> But whatever else you can say about the
> leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately
> trying to undermine American national security.

Mark me down as one person who thinks the leakers were in fact trying to undermine actual US national security (as opposed to the Security Theatre(tm) that Dick Cheney uses as a tool).

Cranky

deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

Does "not giving a rat's ass about national security" count as deliberate undermining?

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

Wrong, Kevin.

I think they were. They purposely compromised our Iranian WMD team at the CIA, in order to prevent their claims of Iranian WMD development from being shot down.

Not because another bogus war against Iran is good for Security.

But because another bogus war against Iran is good for Business.

nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security

Who gives a good Goddamn whther BushCo was deliberately trying to undermine American national security? Undermine it they have, in ways too obvious for anyone but the 33% dead-ender authoritarian Bush Cultists to ignore.

Personally, though, the phrase "reckless disregard" has a certain cachet. As I've said before, Bush's reverse-midas touch has ruined the GOP's decades-long branding effort on national security, and Americans won't trust the GOP with that issue -- or, hopefully, the levers of governance -- for a generation.

Kevin,
You have danced around this question for several years now, so let me ask you a question: what _exactly_ do you think Cheney, Libby, and Rove were trying to accomplish with the entire Wilson destruction/Plame outing? Please be precise - no "maybe" or "on the one hand".

Cranky

One of the points frequently made by right-wing critics of Patrick Fitzgerald is that he must have figured out pretty quickly that outing Valerie Plame wasn't itself a crime, and at that point he should have simply terminated his investigation.

But it's more than that. Look at how he violated the privacy of reporters and their first amendment rights by dragging them court to out their sources. Look at how he used bad witnesses with bad memories to pretend that Libby had been lying and had not just forgotten something due to his poor memory. Look at how he used the Cheney card to launch a verbal personal partisan attack on Cheney in his closing argments. The man has no morals. He has no ethics. He should be ashamed of himself.

What did the POTUS and the VP tell Fitzerald in their unsworn testimony in the White House?

Kevin: During his initial press conference he said that Plame's identity was classified, but he carefully didn't say whether she was "covert," a term that has a precise legal meaning.

And yet conservative poppinjays continue to insist that its been proven that Plame wasn't covert, that in fact Fitzgerald has admitted she wasn't covert.

Well, that is their standard MO (and BS): lie long enough and loud enough and it will become the truth.

Kevin,

Part of the contention that Plame may not have been "covert" is based on the interpretation of the phrases "serving outside the United States" and "within the last five years served outside the United States" in the IIPA statute.

"Serving" outside the US is not the same as being "resident" outside the US. Someone can be resident in Virginia and still "serve" outside the US on overseas assignments.

Actually, most conservatives are reacting to the adamant claims by lefties that Plame was in fact covert when the truth is we don't know if she was or wasn't. Hell, even the judge in the Libby trail said he didn't know what her status was. But if you look through any of the multiple threads on the topic here, you will find instance after instance of people stating categorically that Plame was covert (with regard to her status and the leak of her identity).

They are wrong. We just don't know if she was or wasn't (again, with regard to the law in question). And yelling at Kevin for trying to get to the bottom of it doesn't help advance the conversation.

Good discussion over at FDL: Deal or No Deal.

I don't know about anyone else, but the standard wingnut defence for the outing of a CIA agent seems to be "if we didn't break the law specifically, who cares?".

Now imagine that Al Gore's office had outed a CIA agent...

KEVIN DRUM: But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

I would like to hear from you a meaningful distinction, legal or otherwise, between deliberately undermining American national security and deliberately committing acts which it could logically be foreseen would bring about the undermining of national security.

What if Bush told Fitzgerald that he had secretly told Cheney that he authorized the outing of Valerie Plame?

Suddenly no need for legal analysis. No way to charge anybody for violating the law.

I have a recollection that when this story first broke there the president had granted some kind of authority to Cheney to declassify information. Maybe Cheney declassified but didn't tell Scooter?

All of this is speculation, but a "king" doing something spectacularly irresponsible is not necessarily the same as something illegal.

Rule of Law is sooooo 1990s!

IOKIYAR!!

"...claims by lefties that Plame was in fact covert when the truth is we don't know if she was or wasn't."

No, but we know that she did covert work overseas within the last five years and the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal her identity.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179719/site/newsweek/

"there was a story that the president"

The talking point seems to be that once it was discovered that Armitage was the first to leak Plame's name that he was the only one who could have committed a crime. My understanding is that Libby didn't know about Armitage, so his leaking the name, even if it came after, could have still been a crime. Am I wrong about this?

what _exactly_ do you think Cheney, Libby, and Rove were trying to accomplish with the entire Wilson destruction/Plame outing?

From what I can gather, they felt that if they could make it seem like Valerie had sent her husband on a "junket" (rather than simply recommended him for a fact finding mission that had been initiated in response to a question from the VP offices) then it would look like an act of nepotism as opposed to sending someone knowledgable.

Pretty weak when you think about it, but that can't really surprise anyone. And why anyone would want to go on a junket to Niger of all places is beyond me.

Map you are absolutely right.

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security

I see others have already jumped in. Knowing what you now know about how they ran the war and how much care they took to safeguard Iraq's weapons caches (and radioactive material etc) and how they left the US military vulnerable to attacks, why is it so hard to understand that these bastards were hell bent on undermining American national security? Did they put more resources in the hunt for bin Laden or did they pull out resources from that hunt to pursue their Iraq project? Shame on you Kevin, shame on you for still giving these guys the benefit of doubt.

Then how could Fitzgerald have shut down the investigation until he knew for sure what Libby was up to? How could he have known if a crime was committed?

Lovely little arguments from the usual suspects about whether or not anything illegal occurred...

None of them mean shit, of course, since the jury has deliberated and declared Libby guilty.

Hacksaw - just get it over it. move on.

