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July 31, 2005

Condi Swipes Gore's Motto

Did Al Gore really win the presidential campaign of 2000? Well, five years later, there is a secretary of state who has adopted the thematic bumpersticker of Gore's 2000 bid.

A profile of Condoleezza Rice in Sunday's Washington Post by Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler includes this passage:

In short order, [Rice] has demonstrated a willingness to bend on tactics to accommodate the concerns of allies without ceding on broad principles, what she calls "practical idealism." She also conducts a more aggressive personal diplomacy, breaking State Department records for foreign travel and setting up diplomatic tag teams with top staff on urgent issues.

When I read that, "practical idealism" rang a bell. That was Gore's buzzphrase at the start of his not-so-hot 2000 campaign. And I recalled being present at the birth of this motto. As I wrote in January 1999;

It was yet another Washington confab where Democrats gathered in a hotel to ponder their prospects. Well-dressed lobbyists milled about--Blue Cross/Blue Shield chatted with IBM, AT&T with MCI WorldCom--and the nation's prominent political journalists kibitzed, waiting for the key moment of the day. In between the usual yada-yada-yada from the podium that December morning, Vice President Al Gore was due to deliver a high-concept speech in which he would unveil the philosophical essence of his presidential campaign.

Gore began with boilerplate, citing his Administration's accomplishments (a "revitalized economy," welfare reform and "tough new punishment" for crime). Then--thud!--the Big Thought landed: "The great insight of our time is the fact of our mutuality, our connection to one another. The old ways that didn't work saw only separate, competing entitites....In this 'us versus them' thinking of the recent past, a vision of the common good struggles mightily--often futilely--to transcend the whole. But transcend we must....Today, I challenge America to raise that banner with a new 'practical idealism' for the twenty-first century."

Practical idealism"--that was why Gore must be the next President. He went on to call for saving Social Security, preserving abortion rights, bolstering public education, improving urban planning and resisting restraints on free trade. The man who once idealistically declared, "We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization," said little about the environment. And his explanation of "practical idealism" was thin: "An approach that recognizes the limits imposed by fiscal discipline, but reaches for limitless new possibilities in our economy, in our schools, in our environment. An approach that applies the values of the past to the amazing opportunities of the future."

After the speech, aides fanned out among the reporters to spin. I asked one to define "practical idealism" without using either word. "Connections and wholeness are fundamentally Gore," she said. "You put yourself in a different position, if you are looking differently, if you are looking at something as a whole." She continued: "How do we make sure the future is affecting us in a positive way? We are rolling into the twenty-first century. We have to be practical"--whoops--"about how we move forward. It is a future-oriented approach."

Gore's "practical idealism" did not get him very far. At the time, he clearly was looking for a tag that could do battle with "compassionate conservatism." But "practical idealism" never really took off. Come August 2000, I would write:

Over the years, there's been Gore the high-tech Democrat, Gore the hawkish Democrat, Gore the green Democrat, Gore the attack-dog Democrat, Gore the "practical idealism" Democrat. Anytime Gore issues a bold pronouncement involving himself, one has to ask, how long will this last?

Does Rice realize she is warming up a Gore leftover? Can Gore sue for copyright infringement? (Or would Bob Shrum have to file such a suit?) Or is the fact that Bush's secretary of state can adopt as her theme the motto of Bush's previous opponent just another sign of how vacuous political language can be?

Posted by David Corn at 11:28 PM

July 29, 2005

Rove Scandal: Questions for May; CIA Confirms Rove Shared Classified Info

Yesterday I wrote about the collapse of one aspect of the cover story knitted by Bush allies in the Plame/CIA leak matter. (See item below.) I noted that Cliff May's early claim that Washington "insiders" knew Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer has not stood the test of time. But May's column--even if wrong--raises some questions relevant for the ongoing investigation.

May maintained that before Bob Novak on July 14, 2003, published a column identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative," a former government official "mentioned" to May the CIA identity of Joseph Wilson's wife "in an offhanded manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."

Well, who said this? It seems to me that if a former government official came forward and said, in a convincing fashion, that Valerie Wilson's cover was essentially nonexistent and that her CIA identity was an open secret throughout the capital, then Fitzgerald would have less a case and Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and any other leakers would have less to worry about.

But no such source has come forward. And May has not identified his source. May works for the neoconnish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a pro-Iraq war outfit that features as advisors such ex-government officials as R. James Woolsey (former CIA director), Newt Gingirch, Richard Perle and Bill Kristol. That is, May is surrounded by people with close ties to the White House and the intelligence community. Who can know which one of his comrades, if any of this crowd, shared the supposedly open-secret secret with May?

But if May's account is accurate, it ought to be important for special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigators to discover who told May this. This source might have received information on Valerie Wilson from a current government official (maybe even someone of special interest to Fitzgerald) or from classified sources when s/he worked within the government. This source, then, might possess information quite valuable for Fitzgerald's probe, and s/he might even be a target for Fitzgerald. Has Fitzgerald pursued May?

I recently asked May if he had been contacted by Fitzgerald or had appeared before the grand jury. He told me he had been interviewed by FBI agents. But, he added, he had been asked not to discuss what he had said to them. So he was interviewed by FBI agents but not summoned to the grand jury. Does that mean he did not tell the agents anything of vital importance?

May's acknowledgment of his FBI chat leads to an obvious question: did he reveal his source? If so, did this source tell Fitzgerald what May claims this source told him? If Fitzgerald had indeed learned from May's source that Valerie Wilson's CIA identity was known to "insiders" throughout Washington, would he still have pursued his inquiry so vigorously? But since Fitzgerald still is mounting a fierce investigation, would it be farfetched to assume this source said something different to him than s/he did to May? Or that Fitzgerald did not find the everybody-knew-about-Valerie-Wilson claim credible?

And if May did not reveal his source to the FBI agents, why did Fitzgerald not subpoena him? Could it be that Fitzgerald doesn't believe May's claim. Or does he simply not consider it significant?

So many questions. Yet no answers from Cliff May the insider. Does he stick to his claim that Washington "insiders" knew about Valerie Wilson? That really doesn't matter, for that claim has been undercut (see below). But what might be important is the identity of this ex-government official who was spreading the useful (though disingenuous) line that Valerie Wilson's status as a CIA employee was an open secret.

[Jim Lobe, writing for Alternet, explored the May matter nearly two years ago. Tip of the keyboard for him for first tugging on this very loose thread.]
******
By the way, on the question of whether Valerie Wilson was really undercover, blogger Brad Friedman directs my attention to a January 30, 2004 letter that Stanley Moskowitz, director of congressional affairs at the CIA, sent to Representative John Conyers in response to a letter Conyers had sent the CIA four months earlier about the Plame/CIA leak. In his reply to Conyers, Moskowitz noted that the CIA had requested a Justice Department "investigation into the disclosure...of the identity of an employee operating under cover." This would seem to be CIA confirmation that Valerie Wilson was working "under cover" at the CIA even though she was based at headquarters and not conducting James Bond-like black-bag jobs in the Balkans.

But this letter is significant for another reason. In it, Moskowitz told Conyers that the CIA on July 30, 2003--two weeks after the Plame/CIA leak first appeared in Bob Novak's column--"reported to the Criminal Division of DoJ a possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information." Once more, here is proof that Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA was classified information. (Under U.S. law, the CIA does get to say what is and is not classified.) Which means that when Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told at least two reporters (Novak and Time's Matt Cooper) that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA they were disclosing classified information. Case closed. The Moskowitz letter also suggests that if a crime had been committed in this case it might not necessarily be a violation of the hard-to-violate Intelligence Identities Protection Act. There are other laws concerning the unauthorized release of classified information. Perhaps Fitzgerald is working those angles as well.

Posted by David Corn at 10:47 AM

July 28, 2005

Join EPA...and See Iraq!

Is the Bush administration having trouble finding government employees willing to go to Iraq to work on reconstruction efforts there? The below memo--which was passed to me by a source on Capitol Hill--was sent out to EPA employees on Wednesday.

************************************************
This message is being sent to all EPA Employees.
Please do not reply to this mass mailing.
*************************************************

MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Support for the Reconstruction of Iraq
FROM: Luis A. Luna, Assistant Administrator
for Administration and Resources Management
TO: All EPA Employees

The United States is currently supporting the Iraqi people as they build new essential services, their economy, and other government and political institutions. The President has called upon all Federal departments and agencies to support the rebuilding of Iraq through details of Federal employees to the Department of State's Iraq reconstruction Management Office (IRMO).

These details offer concentrated career developmental experiences for employees, especially in the areas of communications, consensus building, and the governance processes. Federal employees detailed to IRMO will have a unique opportunity to serve our country and make a lasting contribution to world peace.

A list of knowledge and skills currently needed for these assignments and information about the application process can be found at: http://careers.state.gov/opportunities/iraq/index.html. If you are interested in one of these detail opportunities, speak with your supervisor and contact your local Human Resources Office.

The Environmental Protection Agency supports the President's request for detailees and looks forward to doing our part to help in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at 11:49 AM

Rove Scandal: More Cover Story Slippage

Terrible day of traveling yesterday. Three-and-a-half hours on the runway. A dead car battery at 1:00 am. But I'm back (and, luckily, on the airplane I sat next to a lovely woman who works for a nonprofit and who is married to a fellow who works on WMD matters at the Pentagon). Below is my latest swing on the Rove scandal, first posted in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. If you've seen it already, please scroll down to other items. And, as always, I encourage you to check out the advertisers on the site by clicking on their ads.

Another part of the save-Rove cover story is not holding.

Once the Plame/CIA leak became big (mainstream-media) news in September 2003--when word hit that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak, which had appeared in a Bob Novak column two months earlier--friends of the White House, including Novak, started saying that Valerie Wilson wasn't really under cover at the CIA and, thus, the disclosure of her employment at the CIA wasn't worth a federal case (or investigation). They claimed that no big wrong had occurred, and this argument also conveniently offered any leaker a legal defense. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a government official can only be prosecuted for disclosing information identifying a "covert agent" whose cover the United States government was taking steps to protect. White House allies asserted that while Valerie Wilson may have technically been a clandestine CIA official, in practice she wasn't. So all this bother over the leak was much ado about nothing.

Novak, for example, downplayed Valerie Wilson's covert status in an October 1, 2003 column, in which he vaguely described how he had originally learned of her connection to the CIA. He noted that after a senior administration official told him that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, he called the CIA:

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

Bush-backers have cited this paragraph to argue that the CIA didn't do much to protect Valerie Wilson's cover. I've heard GOP lawyer Victoria Toensing, who helped draft the Intelligence Identities Act, claim that Novak's exchange with the CIA is proof that the CIA was not taking serious measures to preserve Wilson's cover--which means the law she helped concoct does not apply in the case of this leak.

Should Novak be taken at his word on this point? Until now, the public only knew of his side of his conversation with the CIA. But The Washington Post published a piece on Wednesday that provides the CIA's version of this exchange. And it is significantly different from Novak's account. The paper reports,

[Bill] Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission [to Niger taken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson] and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

So how many contradictions can you find? Novak indicated he had one substantive conversation with a CIA official about Valerie Wilson and he received no clear signal that revealing her name would cause any significant trouble. Harlow said there were two conversations and that in each one he warned Novak about using her name. (Harlow also said he told Novak that Valerie Wilson had not authorized her husband's trip. Remember, several Rove defenders have maintained that when Rove spoke to Time's Matt Cooper--and told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had authorized his trip to Niger--he was merely trying to make sure that Cooper published an accurate account of what happened. Yet the CIA says she did not authorize this trip. Rove was feeding Cooper misleading information.)

Is Harlow telling the truth? Who, besides Novak and him, can know? But I do know that when I spoke to Harlow a year later and asked about the identity of another covert officer, Harlow would not confirm the person's covert status. How could he? That would be sharing classified information with a reporter. When Novak called, Harlow was in no position to say, "Hey, Bob, you're right, and she's an undercover officer. So please don't reveal her name." All he could have done was to toss out a no-comment (which Harlow was good at doing) or offer a vague warning.

Harlow's account--in which he tried to protect Valerie Wilson from the quick-to-out-her columnist--is as self-serving as Novak's. But it rings true. Am I saying this because of my own bias? Perhaps. But the key thing is that Novak's defense--the CIA didn't give me a strong enough signal--is now in dispute. No one can use Novak's October 1, 2003, column as evidence that Valerie Wilson was not truly a "covert agent."

In that article, Novak also declared that Valerie Wilson's position at the CIA was an open secret throughout the nation's capital. His source for this? Journalist-turned-Republican-operative Clifford May. Novak wrote:

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge.

Indeed, May had written:

On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.

That wasn't news to me. I had been told that--but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhanded manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

Appearing on Fox News Channel, May amplified this assertion:

"I knew this, and a lot of other people knew it...So I think it may be something of an open secret."

