> 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.

I will not respond to imbecilic trolls on the covert issue specifically; but they and the minions of Republican Talking Pointyheads are truly stunning in their mendacity. A CIA Director working for Bush refers a request for criminal investigation under the IIPA (as stated that requires "covert") to Ashcroft's DOJ, who finds there are sufficient grounds on this complaint to appoint a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor hand selected by Bush/Ashcroft's DOJ is a US Attorney appointed by Bush with a universal reputation as a scrupulous and straight arrow prosecutor (Fitzgerald) who in the course of his duties files a sworn affidavit to the effect that Plame was covert within the ambit of the IIPA to a Federal Judge appointed to both the DC Court and the FISA court due to his credentials in determining national security matters. The judge, as a matter of law in an interlocutory discovery ruling, makes the detemination that Plame is indeed covert within the ambit of the IIPA. Yet, despite all this, the mindless Republican Talking pointyheads blabber like incoherent babies that Plame was proved to not only not be covert, but not even classified. Fucking amazing.

I defend the administration at nearly every opportunity

We've notice, Marler...that's your fucking problem.

Tool.

Kevin,
You are wrong with respect to Valerie Plame. Valerie and I started work at the CIA in September of 1985. We were members of the same Career Trainee class (which had 54 members). We were undercover from the day we walked in the building. I can vouch for this as can three other members of our class--Jim Marcinkowski, Brent Cavan, and Mike Grimaldi.
Valerie was an operations officer--someone who recruits spies. She worked in that position until she resigned from the Agency last year. In accordance with IIPA, Valerie had served overseas in a covert position in the five years prior to her outing in 2003.
You seem to ignore the fact that Scooter Libby obstructed the investigation. If you obstruct an investigation it makes it difficult to prove the violation of the IIPA. That's why Scooter, now a convicted felon, was found guilty of perjury and obstruction.

You go Larry Johnson.

There. From the horses mouth, so to speak.

Is that good enough for you boot-licking, no-crime-was-committed, she-wasn't covert, mendacious fuck-ups?

I am sure more inclined to take the word od someone who has actually stepped up and done something for this country than you you fucking idiots.

Larry Johnson:

Thank you very much for yet again confirming this point, not that it should be necessary by this time yet somehow it is. *sigh*

You go Larry Johnson.

I second that motion. Thank you, Larry.

Globe: Is that good enough for you boot-licking, no-crime-was-committed, she-wasn't covert, mendacious fuck-ups?

I think you forgot "Bush-Cheney, know-nothing propaganda tools" ...but two thumbs up for "fucking idiots." : )

When I drop the ball I can count on you to have my back.

But I shant be so complacent in the future.

Hey, feel free to do the same for me, Globe, although you did not drop the ball at all.

Larry Johnson is 100000000% correct.
How can anyone judge whether any crime was committed, or prosecutable, if the witnesses were lying? While Libby was the only one tried for, and convicted of lying, there is plenty of evidence that others were not very forthcoming themselves. Look at the very fetching and often repeated dance of the seven veils that Rove did before the Grand Jury.

And Fitzgerald has made this very point repeatedly. Remember: baseball, play, umpire, sand in the eyes? Rememmber Fitzgerald in the closing statements: Libby stole THE TRUTH.

Hey Apollo, no problem.

Somehow I doubt that will be necessary, you are as astute as they come.

i let my red head override my discretion at times.

Just read an AP story:

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. An upstate congressman says "it's very appropriate" for Vice President Dick Cheney to resign now that his former chief of staff has been convicted of four felonies.

Maurice Hinchey -- an Ulster County Democrat -- reacted the day after Lewis Libby was found guilty of lying and obstructing a probe into the leak of a C-I-A operative's identity.

Hinchey told a Binghamton radio station (W-N-B-F) that Cheney has "caused an enormous amount of trouble" related to the public disclosure of the employee's identity.

Hinchey said Congress should conduct a "full and complete" investigation into Cheney's role in the C-I-A leak case.

Hinchey wants a special counsel appointed to pursue possible criminal charges against Cheney.

The congressman said such a counsel could continue the work started by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

My friend Apollo
Is a very astute guy
He nails it often

Ah, shucks, Globe!

You know how to get me. Thanks for that.

I really suck at haiku. I am really rather jealous of you and shortstop and the other haiku masters who do it so well at the drop of a hat. But I pulled that one out just for you.:)

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?

But this doesn't make sense. Even if Bush, Cheney and Company were (or are) incompetent at national security, why would they want to make themselves, or their families, less safe?

Money.

They aren't worried about their safety. They have 190,000 acres in Paraguay and the resources for a private army.

You sell yourself short, Globe. Your troll smacking tirades come close to slam poetry.

I'll see if I can find a YouTube link someone sent me on a Bush slam. Interesting poetic form.

Attention Wingnuts:

A friendly reminder that it was G.W. Bush's own fucking CIA that referred the Plame matter for investigation and prosecution. And it was G.W. Bush's own fucking Department of Justice that pursued the matter. It wasn't the liberals and the dirty fucking hippies who convicted Libby.

Got that?

I saw this blog post when KD put it up and just started shaking my head.

So relieved to see Swopa and Larry Johnson came in here to set the record straight.

Thanks Apollo. I'll be looking for it.

12 hours to spring break! See you all then - I have to say goodnight.

I am still curious why Fitz claimed during the trial that Plame's status was not relevant. Mind you, if he had proven her status, it would have made his case much stronger. Also, for some reason, he was against de-classifying the CIA request for the investigation - so for all intents and purposes no one here even knows what it actually said.

In short, in spite of all the screams, when push came to shove, no evidence about the status of Plame was made public. Which, as we all understand, proves conclusively that she was deep undercover, and evil Bush-Cheney cabal was trying to get her killed. The best proof of a conspiracy is the fact that there is no proof of a conspiracy.

Frequency Kenneth: "Gimme a break."

Why should I? You obviously don't deserve it.

F.K.: "It is well-known that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent."

Valerie Plame status within the CIA was NOC -- non-official cover. What part of the term "non-official cover" do you not understand, genius?

The CIA would never have referred the case to the Justice Dept. for criminal investigation if she wasn't a clandestine operative.

F.K.: "So 'outing' her was not a crime. Which is why nobody was indicted for 'outing' her."

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald himself noted that the investigation was clearly impeded by a cover-up attempt, leaving his office unable to render a conclusive determination as to whom was responsible for what happened -- hence Mr. Libby's multiple convictions for felony perjury and obstruction of justice.

F.K.: "We know from the record that Armitage - not exactly a Bush partisan - is the guy who 'outed' her."

Actually, the official record indicates that Richard Armitage -- who disclosed Ms. Plame's identity and status to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward -- was but one of several administration officials to do so.

That record and court testimony also shows that Lewis Libby, Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer were the others who were involved in this orchestrated effort to intimidate her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, and perhaps other potential whistleblowers.

Mahalo for the softballs.