You're in the minority now - my advice would be to get used to it.

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security

In Kevin's defence, I think he's discussing the intent behind their actions, not the actual consequences.

Nobody in the Bush administration has acted with the intent to undermine the country's national security (insofar as they perceive it), are they?

ihateimo,
That may well have been their _task_, but what was their _goal_? Note that this question is directed specifically to Kevin Drum, who tends to fall back on the New York Times "one the one hand, on the other hand" formulation when pressed on the difficult questions of what exactly Cheney, Libby, and their gang are actually up to.

Cranky

What did the POTUS and the VP tell Fitzerald in their unsworn testimony in the White House?

Whatever they said, it is hard to believe that it is anything but lies. If they intended to tell the truth they would have gladly sworn and testified.

That may well have been their _task_, but what was their _goal_?

I'm conused by what you mean - the goal as I understand it was to make Joe Wilson look like he had no credibility or impartiality as the beneficiary of a vacation to Africa, thus propping up the Bush claims that OMGZ IRAK HAS NUKES.

And I did notice the question was directed at Kevin, but you can't expect curious minds not to want to muse on something posted in an open forum can you? :)

Nobody in the Bush administration has acted with the intent to undermine the country's national security (insofar as they perceive it), are they?

Yes, every tyrant makes the same claim. Saddam claimed the same. Why was he hanged if all he did was "insofar as he perceived it, he was keeping his country secure"? Saddam did whatever he did to keep his nation secure and stable. Considering the chaos that is current Iraq, we can certainly appreciate the effectiveness of his regime and the reason why he had to do what he did. Yet, civilized folks around the world rightly condemn his for his actions. Why can't we hold our tyrants to the same standards?

I think that both Armitage and Libby could have been investigated for committing a crime. The difference is intent. It seems pretty clear Armitage was gossiping and Libby was pro-actively trying to leak this information. That's why Armitage wasn't charged and Fitzgerald continued to investigate Libby.

> Nobody in the Bush administration has acted with
> the intent to undermine the country's national
> security (insofar as they perceive it), are they?

Then _what ARE their goals_? They starved the operation at Tora Bora of money and men, then pulled back reinforcements when (against all odds) the soldiers were winning and might have had Bin Laden in their grasp - for what? Why does Cheney continue to lie to this day about a link between Saddam and 9/11? Why does no one in the Bush Administration seem to care about a mimimum of $9 billion in cash disappearing in Iraq?

I mean, it is easy to say that deep down these guys 'really and truly care' about US security, but what the h*** have they being _doing_ for the last 6 years? And if they really cared about US security yet thought they were doing the right thing in 2003, shouldn't they own up to their mistakes and resign at this point? This is the killer question.

Cranky

So let me get this straight. The wingnut position is that since nobody has written a law saying it is illegal to comprimise US security for personal reasons, it is OK. The Cheney cartel was lying under oath, not to hide a crime, but because their actions were politically damaging.

Wow. And these people still claim to be Americans?

TT

I don't understand why Mr. Drum and others have such a desire to impute noble motives to any actions taken by the Bush Administration. We are foolish to attempt to divine their motives a priori or to interpret their actions in the framework of some set of motives that we would have.

What matters are the results of their actions. When it comes to results we have a significant database with which to work. I can use those data to interpret whether the Bush Adminstration seeks to advance American interests or to harm them. The answer is clear and incontrovertible.

Yes, every tyrant makes the same claim. Saddam claimed the same. Why was he hanged if all he did was "insofar as he perceived it, he was keeping his country secure"?

Wow, that came close to Godwin'ing the whole thread right then and there. Good job!

Seriously though, I think everyone's being pedantic throwing flames at Kevin for his comment. Last I checked, nobody (sane) believes that Bush is some kind of Manchurian candidate, just an incompetent. They're not DELIBERATELY undermining the national security of the US through well-thought out policies leading to sabotaging of national security, they're undermining it through policies that are ill-thought out or stupid to begin with. There's a distinction there which was Kevin's point all along, I think.

"But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security."

Perhaps you can tell me the difference between undermining National Security and gross disregard of national security. Cause if nobody thinks the former practically everybody thinks the latter. I've been wondering since 9/11 who mole in the US government was and the Libby trial identified about six.

> They're not DELIBERATELY undermining the
> national security of the US through well-thought
> out policies leading to sabotaging of national
> security

I will be happy to accept this at face value after a short exercise which involves (1) reviewing the transcripts (preferably recordings), action items, and maps from the Cheney Energy Task Force meetings in 2001 (2) reviewing the transcripts (preferably recordings) from the meeting between Cheney and the Saudi royal family a few months back.

Cranky

One of the points frequently made by right-wing critics of Patrick Fitzgerald is that he must have figured out pretty quickly that outing Valerie Plame wasn't itself a crime, and at that point he should have simply terminated his investigation. Result: no questioning of Scooter Libby, no charges brought, no conviction.

So, if Fitzgerald had dropped the charges early in the investigation, Libby wouldn't have been forced to lie, perjure and obstruct. Now I see.

Isn't the elephant in the room why Libby committed perjury, obstruction, etc., regardless of whether Plame was "covert" or not? I've seen very little discussion in the media or the blogs of this point.

Kevin:

You seem to be arguing that the Armitage leak was the only leak that could have been illegal because it was the first. From your two posts on this subject you seem to be wondering if there was something unseemly about continuing the investigation once Fitzgerald learned about the Armitage leak because he was the only one who could have committed the underlying crime and any subsequent leaking would have been legal.

What matters are the results of their actions. When it comes to results we have a significant database with which to work.

You're kidding right? Intent matters plenty. That's why we have laws for murder and laws for manslaughter.

I don't imply any "nobility" in their motives except that which exists in their own head - much like the lying sacks of shit that GHWB pardoned for Iran-Contra. The only performance evaluation I'm aware of with regards to Presidential performance is called an "election"; I didn't realise there was some bar that was set where we can measure national security during a president's term and then impeach him if the marker drops below a certain threshold.

