaper in front of her face.

"The pictures should not be able to identify her, or are not supposed to," Wilson said yesterday. "She's still not going to answer any questions and there will not be any pictures that compromise her." The reason, said Wilson, is that "she's still employed" by the CIA "and has obligations to her employer."

Plame may be the most well-known figure in a modern Washington scandal whose face is unknown. The Justice Department is now investigating which senior administration officials leaked Plame's CIA role to columnist Robert Novak after Wilson began debunking President Bush's State of the Union claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium from Niger.

Ron Beinner, a contributing photography producer at Vanity Fair, said Plame was not originally scheduled to participate in the Nov. 8 shoot, but agreed to join her husband once "she felt suitably disguised."

It's not that Plame has dropped out of sight. In October, as Vanity Fair notes, she was at the National Press Club -- wearing a "sharp cream pantsuit" -- while her husband received a truth-telling award. Wilson wept from the podium, saying, "If I could give you back your anonymity . . ." and then introduced Plame, who also teared up.

Plame also mingled unobtrusively last month at a party at the home of The Washington Post's Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn. But there has been an invisible bubble around her as reporters have respected the desire of "Jane Bond," as Wilson calls her, to remain in the Washington shadows.

Plame talked to Vanity Fair writer Vicky Ward on a not-for-attribution basis, and the only direct quote was "It's such a mess," referring to her under-renovation kitchen as she fussed over their 3-year-old twins. But the article contains such passages as: "Plame herself instantly thought that the leak was illegal."

Wilson, who is pursuing a deal for a book that he says will be about more than just "the outing of my wife," said they have had to make compromises to maintain Plame's privacy.

"We are not going into seclusion," he said. "We're not going to hide the fact that we live in this town, we go out to dinner and drive cars and parent our kids." But, Wilson said, they sometimes arrive at events separately or after photographers have left.

 

Looks like that Justice Department investigation has been REAL successful.

 

I wonder how much Mr. Wilson got paid by MoveOn.org to appear in their so-called documentary.

 

Looks like that Justice Department investigation has been REAL successful.

OWM, you are being unrealistic. Most counter-espionage cases take years, not months. They are never as simple as "So and so knows who did it, they should simply tell".

It has been only 2-3 months since the investigation started. This isn't exactly an episode of Law and Order where everything takes 1 hour to solve.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Fine. We'll see. It does seem odd that an administration that is as tightly run as Bush's could allow this to happen without approval AND at the same time not be able to figure out who did it.

 

Looks like that Justice Department investigation has been REAL successful.

And it looks like Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame are REAL concerned with the whole situation. Concerned enough to flaunt the situation in Vanity Fair.

 

Fine. We'll see. It does seem odd that an administration that is as tightly run as Bush's could allow this to happen without approval AND at the same time not be able to figure out who did it.

OWM, in a case like this, there are literally hundreds of people who could have been the leak. That's just among people who had direct access to the information. What if one of them was the leak and yet didn't leak it to Novak, but instead told another official, who then told Novak.

The investigators have to consider all of these and more possibilities. Don't be so hasty to cry foul because the investigation is not being accelerated enough for your political desires.

As a side note, doing a search on "Plame"through Google News, I found that there are still quite a few blogs that are accusing Karl Rove of being the leak. Their source? Wilson's original unfounded accusation that has long been retracted.

Incidentally, the Justice Department also expanded its investigation about a month ago. They aren't just looking at events before the leak any more, but afterwards as well. That hardly sounds like they are doing nothing on the issue.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Talk is cheap, spin is easy, and delay is the best political card to play here. We'll see if any progress has been made by election time.

 

Talk is cheap

So is Vanity Fair. Go out and purchase this issue when it hits newsstands.

 

Are you kidding? Isn't Vanity Fair like almost $10 an issue?

And now that her cover is blown, who cares what she does?

 

Talk is cheap, spin is easy, and delay is the best political card to play here. We'll see if any progress has been made by election time.

OWM, that really takes the cake.

The investigation has only been going for at most a little over 2 months, and you are already accusing people of trying to delay everything? Tell me, what evidence do you have of that?

Espionage cases (including leaks) require months, if not years, to investigate, even under the best of circumstances. It is completely illogical to expect that they would have any major results by now.

It seems that you are more interested in using the investigation for political ends rather than finding out the truth of what happened.

Let's play a quick "what if" game. How would you respond if each of the following scenarios happened at the end of the investigation?

1) The FBI determines that no one broke the law (specifically that the information was not released intentionally, or the leak was by a person not authorized to have the information).

2) The FBI identifies the leak and it is a minor administration official.

3) The FBI identifies that Karl Rove and/or Dick Cheney engineered the leak and brings charges against them.

4) The FBI complains that the White House is blocking the investigation and demands an IC.

Any one of these options, barring a fluke worthy of a TV show, would take months to sort out. First, the FBI has to identify the source involved. Second, it has to identify if the person was authorized to have the information. Third, it has to determine probable cause that the leak was intentional.

Considering the sheer numbers of people involved, and the fact that many of them (if not all) will need to be interviewed personally (some multiple times), how long do you expect it to take? Especially since the FBI expanded the investigation to include officials who were involved with the Wilson trip after the leak occurred.