I am still curious why Fitz claimed during the trial that Plame's status was not relevant.

Because Plame's status was not relevant; the charges at trial were obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements. Plame's status is irrelevant to whether Libby lied to the FBI, committed perjury in his grand jury testimony, or obstructed justice.

Mind you, if he had proven her status, it would have made his case much stronger.

No, it wouldn't. Plame's status would have no probative value on any of the charges actually filed against Libby.

So Fitzgerald's failure to bring indictments on the leak itself has been interpreted in a number of ways:

1. Some say it means no law was broken because Plame was not covert or no classified information was involved.
2. Others say that he didn't have enough evidence -- especially on intent and on knowledge of Plame's status on the part of those who leaked.
3. Still others say the reason he couldn't get the required evidence is that Libby lied.

#1 is clearly incorrect, because Fitzgerald himself has said that classified information was in fact leaked. So its #2, and possibly #3 as well.

But I wonder if all this doesn't also suggest that the applicable laws are flawed. If senior administration officials can either out covert agents or leak classified information and get away with it because it cannot be shown that they knew what they were doing, or that they intended to cause harm, then the bar for prosecuting such crimes is too high. It would seem that a senior government official who leaks information about the doings of an intelligence agency should be responsible for knowing what he/she is doing and what harm it can cause before doing so.

As Fitzgerald said, The average American may not appreciate that there's no law that's specifically just says, "If you give classified information to somebody else, it is a crime."

Well I'm that average American -- I think it should be a crime, at least for senior government officials who should not be able to claim as a defense ignorance of the importance of such an action.

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

This leak was meant to further the Iraq policy by suppressing information that would suggest the policy undermines national security by discrediting and ending the careers of two prominent people with knowledge of the threat from Iraq.

On the one hand, defense industry and oil industry revenues have skyrocketed.

On the other hand, the Iraq policy has gravely harmed our national security.

The administration has offered no explanation for how they could have reasonably thought otherwise. Knowing now the state of pre-war intelligence, the burden is on them to produce a good-intentioned rational for the policy.

I'm late to the thread, but I think you are all wet on this one, Kevin. I think it is abundantly clear that the "intent" in leaking the name of Joseph Wilson's wife in a national publication was to harm him. In other words, there is clearly malicious intent in the motive - why else would they do it? Further, how could they (the perpetrators) be ignorant to the potential harm that this leaking could do, not just to Wilson and his wife, but to "national security", although that phrase has gotten so stretched and perverted as to be nearly meaningless. That is why Wilson and Plame are bringing a civil suit against the perps, as well they should, as their actions were clearly meant to harm and "national security" considerations be damned.

Your wishy-washy analysis and unwillingness to pursue aggressive remedies like Articles of Impeachment against at least Cheney and possibly, Bush too, shows why Republicans will continue to make doormats of Democrats for the foreseeable future.

Give Drum a break.... Who does he work for? Your flip-flop feebleness, Mr Drum, suggests there is a drum being marched to.

Perhaps the correct word should be used so all the equivocation can be cleared. That word is 'betrayed'. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby BETRAYED a classified CIA employeee, almost certainly totally covert.

Well, we are disapponted that the actual leak was not prosecuted, but it is still affirming that Libby was convicted, the president's lies are exposed, that he would work endlessly to find the leaker, and take appropriate steps, and the vice president assuredly is diminished. It assures a democratic win for the next presidency. The successful prosecution and conviction of a high official in the vice president's office will stay in the news. Jurors clamoring for Libby's pardon will bring even more to the forefront that the administration was behind it all. Lies about the run up to the Iraq war, and the Niger-Iraq connection will continue to be discussed. Democrats will continue to have hearings exposing the incompetency of the administration. The Wilson's have their civil suit--and this issue is not going away. (I am known as the eternal optimist by friends and colleagues...)

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.

Does Kevin, anyone else know that Plame wasn't covert?

NOPE.

NOPE, we do not, so why is Kevin doing something this administration and it's lacky do, why not just make shit up!

It's crime a ruin someones career with fasle accusations.

The question comes down to "is there anything wrong with ruining people lives who have aspire to tell Americans the truth about falsified war evidence? The administration saw nothing wrong with it.

Why is Kevin insisting there is no crime in administration's punishing of people that tried to give Americans the truth about those 16 words in Bush's SOTU speech.

Does Kevin believe that everybody destroy's people when they feel like it, particulary our US government. As the Washington Post would have people believe in it's editorial? It's okay for the US government to persecute, harass and other use maltreat to anyone whom refuses to let the administration lie.

Al Says:
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.

In the immortal words of Newt Gingrich, what we have here is a failure of citizenship.

There is NO FEDERAL Reporter's Shield law and there is no 1st Amendment protction of sources!!!!

The witnesses were judged on their credibility by the Jury. Most people do not have "Phonographic Memories", but it is really not unusual for people to remember things differently. That is what a Jury's Job is to resolve these issues.

Libby's attorney promised the jury that Libby would testify....he did not. Fitzpatrick did not go off on a partisan attack in his closing, he addressed the facts and the faults of the defense.

As far as a lack of morals, I have seen nothing that indicates that Fitzpatrick was anything but moral and professional, unlike Libby!!!

Good points, goalkeeper.

I sometimes have a tough time remembering tunes as well, not to mention facts from the past.

However, for those on the right who keep harping about perjury being more of a "little white lie", play games with the FBI should they ever question you. Yeah, obstruction of justice is so trivial. Be sure to retain Nathan to represent you, if he is free from his "slip and fall" caseload.

I think those of us who saw the bogus nature of the WMD argument for the Iraq invasion early on wanted Fitzgerald to go after the leakers because, with Republican Party discipline over Congress, we lacked any other way to put people under oath on the issue and bring the facts to light.

Now we do.

Committee hearings and reports on the WMD and other specious justifications for the war are long overdue.

The consequences for those responsible will be at the ballot box, a much more serious setback because of all the money the executive branch controls.

Getting back to Kevin's original post, maybe it was water under the bridge by the time Fitzgerald arrvied at the scene, but shouldn't the FBI investigators have known or determined first thing whether or not Valerie Plame was covert as defined by law?

"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"."

Intimidation.
Doesn't matter if you are a CIA agent, or a decorated Ambassador. Screw with us and we will f*ck you up.
Of course, that's credible if you're Tony Soprano. If you're a Washington tough guy--a ball of goo who can intimidate other balls of goo--your methods may not work on a guy who told Saddam Hussein to go f*ck himself IN BAGHDAD.

What I've not seen mentioned anywhere is the effect on National Security of Plames' outing. My understanding is that her network was in Iran and it was about nuclear proliferation. With her gone, we are blind in Iran.

I won't believe they planned that far ahead.

Just the Law of Unintended Consequences.

It's been pretty clearly established that the statutes that the CIA demanded an investigation on are extremely difficult to prosecute.