Excuse the snark.

> You're kidding right? Intent matters plenty.
> That's why we have laws for murder and laws for
> manslaughter.

As I keep telling my kids, a few times I will grant you, but when it happens over months/years I start to see intent. Can you point me to an example where a person worked on a killing for 6 years and was charged with manslaughter rather than premeditated murder?

Cranky

Noble Motives? Bush Administration? These phrases do not even belong in the same time zone.

I will be happy to accept this at face value after a short exercise which involves (1) reviewing the transcripts (preferably recordings), action items, and maps from the Cheney Energy Task Force meetings in 2001 (2) reviewing the transcripts (preferably recordings) from the meeting between Cheney and the Saudi royal family a few months back.

If you think those are short exercises I'd hate to see what a thorough investigation would look like. :)

Do you think they were sitting around cackling like Dr. Evil and saying things like, "We will weaken the United States so that others may benefit from our vulnerability?" or perhaps they were making plans that were just boneheaded and backfired? Me, I'm thinking it's the latter.

> You seem to be arguing that the Armitage leak was
> the only leak that could have been illegal because
> it was the first.

I hope Kevin is _not_ arguing that, becuase it turns out not to be the case. I think Kevin knows that, which is one of the reasons I am so annoyed at him today: he is posting rhetorical questions based on Radical Republican talking points when he has shown in the past that he knows why those talking points are false. He hasn't displayed this sort of NYT "he said - she said" for quite a while and I am wondering what is behind it now.

Cranky

There's no way that Fitzgerald had come to any conclusion about the underlying outing charges by that point. By the time he finally did, Libby had already lied about Plame on four separate occasions.

I will again ask for the basis of your suggestion that Fitzgerald ever came to a conclusion about the criminality of the leak.

The first time you supposedly misspoke in suggesting that today, one might have believed it to be a mistake. But when you "corrected" it without changing the mistaken premise, that made the claim of mistake less credible, and now when you repeat it in another post...

Now, I'm still curious about whether Fitzgerald thinks that outing Plame was itself illegal.

Patrick Fitzgerald is a federal prosecutor. His job isn't to go around gratuitously making suggestions he can't prove about what he thinks is criminal. If he can prove a crime, he should prosecute it, if he can't, well, then in the eyes of the law the person is innocent.

During his initial press conference he said that Plame's identity was classified, but he carefully didn't say whether she was "covert," a term that has a precise legal meaning.

"Classified" is also a term which has a precise legal meaning, and disclosure of classified information can be criminal even where it doesn't disclose the identity of a "covert" agent.

He also suggested that state of mind was important: under the law, outing Plame might have been a crime only if it was done with intent to harm the United States.

That particular kind of intent is a consideration in some of the provisions which might apply to the leak; the provision of the Espionage Act that might apply tend to require either intent or reason to believe that the information would be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of a foreign nation, while one of the three possibly applicable provisions of the IIPA requires intent to reveal covert agents and reason to believe (but not intent) that harm will result to US intelligence gathering.

Intent or propensity to cause harm is also relevant to the various Constitutional limits that have been found to the application of laws criminalizing release of information (this is particularly directly true of the Espionage Act, but the Constitutional limits apply generally and would presumably apply to the IIPA very similarly to the way they apply to the Espionage Act, since the kinds of conduct regulated and the kinds of harm sought to be prevented are so similar.)

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

I certainly think that the leakers, and the Bush Administration more generally, have been actively (and successfully) seeking to do whatever it takes to make the US situation seem more insecure, even if that means making it actually more insecure, so as to use fear to advance their open intention of expanding executive power. So, no, I'd say your characterization that "nobody thinks..." is false on its face.

The fact that Fitzgerald didn't indict Richard Armitage, who originally leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak, suggests pretty strongly that he didn't think he could win a case based on the leak itself.

I don't think it does at all; either in their express terms or the case law pertaining to them, often in both, all of the provisions that might be used to prosecute the leak require more than just the fact of a leak of particular information, but have specific requirements regarding the purpose of the leak, the intent or belief of the leaker regarding the effects of the leak, and the legal relationship of the leaker to the information. That one person who may leaked a particular piece of information might not be prosecutable does not even remotely suggest that a case could not be made against other leakers differently situated.

My guess is that this is because he decided the law didn't support an outing charge.

My guess is that he didn't decide any such thing, but merely that he had inadequate information on which to decide that any particular person could be successfully charged for an offense, which is why he has never said that no crime was committed in the leak, only that the investigation has become inactive barring any future revelations.

The best case defense for what Cheney and Libby were doing is that they didn't know what Valerie Plame's status was with the CIA. That shows that they didn't really even think about whether this was going to be damaging to Plame or national security. To me that's just as bad (or worse) as damaging national security intentionally, although it makes a difference legally.

All of this is speculation, but a "king" doing something spectacularly irresponsible is not necessarily the same as something illegal.

George W. Bush is not a king.

I think Fitz *did* tell us quite plainly that she was covert. Look at Libby's indictment. It says right there in plain English specifically that the CIA referred the matter to DoJ ***for an IIPA investigation***. The CIA clearly knew whether or not she was covert and all of the CIA, DoJ and (months later) Fitzgerald knew that IIPA only applied to covert agents. He's telling us right there in the indictment that yes, she was covert.

Also, the affadavit he filed when trying to compel Judith Miller's testimony stated that quite plainly that he needed her testimony to establish Libby's "knowledge or belief" about her status specifically to appy IIPA. Libby's knowledge or belief about her status is totally irrelevant under IIPA if she was not covert - and all important if she was. By stating that it was NECESSARY for him to determine Libby's knowledge for an IIPA charge Fitzgerald was clearly telling the judge that she was covert.