"Insiders" were well aware of Valerie Wilson's job at the CIA? "A lot of other people" knew it, too? In the time since May boasted of his access to this "inside" information, what other evidence has emerged that Valerie Wilson's CIA identity was widely know to "insiders" (whatever that means)? I'll answer that rhetorical question: none. Her neighbors have been quoted saying they did not realize she was a CIA employee. (Maybe these neighbors are not "insiders.") And in recent weeks, attorneys for Karl Rove and Scooter Libby have put out the story that neither one of them knew her name. So these "insiders" were not truly in the know. (Oddly--but, then again, perhaps not--May recently tried to turn tables and argue that I am the one who actually outed Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer. First, he said everyone knew. Now he says only I did. It's hard to keep up.)

Novak and May's claim that Valerie Wilson's CIA position was an open secret known throughout Washington has not held up. Novak's claim that the CIA did not wave him off now stands contested. Will either one of them run a correction?

Posted by David Corn at 10:42 AM

July 27, 2005

More Frist Nonsense; Oliver Stone and I Converse

I interrupt our coverage of the Rove scandal to return to another favorite subject: Bill Frist's awful tenure as Senate majority leader.

In a way, he is the worst congressional leader in years. As majority leader, Frist has screwed up an assortment of high-profile matters: Terri Schiavo, the John Bolton nomination, and the nuclear option. This week, he put the gun lobby ahead of American troops. On Tuesday, he failed to pass the defense authorization bill, which establishes funding levels for the US military. The big problem for Frist was that several GOPers--including Lindsey Graham and John McCain--were pushing for an amendment that would ban cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment at US military facilities. The administration--and, thus, Frist--oppose this provision. So Frist set aside the $491 billion defense bill rather than go ahead with a vote on this amendment. And how did he respond to his own failure to get the defense authorization bill through? He put aside the measure and set up a vote on legislation that would protect gun sellers from lawsuits. Yes, he decided to help gunmakers instead of dealing with the needs of US soldiers.

Frist must really want the gun-owners vote bad for his upcoming presidential bid. Last week, on the Senate floor, he claimed it was imperative to pass this legislation because without it the US firearms industry could collapse and "the Department of Defense faces the real prospect of having to outsource firearms for our soldiers to foreign manufacturers." Frist said, "Without this legislation it is probable the American manufacturers of legal firearms will be faced with a real prospect of going out of business, ending a critical source of supply for our armed forces, our police and out citizens." In other words, if victims of gun violence can sue reckless gun sellers, then the Iraqi insurgency gains.

The folks at the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence tried to counter Frist's hyperbole. They noted that the Pentagon has not voiced any such worry and that the gun industry is doing just fine these days without the legislation Frist so fervently desires. And, they pointed out, no flood of litigation has deluged gun industry. Here are some facts the campaign disseminated:

* The only two publicly-held gun companies have filed recent statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission contradicting the claim that they are threatened by lawsuits. Smith & Wesson filed a statement with the SEC on June 29, 2005, stating that "we expect net product sales for fiscal 2005 to be approximately $124 million, a 5% increase over the $117.9 million reported for fiscal 2004. Firearms sales for fiscal 2005 are expected to increase by approximately 11% over fiscal 2004 levels.: In another filing, dated March 10, 2005, Smith & Wesson wrote, "In the nine months ended January 31, 2005, we incurred $4,535 in defense costs, net of amounts received from insurance carriers, relative to product liability and municipal litigation." Meanwhile, gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger told the SEC in a March 11, 2005 filing: "[I]t is not probable and is unlikely that litigation, including punitive damage claims, will have a material adverse effect on the financial position of the Company."

* The level of litigation against gun manufacturers and dealers is miniscule. From 1993-2003, 57 suits were filed against gun industry defendants, out of what the State Court Journal published by the National Center for State Courts estimates is 10 million tort suits. The aggregate damages paid in tort suits per year is $82.6 billion [U.S. Tort Costs, 2002 Update, Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, 200 figures], while damages paid in gun suits each year is $441,800, excluding unreported confidential settlements.

Yet Frist conjures up a phony nightmare scenario--no guns for our troops!--to justify passing this legislation quickly, even ahead of approving funding for the troops. Such pandering to the NRA is a sign that Frist--after months of assorted bumbling--is mighty desperate for rightwing support.
******
Oliver Stone: The Conversation. All went well with my talk with Oliver Stone at the Hammer Museum (as in Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum) in Los Angeles. The controversial filmmaker was in a reflective and thoughtful mood. Before a crowd of 600 people in the museum's lovely courtyard, we discussed politics, movies, Alexander (the man, the movie), the state of investigative journalism (I noted that we don't need more investigative journalism; we need better journalism that fully contextualizes and evaluates the information we already have), "economic censorship" (his term) in Hollywood. We talked about the joint corporatization of the media and the entertainment businesses. (Actually, it's all one business nowadays.) When, I asked Stone, did people outside Hollywood--that is, filmgoers--start to obsess about how much a movie made on its opening weekend? Was this part of the "profitization of America (my term)? Stone had no answer, but he acknowledged that framing movies in this manner--as commodities rather than art or entertainment--did undermine the audience's enjoyment of films.

During the Q&A, there was the inevitable question about his next project: a film about 9/11 that focuses on the rescue of two transit cops caught in the rubble. (Stone is directing a script for Paramount that was brought to him; Nicholas Cage is starring.) An audience member asked if Stone would be exploring the theory that the World Trade Center towers were blown up from within and that 9/11 was an "inside job." I noted that Stone had asked that we not get into details of this project since it was just under way and he had an obligation to the studio not to blab too much about it. He then explained that he was concentrating on the rescue aspect of the tale, noting that the script was about how the characters dealt with the tragedy.

Stone asked me what I thought of Michael Ruppert, the conspiracy theorist who has said that the Bush White House either knew 9/11 was coming and did not stop the attack (so it could exploit the event) or was actually in on the attack. As regular readers of this blog know (and to the irritation of some), I take a rather dim view of the 9/11 conspiracy theories (or alternative explanations, if you will). In response to Stone, I said so, and I added that Ruppert had essentially called me a CIA agent. So, I told the questioner, I don't take Ruppert and his theories too seriously. The questioner, who was pushing some video on 9/11, then remarked, "I'm suing Michael Ruppert." Everyone laughed.

When I asked Stone if he thought that a movie like Platoon--one that took a decidedly skeptical view of US foreign policy and American omnipotence--could be made today, he replied by noting the movie was more than that and was much devoted to exploring the relationships between the guys fighting a misguided war. Yes, I said, I realized that. But could such a film be made now? "I hope so," he said.

Afterward, audience members rushed forward to speak with Stone. One fellow wanted to talk to Stone about making a film about Native Americans. Another wanted to discuss with someone in his shop a documentary she was making. People asked for autographs. Several young filmmakers wanted to tell Stone he had inspired them. He chatted with each of them. In the crowd was an older woman who looked familiar. She came up to me and introduced herself: she was an actress who played one of the four American nuns who were raped and killed in Salvador. I had watched the film several days ago, and I had made sure to mention to the audience that it was one of my favorite Stone films. "It's his most underrated film," the woman told me. "And I was the only one over there"--she pointed to the people surrounding Stone--"who he kissed."

The evening went by quickly. Stone exhibited none of the bad-boy behavior for which he once was so famous (or infamous). He elegantly explained his opposition to the Iraq war. He was eager to discuss his reading of the history of Alexander the Great, noting that Alexander's imperial aims were far different (and more noble) than those of George W. Bush. (Stone made the point than in those olden days, war did not involve civilian casualties; it was army-on-army violence. In a field. In a forest. In a desert. ) He clearly was still licking wounds he had received from the bad reviews of Alexander. And he noted that he does feel picked on by critics and detractors and that he has been chased off several projects (such as a film on Martin Luther King, Jr.) "Every film has been a fight," he told me off the stage. But he also said that he was developing three or so projects for after the 9/11 film. "I'm a writer-director," he added. "That's what I do."

Posted by David Corn at 03:52 AM

July 26, 2005

Rove Scandal: What the Dems Should Ask For; Cliff May Returns; and Oliver Stone and Me

Finally. On Monday, twenty-five Senate Democrats sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Denny Hastert requesting congressional investigations of the Plame/CIA leak. They wrote:

We recognize that a criminal investigation is underway and that a special prosecutor continues to present testimony before a grand jury. These actions in no way preclude Congress' responsibility to provide oversight. We urge you to exercise your authority as Congressional leaders by requesting the appropriate committees to begin oversight hearings and an investigation immediately.

The only question about the GOP response to this request is, how many nanoseconds transpired before the letter hit the circular file? But the Dems have not pushed this point sufficiently in the two years since the leak occurred. For a long while, most of them seemed content to let special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursue his investigation. But as anyone who has followed this story knows, Fitzgerald could mount a good-faith, kick-ass investigation, uncover many details of wrongdoing, and still end up not bringing indictments. This is where Congress comes in--or should come in. This episode is the sort of event that Congress should probe. And the existence of Fitzgerald's investigation is not a reason for Congress to do nothing. During the crazy Whitewater days, Republicans felt it was their responsibility to conduct their own inquiries of the various scandalettes, even as an independent counsel toiled away. The same happened during Iran-contra, with both Democrats and Republicans investigating a true scandal that was also the subject of criminal proceedings. And imagine if a leak of this sort had happened during the Clinton administration. Representative Dan Burton and Senator Alfonse D'Amato (who went nuts over that penny-ante land deal) would have jumped on it like rats on a Snickers bar wrapper.

But nowadays GOPers have no interest in asking whether the most senior White House aides damaged national security by sharing classified information with reporters to undermine a policy critic.

It's not enough for the Senate Dems to call for an inquiry. They should be more specific. For instance, they should demand that the intelligence committees request and examine any damage assessment performed by the CIA after the leak. Did this leak ruin operations, past and present? Did it destroy an important front operation for which Valerie Wilson worked undercover? Shortly after the leak occurred, Senator Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, asked the CIA for its damage assessment. A spokesperson for Rockefeller says that the CIA rebuffed him and said it would handle the matter internally. Rockefeller, who signed the letter sent to Frist and Hastert, and his Democratic colleagues ought to push back and demand to be told what damage the leak caused. If Senate Democrats ever received such information, they might not be able to disclose it to the public. But representatives of the people--who are responsible for overseeing the executive branch--ought to be in the know on this point.

Moreover, these Democrats should also be demanding that Fitzgerald issue a report at the end of his inquiry. He is not obligated to do so. But if he does not produce indictments, the public may never be told what he found. If congressional Republicans are not going to do any digging of their own, they should at least let Fitzgerald share what he has uncovered.
******

A Polite Reply. Cliff May is still at it, trying to protect Rove and Novak by absurdly arguing that I am the one who really outed Valerie Wilson. (See here if you missed this ridiculousness.) He sent me an email on Monday asking for further explanation of the column I wrote after Bob Novak revealed Valerie Wilson's relationship to the CIA. Here's my reply. I hope he can take no for an answer.

I don't want you to take silence to be a sign of anything but my disregard for you at this point. You have refused to take me at my word--as given to you and to my readers. So I see no reason to engage in further discourse. You will write what you want to write to score the political points you seek to score. I previously took the course of answering your questions and answering them absolutely truthfully. For that I was greeted with a column and on-air remarks that promoted falsehoods and that suggested I have lied. So excuse me if I am not eager to engage in another round. And please, if you write about this to disinform further, feel free to quote (in full) the following statement: "I decline to respond to questions from Clifford May, believing that it's a waste of time to deal with a fellow who refuses to believe what I have said and written and who presents baseless and misguided (but politically useful) speculation as fact."
******
Oliver Stone and Me. On Tuesday night, I will be appearing as part of a "conversations" series with Oliver Stone at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Showtime: 7:00 pm. Admission is free. But it's first-come, first-served, and tickets, I am told, go fast. This series pairs up people from different disciplines--discipline? I didn't know I had a discipline?--for what are supposed to be engaging conversations held before several hundred onlookers. What are Stone and I going to talk about? I don't know. But we'll find out. If you're nearby, feel free to drop by. If you're not, feel free to suggest in the comments section below questions that you would like to see a person of my discipline ask him. (Click here for more information.)