Question: If there were a conspiracy emanating from Cheney, or even Bush, to leak Plame's identity to discredit Wilson, would that have been sufficient to prosecute under any of the statutes in question? (Whether Armitage was involved in that conspiracy or not?)

If so, it is pretty clearly true that, to this day, there is no reason to conclude that no such crime was committed. Rather, Libby's lies blocked Fitzgerald's ability to find the truth, and prosecute either of those possible crimes.

You still have to ask yourself: Why did Scooter lie? What was he hiding? Why didn't he testify in his defense? And why didn't Cheney testify in Scooter's defense?

I haven't heard any convincing arguments that what they were hiding could not be relevant to prosecution under the original statutes.

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.

Who cares what points "right-wing critics" make, since we know that they are all, to a man, paid professional liars who will say and do literally anything, anything at all to hold on to power and evade responsibility? They don't say anything that hasn't been cooked up for them by Rove and his henchmen in an effort to obscure the truth.

mhr,

So Fox news finally found one person who isn't a right-wing partisan hack to side with the idea that Fitz shouldn't have pursued the perjury and obstruction charges. Does this mean that everytime a conservative is critical of the administration you'll be taking his word as the final word for things as well?

How would you, or Boies for that matter, respond to Fitzgerald's statement on the matter?:

"For us, as investigators and prosecutors, to take a case where a high-level official is telling a story that the basis of his information wasn't from government officials but came from a reporter, the reporter had told us that was not true, other officials had told us the information came from them, we could not walk away from that.

"And to me, it's inconceivable that any responsible prosecutor would walk away from the facts that we saw in December 2003 and say, 'There's nothing here; move along, folks.' . . .

mhr, I will take the word of Larry Johnson over you any day of the week and twice on Sunday. (And the above post by Larry Johnson was indeed authentic. I emailed Mr. Johnson to thank him for his comment and received a reply in response.)

Getting back to Kevin's original post, maybe it was water under the bridge by the time Fitzgerald arrvied at the scene, but shouldn't the FBI investigators have known or determined first thing whether or not Valerie Plame was covert as defined by law?

First, who says they didn't gather facts and make a judgment on that? Second, why? If her relationship to the CIA was classified—a necessary prerequisite for her to be "covert"—than anyone with authorized access to classified information would have presumptive reason to believe that revealing it would damage national security, and anyone who actively sought to gather and reveal that kind of information would almost certainly be liable under the Espionage Act.

Whether Plame met the IIPA definition of "covert" might certainly be relevant in edge cases, and to prosecutorial decisions about which charges to file, but its not fundamentally the kind of showsstopper issue which has to be answered before anything else in an investigation would be warranted.

But Armitage got his info from a memo written by Libby.

The only question left is---why did Libby lie if there was no crime in talking about Plame?

David Boies, who attempted to lawyer Al Gore into the White House after Gore had lost the election of 2000, has said that Fitzgerald should have dismissed the case against Libby when he found that Armitage was the source of the leak and that his was a political prosection.

You mean, the same David Boies that is representing Conrad Black in the criminal securities fraud case brought by Fitzgerald in which the government is seeking penalties including forfeiture of $92 million?

I can't imagine what personal agenda he might have in painting Fitzgerald as an out of control prosecutor...

I'll take Boies' word for it as the final word on this bit of trumped -up nonsense. Boies is no right winger but a liberal with a still functioning brain.

Boies may or may not be a liberal, but as you certainly ought to recognize given your characterization of him as the person "who attempted to lawyer Al Gore into the White House after Gore had lost the election of 2000", he is a zealous advocate that will take every opportunity to do anything that might in the slightest way benefit his current clients.

Even if his bias isn't political or partisan, he is hardly an unbiased source when it comes to Fitzgerald. You might as well be citing Libby's legal team on Fitzgerald.

cmdicely,

Interesting point about a potential conflict of interest in Boies commenting on a Fitzgerald prosecution.

But of course I'm sure Fox News disclosed this little conflict at the time he was commenting on it.

"First, who says they didn't gather facts and make a judgment on that? Second, why?"

If Fitzgerald did not bring ANY charges related directly to national security, isn't it safe to say there wasn't any known violation of the IIPA or the Espionage Act?

I still don't see why the FBI kept pursuing.

Seems to me that to solve a 'Who Dun It', you have to have verify there's an 'it' to begin with. What was 'it'?

So if I stab a knife into someones head without the deliberate intent to kill them then I am innocent of attempted murder?!? This 'deliberate intent' horse shit is bad law, a persons INTENDED result can not be more important to a case than the ACTUAL result. I can manufacture any number of intents for any crime I might commit in the future which may even be altruistic or were meant to be beneficial but it wont change the actual results now will it?

Who gives a fuck that they say their motives were pure? They outed a CIA agent who was doing more in the fight against terrorism than President Pretzel and Vice President Blood Clot could hope to do. They should all hang for treason!

Let me channel my RW Troll....

....so will Emptywheel and FDL now write a book explaining why the Bushies didn't out a spy?

Did they out Plame? Yep.

Did that violate a law? I can't imagine how it wouldn't.

It certainly is more damaging than anything Clinton did while in office. It is possibly more damaging than anything even Nixon did in office.

How could it not be a violation of law to out a covert CIA agent?

How is the outing of Plame not as illegal as passing classified information to a foreign government? That's what Larry Franklin is going down for. How is passing classified info. to a journalist not a violation of law?

Four people leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent. That's a conspiracy.

Someone ordered it. Who?

You ask if they did it to INTENTIONALLY damage national security. I say, only the evidence will clarify that and so, an investigation has to be done. Otherwise we are completely open to having our national security violated again and again and again.

I can see how this Iraq War, instigated with forged documents (and other false arguments) could be very difficult for a prosecutor to investigate and bring to court. It's too big. But, to bring to justice those just below the elected officials shouldn't be quite as difficult.

Republicans in the Reagan administration killed the government research into alternative fuels which Pres. Carter instituted back in the '70s. They have oil-men running Republican administrations. Oil companies are making mega-millions. It seems pretty clear there's a direct link between their policies and their financial gains. Yep there's reason to investigate whether they intentionally damaged national security. That big job is for Congress.

If Fitzgerald did not bring ANY charges related directly to national security, isn't it safe to say there wasn't any known violation of the IIPA or the Espionage Act?

No, it's not safe. It may simply mean that while he suspected or knew of violations of the IIPA or the Espionage Act he did not have enough evidence thereof to be confident that he could get a conviction on those charges. The fact that a prosecutor feels that he cannot successfully bring a case to trial is not prima facie evidence that the act itself did not happen.