Cranky: I think Kevin knows that, which is one of the reasons I am so annoyed at him today: he is posting rhetorical questions based on Radical Republican talking points when he has shown in the past that he knows why those talking points are false. He hasn't displayed this sort of NYT "he said - she said" for quite a while and I am wondering what is behind it now.

Ditto.

Posted by: cmdicely on March 7, 2007 at 6:07 PM

Word.

There is no particular reason to beleive that Dick Cheney and George Bush were deliberately trying to undermine the security of the united states. They just wanted political power and got it by giving the identity of a CIA operative to reporters.

There is no particular reason to beleive that Robert Hansen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen) was deliberately trying to undermine the security of the united states. He just wanted money and got it by selling secrets to the Russians.

Then how could Fitzgerald have shut down the investigation until he knew for sure what Libby was up to?

An inactive investigation is not "shut down" because everything is known that should be known, rather, it is in hibernation because it cannot go forward without additional information that is unlikely to be produced by active investigation (well, in other cases, perhaps inactive because active investigation isn't seen likely to be cost-effective even though there may be avenues to pursue, but that seems unlikely in this case.)

ihateemo,
There is a type of financial fraud known as a "workout" or "cleanout" where the fraud-committing party takes a legitimate corporation, runs its credit to the limit in all directions, liquidates the assets (right down to selling the chairs), and leaves for Brazil while the enterprise collapses. Various luminaries within the Republican Party muse from time to time about attempting this with the Federal Goverment (under suitable philosophical cover of course). Is it possible that Cheney and his team saw the chance to actually run the table (and perhaps grab Iraq's oil in the process)? You be the judge.

Cranky

Nice try ihateemo. Invoking Godwin's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law) to declare victory and go home. Focus on the substance of the argument. Folks with noble intent who somehow got it wrong will lose little time admitting their incompetence and learning from it. That means, when it became clear that no WMD existed and that no links could be found between Saddam and 9/11, this gang would have admitted their mistake and worked hard to fix the problem they created. That is noble intent. Instead they continue to act like they were never wrong and continue to steal our rights, our values, and violate our treaty obligations; that is what made our nation a great nation and these bastards are chipping away at the greatness of our nation. Pray tell me how that can considered noble intent?

In my security briefings, I am told that even if I see classified information on the Front Page of the New York Times or on FARK.com, I am not allowed to consider that information unclassified and I am not allowed to distribute it.

Armitage leaking it did not declassify the information.

Thank you cmdicely. That answers my questions. I haven't read anybody say that two separate leakers could be treated differently. I really don't understand how anyone can say that Fitzgerald should have dropped this investigation when one person who leaked Plame's name was very clearly lying to him.

"But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security." Kevin drum

Really? Then I guess I have been hallucinating all those comments and posts by many of your commentators as well as other bloggers regarding the theory that Plame was outed because she and Brewster Jennings had caught someone(s) slipping in Chem/bio weapons into Iraq post invasion. Others have speculated that the outing was because she knew too much about the truth about Iraq's nonexistent WMDs to she was working on the Iran nuclear file and she and her cover business had to be eliminated to prevent leaks/dissents about how the intelligence community/experts think about such claims being made towards Iran as were against Iraq in 2002 to justify war with Iran for the same purpose which was clearly on the mind of this Administration until very recently (and that is assuming they have finally decided against such, something I am far from comfortable taking at face value given the history of this Administration) and given the behind the scenes grief the intelligence community gave them in their sale of the Iraq necessity this is a viable possibility also.

Note that all of these possibilities involve deliberately undermining American national security for their own reasons/agendas. Therefore I find your willingness to make this assumption questionable, just have clearly many of your other regular commentators. While I am not sold on any of these possibilities I have also not seen enough to conclusively rule them out so I cannot simply dismiss them as possible explanations for the Plame betrayal and exposure and neither should you unless you can conclusively show that such intentions did not exist which would be an impressive feat given the murkiness and clouds one must see through to be able to come to such conclusions.

I wonder if the new right wing notion of crime is that unless someone is charged it never happened. So if someone is murdered but there is no way to find out who did it to charge them with it then there never was any murder. That is the exact same logic that underpins the notion that if no one is charged with the outing of Plame that it therefore was proven not to be a crime to expose her CIA connections in the first place. I wonder how many cases there are out there that there is insufficient legal evidence to prosecute let alone convict yet crimes were clearly committed, somehow I think more than a few otherwise there would not be such things as cold case files. The degree of perversion of the western basic legal principles that America, Canada, the U.K. and many other democratic societies operate under shown by such "reasoning"/"logic" underscores the high level of legal ignorance or worse intentional deception by any that advance such an absurd argument such as this one. Not that stops the Trolletariat and the hard core true believers in the GOP/conservative movement as we have been seeing.

It never ceases to amaze me how when no underlying crime was charged against Clinton his false statement was sufficient to try to impeach him for being misleading in a unrelated civil case whereas when a Chief of Staff and NSA to the Veep AND advisor to the President as well is convicted of making false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice in a criminal case directly involving national security involving whether this Administration betrayed an intelligence asset is nothing but a partisan witch-hunt. The level of not just cognitive dissonance but outright proud ignorance/deceit involved in taking such positions underscores yet again why the right in America these days are not only unqualified and unfit to hold power but why they pose an active threat to any true open/democratic society by the tools they are willing to embrace/employ that are inherently destructive to such if it gets them power/advances their agenda in the process. The past decade and especially last six years have demonstrated that quite extensively. They have become the living example of every significant GOP talking point about why supposedly the Dems/left cannot be trusted with power by showing that they are even worse in truth than the fictions they have promoted about the Dems. I know this is not exactly a shock given how projective the GOP/movement conservatives are to begin with but the record we have seen in the past six years now capped off with the Libby conviction provides all the proof anyone not wearing partisan blinders could and should ever need to prove this about the GOP and Bushco.