Posted by David Corn at 01:27 AM

July 25, 2005

Rove Scandal: Looking for One Outraged GOPer (It Ain't McCain); The Political-Security Gap in Iraq

Washington scandals often have ritualistic moments. The Plame/CIA leak matter (also known as the Rove scandal) has had its share. There was the lack of attention from the establishment press for months (until the news leaked that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak). There has been dismissal from spinners. (Watergate was derided at first by Nixonites as a "third-rate burglary"; the Plame/CIA leak has been pooh-poohed by Bushies as no big deal.) There has been absurd stonewalling from the White House. ("We'd be delighted to tell the public what we know, but, alas, we cannot even say it's a no-no to leak classified information because an investigation is under way.") And there has been the inconvenient quote. Nixon had "I am not a crook." Scott McClellan has his 2003 claim that it would be "ridiculous" to suggest Karl Rove was involved in the Plame/CIA leak. (No, Rove only confirmed the leak--which was classified information--to at least two reporters, by his lawyer's account.) But there is one ritualistic action that has yet to occur: a member of the president's own party publicly criticizing the White House for the wrongdoing being investigated. Now that it is known that Rove and Scooter Libby passed information about Valerie Wilson's classified relationship with the CIA to reporters, no prominent GOPers have said boo. The Republicans who talk about the scandal on the chattering-head shows have followed the White House's lead and have suggested that (a) no one should judge Rove and Libby's actions--or the White House's previous and false denials--until the inquiry is over and (b) the only real issue is whether a crime was committed.

Look at Bay Buchanan on CNN. "What we're hearing is rumors," she said, adding "we do not know anything at this point." That's utterly wrong and misleading. We know, for instance, the White House misinformed the public about Rove's involvement in the leak. She also argued that the White House is right to say, "We have no facts." No facts? The White House--well, at least Rove and Libby and maybe other White House aides--possess many relevant facts. And the chief dogcatcher at 1600 Pennsylvania, if he reads the newspapers, can find plenty of facts--that is, information confirmed by Rove's attorney--about Rove's role in this episode. (Could Rove's lawyer be lying?) But as I have previously (and repeatedly) pointed out, it's the job of the Rove spinners to deny and distort reality.

Sadly, John McCain has been drawn into this dishonest campaign. McCain has tried to promote himself as the straight-talking politician. You might even think he would be a candidate to perform the specific ritual I mentioned above: the from-within-the-party blast. But scratch him from that list. On Hardball a few nights ago, McCain once again placed politics and loyalty to Bush (the guy who dragged McCain's reputation through the mud in 2000) above straight talk. He repeatedly defended Rove, saying that when Rove confirmed Valerie Wilson's CIA ID for Bob Novak and Matt Cooper he was merely countering "false information" being put out by former Joseph Wilson "concerning whether Dick Cheney sent him to Africa." McCain went on: "It's understandable why Rove would say to a reporter, 'Hey, look, the vice president did not send Wilson to Niger.   It was done at the recommendation of his wife, etcetera, etcetera.'"

Regular readers will know this is the same-old disinformation being hurled by GOP spinners. One need only look at Wilson's July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed piece--the article that precipitated the White House assault on Wilson--to see that Wilson did not claim he was sent to Niger by Cheney. Wilson wrote:

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake--a form of lightly processed ore--by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

Yet here was McCain promoting one of the biggest canards being pushed by the Save Rove dissemblers: that Wilson had claimed he was personally dispatched by Cheney and that Rove was only making sure reporters did not report that falsehood. That's really being a team player. McCain went further and said, "Karl Rove has stated that he did not do anything wrong and break any law. I take him at his word." How Jesus-like of McCain, turning the other cheek in this fashion. The Bush campaign that Rove ran in 2000 spread lies about McCain. When Chris Matthews reminded McCain of that, the senator just chuckled and said, "politics is not beanbags."

McCain was back in POW-mode--like when he addressed the GOP convention in 2000 and praised Bush. Back then, he looked like a hostage force-reading a script that had been handed to him. Now he's being the good soldier and misinforming the public to protect the man who undid his presidential campaign in 2000, presumably to keep intact the possibility of a presidential bid in 2008.

During the interview, Matthews remarked to McCain, "You are known to have a higher ethical standard than most politicians." McCain responded, "I hope."

Anyone who ties himself to Rove ought to be careful about claiming the ethical high ground.
******

When it comes to discussing Iraq on talk shows, I often am a broken record. For over a year or so, I've repeatedly said that there is a significant gap between the security dilemma in Iraq and the political developments. Whenever there is good news on the political or PR front in Iraq--Saddam Hussein captured, elections held, Sunnis brought into the constitution-drafting committee, etc.--pro-war commentators claim the event of the moment is going to demoralize the insurgency and hasten the path to peace and security in Iraq. But such statements are more wishes than analysis. And so far no corner has been truly turned concerning security and the insurgency in Iraq.

Look at these two portions from articles that appeared Sunday in the nation's leading newspapers. The Washington Post noted,

Finishing the draft constitution on time is seen by U.S. officials and many Iraqis as vital to countering Iraq's insurgents, whose attacks have eroded public confidence in the U.S.-backed government.

However, a front-page article in The New York Times reported:

Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever.

A string of recent attacks, including the execution of moderate Sunni leaders and the kidnapping of foreign diplomats, has brought home for many Iraqis that the democratic process that has been unfolding since the Americans restored Iraqi sovereignty in June 2004 has failed to isolate the insurgents and, indeed, has become the target itself....

American commanders say the number of attacks against American and Iraqi forces has held steady over the last year, averaging about 65 a day.

But the Americans concede the growing sophistication of insurgent attacks and the insurgents' ability to replenish their ranks as fast as they are killed.

"We are capturing or killing a lot of insurgents," said a senior Army intelligence officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make his assessments public. "But they're being replaced quicker than we can interdict their operations. There is always another insurgent ready to step up and take charge."

So what's the evidence that the drafting of the constitution has any impact on the insurgency? It's certainly true that it would be better for the Iraqis if they manage to form a government that is democratic, that works, and that is able to establish (eventually) effective security forces. Perhaps if that is accomplished--in say, five or more years--the Iraqi government will be in a position to put down the insurgency (if the insurgency does not peter out). But none of the interim steps appear to have made a difference in terms of the development, growth and strength of the insurgency.

A constitution is supposed to be written by August 15. If the Iraqis manage to meet that deadline, there will be many cheers from the White House and from the war's champions on Capitol Hill and within the commentariat. But my hunch is that if this occurs, August 15 will be just another day for the getting-stronger insurgents.

Posted by David Corn at 02:18 AM

July 22, 2005

A CIA Vet's Message for the Save-Rove Spinners: "A True Patriot Would Shut Up"

I've wasted too many hours of my life going on talking head shoutfests with conservatives who pooh-pooh the Plame/CIA leak matter (now known as the Rove scandal), who claim there was little damage done, who say that Valerie Wilson was only a desk jockey and dismiss her undercover status as "light" or "flimsy," who argue that no crime was broken and no wrongdoing occurred, and who are lightning quick to depict the controversy as nothing but a game of politics. These folks are spinning to save Rove and to protect the White House, and they distort, disinform, and dissemble for the team.

Today, the Senate Democratic Policy Council and the Democratic side of the House Government Reform Committee held an unofficial hearing in the Senate Dirksen Office Building, in which former intelligence professionals discussed the Plame/CIA leak, especially its impact on the intelligence community, current officers, and Valerie Wilson. (The Democrats had no choice but to hold such a session because the Republicans in the House and Senate refuse to examine or investigate the leak.) The testimony was not expected to contain many surprises. And the media presence at the hearing was not heavy. But as I watched the proceedings on C-SPAN 3 and saw James Marcinkowski, a former CIA case office and a former prosecutor, testify, I realized his statement was perhaps the most powerful rebuttal of and rebuke to the rightwingers who have been pushing disinformation about the Valerie Wilson case. I wish they all could have been tied to a chair and forced to listen to him. (Ken Mehlman, Tucker Eskew, Clifford May, William Safire--this means you.) Referring to those who have derided Valerie Wilson and belittled the seriousness of this leak, an angry Marcinkowski said, "Before you shine up your American flag lapel pin and affix your patriotism to your sleeve, think about what the impact your actions will have on the security of the American people....Those who take pride in their political ability to divert the issue from the fundamental truth ought to be prepared to take their share of the responsibility for the continuing damage done to our national security." For the spinners engaged in "partisan obfuscation," he has this message: "a true patriot would shut up." As a public service, I am posting below the bulk of his testimony.

Testimony of James Marcinkowski
July 22, 2005

What is important now is not who wins or loses the political battle or who may or may not be indicted; rather, it is a question of how we will go about protecting the citizens of this country in a very dangerous world. The undisputed fact is that we have irreparably damaged our capability to collect human intelligence and thereby significantly diminished our capability to protect the American people.

Understandable to all Americans is a simple, incontrovertible, but damning truth: the United States government exposed the identity of a clandestine officer working for the CIA. This is not just another partisan "dust-up" between political parties. This unprecedented act will have far-reaching consequences for covert operations around the world. Equally disastrous is that from the time of that first damning act, we have continued on a course of self-inflicted wounds by government officials who have refused to take any responsibility, have played hide-and-seek with the truth and engaged in semantic parlor games for more than two years, all at the expense of the safety of the American people. No government official has that right.

For an understanding of what is at stake it is important to understand some fundamental principles. No country or hostile group, from al Qaeda to any drug rings operating in our cities, likes to be infiltrated or spied upon. The CIA, much like any police department in any city, has undercover officers--spies, that use "cover."

To operate under "cover" means you use some ruse to cloak both your identity and your intentions. The degree of cover needed to carry out any operation varies depending on the target of the investigation. A police officer performing "street buys" uses a "light" cover, meaning he or she could pose as something as simple as a drug user, operate only at night and during the day and, believe it or not, have a desk job in the police station. On the other hand, if an attempt were made to infiltrate a crime syndicate, visiting the local police station or drinking with fellow FBI agents after work may be out of the question. In any scenario, your cover, no matter what the degree, provides personal protection and safety. But it does not end there. Cover is also used to protect collection methodology as well as any innocent persons a CIA officer may have regular contact with, such as overseas acquaintances, friends, and even other U.S. government officials.

While cover provides a degree of safety for the case officer, it also provides security for that officer's informants or agents. In most human intelligence operations, the confidentiality of the cover used by a CIA officer and the personal security of the agent or asset is mutually dependent. A case officer cannot be identified as working for the CIA, just as the informant/agent cannot be identified as working for the CIA through the case officer. If an informant or agent is exposed as working for the CIA, there is a good chance that the CIA officer has been identified as well. Similarly, if the CIA officer is exposed, his or her agents or informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of a case officer ensures not only his or her own personal safety but that of the agents or assets as well.

The exposure of Valerie Plame's cover by the White House is the same as the local chief of police announcing to the media the identity of its undercover drug officers. In both cases, the ability of the officer to operate is destroyed, but there is also an added dimension. An informant in a major sophisticated crime network, or a CIA asset working in a foreign government, if exposed, has a rather good chance of losing more than just their ability to operate.

Any undercover officer, whether in the police department or the CIA, will tell you that the major concern of their informant or agent is their personal safety and that of their family. Cover is safety. If you cannot guarantee that safety in some form or other, the person will not work for you and the source of important information will be lost.

So how is the Valerie Plame incident perceived by any current or potential agent of the CIA? I will guarantee you that if the local police chief identified the names of the department's undercover officers, any half-way sophisticated undercover operation would come to a halt and if he survived that accidental discharge of a weapon in police headquarters, would be asked to retire.

And so the real issues before this Congress and this country today is not partisan politics, not even the loss of secrets. The secrets of Valerie Plame's cover are long gone. What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us. How are our case officers supposed to build and maintain that confidence when their own government cannot even guarantee the personal protection of the home team? While the loss of secrets in the world of espionage may be damaging, the stealing of the credibility of our CIA officers is unforgivable....

And so we are left with only one fundamental truth, the U.S. government exposed the identity of a covert operative. I am not convinced that the toothpaste can be put back into the tube. Great damage has been done and that damage has been increasing every single day for more than two years. The problem of the refusal to accept responsibility by senior government officials is ongoing and causing greater damage to our national security and our ability to collect human intelligence. But the problem lies not only with government officials but also with the media, commentators and other apologists who have no clue as to the workings of the intelligence community. Think about what we are doing from the perspective of our overseas human intelligence assets or potential assets.

I believe Bob Novak when he credited senior administration officials for the initial leak, or the simple, but not insignificant confirmation of that secret information, as I believe a CIA officer in some far away country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be of invaluable service to our covert war on terror because "promises of protection" will no longer carry the level of trust they once had.

Each time the leader of a political party opens his mouth in public to deflect responsibility, the word overseas is loud and clear--politics in this country does in fact trump national security.

Each time a distinguished ambassador is ruthlessly attacked for the information he provided, a foreign asset will contemplate why he should risk his life when his information will not be taken seriously.

Each time there is a perceived political "success" in deflecting responsibility by debating or re-debating some minutia, such actions are equally effective in undermining the ability of this country to protect itself against its enemies, because the two are indeed related. Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere "paper-pusher," or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers, or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it is a disservice to this country. By ridiculing, for example, the "degree" of cover or the use of post office boxes, you lessen the level of confidence that foreign nationals place in our covert capabilities.