Posted by: Larry Johnson on March 7, 2007 at 10:38 PM | PERMALINK:

Kevin,
You are wrong with respect to Valerie Plame. Valerie and I started work at the CIA in September of 1985. We were members of the same Career Trainee class (which had 54 members). We were undercover from the day we walked in the building. I can vouch for this as can three other members of our class--Jim Marcinkowski, Brent Cavan, and Mike Grimaldi.
Valerie was an operations officer--someone who recruits spies. She worked in that position until she resigned from the Agency last year. In accordance with IIPA, Valerie had served overseas in a covert position in the five years prior to her outing in 2003.
You seem to ignore the fact that Scooter Libby obstructed the investigation. If you obstruct an investigation it makes it difficult to prove the violation of the IIPA. That's why Scooter, now a convicted felon, was found guilty of perjury and obstruction.

Larry, thank you for your public service and for taking the time to set the record straight here. I only wish that you and Jim Marcinkowski would get equal time on TV with the blow-hards calling for a pardon.

BTW- I live in Jim Marcinkowski's district and was a supporter of his congressional bid. I sincerely hope that he is runs again and is successful in unseating Rogers.

mhr: "...attempted to lawyer Al Gore into the White House after Gore had lost the election of 2000..."

Was this before or after Poland invaded Germany?

Larry Johnson just lied.

He has stated in the past that he was unaware of Plame's job for the last few years.

Indeed, Vanity Fair confirmed that she moved stateside around 1999...and in 2003 she had a managerial position with the MPD.

I think this case highlights what is wrong with American jurisprudence. Prosecutors are not charged with finding out the truth to serve justice and inform the public or wrong doing, their job is to secure convictions. If no conviction can be secured because of reasonable doubt, they do not pursue the case because they cannot obtain a conviction. This leads to many abuses by prosecutors, who use false evidence, coerced confessions, and the testimony of other law breakers, who have been given immunity, to secure the conviction of others. It also means many investigations' findings are never made public. For the prosecutor, winning a conviction means everything to their future political prospects. Attempting to find the truth and seek justice for wrong doers, by at least exposing their crimes to the public, is not in their best interests. I would like to see our prosecutorial system changed so that 'prosecutors' become something more than death sentence seeking political hacks with aspirations of seeking higher political office.

Posted by: Nathan on March 8, 2007 at 11:52 AM | PERMALINK

Larry Johnson just lied.
He has stated in the past that he was unaware of Plame's job for the last few years.
Indeed, Vanity Fair confirmed that she moved stateside around 1999...and in 2003 she had a managerial position with the MPD.

Whom to believe? A first-hand witness who actually WORKED for the Agency or a guy named after a hotdog? Decisions, decisions.

Nathan on March 8, 2007 at 11:52 AM

You have zero credibility here.

Both the IIPA and the Espionage Act seem to place a very high burden of proof on prosecutors -- since they require proving state of mind, knowledge, and belief. Fitzgerald himself has pointed this out.

Unfortunately, this does mean that outing a covert agent may not have been "criminal" or "indictable" -- if all the points required by these statutes cannot be established.

So, the frustration here should probably be directed at these statutes. Should high government officials be able to leak sensitive defense information and then get away with it because they claim that they didn't know what they were doing -- or that it would harm the US? As cmdicely (I think) suggests -- if you have privileged access to classified information, the onus should be on you to check what you talk about before you have a chat with journalists.

Larry Johnson just lied.

Nathan, given that you've been exposed as a liar on these forums more than once, and especially given the, ah, nonspecific nature of your charge, why the hell shoul anyone beleive you?

I pity your clients. Poor Nathan, probably still in a stew because Fitzgerals achieved what Nathan, judging by the piss-poor quality of his argumentation here, never could -- a victory in court.

Dear Kevin,

I had an International Politics midterm today. One of the questions facing me was what country is engaging Iraq in talks. Answer: Syria.

Thank you for helping me out. I owe you one.

Sincerely, Tyler

The funniest part of Nathan's post is the "Indeed, Vanity Fair confirmed...."

Oh, well then, if Vanity Fair said so...

Al Capone was never convicted of murder either. The feds got him for tax evasion because it was a crime they could prove.

No difference here.

If Fitzgerald did not bring ANY charges related directly to national security, isn't it safe to say there wasn't any known violation of the IIPA or the Espionage Act?

No, its not. Prosecuting IIPA and Espionage Act violations would often require exposing additional classified information in order to make the case (and possibly making even more classified information than that available to the defense; denying access to which may result in dismissal), which is a serious policy concern involved in the decision to prosecute or not prosecute where such violations appear to have occurred, particularly when other charges are available against wrongdoers in the same transaction.

Where there are people with control over decisions to release classified information that are themselves immune to criminal process that might have an incentive to derail the process by gaming the availability of classified information, that further complicates a decision to prosecute, as such a person could derail the prosecution on those charges by denying access to either incuplatory or potentially exculpatory evidence. Further, putting too many issues in front of the jury can backfire.

I still don't see why the FBI kept pursuing.

Seems to me that to solve a 'Who Dun It', you have to have verify there's an 'it' to begin with.

This is in error, if you mean "first" in the strict sense that you seem to. Clearly, to determine "Who dun it", you must determine whether anything wrong was done: but quite often that depends on who did what when. Its undisputed that Plame's CIA relationship was at some time near the release classified, whether or not she was covert under the IIPA, which is a more complicated determination. Knowing that is enough for investigators to know that release may have been a crime, depending on who did it, when, and whether or not there was a declassification, entirely independently of whether she was "covert" under the IIPA.

This justifies investigating to find out who did what, and when, as well as trying to work out the details of covert status under the IIPA, but there is no reason that the last of those would be more important than or need to precede in time the others.

And Libby's lies—which occurred very early in the investigation—about who did what and when were a substantive disruption to the investigation whether or not Plame was covert under the IIPA, as they obstructed determining whether or not Espionage Act violation occurred.

They also disrupted determining whether or not Plame was covert under the IIPA: if the US government was, as a matter of (immoral and misguided as it might be) policy, decided on by those legally authorized to decide whether or not an agent's relationship to the US should be protected, seeking to reveal that relationship, then the US government was not taking active steps to conceal the relationship, and Plame was not covert under the IIPA.

"So, the frustration here should probably be directed at these statutes. Should high government officials be able to leak sensitive defense information and then get away with it because they claim that they didn't know what they were doing -- or that it would harm the US?"

Agreed. Look, Libby is no boy scout. To see him go scott free would not seem right.

But I also think Sandy Berger can share the same jail cell with him. He's just as guilty for carelessness with classified material...and he had a CYA intent too (don't try to convince me otherwise).

If Valerie Wilson was not covert, why did the CIA refer the matter to the Justice Department? You would think their lawyers are well acquainted with the statute.

Most likely Fitzgerald thought he did not have a likelihood of winning a case because he could not prove the leaker knew of Plame's covert status.

Another question is why did the Cheney choose the route of personal attack, when Wilson's report does not conclusively show Iraq wasn't trying to buy yellowcake from Niger? As I recall Wilson reported there had been trade contacts from Iraq(in '99), which the Niger Prime Minister believed indicated they were interested in Uranium.