Armitage leaking it did not declassify the information.

No, but it certainly could make it harder to prove that a later leaker, particularly if they knew of Armitage's leak, had "reason to believe" their additional leak would injure the United States.

It, at least, complicates the prosecution of later leakers.

Kevin,

What is your response to the Feb 2006 Isikoff piece, the Corn piece, the Larissa Alexandrova Raw Story pieces about Plame being covert, working outside the US on occasion, and working on Iran nuke capabilities?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/MSNBC_confirms_Raw_Story_report_Outed_0501.html

mhr just described Ken Starr's witch-hunt to a "T" it seems to me.

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

I've certainly heard the theory that Team Cheney was trying to disable U.S. ability to glean accurate info about Iran's nuclear weapons program so it could run the Iraq WMD scam again.

The drunk driver doesnt generally intend to kill anybody either and he is guilty of a crime even if he doesnt.

Shame on you Kevin, shame on you for still giving these guys the benefit of doubt.

And extra shame for not only doing that, but pretending that everyone agrees with you. "Nobody thinks..." indeed.

Never ascribe to bad motive that which can be just as easily explained by sheer incompetence.

Look at the current mess. We start with GWB. His entire life is one example of social promotion after another. He went to and graduated from (with gentlemanly C's) both Yale and Harvard, but has never shown that he learned a damn thing. He never ran an organization that he didn't screw up. His most famous act in business was to sell Sammy Sosa depriving his team of Sosa's best years. He was a weak governor in a state famous for it's weak governorship.

We all knew his background when he was nominated in 2000. A lot of Republicans, who seem to believe in the divine right of the Bush family, thought that Dick Cheney would provide adult supervision.

That leads us to Dick Cheney. When he was elected he was 60 years old. Now 60 is not old for most of us, but for somebody with his heart condition it turns out that he was functioning like a normal 80 year old. He could still sound good, but his reasoning power was (is) not what it once was.

Proof you say.

Well, he pushed through the appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Rummy proved to be totally out of touch and a complete failure. Over the years Cheney would look at Rummy and remember his old mentor, not the moron who didn't think past "mission accomplished." He just couldn't bring himself to believe that Rummy needed to go when anybody with a functioning brain knew of Rummy's failings.

Second, think about the Wilson affair. Clearly Cheney misread the initial story. He took it that Wilson was saying that Cheney personally sent him to Niger. Well any reasonable reading of the published story shows that Wilson said that Cheney asked the CIA to verify a fact and the CIA sent Wilson to check it out. Folks that is exactly what happened. For some reason probably related to reduced blood flow to his brain, Cheney believed that Wilson was telling people that he personally sent Wilson to Niger. He wouldn't listen to anybody. He had to prove otherwise. Why? I don't know. It was something rattling around in his head. When he heard about Valerie Wilson Cheney fixed on using her to "prove" that Cheney didn't personally send Wilson to Niger. No, Wilson's wife sent Wilson to Niger. That's the ticket. A smooth character in his prime would never have fixated on that little bit of theater. Cheney did. That lead directly to the outing and to four years of nonsense.

Third, when asked Cheney will tell you that there were real operational connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That is most completely debunked story of all time. Dick Cheney still believes that story. He isn't lying when he connects Saddam to Al Qaeda. Where he lying he would have changed cover stories by now. He simply does not have the ability to change. Like I said he is functioning like somebody who is tired and worn out.

Folks I have to ask, is Dick Cheney suffering the kinds of symptoms associated with old age, especially an old man with a long history of heart problems.

I know he sounds good, but I have encountered all kinds of people over the years who sounded good, but were suffering some sort of deficiency. Haven't you?

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

Oh, of course not. Why would criminals who are using the power of the US to steal foreign resources *while* liquidating the assets and mortgaging the future of the US all for their own personal gain deliberately try to undermine USAmerican security....?

Did Fitz ask Libby if he had sex with Judith in the Aspens with conneting roots.If not Why?

Kevin, I agree with Chris - And I get just as pissed when liberals speak for me and ascribe motives to me as I do when the righties do it.

Ron Byers, well stated.

Did he ask Libby if he had any warts on his dick.

I am late to the party here and since others have collectively hit the situation on the head, I won't waste a lot of space making the same points. Suffice it to say, CM Dicely at 6:07 and Chabord immediately following at 6:09 have, taken together, nicely stated the current position of the facts and legal analysis in this case. Armitage may or may not be guilty of a criminal offense in relation to his "leaks"; however this is an irrelevant red herring as to any other leakers. Classified info stays classified until it is declassified and the fact that one or more actors has improperly put classified info into the public domain is no defense to others wrongfully doing so. I will add one thing to Dicely's analysis, however, and that is that Fitzgerald may well be convinced of violations of the Espionage Act and/or IIPA but be fully convinced that the ensuing "graymail defense" both would and Should be effective because of the critical nature of Plame/Brewster-Jennings intelligence work. If you closely read the statements of several high level CIA types over the past few years, including Druhmiller, Tenet, Johnson, McGlaughlin, and the former #2 man on the operations/covert side of the Agency (whose name escapes me at this second), it becomes hard to believe that this is not the case. Lastly as to the affidavit Chabord describes, I belive it is under seal, but a decision on a pre-trial discovery/evidentiary issue issued by Walton absolutely necessitates that the court found, as a matter of law, that Plame was indeed covert within the ambit of the IIPA. I believe this is what Chabord is describing, but I am not sure.

"nobody (sane) believes that Bush is some kind of Manchurian candidate, just an incompetent"

This incompetent may not be some kind of Manchurian candidate, but his presidency has furthered just about every goal of Osama bim Laden, who still walks free after masterminding 9/11.

Via No Quarter, Larry Johnson was on NPR along with other former CIA-ers... Agents See Dangerous Precedent in Plame's Outing. A few excerpts:

Among intelligence insiders, there's concern that nearly four years after the CIA called for an investigation into the leak of Plame's name to reporters, no one has been charged for what they see as an unpardonable crime: outing an undercover operative.