Those who would advocate the "I'm ok, you're ok" politics of non-responsibility, should probably think about the impact of those actions on our foreign agents. Non-responsibility means we don't care. Not caring means a loss of security. A loss of security means a loss of an agent. The loss of an agent means the loss of information. The loss of information means an increase in the risk to the people of the United States.

There is a very serious message here. Before you shine up your American flag lapel pin and affix your patriotism to your sleeve, think about what the impact your actions will have on the security of the American people. Think about whether your partisan obfuscation is creating confidence in the United States in general and the CIA in particular. If not, a true patriot would shut up.

Those who take pride in their political ability to divert the issue from the fundamental truth ought to be prepared to take their share of the responsibility for the continuing damage done to our national security.

When this unprecedented act first occurred, the president could have immediately demanded the resignation of all persons even tangentially involved. Or, at a minimum, he could have suspended the security clearances of these persons and placed them on administrative leave. Such methods are routine with police forces throughout the country. That would have at least sent the right message around the globe, that we take the security of those risking their lives on behalf of the United States seriously. Instead, we have flooded the foreign airwaves with two years of inaction, political rhetoric, ignorance, and partisan bickering. That's the wrong message. In doing so we have not lessened, but increased the threat to the security and safety of the people of the United States.

Posted by David Corn at 01:15 PM

Rove Scandal: A Conspiracy Charge for the White House?

As I write, the news is zapping across the Internet that Bloomberg has reported that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby have given testimony to the Plame/CIA leak grand jury that was contradicted by the accounts of others. Here's the lead:

Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them
the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson. Novak, according to a source familiar with the matter, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor.

These discrepancies may be important because one issue Fitzgerald is investigating is whether Libby, Rove, or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation.

Interesting. And below is what I had written prior to this news. It now may be even more relevant:

I'm no lawyer, though I do--as a talking head--have to play one on TV occasionally. And it seems in recent years (and weeks) that to talk politics you have to know something about law, particularly criminal law. The Rove scandal overflows with legal commentary from folks who aren't lawyers who do their best to understand the relevant laws and folks who are (GOP) lawyers who do their best to ignore and misrepresent the law. In any event, looking for guidance, I called an old friend, who once was a federal prosecutor and now is a well-established lawyer in Washington. He investigated the mob. He's a Democrat, but hardly a partisan. I asked what he thought was up with Plame/CIA leak investigation. He has picked up some rumors within the DC lawyer's community, but he has no direct contact with the investigation. Still, he has a few interesting observation.

"What this really boils down to at the moment," he says, "is this: should Karl Rove have a security clearance? That's the real question. Would he be given a security clearance if what's now known had been known at the time he applied for clearance? In his job, at his level, he sees lots of secrets. People at a lot lower level would lose their security clearance for this immediately." This former prosecutor, of course, is referring to the media revelations--confirmed by Rove's own lawyer--that Rove told at least two journalists (Robert Novak and Matt Cooper) about Valerie Wilson's relationship to the CIA, which was classified information. "This is a national security issue," he continues. "If you were a Tom, Dick or Harry and involved in that, you'd lose your security clearance. Period.

He notes that weeks ago--before the story made the paper--he had heard from other lawyers about the now-critical classified State Department memo that mentioned Valerie Wilson. A copy of this document was apparently on Air Force One the week before Novak published his column. The gossip, he says, was quite specific: the memo had a red cover sheet indicating it included top-secret information. "This is a signal that you should treat the whole document carefully," he explains. The rumor also was that Rove had seen it on the airplane. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has denied this. But Luskin also said that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." So much for Luskin's credibility. (He defends that remark by saying that Rove only mentioned "Wilson's wife" and did not refer to her by name. But if I said the First Lady of the United States is a Chinese spy, I couldn't subsequently say I wasn't talking about Laura Bush.) The good news for anyone wishing ill for Rove is that a denial from Luskin is worth absolutely nothing.

My pal the past prosecutor tells me that Luskin has the reputation for being a "nice man and smart guy," but that he is "no warrior." He adds, "I was really surprised he was representing a warrior like Rove. Maybe Rove wanted someone who he knew would not be a publicity hound." That makes sense. From the beginning, the Bush White House tried to play down the leak matter. Bush aides were even tightlipped about whether they had obtained private counsel. The goal seemed to be to do nothing that could draw media attention or be interpreted as a sign the White House was worried. The lawyers who have been hired by Bush aides are certainly accomplished attorneys, but not marquis [EDITOR'S NOTE: Damn spell-check. Make that "marquee"] names. And before the scandal exploded, the point for the White House was not to have stories written about big-name legal talent hired by its top aides.

Take the case of Ari Fleischer, the former White House spinmeister. He left the job the day after Novak published the Plame/CIA leak. (I'm not suggesting there's a connection, but I am suggesting Fleischer should be a person of interest to Fitzgerald.) Last November, I reported that a past Bush White House aide had told me that Fleischer had spent a long time before the grand jury. (This source also told me then, "Scooter's in big trouble" and "Karl is too smart for Fitzgerald.") Months later, it's not public knowledge who is representing Fleischer. He refuses to name his attorney to reporters. My friend the ex-prosecutor says that none of the Washington lawyers he's talked to about the leak case know who is representing Fleischer. If only Rove, Libby and others had been so discreet concerning Valerie Wilson. Perhaps we should put out a reward for any information leading to the identity of Ari Fleischer's attorney.

So what's my friend's best guess about what Fitzgerald is trying to do? Obviously, he says, it would be easier for him to make a "false statements case" than to prosecute a case under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. (Regular readers by now know why.) But, he goes on, there's another way he could tackle this; check out Title 18, Section 371, of the US Code, he advises. It's entitled "Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States."

This two paragraph section is straightforward and rather wide-ranging:

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.

Under this law, if there was any conspiring among the leakers--say, one White House aide suggested to another that they use the classified information in hand to disclose Valerie Wilson's connection to the CIA in order to undermine Wilson's account of his trip to Niger--then the acts of each conspirator can essentially be charged to the other(s). If I understand this correctly--did I say I was no lawyer?--that means if one person violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (or lied to Fitzgerald or the grand jury) any one who conspired with them to make the leak happen (or concoct the false account) could be nailed. "From a prosecutor's standpoint," this former prosecutor says, "a conspiracy charge is how you get in each strand--all the strands--of what happened."

Nabbing Karl Rove on a conspiracy? To some that might sound rather appropriate. Listen, we're just speculating about what Fitzgerald may or may not have on this bunch. And even if he is going all-out to solve the case and bring home solid indictments, he may not be able to pull together a solid enough case to take to court. Still, this ex-prosecutor's advice is that Democrats shouldn't worry about the legal case. What will happen with the investigation will happen, and it's generally beyond anyone's control. But the security clearance issue is not connected to the final outcome of Fitzgerald's probe. There is already enough information to make a federal case. Some Democratic House and Senate members--such as Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Chuck Schumer--have been pushing this point. Others should chime in, particularly Senator Jay Rockefeller and Representative Jane Harman, the ranking Democrats on the intelligence committees. There's no need to wait for Fitzgerald. [UPDATE: Harman and the other Democrats on the House intelligence committee, sent a letter to Bush asking that Rove's security clearance be suspended until the investigation is concluded. But Rove's security clearance should not be linked to Fitzgerald's findings. It's been establishd--and he has acknowledged--that Rove shared information with reporters that was classified. The only debate now should be one over the appropriate punishment.]
******

Market Indicator? Public Citizen reports that Tom DeLay's legal defense fund received only two contributions in the past three months from his House GOP colleagues. The political action committe of Rep. Paul Gillmor of Ohio gave $2000; the PAC of Rep. Jay Hensarling of Texas contributed $5000, the maximum amount allowed. And for the first time, DeLay's legal costs ($56,211.92 for the past three months) exceeded the incoming donations ($42,900).

Posted by David Corn at 12:23 AM

July 21, 2005

Rove Scandal: More Possible Evidence Rove and Libby Leaked Classified Information

As I noted yesterday, from the US government's perspective, leaking classified information is wrong and a firing offense--even if the deed is not a crime. And as I noted, Valerie Wilson's status as a CIA employee was classified information. (Click here for the full explanation.) Thus, both Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--wittingly or not--shared with reporters classified information that outed a CIA officer and perhaps compromised anti-WMD operations (when they told journalists that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA). Crime or not, that ought to be a big deal--especially since they did so as part of a political campaign against a policy critic. In Thursday's Washington Post, Walter Pincus puts another nail in what ought to be a coffin. He confirms that the already-reported State Department memo that mentioned Valerie Wilson and that has caught the interest of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (because a copy was on Air Force One days before the Plame leak occurred) was stamped "(S)" for secret. Pincus writes, "Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information." The paragraph did not ID Valerie Wilson as an undercover officer. But if Rove or any other White House aide was shown a copy of this memo and then leaked the info, he or she violated very specific rules about the handling of classified information--rules that the government usually takes quite seriously. But does Bush?

Posted by David Corn at 12:34 AM

The Anti-Neocon

It's not about the Rove scandal, but below is my latest TomPaine.com column, in which I promote a conservative's vicious and delicious attack on the neocons.

The Anti-Neocon
David Corn
www.tompaine.com
July 20, 2005

"I'm the anti-neocon." That's how Robert Merry recent y described himself to me. After reading his new book--Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition --I have to say: He got that right.

His book is the most scorching mainstream critique of the neocons and their misadventure in Iraq that I have encountered. Merry, the publisher of Congressional Quarterly and a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, rips apart that small band of ideologically driven chickenhawks and leaves their bones scattered on the floor of a Council of Foreign Relations conference room. Merry is a hard-ass practitioner of global realpolitik. There is not a smidgen of sentiment in a single sentence of this book. He's certainly not keeping company with one-worlders and those who would identify (or misidentify, in his view) American national security interests with feel-good global humanitarianism. But in a classic example of that old Middle East cliche--the enemy of my enemy is my friend--he has produced a book that liberal-minded foreign policy folks ought to gobble up. And I would dare the neocons to enter Merry's knife-throwing gallery.

His high-minded goal was to pen an intellectual history that traced the ideas that led--over decades--to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. (Let's assume that ideas had something to do with it.) Merry does reach back far, reviewing the works and notions of such profound ponderers as the Abbe Charles-Irenee Castel de Saint-Pierre (who postulated that humankind was on an inevitable journey toward further enlightenment and civilization), Oswald Spengler (the chronicler of the ups and downs of civilizations), and such big-idea moderns as Frances Fukuyama (the premature prophet of the End of History), Samuel Huntington (the advocate of the Clash of Civilizations), and Thomas Friedman (the cheerleader for the Glory of Globalization). Merry suggests that in the broadest terms there are two ideas that have motivated Western thought: the Idea of Progress (humankind is on a never-ending advance), and the Cycle of History (history is the story of civilizations that rise and then fall; screw progress). And a corollary to the Cycle of History view, he notes, is Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, which suggests that not only is progress not inevitable but that conflict between civilizations is. The capital letters are his.

Out of all this, he notes, American history has yielded four basic strains of foreign policy: conservative interventionism (the hardheaded Cold War policy that came out of World War II), conservative isolationism (poster boy: Pat Buchanan), liberal interventionism (sending U.S. troops to help troubled countries such as Haiti), and liberal isolationism (think of the movement against the Vietnam War). His descriptions invite the charge that he is being overly simplistic. For instance, he claims Reagan''s use of force in Central America in the 1980s--which he points to as an example of conservative interventionism--was necessary to "save Western civilization from the threat of Soviet expansionism." No, it wasn't. But the real question for him--and for us--is, which of these four teams is essentially right?

To answer that, Merry has fun batting aside those he considers wrong. He scoffs at Fukuyama's thesis--that America and other Western democracies represent the culmination of human civilization and stand as the obvious (and only) ideal for the rest of the world. From this stance, Merry notes, it's a perilously short distance to presuming a missionary destiny for the United States: Let's make them more like us. He notes that Fukuyama, in his famous 1989 essay "End of History," observed that nationalism and ethnic zeal could no longer threaten a nation and that Islamic fundamentalism "has little appeal for non-Muslims, and it is hard to believe that the movement will take on any universal significance." Ouch. And he whips Thomas Friedman to an inch of his intellectual life, noting that the gaga-on-globalization columnist is deft at analyzing transnational economic forces but willfully naive in saying that the people of the world, looking toward the United States as "a spiritual value and a role model," will harness these new economic trends and ride off to a better future because they have no choice. "Political analysis as exhortation is not serious political analysis," Merry rightfully huffs, adding, "The impulses of human nature go far beyond the material comforts and options that so preoccupy Friedman."