The investigation is nowhere near as simple as you seem to think it should be. I would be surprised if they announce a major break before next spring (at the earliest). Even then, the most likely outcome is that the leak was not a crime. At least one of the two sources did not do it intentionally (as it was Novak who brought it up, not the source).

There is also significant evidence that Plame herself may have been the original person to blow her own cover. For example, back when she was dating Wilson, she told him after only one or two dates that she worked for the CIA. Other reports indicate that she has let it slip with many other individuals over the years. With a basis like that, it would be difficult to prove that whoever leaked it did not think it already common knowledge.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Are you kidding? Isn't Vanity Fair like almost $10 an issue?

I think you can subscribe for less than $20/year. But that's not the point....

And now that her cover is blown, who cares what she does?

The point is that by taking part in this Vanity Fair article she and her husband are making a mockery of the situation. If it was as grave a situation as it was initially made to be I doubt they would have done this. It's vagary at best.

 

The point is that by taking part in this Vanity Fair article she and her husband are making a mockery of the situation.

No kidding, and this is the most troubling part..

What is the point of even investigating now?

Her current actions sure can be used by the defense if anyone is found responsible for the original leak..

As has been pointed out many times, only a narrowly defined group of intelligence agents are protected.. One is not afforded this just because of employment at the CIA.

Those that are, have to abide by certain restrictions, and are then afforded additional protections under law..

If she was a protected employee, she would still have to take steps to minimize any damage that her original "outing" caused..

Her behavior certainly isn't indictive of someone who falls into the protected class..

If it truly mattered than her picture not be revealed, why go through a public source like Vanity Fair?

Even if she was "disguised" by sunglasses for the article, did the unclassified civilian photographer take additional photos that she wasn't aware of? Did this third party see her while she was covering her face with the newspaper?

I'd say that if she has protected status, she intentionally compromised herself, and should be brought up on offical misconduct charges..

After all, it doesn't work both ways..

Either she has protected status, and has to abide by those restrictions, or this whole thing was a political ruse from the beginning..

 

Ashcroft recuses himself from CIA leak probe

A couple possibilities:

1) There's no real evidence of any wrongdoing, and Ashcroft wants out to remove speculation that it is a "white wash."

2) There is some evidence, and it's high enough that he wants out to avoid any conflict of interest.


Either way, some people (on both sides)aren't going to be satisfied with this.





Anata baka?!

 

Beat me to it....

What is does do though, is vindicate the process.

Rather than simply turning the event into a media circus, but arbitrarily appointing a special council right away, Justice allowed the established procedure to work.

It is still undetermined why Ashcroft excused himself, and appointed an independent council to oversee the investigation (see above)

But it definately shows that this was not simply swept under the rug, and that the investigation is still ongoing.

 

Yeah, I'm pleased he did it.

 

Considering the subject,

Coming from you, I guess we should check to see if the devil has a winter jacket.. ..

 

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe

 

The New York Times is going to report a widening of the probe in this case.

It just astounds me that Bush says he can't figure out who did it. I mean, come on! Do any of you really believe Darth Cheney couldn't have mind probed it out of whomever did it, assuming it wasn't the Dark Lord himself?

 

NYT Article

The thing is that just because the probe is widening doesn't mean that anyone is going to be prosecuted. From the article:

The suspicion that someone may have lied to investigators is based on contradictions between statements by various witnesses in F.B.I. interviews, the lawyers and officials said. The conflicts are said to be buttressed by documents, including memos, e-mail messages and phone records turned over by the White House.

At the same time, Mr. Fitzgerald is said to be investigating whether the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity came after someone discovered her name among classified documents circulating at the upper echelons of the White House. It could be a crime to disclose information from such a document, although such violations are rarely prosecuted.

Right now, there are apparent contradictions in different accounts, and those contradictions are supported by different documentation. However, that still does not mean that anyone will be prosecuted for anything, as it is rare for such prosecutions in the first place.

I will also point out that this article illustrates the sort of thing that both Mr44 and I warned about earlier in this thread.

In looking at violations beyond the original focus of the inquiry, which centered on a rarely used statute that makes it a felony to disclose the identity of an undercover intelligence officer intentionally, prosecutors have widened the range of conduct under scrutiny and for the first time raised the possibility of bringing charges peripheral to the leak itself.

My personal prediction is that if we do see any indictments from this, they will not be for the leak itself. There is a good chance that if they cannot pin it on any one person, they will keep hunting for someone to string up.

It's like the trick for passing inspections easily in the military (as my father told me). Never make things perfect, but instead leave some small item for the inspectors to find. Otherwise, they will keep looking for some offense to write you up for. The more they look, the worse the punishment they will recommend for you.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Blame the REpublicans for setting up the witch-hunting precedent, by which it becomes standard political survival to need to constantly attack the sitting President.

However, all things considered, it is perhaps better overall at keeping them as honest as possible, I mean, if they are going to go down, it's not going to be over some "third-rate burglary."

-Nobody ever said it meant prosecution. But my question is, do any of you seriously believe Bush and Co don't know who is behind the leak? I mean, don't you think that's something they want to know before they put that person or keep that person in a highly visible position?

 

Kimball Kinnison

It may be that the info came to Novak from another source:
Clifford May at National Review