Valerie Plame belonged to that secretive circle of spies who spend most of their careers — in some cases, their whole lives — operating undercover. Within that circle, there appears to be mostly relief at the verdict. Larry Johnson, who was in Plame's CIA class and has remained a close friend, calls it "wonderful news."

Johnson adds, "I think there was a general perception that this government could get away with anything. With this verdict, the answer is, 'No it can't.'" Johnson sees the decision as a moment of vindication for his friend. But he says it shouldn't be the end of the Plame story — that more officials should be charged.

That's a view shared by Robert Richer, former No. 2 in the CIA's clandestine service.

"Someone made a conscious decision to disclose the identity of an operative working undercover," Richer says. "And I think that they should be held accountable. It is a criminal offense." More...

KD: During his initial press conference he said that Plame's identity was classified, but he carefully didn't say whether she was "covert," a term that has a precise legal meaning.

Are you aware, Kevin, that to this day the CIA denies that Hugh Redmond, a NOC who was caught spying in Shanghai in 1951 and died after 19 years in a Chinese prison, was an undercover agent?

Are you aware that the staff of the 9/11 commission called Fitz "one of the world's best terrorism prosecutors" and because of his experience, it's reasonable to conclude that he would understand the nature of clandestine ops, the need for damage control, and parse his words carefully?

How do you know that Fitz "carefully" didn't say Plame was covert on purpose as you imply?

Ron Byers:

Excellent post- but, I go the other way on the introduction "Never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by a bad motive."

If you look at what this Administration has done to our country, domestically and abroad, is it more reasonable to ascribe good intentions and incompetence to their actions OR bad intentions, planning and execution ? Personally, I do not think that it is close.

By the way, Kevin, are you going to answer Cranky Observer's question?

"I think Fitz *did* tell us quite plainly that she was covert. Look at Libby's indictment. It says right there in plain English specifically that the CIA referred the matter to DoJ ***for an IIPA investigation***. The CIA clearly knew whether or not she was covert and all of the CIA, DoJ and (months later) Fitzgerald knew that IIPA only applied to covert agents. He's telling us right there in the indictment that yes, she was covert.

Also, the affadavit he filed when trying to compel Judith Miller's testimony stated that quite plainly that he needed her testimony to establish Libby's "knowledge or belief" about her status specifically to appy IIPA. Libby's knowledge or belief about her status is totally irrelevant under IIPA if she was not covert - and all important if she was. By stating that it was NECESSARY for him to determine Libby's knowledge for an IIPA charge Fitzgerald was clearly telling the judge that she was covert."

Posted by: chaboard on March 7, 2007 at 6:09 PM

I happen to think you are correct in this, it is one of the main reasons I say she was a NOC so definitively, I see it from folks that trained with her at CIA, I see it in the indictments, I see it in the way Tatel's ruling read, and what I do not see is anything that has held up to scrutiny that supposedly proved she was not a NOC. Indeed, there has come to light information that indicates she was still active as a NOC that traveled still overseas to do her job from time to time when her cover was exposed. I believe the most recent example of her being out of country "on the job" was in 2002, which certainly undercuts every single claim that she was neither a NOC nor a NOC as defined by the IIPA requirements. The trouble was in other areas of making such a charge stick as cmdicely has laid out so nicely. That this sort of treasonous action can be dismissed so readily by the same self described and marketed champions of freedom, the military, and morality as movement conservatives see themselves as yet again shows the absolute falsity upon which that clearly wrong belief/impression relies.

Everything I saw from the outset indicated that this was the real deal, especially by the time we got to Tatel's decision although I had been from the outset willing to believe it likely and once the initial CIA referral for possible IIPA breech happened that was enough to convince me absent hard evidence to the contrary which as I already said I have yet to see.

Now, as to motivations involved, the possibilities are too many for me to be comfortable assuming for certain I know for sure, as Ron Byers' comment strikes me as equally valid as several others of varying intent/incompetence for other reasons I see as viable. However, there comes a point where such gross and general incompetence and greed cannot but be defined as destructive to national security and the welfare of the nation, and that point was passed IMHO before the last Presidential election, which was why I held the views I did during that campaign about the importance of defeating GWB and the price of his retaining office for a second term in Iraq and elsewhere. The willingness to expose a NOC though by those they report to and serve at the highest level of American government is something I find hard enough to grasp. That it could be done for political payback/damage control purposes is truly horrific to my mind. If it was done to disrupt the activities of Plame's unit though that would be a betrayal so black, so treasonous that it would have no rival IMHO in American history of such things. The problem is with this Administration is that there is enough conflicting information/data that malice is just as plausible in many respects as incompetence and either way the damage done is extreme.

There is also the possibility of intent to keep America in a state of constant fear and if that means a certain amount of weakening American power to maintain the control of that power long term I unfortunately have little difficulty seeing the current Administration and indeed top level of the GOP from actively doing exactly that. Do I know for sure or think it is the most probable explanation? No, but I do see it as at least equally viable as the other main contenders and therefore should not be dismissed by anyone until we have conclusive evidence/proof that we really know what was/is the case.