Why does Merry devote himself to disproving Fukuyama and Friedman? It's because they are idealists whose out-of-touch-with-reality views (as Merry sees it) lead toward danger. But it is the neocons who have put this danger into practice. It's no secret: Merry is with the hardheaded conservative interventionists and quite sympathetic to Huntingtonism. The world is nasty and full of nasty people--most notably, Islamic extremists--and it's our job not to change the world but to define the threat wisely and specifically and to take the practical steps necessary to thwart that threat or at least keep it at bay for as long as possible.

He and I would, no doubt, consume many beers in any full-length conversation about the past glories and mistakes of U.S. foreign policy. But Merry is not interested in raking through the coals of the many past debates. This is what concerns him now: "Can an effective brand of conservative interventionism be fashioned for the post-9/11 era, when the West is locked in a clash of civilizations with major elements of the world of Islam and cultural instability seems on the rise elsewhere around the globe?" He adds, "That is probably the most pressing question facing the country--and the world--today." And the biggest obstacle to fashioning a positive response, he argues, is the neocons.

Another obstacle, he claims, are liberal interventionists such as those who supported the U.S. bombing in Kosovo and Bill Clinton's involvement in the Balkans. Merry goes for the jugular in questioning the arguments for and the wisdom of these actions. This section of the book is not for the faint-hearted. ("True, Serbian actions in Kosovo prior to the bombing were barbaric. But in fact they never matched the kinds of abuses the [Clinton] administration had been willing to accept in Turkey, Kashmir, Sudan, and Rwanda—or in Croatia, for that matter. Thus did the United States action reveal a fundamental reality of any moralistic foreign policy: inevitably it exposes a selective morality.") But since the liberal interventionists are not in the driver's seat and did not lead the nation into the wrong war in Iraq, Merry has less reason to worry about them these days. So he unleashes the lion's share of his fury upon the neoconservatives.

He traces the history of this bunch and pokes at the contradictions and inconsistencies that lie in their wake. This band of Democratic-liberals-turned-Republicans-armchair-warriors, he notes, have abandoned the typical "conservative hostility" toward utopian visions and bold government initiatives and have "embraced a Brave New World in which American exceptionalism holds sway everywhere and peoples around the globe abandon their own cultures in favor of Western ideals....[T]he neoconservatives have arrived at a point where they aren't really conservative at all." The neocons' transition into idealists--hey, let's fight for democracy in the Middle East!--is an odd one and ought to be greeted with skepticism. Merry points out that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the neocons held firm to a less noble operating premise. It was Jeane Kirkpatrick, the godmother of the neocons, who wrote an influential article that bitterly decried assigning human rights a priority in foreign policy. She scoffed at those who believed "that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances." Such conversions, she said, take "decades, if not centuries." (Hmmmm.) And in a 1978 essay, Irving Kristol, the neocons' godfather (and the actual father of William Kristol, the movement's unofficial student body president), urged the United States to be "less vaguely moralistic in its pronouncements." In 1980, Merry notes, Irving Kristol wrote that it was a "fundamental fallacy" to believe that people in all nations are entitled to a liberal constitutional government. The apple has bounced far from this tree.

So how did we get from there to the point where Bill Kristol and Co. are rah-rahing and egging on a president who justifies invading a country--forget those nonexistent WMDs--with the most lofty rhetoric about exporting democracy and freedom overseas? It's not just 9/11. The neocons were hankering for a war against Iraq long before nineteen al Qaeda recruits stunned the world. The neocons, Merry writes, "have a tendency to make their way to whatever watering hole they can find to quench their need for a rhetorical argument of the moment." And in the years prior to 9/11, they became enthralled with the idea of "American hegemony." Merry considers this quest for a Wilsonian-fueled hegemony nuts, for it obscures the difficult questions and prevents consideration of what to do about complex, centuries-in-the-making, on-the-ground realities.

Merry sees the clash between "the West and Islam" as the fundamental reality of the day. But he is not looking forward to any ultimate confrontation. This reality, he argues, "demands from the West a steady, careful, measured approach to diplomacy and war. Will the West, with all its power and influence, stimulate and aggravate these emerging cultural tensions around the world? Or will it seek an approach aimed at protecting its interests while calming as much as possible the cultural hostilities that are an integral part of our era."" He's essentially calling for a Nixonian approach. (I can't bring myself to refer to it as  Kissingerian.)

His book half-echoes the critique made by the left (whether it is the isolationist or interventionist left) of the current regime. Merry is talking about wrestling with realities. The neocons speak of redefining reality--which also can become ignoring reality. Remember Dick Cheney's promise that American troops in Iraq would be welcomed as liberators? Merry does, and he catalogues all the false assumptions made by the neocons and Bush's foreign policy team:

"This litany of misstatements, misperceptions, faulty thinking and off-the-mark predictions raises a question: how could so many highly intelligent people be so wrong? The only answer is that they stumbled into a classic case of ideological policymaking--viewing the world through the prism of a rigid ideology, and then placing the pieces together to fit that ideological picture."

Instead of offering a solution to the knotty dilemmas of the post-9/11 threat, the Iraq war has worsened the problem. This war, Merry maintains, can only "enflame anti-Western passions in the world of Islam." That will mean "more jihadists directed against the United States." The war also increases the odds of destabilization in other lands--such as Saudi Arabia (which has oil we need) and Pakistan (which has nukes we don't want to see used or transferred). Merry sums up:

"In taking his military into the heart of Islam and planting his country's flag into the soil of a foreign culture based on flimsy perceptions of a national threat, George W. Bush has brought his country and the world closer to that kind of Armageddon than it faced before. He did so on the basis of a world outlook and political idealism that are alluring, comforting, and widely embraced throughout American intellectual circles. They are also false and highly dangerous."

Strong stuff. This book shows that anti-war passion does not reside only on the left. Merry, an Establishment sort, whacks Bush and the neocons for turning America into the "Crusader State." And he calls for a foreign policy with less idealistic zeal. Cut deals with strongman dictators who can contain Islamic fundamentalism. Realize that "missionary democracy in the Middle East is not necessarily our friend, for it likely would foster fundamentalist and anti-American regimes in that strategically important region." Take the swagger out of U.S. diplomacy. Drop the tough talk about who is "evil" and who is not. Such actions, he maintains, only "exacerbate the civilizational war." Instead, he advises, the United States to "foster the emergence of Islamic core states" and to not fret too much about their records on democracy and human rights. He calls for a rapprochement with Iran. He also suggests Washington does what's necessary to encourage China and Russia to join in a containment policy aimed at Islam. "What is required," he writes, "is an approach that is sustained, measured, defensive in nature, limited in ambition, and based on a sophisticated understanding of the cultural currents in play in the world."

Merry is indeed the anti-neocon. Forget any idealism. Lose the rhetoric about freedom, democracy and human rights. Don't give a damn about American hegemony and exceptionalism. Just figure out what must be done in practical and realistic terms to curtail the threat posed by Islamic extremism. It would be hard for me to endorse an overarching policy so free of sentiment and aspiration. But when idealism has been commandeered by the neocons for this misguided (and so far unending) war, the desire for a foreign policy devoid of such notions is understandable. Merry's provocative book is so hard-edged that it poses a challenge to neocons and their critics on the left. But his skewering of the Kristol crowd is so thorough and delicious that it makes one yearn for more tough-talk from the self-described realists of the foreign policy establishment.

Posted by David Corn at 12:25 AM

July 20, 2005

Rove Scandal: Finally, a Real Distraction

Is Karl Rove in so much trouble that the White House really did believe it was necessary to rush out the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court? Bloomberg News did report that the White House accelerated its schedule on the Roberts nomination to draw attention to another news story. At least, the Bush gang in this case relied on something real--a Supreme Court nomination--to distract and not the usual mis- or disinformation. (See postings below.)

This will likely work for several days--longer if the Democrats and the progressive groups are able to make and sustain a political stink (which will be difficult). Look at the news pages of today's Washington Post. Mucho coverage of Roberts. Nada about Rove. Last night when I sent out my latest posting (the intelligence veterans' letter on Valerie Wilson in the item below) to various liberal bloggers, one sent me an email asking that I resend it later. He was neck-deep in Roberts. There's nothing wrong with that. A Supreme Court pick is a big deal and deserves the ink. Now only if William Rehnquist dies and Bush appoints Pat Robertson to take his place. Then Rove would truly be sitting pretty.

I'm traveling today, so I'll be brief. On the Roberts nomination, Bush was damn smart. He left the Democrats little room for maneuvering. Roberts was easily confirmed by the Senate two years ago for an appellate court position. At the time, several former Clinton officials praised him. He has a relatively short record as a federal judge, one that cannot be picked apart too easily. He's reassuring to righwingers. He was a rising star in the Justice Department in the Reagan and Bush I administrations and earned his conservative credentials. In 1990, he argued that Roe v. Wade had no foundation in the U.S. Constitution. And during his confirmation hearings in 2003, he tied himself to the buzz phrase of choice for conservatives who oppose abortion rights but don't want to scare folks into thinking they might actually do something about it. He declared that Roe v. Wade was "settled law." Social conservatives understand what such rhetoric means: "settled" for now.

So what are the Democrats' options? This guy went to Harvard Law. A majority of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted for him two years ago when he was nominated to the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. (Only three gave him the thumb's down.) He was approved on the full Senate floor by a voice vote--which means his nomination did not stir much of a controversy. The New York Times' website ran this headline today: "Bush's Supreme Court Choice Is a Judge Anchored in Modern Law." That sure makes him sound as if he's in the mainstream.

The deal on judicial filibusters that was struck in May only grants Dems the right to mount a filibuster in "extraordinary" circumstances. And as a practical matter, the seven GOP members of the Gang of 14 have to accept the extraordinariness of the circumstances. It's hard to see how the Democrats can win a debate over whether Roberts' nomination is "extraordinary." A conservative president has appointed a conservative jurist with strong credentials. What's extraordinary about that?

The liberal advocacy groups can--and have begun to--argue that Roberts' will push the court to the right and that will lead to decisions bad for minority rights, reproductive rights, civil liberties, environmental protection, and consumer safety and good for corporate interests. There's not much argument over that. But my hunch is that not everyone in the Democratic caucus of the Senate is yearning to rush to battle on these grounds in the absence of "extraordinary" circumstances. Thus, Democrats will yammer about wanting to examine fully his record. They may even be guided by what The New York Times declared on the editorial page today: "If [Roberts] is a mainstream conservative in the tradition of Justice O'Connor, he should be confirmed. But if on closer inspection he turns out to be an extreme ideologue with an agenda of stripping away important rights, he should not be." But for a significant number of Senate Democrats the bar for being an "extreme ideologue" will be quite high. (And this guy doesn't have a funny Bork-like beard.) Given the numbers in the Senate, the Democrats have no play to make whatsoever unless they can keep their side united. Absent any bombshell revelations about Roberts, they cannot stop him if the Senate Republicans are willing to kill the judicial filibuster. And an attempted Democratic filibuster against Roberts would presumably provide sufficient motive to the Republicans to pull the trigger.

With the Roberts nomination, the Democrats are in a deep hole, The Bush White House has made a clever pick--and, at least for the moment, shoved the Rove scandal to the side. It's a twofer.

Posted by David Corn at 02:18 PM

July 19, 2005

Former Intelligence Officers De-Spin Rightwing Assault on Valerie Wilson

One of the pieces of disinformation being peddled by the Save-Rove gang (see the item below) is that Valerie Wilson wasn't really undercover. So the leak? No harm done and no crime committed (since the relevant law says a leak only counts as a crime if the exposed officer was working under cover). But how do they know that Joseph Wilson's wife wasn't a clandestine officer in a serious manner? Well, they don't. There's nothing on the public record that fully explains her duties at the CIA. (And they overlook the point that exposing her also exposed the operations she had worked on and the people with whom she had worked.) It's just more free-from-facts spin. Why don't we ask the professionals about the impact of her disclosure? Actually, we don't have to. Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who trained with Valerie Plame, sent a letter to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House on July 18, asking that they do what they can to stop the disinformers from spreading bad information about Valerie Wilson. As if that's going to happen on the GOP side. But their letter does de-spin the right's false info on Valerie Wilson's status at the CIA. If you've seen the letter already, please scroll down to my most recent analysis of (and griping about) the rightwing's disinformation machine's defense of Rove. Here is the letter:

We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources. The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. The following are four recent examples of this "talking point":

* Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, "And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."

* Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, "Well, they weren't taking affirmative measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them."

* Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that."

* House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, "It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of top-secret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."

These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.

While we are pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation and that the U.S. Attorney General has recused himself, we believe that the partisan attacks against Valerie Plame are sending a deeply discouraging message to the men and women who have agreed to work undercover for their nation's security.

We are not lawyers and are not qualified to determine whether the leakers technically violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. However, we are confident that Valerie Plame was working in a cover status and that our nation's leaders, regardless of political party, have a duty to protect all intelligence officers. We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.