It seems to me it would have been a more effective WH response to cite Iraq's previous interest, and point out that "Wilson was a skilled diplomat, but not an intelligence operative, and that it was unlikely that he would have uncovered any really clandestine activities in Niger. Wilson May have believed his oral report was definitive, but it was just one item in the mix, and to say that to say the WH was lying, because they didn't take his report as the last word on the issue, is a bit of a stretch."

If they had done that, Libby wouldn't be facing a pardon.

if the US government was, as a matter of (immoral and misguided as it might be) policy... seeking to reveal that relationship, then the US government was not taking active steps to conceal the relationship, and Plame was not covert under the IIPA.

That's a fascinating concept. It would seem to imply that any senior government official can out any covert agent, or leak any classified information, at any time, with no legal liability.

But I also think Sandy Berger can share the same jail cell with him. He's just as guilty for carelessness with classified material

How many people with classified relationships to the CIA were publicly revealed by Berger's action? Presuming the answer is none, what other demonstrable harm to national security came from Berger's action?

Just as guilty? I think not.

"But I also think Sandy Berger can share the same jail cell with him. He's just as guilty for carelessness with classified material...and he had a CYA intent too (don't try to convince me otherwise)."

Posted by: Warbonnet on March 8, 2007 at 12:34 PM

What a load of male bovine excrement! Berger took out *copies* of classified docs he wanted to review prior to testifying to the 9/11/ Commission. He did so improperly and rightly deserved to be held to account for that improper handling and subsequent destruction, unlike everyone that outed/betrayed Plame's CIA connections. Libby and company outed an active covert asset, her cover business and in the process every agent that ever used that cover business as an agent plus their networks placing lives in direct danger. Berger's actions did none of that. So to try and equate the two as you have done is clearly nonsensical, illogical, and unreasonable. However it is the act of someone that is trying to confuse the issue and make false equivalencies to try to minimize/defend the illegal actions of Libby and the clearly immoral and unethical treatment of the intelligence community (especially the covert human element) by Bushco.

Don't waste your time trying to peddle this sort of crap around here; this is a blog with very well informed commentators and readers.

this is getting sad.
fill that Drum with Bush water
and carry it, boy!

OK, I'll go further with the rancid hotdog...

Nathan: Larry Johnson just lied.

Facts not introduced in to evidence, just an accusation from a rancid often-discredited source--you, Nathan.

He has stated in the past that he was unaware of Plame's job for the last few years.

When and where? Once again, facts not introduced into evidence, just an accusation from a rancid often-discredited source--you, Nathan.

But... let's hypothetically, since you have presented no evidence for your assertion, say that Larry "in the past" said he was "unaware of Plame's job for the last few years," although I doubt your claim because of your previous dishonesty here. However, setting that aside, Larry could have been...
a) As a former CIA NOC himself, protecting Plame's cover.
b) Got fresh information that you are ignorant of and updated his statements, which you have not.
c) Felt especially after the public outing of Plame that it was OK to disclose more current information about Valerie since he no longer had to protect her cover as a fellow former CIA undercover agent.
e) Speaking under other possibilities that I have not theorized.

If I use your specious argument that Larry lied because: He has stated in the past that he was unaware of Plame's job for the last few years... then is it also true that the Bush-Cheney Administration lied because they have stated in the past that there are WMDs in Iraq but we now have evidence that contradicts their former statements? In fact, we have a lot more evidence against Bush-Cheney's credibility than you have presented against Larry Johnson's credibility, which is zero proof.

Indeed, Vanity Fair confirmed that she moved stateside around 1999...and in 2003 she had a managerial position with the MPD.

So what? Is Vanity Fair your primary source of authority and how does it prove Larry Johnson lied? Ever heard of a cover story that CIA NOCs use to appear to not be undercover? Your cite does not invalidate Larry Johnson's comment.

Are you moonlighting as a paid shill, Nathan? Not much money working at your Rum Dum Rent-A-Shyster firm, I reckon.

Shortstop!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.....

Did the Bush administration "deliberately" seek to undermine national security? Did they "recklessly" seek to do so? Well, to paraphrase Forrest Gump: National security is as national security does.

And what the Bush administration did in the AFTERMATH of Plame being outed speaks volumes. From press reports, at a minimum, she is someone who had "cover" -- a false-front company that she worked for when doing her CIA duties.

Yet when it became clear that this cover had been blown, what did the administration do? Did it take aggressive steps to address what had gone wrong to create this leak -- even if for some the original leak might have been an accidental slip? No. All of the press reports and Libby's trial show that absolutely nothing was done to address the problem internally. And in fact, the administration's active efforts went AGAINST protection of national security, by giving folks like Rove and Libby a chance to hide behind false claims of having "nothing" to do with the leak.

That silence and stonewalling speaks volumes about the administration's regard for national security. They like "national security" as a talking point, but when it might get in the way of the careers of prominent Republicans, hurt Halliburton's bottom line, or interfere with the Republicans' political game plan, "national security" is expendable.

And that's deliberate.

That's a fascinating concept. It would seem to imply that any senior government official can out any covert agent, or leak any classified information, at any time, with no legal liability.

Um, no.

First, it only applies to a decision made by an official with legal authority to decide whether or not to protect the source and/or to declassify the information at issue: that's a much smaller set than the set of "senior government officials".

Second, it doesn't necessarily mean there is no legal liability, it means that the liability will not be under the IIPA or the Espionage Act (depending on which authority the official has: if they have both of the above-mentioned authorities and exercise them, then then neither can apply.)

Other provisions of law, such as 18 USC 372 and 18 USC 241, may still apply.

But, yes, criminal law is not particularly effective here; which is one thing effective legislative oversight and willingness to use, if appropriate, the ultimate sanction available to the legislature to check the executive, that of impeachment, is necessary to keep the executive in line. Using criminal law is essentially applying the honor system: the President and certain other officials, particularly in the area of classified material, have substantial power to change the context so that acts are not criminal that otherwise would be without their action. They need to be held accountable for the abuse of such power, and oversight with teeth is the only way to do that.

I'm watching the clock to see how long the sockpuppet FK's comment remains on this thread... counting down....

Yep. It says Libby,
Libby, Libby, on the cell
door, cell door, cell door.

I'm watching the clock to see how long the sockpuppet FK's comment remains on this thread... counting down....

Let's hope it doesn't get pulled. There is no reason to moderate dumbassity just for being dumbassity. It's not like he's spamming or hijacking someone's handle. I suppose someone could be hijacking his handle, but as he's being no more sophomoric than usual, who would know?

Would he be this Larry Johnson? Note the source FK! As Al would say, always click the link.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41773,00.html

So we are observing the limits of criminal law in checking abuses of executive power. All difficulties with this case point to the need for congressional involvement and action. "Oversight with teeth" -- has a nice ring to it.

There is no reason to moderate dumbassity just for being dumbassity.

Besides, with our trolls that'd be more than a full-time job.....

shortstop: Let's hope it doesn't get pulled.

I only say that because the FK sockpuppet at 1:11 PM posted virtually the same comment earlier on the thread and it was removed.