The bottom line though is that the American intelligence community was massively betrayed by this WH for whatever reasons by this act, an act that comes along with taking the fall for the "bad Iraq WMD intelligence" that was really the result of Cheney's prowling CIA analysts corridors and cubicles and the Doug Fieth Office of Special Plans which stovepiped unreliable intell that suited the political agenda's message for war with Iraq. Every time someone questions Plame's status, every time someone claims this was a prosecution with no crime committed, every time someone says this is a political witch-hunt they are yet again betraying those that serve in some of the most difficult, dangerous, and demanding services for the USA. This was a crime whether someone is eventually charged or not, this was a massive betrayal of the responsibilities of those in the WH to actively safeguard classified information (Especially regarding human assets let alone covert ones!!!!!) whatever their motives, and this is something for which there has yet even with the Libby conviction truly been any real accountability accomplished given what was done and the ramifications for decades to come in the intelligence world/business and the disadvantages it handicaps American intelligence with. There is a reason why I am more openly/blatantly contemptuous of those that act in such a manner on this issue than I am on many others; this is something that truly has always been not about politics for me but something far more deep, basic, and personal than that. When you are raised by someone that worked at the highest levels of intelligence for decades you tend to pick up a certain amount of respect and understanding of the risks taken and the duties/responsibilities owed on both sides of the equation, and what was done in the Plame betrayal was such a violation/perversion of those that it hit me very hard and deep. This is not first and foremost about politics, it is about the security of all in the western world as loose nukes threaten us all, and that is what she and BJ&a were involved in protecting us all from, especially in keeping them out of the hands of people like terrorists which is why this was a particularly offensive betrayal above and beyond just where the code of honour/contract within that field is concerned IMHO.

ckelly above has it right. They didn't give a rat's ass whether they undermined actual US security or not.

wedwedewd

Bill Gates Urges Better Education, More Tech Visas Before Senate Panel

First, excellent short post by chaboard. Those are important points.

Second, I think Fitzgerald has already addressed the reason he couldn't prosecute under IIPA or the Espionage Act, even if perhaps not in as much detail as we would like. At his indictment presser, he said:

Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn’t result in a charge? . . .

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.

In other words, the obstruction of the investigation prevented Fitzgerald from determining motive (for purposes of the Espionage Act), and I don't think you have to stretch this argument too far to apply it to knowledge (for purposes of the IIPA). And that's why, in Fitzgerald's view, there was a leak investigation with no charge.

Finally, on the "deliberately trying to undermine national security" point, a question: is the statute's intent requirement met if one intends to strengthen national security in the long run by taking a short-term action intended to harm national security (i.e., by outing a noc)? Generally, the loftiness of one's ultimate motives does not provide a legal excuse for criminal acts and intermediate destruction done purportedly in pursuit of high motives. If so then there is a strong argument to be made that the intent was actually there. (Proof of intent is another question, of course, but this is a theoretical discussion of intent, not a discussion of what might've been charged.)

Last I checked, nobody (sane) believes that Bush is some kind of Manchurian candidate, just an incompetent.

I think it's far worse than incompetent. Corrupt, comes to mind. If he were merely dumb as a post, I don't think he would have been quite so successful at getting tax cuts passed for the ultra-rich, or so carefully insulating himself (with layers of lawyers, aides, and whacked-out legal opinions) from responsibility for Gitmo, secret prisons, unwarranted wiretapping, and torture. This administration does a pretty good job at taking care of the things it actually cares about -- and otherwise, talk is cheap.

Apollo 13 - thank you. Robert richer was exactly the name I was looking for above.

A few points:

"During his initial press conference he said that Plame's identity was classified..."

He also said yesterday that he was "100 percent confident that she was classified." As Apollo 13 notes above, the CIA does not like to ever admit that people are covert.

"The fact that Fitzgerald didn't indict Richard Armitage, who originally leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak..."

You, of all people, should know this is sloppy -- Armitage didn't leak the name. And you've written yourself about how farfetched it is that Novak came up with "Plame" on his own. Libby, however, apparently used Plame in talking with Fleischer on July 7th and Miller on July 8th... and we now know he talked to Novak on July 9th. Connect the dots.

"IIPA didn't apply because Plame didn't fit its precise rules..."

People who know her say she did -- that she was covert, and that she had served overseas (by traveling) within the past five years.

"... suggests pretty strongly that he didn't think he could win a case based on the leak itself. My guess is that this is because he decided the law didn't support an outing charge."

Or that the law supported it, but he didn't have quite enough evidence to convict -- although Libby was clearly concerned about the topic, it's obviously hard to prove he knew she was covert without explicit evidence (e.g, him admitting it to someone).

Similarly, although the trail of responsibility Fitz followed apparently led to Cheney, he couldn't build a case against the VP without truthful answers from Libby (hence the "sand in the umpire's eyes").

nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

Wagster and Kevin miss the point entirely thus trying to deduce this case to an issue of national security rather than an issue of a war brought about by an falsified intelligence.

The case proves that Cheney and Bush did indeed cooked intelligence to start a war in Iraq BECAUSE LIBBY lied and has been found guility of it.

If Kevin didn't hear Patrick Fitzgerald say anything it was because he wasn't listeing to the closeing argument instead of tuning into FOX news or The Corner going on and on about how perjury is a little thing. So far over 3000 militatry members have died, so little thing, my ass.

Patrick said plenty so Kevin should get himself a a Q-tip.

Wilson wrote about what he "DIDN'T find in Africa" remember folks, so this trial was more than a matter of perjury. There is the matter of WHY Libby lied, not that he lied but WHY he lied.

It all comes down to lying about a war and Fitz said as much in his talk about the cloud that Libby placed over the administration, covering up for his bosses. Kevin would have anyone believe the case was meaningless when its only meaningless to spin doctors and people who hear only what the want to hear. Is Kevin watching only FOX News because he certainly is acting like it.

At any rate it ruined Plame's career, but atlas, it was Kevin's career.

And now there will be another lawsuit and it will be interesting to see what Cheney wants to declare "classified" while being sued over Plames ruined career. And the story won't go away even if Kevin thinks the Fitz's trial was meaningless when in actuality spoke volumes.

Scroll down for the photo,

Their Reality Has Lapped Our Satire.

Gimme a break. It is well-known that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent. So "outing" her was not a crime. Which is why nobody was indicted for "outing" her. We know from the record that Armitage - not exactly a Bush partisan - is the guy who "outed" her.

this is what came to mind while reading about the trial on this snowy day today:

spring snow in DC
the jury reached a verdict
large flakes are falling

FK you are wrong. She was a NOC. You are not entitled to any breaks.