We also believe it is important that Congress speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue. Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs. In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor. We stand in her stead and ask that Republicans and Democrats honor her service to her country and stop the campaign of disparagement and innuendo aimed at discrediting Mrs. Wilson and her husband.

Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government's protection of their covert status.

For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.

Sincerely yours,
Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA

JOINED BY: Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA
Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA
Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA
Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA
Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA

Posted by David Corn at 09:12 PM

Rove Scandal: The Latest Distractions and Disinformation (Up Close and Personal)

Now that I've been sucked into the right-wing disinformation machine, I am struck by how unrelenting it is. Cliff May posted a dumb column claiming that Joe Wilson told me on background that his wife was an undercover operative and that I was the first person to really out Valerie Wilson (nee Plame). I debunked that nonsense here. But pesky May still sent me email asking me to explain what I had already explained. By not accepting my explanation--and by claiming that what I've written previously is misleading--he is essentially calling me a liar. I take such things personally. (This fellow once asked me if I would be willing to be his partner in a right/left cable-TV face-off. I'm glad it never came to pass.) And there he was again yesterday on CNN expanding his web of fabrication. He said:

You can say what you want about Bob Novak. He has insisted since the beginning that he didn't know she was a secret agent. He just knew she worked at the CIA. Nobody told him that. And if he had known she was secret, he wouldn't have published her name. Now who did publish her name first was David Corn of "The Nation," and he was the first one to say she was a secret agent, and he did that in a conversation with, guess who, with Joe Wilson.

How does one combat repeated silliness of this sort? Who knows what Novak would have done had he been told Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer? And maybe he was told. All we know is that Novak claims the CIA informed him it would prefer if he not name her but did not go ballistic about it. This tale may be true; it may not. (In his own account, Novak still turned down the CIA.) Moreover, Novak did publish her name first. It's right there in the column that prompted the CIA to ask the Justice Department to investigate the White House. CNN anchor Carol Costello should have stopped May and told the audience he was either lying or misspeaking. And May states as a fact that Wilson told me his wife was an undercover officer, even though he has no evidence of this and I have said precisely the opposite. What chutzpah! He doesn't even have an anonymous source to rely on. Is this the sort of journalism he learned when working at The New York Times? Or did he perfect his smear skills when he subsequently served as a spokesperson for the Republican Party? In his absurd article, he at least had the courtesy to present his bogus charge as the product of his own deductive reasoning (as defective as it was). On CNN, he stated as a fact that Wilson had spilled the beans to me about his wife--which is not true.

Having responded fully to his initial piece, I was not going to fuel this sideshow with further comment. But yesterday, I was on a public radio program--Warren Olney's To The Point--discussing the Rove scandal with Byron York, a columnist for the National Review. And as our segment was ending, he piped up and said, Well, Bob Novak didn't really out Valerie Wilson as an undercover official; it was David Corn. The show was ending, and I barely had time to exclaim, "Preposterous," and refer listeners to my website. But this is what happens: one person launches an unfounded smear and then others employ it. The point: I'm now thrown on defense, and, perhaps more importantly, a distraction has been achieved.

Disinformation, distraction--that's the plan, as trouble-causing details emerge from the investigation that threaten Karl Rove and other senior Bush aides. For GOP operatives, it's all-hands-to-the-deck time. And the strategy is to fire whatever ammunition the have, whether it is real or a dud. They want to turn this into a partisan mud-wrestle, realizing that much of the public turns off to such cat-and-dogs nastiness. They try to make the victims the culprits, calling Joe Wilson the biggest liar of all time and making claims about Valerie Wilson that are unsupported by the known facts (e.g., she was no more than a desk jockey). Change the focus to anything but what Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other White House aides did and whether the White House and the president has covered up for them.

One could spend all day responding to the disinformation and misinformation--and that's their goal. A few days ago, The Washington Times put into circulation a quote from a former CIA officer who once supervised Valerie Wilson and who claimed she wasn't really a covert officer. The newspaper wrote:

A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.

"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.

"Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren't minding the store here....The agency never changed her cover status."

Mr. Rustmann, who spent 20 of his 24 years in the agency under "nonofficial cover"--also known as a NOC, the same status as the wife of Mr. Wilson--also said that she worked under extremely light cover....

"She was home for such a long time, she went to work every day at Langley, she was in an analytical type job, she was married to a high-profile diplomat with two kids," Mr. Rustmann said. "Most people who knew Valerie and her husband, I think, would have thought that she was an overt CIA employee."

The newspaper didn't emphasize that Rustmann knew nothing about Valerie Wilson's CIA duties after he left the agency in 1990. Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who went through training with Valerie Wilson at the CIA, told me that "my understanding is that Valerie went undercover after 1990." If that's true, then quotes from Rustmann are rather irrelevant. Yet I saw his remarks scattered across the Internet, as the distracters and disinformationalists look for any stone to hurl. Even The Washington Times partially refuted Rustmann's remarks when it quoted one neighbor of the Wilsons--David Tilloston--who said he did not know she worked at the CIA and thought she was an economist.

So much to disabuse, so little time. Let's turn now to Victoria Toensing, a Republican lawyer and commentator who was involved in drafting the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. I've had pleasant dealings--professional and social--with her over the years, and many moons ago I was friendly with her daughter, a wonderful photographer. But Toensing sure is doing her duty for her side. Here's a bit from today's Washington Post:

Victoria Toensing, a lawyer and longtime Republican who helped write the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which is at the center of this case, said Bush is now saying what he probably meant to say when the leak investigation was launched. "Of course you are going to be concerned if a law was broken," she said. "But what is it that somebody did wrong if they didn't break the law?"

Toensing has been in Washington long enough to realize that not all wrongdoing in Washington is criminal. But she's now toeing the White House line: only aides convicted of a crime will be fired. (In Washington, when the supertanker White House changes its course, all the tug boats have to follow.) Compare her observation to a portion of a New York Times article published today:

Elaine D. Kaplan, who from 1998 to 2003 was head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that investigates complaints of prohibited personnel practices, said: "Government employees and officials who are negligent with classified information can lose their jobs for carelessness. They don't have to be convicted of intentionally disseminating the information. Crime has never been the threshold. That's not the standard that applies to rank-and-file federal employees. They can be fired for misconduct well short of a crime."

Much of the attention has (justifiably) been on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. But as Representative Henry Waxman has recently noted, when Rove shared Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA--which was classified information--he might have violated Executive Order 12958, which says:

Officers and employees of the United States Government...shall be subject to appropriate sanctions if they knowingly, willfully, or negligently....disclose to unauthorized persons information properly classified.

So the Bush/Toensing standard--leaking classified information that outs a CIA undercover officer and then not coming clean about it is not a firing offense; you're in trouble only if you break the law--is not based in law. Shouldn't she know that?

But truth is not the issue at hand. Winning is. For the right, that means firing up the fog machine and creating as many smokescreens as possible. This comes as no surprise. Still, I find it disheartening. (I can only imagine how Valerie Wilson feels.) Larry Johnson says it's a sign of how desperate the White House and its pals are. He quips, "I love the smell of fear in the morning. It smells like victory." Perhaps. A conservative journalist I know recently emailed to say he was coming to Washington and to ask if I wanted to have drinks with him (which we have occasionally done in the past). I told him I'm in no mood these days. He has yet--as far as I know--not pushed Cliff May's ridiculous Corn-did-it trash. But I need some way to vent my anger and disappointment at folks like May, York and Toensing. This episode is causing Bush's defenders to go to the most ugly extremes. Maybe Larry Johnson is right.

Posted by David Corn at 06:03 PM

July 18, 2005

Rove Scandal: Bush's New Standard for Wrongdoing, and Fitzgerald Pursues a Key Part of the Leak--the Context

"I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." --George W. Bush, September 30, 2003.

"I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration." -- George W. Bush, July 18, 2005

What changed between these two statements? The news that Karl Rove shared classified information--Valerie Wilson's relationship with the CIA--with at least two reporters. Maybe Rove committed a crime; maybe he didn't. But he sure violated Bush's rules--if not government rules and laws--by leaking this information. Yet now Bush has raised the threshold. It seems that Rove will only be booted by Bush if he is convicted of a crime. Apparently, such wrongdoing as leaking classified information is fine by Bush. This comes from a fellow who campaigned as a candidate who would bring "honor and integrity" back to the White House. Are you laughing yet? We know return to our regularly scheduled posting.....
******

One of the key GOP talking points in the Karl Rove scandal has been the claim that Rove--when he told Matt Cooper that Valerie Wilson worked for the CIA--was only trying to help a reporter and stop him from writing an inaccurate article. Of course, this is silly spin. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, senior White House aides are not allowed to out undercover CIA officials in order to assist a member of the Fourth Estate. Moreover, when Rove was talking to Cooper and Bob Novak that week about Valerie Wilson, the White House and the GOPers were engaged in a full-fire campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson, who had just written an op-ed in The New York Times undermining one of George W. Bush's justifications for the Iraq invasion. But the truth-doesn't-matter spinners of the GOP have been out there depicting Rove as a guardian angel for journalists who might otherwise get the story wrong.

Today The Los Angeles Times further puts that spin to rest with a piece that shows that Rove was spearheading the White House's campaign against Wilson. The piece, by Tom Hambuger and Peter Wallsten, begins,

Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said.

The disclosures about the officials' roles illustrate White House concern about Wilson's July 6, 2003, article, which challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear materials. Wilson's article appeared as Rove and other Bush aides were preparing the 2004 reelection campaign strategy, which was built largely around the president's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

It is not surprising that White House officials would be upset by an attack like Wilson's or seek to respond aggressively. But special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is examining whether they or others crossed the legal line by improperly disclosing classified information, or whether they perjured themselves in testifying later about their actions. Both Rove and Libby have testified.

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.

Context is everything. And in a criminal case, context can explain motive. The outing of Valerie Wilson did not happen accidentally. At the time, the White House and its allies were trying to throw whatever they could at Wilson. He's a partisan Democrat. He supports John Kerry. (They never mentioned the campaign contribution Wilson made to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential primary campaign.) He wants to write a book. He's a liar. He wasn't qualified to go to Niger to look into the charge that Iraq had been shopping for yellowcake uranium there. Pointing to his wife--and outing her (intentionally or not)--was part of the attempt to depict his trip to Niger as a junket handed (nepotistically) to a fellow who was not qualified for the task. Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus wrote an article for Nieman Reports--which is published by the Nieman Foundation for Jounalism at Harvard University--in which he revealed that an "administration official" had told him that Wilson's trip to Africa was "set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction." So the White House--as Rove reportedly told Chris Matthews--saw Wilson's wife as "fair game." And Bush aides used information about her relationship at the CIA--classified information--as ammunition against Wilson. This was not an effort to make sure the media was fully and accurately informing the public. Valerie Wilson was outed as a CIA officer--and her past operations compromised--because Rove and his gang were gunning for Wilson. And these guys use whatever bullets they could find.

Posted by David Corn at 02:46 PM

Rove Scandal: Did Rove Admit He Had Leaked Too Much?

"I've already said too much."

That's how Karl Rove ended his now infamous July 11, 2003 conversation with Time's Matt Cooper--in which he told Cooper that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA on WMD issues--according to Cooper's account of his recent appearance before the grand jury investigating the Plame/CIA leak.

Indeed. Cooper, a fair-minded fellow, says that he doesn't know for sure if Rove was suggesting that he had been indiscreet or if Rove merely meant that he had spoken too long to Cooper while preparing to leave town on vacation. But it's difficult, from the perspective of the moment, not to view Rove's remark as an indication that the Architect had gone too far.

Cooper's account of this Rove remark is intriguing, for it follows an article published by The New York Times on Saturday that reported that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been asking questions about a State Department memo on Joseph Wilson's controversial trip to Niger that mentioned Valerie Wilson and noted she worked at the CIA. The newspaper said that Secretary of State Colin Powell had this memo with him on Air Force One, during a presidential trip to Africa, a few days before Rove spoke to Cooper. What's the significance of that? It means that White House officials (such as Rove) might have learned about Wilson's wife position at the CIA from this document, which most likely was classified. That has legal importance. Fitzgerald can only prosecute a government official under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for disclosing a covert intelligence officer if that government official had "authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent." Thus, if Rove had heard about Valerie Wilson only from a journalist--as was suggested by the Rove-friendly account planted in the press last week by an unidentified Rove-friendly source--Rove could have a defense. But if he had seen this document--or been briefed on it--Fitzgerald would have more of a case. Is Rove's I've-said-enough remark an indication he realized he was passing classified information to Cooper? That is one of the many questions Fitzgerald seeks to answer. (The memo may spell bad news for a White House aide other than Karl Rove. Remember, Bob Novak cited "two" senior Bush administration officials in his column that outed Valerie Wilson.)