And now I see that is gone again!

It would be nice if there were some standards for moderation other than "poster disagrees with the mod."

If the deletions were limited to say, Charlie (who apparently attempted to deny others any use of the comments threads during The Night of Unbridled Spam), Chinese spam or handle spoofing--just to put one possible set of standards out there--Kevin should say so. If it's another set of standards, he should note that.

If it's "I don't care what my mods do and anything goes," he should say that upfront, too. It's his blog and he can fail to watch it as much as he wants to, but he should be clear about what the policies are--or, as is apparently the case, what the utter lack of deletion policies may be.

Warbonnett: "If Fitzgerald did not bring ANY charges related directly to national security, isn't it safe to say there wasn't any known violation of the IIPA or the Espionage Act?"

If the FBI did not bring ANY charges of murder against Al Capone, isn't it safe to say that Al Capone never murdered anyone?

SPRING BREAK!!!!!

Cue the Go-Go's!!!

whoops, sorry Django...ya beat me to it.

Cue the Go-Go's!!!

Vacation, all I ever wanted...

here is a question for the legal eagles:

Now that Libby is convicted, can he plead the Vth Amendment if served with a subpoena from a congressional committee? Let's get him back under oath for a new go-around!

shortstop on March 8, 2007 at 1:38 PM,

Your points are valid.

I've had two comments not post because, I presume, I exceeded some unknown limit on the use of how many links are permissable within a certain time frame by a unique IP address.

No worries. I understand that loss of eyeballs due to clicking through a link (and the mods probably don't have the time to check to see if it's a comment spammer)... and there's also a possibility of someone not returning to the host site in clicking a link...not good for the host, you know? So I now have changed tactics to citing sources with dates (which people can google) and using links sparingly.

Still, it would be nice to know if there are rules to follow. I also think it's a reasonable prospect that a host site would have rules to protect, enhance itself. What are they? We don't know. Perhaps Kevin will clarify for us in the future.

Overall, IMO, Kevin has been a generous, hospitable host.

Gregory got there first!

Xenos: Now that Libby is convicted, can he plead the Vth Amendment if served with a subpoena from a congressional committee?

Until he's sentenced and his appeals have run their course, he probably can assert his Fifth Amendment rights.

I believe it would take exhaustion of the appeals process or a plea agreement waiving appeal to get around his right to plead the Fifth.

cmdicely can correct me if I'm wrong.

:-)

but as he's being no more sophomoric than usual, who would know?

You people have me in a constant state of giggledom. My coworkers are worried - probably rightfully so.

"If Fitzgerald did not bring ANY charges related directly to national security, isn't it safe to say there wasn't any known violation of the IIPA or the Espionage Act?"

Are these trolls and others really this simple-minded or just mendacious? Boggles the mind really. And I really like the Capone analogy upthread.

Apollo,

Look, I want to be very clear that my comments weren't driven by any sense of personal injury. Not counting one or two "shortstop" posts the mod(s) recognized as being from a spoofer (Charlie again, I presume) and, I'm told, zapped before I even got here to see them, the only posts of mine that have been deleted were part of an all-out group spanking of another poster. We were ganging up pretty badly and we were called on it when the spankee demanded moderation. Other than laughing at the phenom of a grownup wailing for moderation after he began losing the argument, and wishing I'd saved a couple of another poster's damned funny contributions, I shrugged and thought, "Fair enough."

What I'm questioning is the large number of anti-progressive posts from trolls, conservatards and possibly even good-faith GOPers that have gone missing lately. It's not at all uncommon for me to read through a thread and see references galore to posts that aren't there anymore. I don't doubt I'd find most or all of those posts to be disingenuous, dishonest and/or intended to derail the thread. But these traits alone don't seem to me to be sufficient reason to kill the posts, and in any case, these characterizations are wildly subjective, as we saw from the lusty debate on moderation that took place in these threads before mods were installed.

It's hard to imagine that all of these missing posts, which seem to have nothing in common other than their opposition to Democrats and progressives, are failing some sort of test of standards. But maybe they are. I'm just wondering why, now that we have moderation, Kevin doesn't simply tell us what those consistent standards are?

I believe it would take exhaustion of the appeals process or a plea agreement waiving appeal to get around his right to plead the Fifth.

And even then, I think he could plead the fifth if the questions went beyond what he was tried for (and any additional related charges that might be barred because of the charges he was tried for) and could touch on other areas where he might be charged for additional offenses.

OTOH, once that sentence is final, it certainly reduces the disincentive to offer him immunity.

Gregory got there first!

I'm a Go-Go's fan from way back. I wish I still had the videotape of a concert they did in some LA high school gym that was boradcast on MTV...

Waxman has announced Hearings. Look at FDL: they have the great letter Waxman wrote Fitz.

He sort of confutes you Kevin, in the letter.........

I saw the Go-Go's for three bucks cover at the school auditorium when I was in college.

I just changed my ringtone from Elvis Costello to Vacation as I was walking out of class at 12:15.

shortstop: Look, I want to be very clear that my comments weren't driven by any sense of personal injury...

Didn't think your comments were. The other points you raise at 2:39 PM are valid, worthy of consideration, and a response. IOW, I support your POV, shortstop, and now that you've increased my awareness of such, I wonder "what those consistent standards are" too. I admittedly scroll past some of the usual troll posts and hadn't noticed comments going missing so much... some, yes, especially when someone quotes a missing comment in rebuttal. So thanks for bringing it to my attention. Now I'm curious...whassup?

Fitz probably carried it forward because he was unable to determine if a crime had occurred because of the obstruction and perjury.

If there had not been a cover up, if there had not been obstruction of justice, if there had not been lying, misleading and misdirecting of prosecutorial resources, then a graver crime may have been prosecuted.

That was probably Fitz's calculus, since it's easy to turn the whole thing around and ask, "if there was no crime, why was there an organized effort to cover it up, obstruct justice and lie before a grand jury" about it?

Such behavior doesn't seem likely to happen, considering the consequences, if no wrongdoing or crime had not occurred, especially at this high a level, so it's safe to assume that there was either a crime, or, not much better, an attempt to mislead the American people about very grave matters of state and war.

Mr. Drum has not commented upon comments moderation since its implementation. The 'Night of Unbridled Spam' made it clear to most that something had to be done, but what has been done has not been made transparent.

Here's some good news:

March 8, 2007

ABC News' Tom Shine Reports: Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has announced that Valerie Plame Wilson will testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Friday, March 16th.

Other witnesses are also expected to appear but their names have not yet been released.

If Valerie Wilson was not covert, why did the CIA refer the matter to the Justice Department? You would think their lawyers are well acquainted with the statute.

The DoJ gets about fifty referral a year for leaks of classified information, which is all the CIA referred here - per the letter to Conyers, there was no mention of an IIPA violation or a covert agent.

And why would the CIA, in the midst of a bitter dispute with the White House over pre-war intel, launch a legal action that might discredit the White House? Let me get back to you on that.