By the way as I recall a lot of people used the "he didn't commit perjury because the questions concerning the intern were not relevant to the Paula Jones case." Conservatives like you laughed and laughed. That is why we laugh and laugh. A lie to the grand jury is a lie to the grand jury. Misleading the FBI is misleading the FBI. No underlying crime needed. Don't believe me ask Martha Stewart.

Patrick didn't take up the issue because he understands that the Vice President has executive privilege.

In two sentences:

I can do what I want when I want to whom I want.
Just so long as I do it under the aegis of "protecting American."

If you don't like this fact, you are a well-meaning, but ill-informed, traitor.
Patrick new better than to cross that line.
He is, after all, part of the team.

But here is some solace for your bleeding liberal heart:

If this were the USSR, I'd have your ass banished.
Or better, I'd get my shotgun and banish your wimpy white ass myself.

Alack, it is not the USSR.
Enjoy your freedom to whine while you can...

Folks I have to ask, is Dick Cheney suffering the kinds of symptoms associated with old age

Google on 'pump head' or 'pumphead'.

The results will sound familiar.

bmaz,
You're welcome...Also, good comments along with Chabord, Ron Byers, Scotian, Swopa, and others.

And kudos to Trypticon for the haiku.

Indifference to harm counts when it comes to intent.

another comment here:

http://www.discriminations.us/2007/03/the_new_york_timesthe_nation_e.html

It is ironic, if not hypocritical, that David Corn of the Nation, a magazine that really does not respect American intelligence-gathering and secret ops, pushed the issue and effectively led to the investigation and prosecution that led to the Libby verdict.

It is nevertheless the case that Corn did the right thing, even though successful prosecution of anybody under IIPA may never occur.

So its this political minerals contention that no secret agent of the US government would feel in the slightest bit undermined by the outing of one agent!

Lets not worry about Habeus Corpus then!

I won't feel in the slightest bit undermined as Kevin Drum is rendered alive and waterboarded to death - why should I?

Kevin ' what-me-worry' Drum is a political fucking IMBECILE!

Google on 'pump head' or 'pumphead'. The results will sound familiar.

I always thought Cheney had more in common with Pumpkinhead.

Off topic, but Domenici has lawyered up.

But whatever else you can say about the leakers, nobody thinks they were deliberately trying to undermine American national security.

I defend the administration at nearly every opportunity, but here they did the indefensible. Even had it been true that Wilson's editorial were politically motivated, and his trip in part nepotistic, as I believe, the reaction of the administration was reprehensible. If they did no harm in outing Plame (which we don't know, and which I doubt), it was by accident. The Democrats should at least start an investigation into possible impeachment. For one thing, it's good politics. Done well, it would be good for the country.

It'd still be nice to hear Fitzgerald's take on this, though.

OK, but he doesn't owe us more, does he?

It's actually worse than deliberately trying to undermine the security of the U.S. It's outing her because they could, and because the only thing that mattered to them was getting even. They didn't care about the consequences to security or to her; as Jeffrey Davis said above, it was a matter of indifference to them. Protecting their own ass is the overriding concern in every situation, and consequences be damned. To me this is even more reprehensible, whether it meets any legal definition of criminality or not.

Al: Look at how he used bad witnesses with bad memories to pretend that Libby had been lying and had not just forgotten something due to his poor memory.

Give it up Al, the administration lost fair-and-square on this one.

And losing the Libby trial might be just about the only thing this administration has ever done fair-and-square.

Fitzgerald can't and won't say more than he has.

As a prosecutor, he can only "speak" by the indictments he hands up - and those indictments come, not from him, but from the Grand Jury. Anyone not indicted is considered an "innocent accused."

The term "innocent accused" doesn't mean that the person in question actually is innocent; it means that the person in question hasn't been charged and therefore his/her guilt can't be established by a trial. Revealing what that person said, or what others said about that person, puts that person in the position of being 'charged without charges' - which an officer of the Court simply doesn't do. It's not an issue of fairness (though that's part of the reason) so much as it's an issue of legal procedure.

We're so used to lawyers leaking, judges putting on shows for TV, and all sorts of degrading shenanigans, that we've forgotten what it's like when someone who takes his job and his oath seriously behaves with scrupulous attention to professional ethics.

Fitzgerald can't and won't say more than he has, because professional ethics forbids it.

It is ironic, if not hypocritical, that David Corn of the Nation, a magazine that really does not respect American intelligence-gathering and secret ops, pushed the issue and effectively led to the investigation and prosecution that led to the Libby verdict.

Compared with whom? Bush? Cheney? Oliver "felon" North? Ronald "Iran-Contra" Reagan? George H. W. "Iran-Contra redux" Bush? Richard "spying on domestic political enemies" Nixon?

The Republican Party in general, and the criminals who infest its upper echelons specifically have demonstrated clearly that it is they who have no respect for "American intelligence-gathering and secret ops."

"We're so used to lawyers leaking, judges putting on shows for TV, and all sorts of degrading shenanigans, that we've forgotten what it's like when someone who takes his job and his oath seriously behaves with scrupulous attention to professional ethics.

Fitzgerald can't and won't say more than he has, because professional ethics forbids it."

Posted by: CaseyL on March 7, 2007 at 9:55 PM

Which is a very telling indicator of just how far things have slid from respecting professional ethics to ignoring them in American society, and alas I do not think it is limited to the legal profession either. There is a lack of respect for ethics and competence generally these days because it is not sexy enough, not flashy enough, yet these are the elements/traits which allow humans to build stable open democratic societies. Their importance cannot be overstated. I think this as much as anything is one of the primary elements as to why America is in such sorry shape these days, especially where its public discourse is concerned, and not just political discourse at that.