In recent days, plenty of intriguing tidbits have emerged in the Rove scandal. The big stuff is unambiguous. According to the non-disputed public record, Rove told two reporters about Valerie Wilson's relationship to the CIA--which was classified information. And the White House earlier said that Rove was not involved in the leak at all. As I've previously asked, who in the White House has been lying? Did the White House try to cover for Rove? Or did Rove not inform his colleagues of his role in the leak? (The White House cannot argue he was not involved when Rove's own side says he confirmed the information for Novak.) And why hasn't President Bush stuck to his vow to punish anyone in his administration who leaked classified information?

But the new details continue to raise discomfiting (or what should be discomfiting) questions about the White House role in the Plame/CIA leak. Cooper, for instance, also told the grand jury that he had a conversation with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and had asked Libby if he had heard anything about Valerie Wilson dispatching her husband to Niger. Cooper writes, "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too,' or words to that effect.'"

Here was another Bush administration official telling--or signaling--a reporter that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA. And on Sunday, The Washington Post published a summary of the leak scandal that noted that on July 12, 2003, "a senior administration official flagged the role of Wilson's wife, almost in passing, to The Washington Post's Walter Pincus."

To sum up: we have Rove talking to Time's White House correspondent and to a nationally syndicated columnist about Valerie Wilson; Libby apparently confirming the disclosure; and a "senior administration official"--a description that could fit Rove, Libby or others--casually slipping this information to The Washington Post. And this is all happening while the White House and its Republican allies and friends in the conservative media are mounting a fierce campaign to discredit Joe Wilson. Yeah, maybe the Bush aides didn't know about Valerie Wilson's covert status, and to be prosecuted under the relevant law they would have to be aware of that. But if they didn't, they were behaving quite recklessly.

There is an interesting mystery within the mystery. How did Novak come to ID Wilson's wife as "Valerie Plame"? That State Department memo apparently refers to her as "Valerie Wilson." Who knew to refer to her by her maiden name--which was the name she had worked under for most of her CIA career? (I have a guess. Maybe I'll get to that later.) If only Novak would talk. But he seems only to be speaking with Fitzgerald and--unlike Cooper--not sharing with his readers his inside information. This is puzzling. As a newsman with a line on one of the hottest stories in town, wouldn't Novak want to write about it? But Novak refuses to do so or make any comment on the matter, on the advice of his lawyer. Does such tightlippedness indicate that Novak is facing legal peril of his own? He cannot be prosecuted under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which generally does not cover journalists. But anyone who appears before a grand jury or who talks to federal investigators can be investigated for perjury or obstruction of justice if a prosecutor does not believe this person has told the truth. Why does Novak need to lay low?

Speaking of perjury, Cooper also reports that the grand jury was intensely interested in whether he spoke with Rove about welfare reform. Cooper notes that he may have left a message with Rove's office a few days before their July 11 conversation asking if he could talk to Rove about welfare reform. He writes, "But I can't find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don't recall doing so." Why is the grand jury so interested in welfare reform? Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has told reporters that Cooper called Rove on that July day to discuss welfare reform. Is this the story--or cover story--that Rove told the grand jury?

Much incriminating material has seeped out of the investigation, which previously was low on leaks. And it was only two weeks ago that Rove's lawyer was saying that Rove never talked to reporters about Valerie Plame. Whoops. As it stonewalls, the White House's insists that no one should "prejudge" the investigation. But any sentient person can already "judge" that Rove, through his lawyer, has not told the truth, that the White House falsely denied he was involved, and that at least two of the most senior Bush White House aides (wittingly or not) shared with reporters classified information that disclosed an undercover CIA official and threatened operations conducted by the CIA's anti-WMD unit. At the end of the day, Fitzgerald may not be able to prove a crime, but his investigation has already produced evidence that incriminates White House officials as liars who certainly said more than they should have.
******

Gay-baiting on the RIght

Just got in this email from a rightwing outfit:

(Washington, D.C.) Eugene Delgaudio, the president of Public Advocate announced today that he was sending an exclusive report to members of the House of Representatives revealing who in the House Republican Congressional caucus is receiving campaign cash from the radical Homosexual Lobby. The report will be sent this week.

In his letter to each member of Congress, Delgaudio said "It is appalling the way some Republicans are raking in tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the homosexual lobby and pushing the radical Homosexual Agenda from their positions of responsibility in Congress."

Republican House Members and Candidates Accept $549,000.

This group is talking about two dozen House GOPers who collected that much money over the course of seven years. It really isn't much to worry about. But I'm happy to see a fight like this within the Republican Party. Public Advocate, though, doesn't have a whole lot of credibility. The group has been running an on-line poll of its supporters, asking whom they would like to see nominated to the Supreme Court. The leader at the moment is Robert Bork. In second place: Dan Quayle.

Posted by David Corn at 12:24 AM

July 15, 2005

The Rove Scandal: Now I'm Smeared as the Leaker

I have rarely read a column as stupid, absurd and wrong as the one posted today by Clifford May, a former New York Times reporter who left journalism and became a spokesman for the Republican Party. It begins:

This just in: Bob Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA

Who did? Apparently, I did. And, by the way, Mark Felt was not Deep Throat; it was me.

May notes that in Bob Novak's column that first outed Valerie Wilson, Novak described her as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He argues that this did not reveal Valerie Wilson as a truly undercover CIA officer--what's known as a NOC (an officer under "nonofficial cover"). He then points out that when I wrote about the Novak column two days later, I referred to Valerie Wilson as "a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital important to national security." Breathlessly, May writes, "Since Novak did not report that Plame was 'working covertly' how did Corn know that's what she had been doing?" His answer: Joseph Wilson must have told me when I interviewed him after the Novak leak. Thus, Valerie Wilson was really outed by me because Joe Wilson leaked to me.

Got that?

There are several problems with May's piece. He claims that Novak's story did no real harm to Valerie Wilson's standing as a CIA officer. He writes, "On the basis of Novak's story alone, it is highly unlikely that anyone would have had a clue that Plame...had been a NOC. At most, her friends in Washington would have been surprised to learn that she didn't work where she said she worked." May is assuming that an undercover intelligence officer is not really outed unless a journalist writes something like, "She works at the CIA and and she's undercover there." That is incredibly daffy. If Cliff May had been a CIA NOC when he was stationed overseas for the Times and a newspaper published a piece saying he was an "operative" for the CIA, that would have indeed outed him as a NOC. And it would have caused a mess of trouble. Revealing an undercover officer's relationship to the CIA is what blows the cover. One need not spell out the NOC's relationship to the agency. Once Valerie Wilson's name appeared in Novak's column, her days as a CIA undercover official were done. Moreover, operation that she worked on--and possibly other officers and agents with whom she had worked--were compromised.

Before Valerie Wilson was exposed, she was known to family and friends as an energy analyst who worked for a private firm. That was her cover. When Novak said she was a CIA "operative," that cover was destroyed. This was not just a matter of letting her friends and relatives in on a little secret. Novak's column was not merely an inconvenience for her. (Remember, the CIA did ask the Justice Department to investigate this leak; the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has repeatedly called it a big deal: and various federal judges have affirmed Fitzgerald's characterization.)
So May is profoundly wrong when he argues Novak's leak was not all that consequential.

He's also off the deep end when he claims that I outed Valerie Wilson. In my article--which was the first piece to suggest that the Novak leak might be evidence of a crime committed by Bush aides--I did not report that she was an undercover officer. I posed a question:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

That was not a statement of fact. And in that article, I noted that I had spoken to Joseph Wilson and that he had refused to say whether his wife worked at the CIA:

Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA.

May does not believe me. He argues that I could not have written that Bush officials might have outed an undercover officer without Wilson having told me she was an undercover officer. He writes:

Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn's questions about his wife--after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background?

He can wonder all he likes. I noted rather clearly in my piece that Wilson did not answer my questions. And when May emailed yesterday about this, I sent him a rather unambiguous note:

When I spoke to Joe Wilson after the Novak leak, he would not tell me whether or not his wife worked at the CIA. He spoke only in hypotheticals. He said, imagine if she did, what would this leak mean, AND imagine if she did not, what would this leak mean. So I do deny that he told me because he did not. That's the truth, the absolute truth. No spin. No parsing. No stonewalling. If you find any wiggle room in this response, let me know and I will unwiggle it. And you can believe it or not.

May, the former reporter, did not believe me. Worse, he did not quote this email in his column. He only mentioned an earlier email in which I pointed out to him that I was asking a question not making a "statement of fact." (That explanation apparently did not suffice, so after he queried me again, I sent him the above note, which he ignored.)

Now let's turn to the great mystery May believes he has solved: how did Corn know--even in his supposin'--to describe Valerie Wilson as a "top-secret" operative? Two explanations. First, I assumed the worst, in order to explore fully the possible ramifications of the Novak leak. Second, I knew that the Wilsons had told friends and family members that Valerie was an energy analyst at a private firm. That would mean that if she was a CIA operative (as Novak reported--and don't we trust his reporting?) then she had to be an undercover CIA operative. Could there be any other alternative? CIA employees who work overtly at the CIA--and there are many--do not tell people they work for a private firm. And since the story was that Valerie worked for an energy firm, that meant that she could not have what's known as "official" cover. (That's when a CIA officer is stationed as a diplomat in an embassy overseas.) And Novak had reported her field was weapons of mass destruction--which is a top-secret field. So this is the info I possessed: she was a CIA "operative" working on WMD issues and she told people she was an energy analyst at a private firm. In my calculations, that could only add up to one thing: if Novak's report was accurate, she was a NOC working in a highly sensitive field.

I needed no secrets from Joe Wilson to reach that conclusion. And he gave me no secrets--on background, on foreground, or on any ground.

Novak ruined Valerie Wilson's career. His words put her past operations in jeopardy. May is now desperately trying to absolve Novak and the Bush administration leakers (such as Karl Rove) by blaming Joe Wilson (a victim) and me.

Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:

Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0.

What motivated May, who now is the press flack at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (a conservative outfit much in favor of the Iraq war), to write such hyperbolic and false tripe? Only he can answer that question. In the past, I have enjoyed debating politics and policy with him on various talk shows. I considered him an honest--though misguided--adversary. But now I will regard him as a hack who cares not a whit for facts and truth. And if this is the sort of defense--and defender--that Rove needs, then maybe Rove really is in trouble.
******
Back to the Real World: If you want to see my analysis of the most recent Rove scandal news, click here. In short, Rove is now defending himself by admitting he leaked classified information to two reporters and by proving that the White House did lie about his involvement in the Plame/CIA leak. What a defense!

Posted by David Corn at 05:34 PM

The Rove Scandal: Now I'm Smeared as the Leaker

I have rarely read a column as stupid, absurd and wrong as the one posted today by Clifford May, a former New York Times reporter who left journalism and became a spokesman for the Republican Party. It begins:

This just in: Bob Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA

Who did? Apparently, I did. And, by the way, Mark Felt was not Deep Throat; it was me.

May notes that in Bob Novak's column that first outed Valerie Wilson, Novak described her as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He argues that this did not reveal Valerie Wilson as a truly undercover CIA officer--what's known as a NOC (an officer under "nonofficial cover"). He then points out that when I wrote about the Novak column two days later, I referred to Valerie Wilson as "a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital important to national security." Breathlessly, May writes, "Since Novak did not report that Plame was 'working covertly' how did Corn know that's what she had been doing?" His answer: Joseph Wilson must have told me when I interviewed him after the Novak leak. Thus, Valerie Wilson was really outed by me because Joe Wilson leaked to me.

Got that?

There are several problems with May's piece. He claims that Novak's story did no real harm to Valerie Wilson's standing as a CIA officer. He writes, "On the basis of Novak's story alone, it is highly unlikely that anyone would have had a clue that Plame...had been a NOC. At most, her friends in Washington would have been surprised to learn that she didn't work where she said she worked." May is assuming that an undercover intelligence officer is not really outed unless a journalist writes something like, "She works at the CIA and and she's undercover there." That is incredibly daffy. If Cliff May had been a CIA NOC when he was stationed overseas for the Times and a newspaper published a piece saying he was an "operative" for the CIA, that would have indeed outed him as a NOC. And it would have caused a mess of trouble. Revealing an undercover officer's relationship to the CIA is what blows the cover. One need not spell out the NOC's relationship to the agency. Once Valerie Wilson's name appeared in Novak's column, her days as a CIA undercover official were done. Moreover, operation that she worked on--and possibly other officers and agents with whom she had worked--were compromised.

Before Valerie Wilson was exposed, she was known to family and friends as an energy analyst who worked for a private firm. That was her cover. When Novak said she was a CIA "operative," that cover was destroyed. This was not just a matter of letting her friends and relatives in on a little secret. Novak's column was not merely an inconvenience for her. (Remember, the CIA did ask the Justice Department to investigate this leak; the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has repeatedly called it a big deal: and various federal judges have affirmed Fitzgerald's characterization.)
So May is profoundly wrong when he argues Novak's leak was not all that consequential.