Berger took out *copies* of classified docs he wanted to review prior to testifying to the 9/11/ Commission....

Don't waste your time trying to peddle this sort of crap around here; this is a blog with very well informed commentators and readers.

Well-informed readers will know that Berger at least potentially took out raw material from boxes that had not been catalogued document by document. So in reality (as opposed, for example, to "reality-based") we have no idea what Berger took out.

Time to start writing and calling our congress critters. Posted by: Apollo 13 on March 7, 2007 at 11:54 PM |

I agree with that. The Democrats could do themselves and the US a world of good if they would follow up the Libby conviction with a thorough investigation of all the loose ends. The trick might be to find a Congressional leader with the same quite competence as Patrick Fitzgerald. John Dingell (sp?) certainly has the dogged tenacity and prosecutorial passion.

I read somewhere that Waxman is investigating. I'll see if I can find the link. i believe it was on Media Matters

Hmmmm.

1. The special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the leak in the article written by *Novak*.

2. Armitage was the one who leaked to *Novak*.

3. Fitz's mandate was to investigate the leak by Armitage to *Novak*.

4. Armitage came clean to Fitz, but to nobody else, a full WEEK prior to Libby's *first* interview.

Hmmm.

1. Plame wasn't covert.

2. The "classified" status that Plame supposedly has does not exist in reality. It's a spurious claim that tries to pretend to a gravity it doesn't have.

Why?

Because the only significant status is "covert". Everything else is utter bullshit.

3. Fact is that Plame was a office cubicle jockey, nothing more. Her participation in the CIA's anti-proliferation group means nothing because, again, she was an office cubicle jockey.

4. You folks are really lucky the Bush administration is completely incompetent at dealing with this issue. Otherwise a decent political operator would have taken this nonsense and shoved it up your ass.

This whole thing started because "idiot" Joe Wilson lied in a NYT editorial--why shouldn't they try to correct what he said--he lied--Now consider this, we have Libby convicted of lying, not outing an agent --and yet we have Sandy Berger walking free after confessing to stealing and destroying security papers(he lied too, many times, until they confronted him with video and other proof of his misdeeds)--yes this is justice!!

Oh, for goodness sakes! Someone sent in the losers from the Bush league whose comments are void of facts, full of the same old tired talking points fraught with unsupported accusations and smears.

S. Smith: This whole thing started because "idiot" Joe Wilson lied in a NYT editorial...

No, the whole thing started with Bush's SOTU address which contained the 16 erroneous words about Saddam's efforts to get yellowcake uranium from Niger -- 16 words that Joe Wilson disputed in his Jul. 6, 2003, NYTimes op/ed -- 16 words that were immediately retracted by Ari Fleischer, George Tenet, and Condi Rice on Jul. 7 and Jul 11, 2003.

Wilson is not an idiot, at least not to Poppy Bush who praised his "courageous leadership" in the run-up to the Gulf War. Are you aware that President George H. W. Bush appointed Joe Wilson as an ambassador or do you think Poppy Bush customarily appointed idiots into U.S. foreign service?

Wilson did not lie and he was vindicated by the INR memo about the Niger affair introduced as evidence during Libby's trial on Jan. 23, 2007.

....why shouldn't they try to correct what he said...

But they didn't correct what he said because Wilson was correct. Furthermore, why is it OK to leak the identity of a CIA operative, a national security asset, in order to counter Wilson's accurate criticism? When did Repubs start excusing a flippant attitude toward national security and CIA ops? Shame on you for defending a leak and a breach of trust by senior WH aides.

Now consider this, we have Libby convicted of lying, not outing an agent --and yet we have Sandy Berger walking free ...

Berger was not convicted of four felonies -- obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements -- but Libby was. If you commit more crimes, you suffer more consequences. Yes, that's the way justice works.

Sheesh!

Since facts are absent in this late-to-the-thread duet of ed and S. Smith -- seems they failed to read the above comments for substance before blurting out nonsense -- I'm inspired to open a can of whoopass senryu.

Idiot! Liar!
No one understands but us!
Doh-dee-doh! Harumph!

Libby betrayed our
National security.
Do we worry? Nahhhh.

The shame of defeat.
Scooter found guilty as charged.
Quick! Blame Joe Wilson!

Wilson will do fine
And his little missus too!
Gotcha, my pretties.

Libby supporters
Flunked Reading Comprehension.
Aced Propaganda.

Hurry, get the meds!
These crazies are drooling mad.
Call a waaahhhh-mbulance!

And Jeso Pete, ed. Where do you get your news? Your 1, 2, 3, 4 comments on March 8, 2007 at 10:15 PM and 10:21 PM are not grounded in facts. Plame was just an office cubicle jockey? Bwahahahaha! But this gem is especially crackers...2. The "classified" status that Plame supposedly has does not exist in reality. It's a spurious claim that tries to pretend to a gravity it doesn't have. ROTF...you know how to turn a phrase.

Tinfoil wrapped light bulb
With 15 watts of power.
1. 2. 3. 4. Pop!

The light was on but
no one home noticed the loud
stumbling in the dark.

And for a change of pace, a limerick:

I once knew a dullard named ed,
Whose ass got switched with his head.
When he talked, he farted, and his ideas imparted
A stink from the shit that he said.

I have respect for Fitzgerald, but it is hard to see how this case was worth it. I had thought that Fitzgerald believed there was some crime being hidden by Libby, but that apparently wasn't the case. So he spend all this time and effort providing Libby lied about stupid conversations wtih a few members of the press. I guess it reinforces the need to tell the truth, but otherwise it amounts to virtually nothing.

Hmmm.

1. Plame wasn't covert.

Not proven.

2. The "classified" status that Plame supposedly has does not exist in reality.

Yes, it does.

It's a spurious claim that tries to pretend to a gravity it doesn't have.

Why?

Because the only significant status is "covert". Everything else is utter bullshit.

False. "Covert", as defined in the IIPA, is important to liability under the IIPA. Under the Espionage Act, what is important is, under 18 USC 793, whether the leaker had reason to know the release of the information would harm the United States: one set of facts which strongly supports that inference is that the information was classified and that the leaker knew it was classified.

3. Fact is that Plame was a office cubicle jockey, nothing more. Her participation in the CIA's anti-proliferation group means nothing because, again, she was an office cubicle jockey.

Again, frequently alleged by those on the right, but not proven.

Maguire: The DoJ gets about fifty referral a year for leaks of classified information, which is all the CIA referred here - per the letter to Conyers, there was no mention of an IIPA violation or a covert agent.

A letter disclosing Plame's status as a covert agent could not be made public. To do so would violate both federal national security policy and probably the law.

As anyone who has ever had a security clearance knows, you are not permitted to confirm classified information, which her status as covert would be, even if every paper in the country has already "disclosed" the information in their headlines.

If you did, no matter how many people already knew and no matter how public, you would at the very least be reprimanded for violating the terms of your security clearance.

Thus, the letter you refer to is meaningless as evidence of Plame's covert status.

Better rightwing dimwits, please.

And why would the CIA, in the midst of a bitter dispute with the White House over pre-war intel, launch a legal action that might discredit the White House? Let me get back to you on that.

And why would the White House, in the midst of a bitter dispute with Wilson over pre-war intel and which has proven on numerous occasions its willingness to lie and violate all sorts of laws including national security laws, launch a retaliatory illegal action that might discredit Wilson? Let me get back to you on that.

And btw, the CIA is controlled by Bush political appointees who were not the targets of the dispute, but the rank and file who had nothing to say about what was referred or not.

Berger blah, blah, blah, blah! Well-informed readers will know that Berger at least potentially took out raw material from boxes that had not been catalogued document by document. So in reality (as opposed, for example, to "reality-based") we have no idea what Berger took out.

That's right. You have no idea. So, you have no basis to use Berger as a counterexample or for any purpose whatsoever and neither does any other Bush-licker commenting here.

Berger was investigated and dealt with by a federal government controlled by Bush, not Clinton.

If you have a problem with how it was handled, blame Bush and quit blaming liberals who had no input or control over any portion of the process.

Brian: I had thought that Fitzgerald believed there was some crime being hidden by Libby, but that apparently wasn't the case.

We have insufficient information to determine whether it was the case or not. As numerous commenters have shown, there were at least 4-5 reasons that might exist for not pursuing any other criminal charges that have nothing to do with "no crime was committed."

Brian: I guess it reinforces the need to tell the truth, but otherwise it amounts to virtually nothing.

It amounts to plenty.

It has provided the public with another window into the Bush administration's corruption, their lack of integrity, and their willingness to go to extreme lengths to engage in partisan payback against their perceived enemies while ignoring the real enemies in Pakistan.

It will mean a lot to Libby if he goes to jail.

And if he doesn't, it almost certainly will mean that Bush has pardoned him which will make Bush's legacy, already toast, that much worse, not to mention putting every member of the GOP on the spot to defend or condemn the pardon.

Juicy, indeed!

It means vindication for Wilson and Plame.

It has diminished Cheney's influence, further damaged his already abyssmal approval rating, and provided a window into the sewer also known as Cheney-world.

It has hurt GOP electoral chances in 2008.

It has once again reinforced the public's view of conservatvies as pathetic hypocrites, as they demand "due process" for Libby and a pardon while criticizing due process for everybody else.

And it has put egg on the face of every conservative poppinjay who commented on this blog that Libby would never go to trial and would never be convicted.

Fitzmas is the gift that will keep on giving through at least 2008.

Virtually nothing?

I'll take a whole lot more of that "virtually nothing."

Posted by: Google_This on March 9, 2007 at 12:42 PM

Thank you for this, it saves me the bother of replying to Tom McGuire point by point as well as underscoring my point about not pulling that kind of crap around here since the commentators here are too well informed for it to work. Between your response and Apollo 13's response I think both those points have been underscored.

TM:

As already noted by Google_This the Berger incident was handled by the proper legal authorities, he was charged, convicted and sentenced for what they actually could prove happened (as opposed to your speculation, and it is speculation without foundation since it is moronic to believe that the GOP owned Justice Department would have gone easy on a Clinton era NSA caught being stupid) and his offence was far less serious than what was done to Plame. For someone that I know reads FDL (you have been leaving comments there after all in the past day or so) you are really poorly informed as to why your various talking points have been debunked six ways to Sunday. Perhaps you need to do more digging there before coming back here with already discredited talking points and GOP myths regarding this case.

Bottom line, Libby lied, lied repeatedly to FBI and Grand Jury and by doing so Obstructed JUSTICE in a serious national security CRIMINAL investigation. He got caught, he got convicted for it and if anything the fact two jurors have since said he seems like a nice guy and a pardon wouldn't bother them shows that while they felt he was sympathetic and even a fall guy/patsy for others in the WH that the evidence was too overwhelming to not require conviction. The man is guilty of what he did, he no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence as he was properly convicted in a fair trial where if anything his legal team was given extraordinary latitude (based on the repeated promise of Libby's testifying in his own defence since much of the information that got through CIPA was predicated on his corroboration on the stand) and still was found GUILTY.

Berger is walking free because his offence was far less egregious, he did accept responsibility (something Libby still has not done in the slightest nor the Bush WH) for his wrongdoing, and he faced sentencing gracefully and accepted the consequences. Your trying to equate their sins/criminal acts and trying to make it out that the Bush DoJ was far harder on one of its own senior members than it was against a Clinton NSA is so blatantly absurd it is a marvel you can imply/suggest it without your head imploding from the sheer vacuum of such emptiness.

So you can take your supercilious attitude and go elsewhere, this is not going to be a friendly place for you until you start showing some respect for facts instead of GOP myths and spin. Not to mention showing some respect for your legal system since it was that system that Libby was convicted by and by a jury of his peers no less. Remember, this jury was heavily scrutinized for political bias, even to the point of allowing the defence to ask about how they felt about VP Cheney since he was a potential witness (or so they claimed as I am not convinced he was ever intended to be called given the risks it would have exposed him to both political and legal) and the war so as to prevent jurors convicting primarily based on those feelings instead of the evidence presented. This is not a set of convictions likely to succeed on appeal because of all the precautions taken by both the prosecutor and the presiding judge from what I can see. The only way I can realistically see such an appeal being granted is by a politically driven ruling in the same manner that Bush v Gore was at the USSC when the conservative justices had to contradict their own years to decades ruling history regarding States rights to be able to give the win to Bush not to mention their attempts to claim this was a non-precedent setting ruling despite the clear absurdity of that notion given the USSC is the final court of appeal and determiner of the laws as written by legislators. The only way Libby stays out of jail is with a pardon, and to pardon Libby Bush must violate the pardon guidelines he set out to DoJ when he came to power in 2001, one of which is no pardon shall be considered for anyone prior to five years from conviction, and that means Libby does not qualify until Mar 2012, well past Bush's time in office. Which would only underscore just how much this was an ass covering act if he does pardon Libby on top of everything else.

Libby is toast, this WH is toast, and the judgment of history of Bushco is going to likely set a new low bar for have to slither under to be the worst President and Administration in American history.

I'm LATE coming to this, but I thought from the timelines that Armitage's leak to Novak was early July, while the evidence gathered through FBI interviews with Libby etc. showed that the deliberate catapulting of the propaganda was late May and all of June.

IOW, Libby was talking to Judith Miller and others about 6 weeks before Armitage leaked anything, and Fitz had all that evidence when he got the case. So it NEVER made any sense to think that Armitage leak was FIRST, right???

Why do I never see this in response to the RW line about Armitage?

Some GREAT posts in here by cmdicely and others!

Order Generic drugs Buy Generic drugs without prescription

Order prescription drugs Buy prescription drugs without prescription