He's also off the deep end when he claims that I outed Valerie Wilson. In my article--which was the first piece to suggest that the Novak leak might be evidence of a crime committed by Bush aides--I did not report that she was an undercover officer. I posed a question:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

That was not a statement of fact. And in that article, I noted that I had spoken to Joseph Wilson and that he had refused to say whether his wife worked at the CIA:

Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA.

May does not believe me. He argues that I could not have written that Bush officials might have outed an undercover officer without Wilson having told me she was an undercover officer. He writes:

Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn's questions about his wife--after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background?

He can wonder all he likes. I noted rather clearly in my piece that Wilson did not answer my questions. And when May emailed yesterday about this, I sent him a rather unambiguous note:

When I spoke to Joe Wilson after the Novak leak, he would not tell me whether or not his wife worked at the CIA. He spoke only in hypotheticals. He said, imagine if she did, what would this leak mean, AND imagine if she did not, what would this leak mean. So I do deny that he told me because he did not. That's the truth, the absolute truth. No spin. No parsing. No stonewalling. If you find any wiggle room in this response, let me know and I will unwiggle it. And you can believe it or not.

May, the former reporter, did not believe me. Worse, he did not quote this email in his column. He only mentioned an earlier email in which I pointed out to him that I was asking a question not making a "statement of fact." (That explanation apparently did not suffice, so after he queried me again, I sent him the above note, which he ignored.)

Now let's turn to the great mystery May believes he has solved: how did Corn know--even in his supposin'--to describe Valerie Wilson as a "top-secret" operative? Two explanations. First, I assumed the worst, in order to explore fully the possible ramifications of the Novak leak. Second, I knew that the Wilsons had told friends and family members that Valerie was an energy analyst at a private firm. That would mean that if she was a CIA operative (as Novak reported--and don't we trust his reporting?) then she had to be an undercover CIA operative. Could there be any other alternative? CIA employees who work overtly at the CIA--and there are many--do not tell people they work for a private firm. And since the story was that Valerie worked for an energy firm, that meant that she could not have what's known as "official" cover. (That's when a CIA officer is stationed as a diplomat in an embassy overseas.) And Novak had reported her field was weapons of mass destruction--which is a top-secret field. So this is the info I possessed: she was a CIA "operative" working on WMD issues and she told people she was an energy analyst at a private firm. In my calculations, that could only add up to one thing: if Novak's report was accurate, she was a NOC working in a highly sensitive field.

I needed no secrets from Joe Wilson to reach that conclusion. And he gave me no secrets--on background, on foreground, or on any ground.

Novak ruined Valerie Wilson's career. His words put her past operations in jeopardy. May is now desperately trying to absolve Novak and the Bush administration leakers (such as Karl Rove) by blaming Joe Wilson (a victim) and me.

Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:

Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0.

What motivated May, who now is the press flack at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (a conservative outfit much in favor of the Iraq war), to write such hyperbolic and false tripe? Only he can answer that question. In the past, I have enjoyed debating politics and policy with him on various talk shows. I considered him an honest--though misguided--adversary. But now I will regard him as a hack who cares not a whit for facts and truth. And if this is the sort of defense--and defender--that Rove needs, then maybe Rove really is in trouble.

Posted by David Corn at 05:34 AM

Rove Scandal Drives Frist Bonkers

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has not had a good year. He was outmaneuvered by Senate Democrats on Social Security. He made a fool of himself in the Terri Schiavo tragedy (with his long-distance diagnosis of Schiavo). He botched the Bolton nomination. He was outplayed by John McCain in the judicial filibuster controversy. And on Thursday, in an effort to counter a Democratic effort to embarrass Karl Rove and the Republicans, he looked like a doofus.

Here's what happened. The Senate Democrats came up with a clever idea. Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, introduced an amendment that could have been called the Karl Rove Memorial Act. It said,

No federal employee who discloses, or has disclosed, classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a person not authorized to receive such information shall be permitted to hold a security clearance for access to such information.

This was legislative gotcha. Would GOPers actually vote against this measure and essentially say that a government official who leaks classified information is entitled to keep his or her security clearance? For the Rs, the question was, What to do? But Frist had a bright idea--or what he and his staff considered a bright idea. He introduced a counter-amendment. It read,

Any federal officeholder who makes reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the United States Senate, or any federal officeholder that makes a statement based on an FBI agent's comments which is used as propaganda by terrorists organizations thereby putting our servicemen and women at risk, shall not be permitted access to such information or to hold a security clearance for access to such information.

This was a direct dig at Senator Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip. Several weeks ago, in a speech decrying the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, Durbin quoted from FBI reports that noted that interrogators at Gitmo were using "torture techniques" and engaging in abusive practices. He then likened this conduct to actions one would expect to find in Nazi prison camps or a Soviet gulag. The conservatives went nuts and viciously assailed Durbin; he eventually apologized.

This amendment was clearly designed to revive that controversy. But it punished public speech. And the standard it established was crazy. Under this law, if a federal officeholder (like a senator) would make any statement "based on" (whatever that means) any comment from an FBI agent (even a public remark that is not classified) and that officeholder's comment would then be used as "propaganda" (please, define propaganda) by terrorist organizations (please, define terrorist organizations), then that officeholder would lose his or her security clearance.

Imagine this scenario. FBI Director Robert Mueller appears before Congress and acknowledges that the FBI's computer system is completely messed up (which, by the way, it is). Afterward, a senator, citing Mueller's testimony, declares, "Four years after 9/11, we're still vulnerable in many ways. For instance, the FBI still cannot effectively track terrorist suspects and manage its terrorism records." Next, terrorist organizations post that quote from the senator on their websites and observe that the Great Enemy is unable to defend itself against jihadists and now is a good time to strike American targets. Under Frist's amendment, this senator would lose his security clearance. This is bonkers.

Even some--though not most--GOP senators realized that. Frist got only 33 votes. One person who observed the vote tells me, "Some very unlikely suspects including--people like [Jim] Talent and [Saxby] Chambliss--voted against it. When it became clear that the amendment would fail, some Rs who had voted for it switched their votes." How's that for loyalty to the leader? This witness notes, "Once the voting started, it appears that many Rs suddenly realized that the amendment was so poorly written that they could be stripped of their clearance as well." Yes, the imaginary senator I mentioned above could have been a rip-roaring conservative Republican.

So Frist, trying to beat back a Rove-related Democratic initiative, cooked up a damn silly piece of legislation that 22 of his fellow Republicans would not support. What a leader.

And what of Reid's amendment? It failed on a 44-53 vote. Not one Republican voted for it. Apparently, the Repubs believe that a government official who leaks classified information--such as the identity of an undercover intelligence official--should not be denied access to classified information. Not even during a war. Protecting Karl Rove (and future Karl Roves) trumps national security for these patriots.

Posted by David Corn at 12:06 AM

July 14, 2005

De-Spinning the Save-Rove Spin

I'm getting tired of de-spinning the Rove scandal. And I'm starting to think I prefer the silence-is-golden strategy of the White House to the lie-and-mislead approach of the Rove-backers who take to the airwaves and spout disinformation. At least, we don't have to factcheck Scott McClellan's remarks this week on the Rove matter.

I do wish I could keep track of all the bad info being peddled by Karl's Keystone Kops. But then I'd probably end up needing a nice room in a sanitarium. Here's a very unscientific sampling of what I've come across. (I've already debunked the top-priority spin of GOPers who insist that Rove did not leak classified information and that he is in no legal jeopardy because he did not actually ID Valerie Wilson by name to Matt Cooper. See two items below.)

* Yesterday, I was on a Colorado radio show with Tucker Eskew, a former Bush White House official. Eskew kept saying the Rove affair was a summer sideshow orchestrated by Democrats. Funny, I thought it was a criminal investigation being mounted by a special prosecutor--Patrick Fitzgerald--who was suggested for his job as US attorney in Illinois by then Senator Peter Fitzgerald, a Republican (no relation). Patrick Fitzgerald has targeted both Ds and Rs in the Land of Lincoln. Yet Eskew kept saying this was a trivial matter only being kept alive by partisan Democrats. Tell that to Fitzgerald. And, hey, doesn't the White House say no one should "prejudge the investigation." It's a clash of talking points! Shouldn't Bush, the titular head of the GOP, tell all those Republican mouthpieces to stop all the prejudging?

* On NPR's Diane Rehm Show this morning, David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union, said that Rove could not be prosecuted under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act because it's only a crime if a government official discloses the name of a covert agent "with the intent to impair national security." Wrong. There is no intent provision of that kind as the law applies to government officials like Karl Rove. To violate the law, one must intentionally reveal information that identifies an undercover intelligence officer and one must be aware that the officer is working under cover. But the motive is not relevant. Keene was not telling the truth. He also said, "It's clear from the documents that no law was violated." Then seconds later, he said, "We don't know all the facts." Moments after that, he asserted, "I don't think there's a legal pardon here." Well, which is it? If we don't know all the facts, how can we say no law was violated? It's amazing that when a veteran spinner like Keene spins, his head doesn't explode into very tiny pieces.

* Last night, I was on an NPR show with Representative Jack Kingston, a Republican. He claimed that no crime was committed in the Plame/CIA leak matter unless the leaker disclosed her identity "maliciously." I hope this guy is no lawyer. The law says nothing about malicious intent. He also noted that Joseph Wilson had donated money to the John Kerry campaign. I was confused by this. Does that mean it was okay to disclose the CIA identity of his wife? Kingston forgot to mention that Wilson also gave money to George W. Bush during the GOP presidential primary campaign in 2000. Wilson has repeatedly said he regrets doing so.

* Conservative columnist Byron York was also on that NPR show. He's one of the more reasonable rightwing reporters I know. But he, too, parroted the pro-Rove spin, saying, in his mild manner, that it was unclear to him whether Valerie Wilson was undercover in any significant way. From the start of this controversy, conservatives have been insinuating that Valerie Wilson was not under serious cover. their point: this leak was no biggie. In the early days of the controversy, Clifford May, a former New York Times reporter who went on to become a GOP spokesperson, maintained that it was widely known throughout Washington that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA. Since then, there's been absolutely no evidence to support May's claim. But back to York's observation. Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA under what's called "nonofficial cover." She was a NOC. This means that when she worked overseas she did not have a diplomatic passport and did not pass herself off as an embassy official. If anything happened to her, she'd be in mucho trouble. And she worked with a front group that was set up to give her--and maybe other CIA officials working in the field of WMDs--cover as energy analysts. When the leak occurred, she was indeed at a desk job at the CIA. But NOCs can come and go from CIA headquarters. They maintain their cover so they can return to the field if necessary and to protect the operations they previously worked on and the people (sources, agents, fellow officers) they previously worked with. Outing a NOC can endanger more than the particular person.

Moreover, the CIA thought the leak justified an investigation. It requested that the Justice Department pursue the matter. The Justice Department eventually handed the case to Fitzgerald, and he has seen reason to mount a fierce inquiry. And several federal judges who have reviewed his court filings--in the cases involving Matt Cooper and Judith Miller--all supported Fitzgerald's claim that the leak amounted to a serious breach. True, we still don't know exactly what Valerie Wilson did as a NOC. But York's gentle suggestion that her CIA identity was a minor and not-all-that-important secret is contradicted by the public record.

* Today's Washington Post reported this: "Victoria Toensing, who helped write the [Intelligence Identities Protection Act], has said that there is likely no such evidence [that could convict the leaker] in this case, because the statute was designed to have a high standard and requires proof of intent to harm national security." Well, I would respectfully suggest that Toensing--a good Republican lawyer and commentator, which is not how she is identified in the Post, who is always willing to talk to me--should go back and review the law she helped write. It reads:

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Where's the part that says the leaker has to leak purposefully to harm national security? There is no such standard. Perhaps the Post reporters should also read the law.
*******
Good news for Scott McClellan: No White House press briefing today. The president is traveling. But too bad for me. I woke up in the middle of the night with a good question to toss at McClellan on the Rove business. Let's see if it will keep. In the meantime, feel free to post in the comments section below the questions you'd like to see posed to McClellan.

Posted by David Corn at 12:31 PM

Will White House Reporters Keep Kicking at the Rove Stonewall?

There were fewer questions about the Rove scandal at Wednesday's White House press briefing than in previous days. The back-and-forth between reporters and Scott McClellan was still heated, as McClellan kept the we're-not-saying-anything-until-the-investigation-is-over stonewall in place. In the face of McClellan's refusal to acknowledge reality, some reporters turned toward other topics: Iran, Iraq, Social Security, the Supreme Court. This was bound to happen. In fact, the White House is undoubtedly counting on it. There was one encouraging exchange, and here it is:

Q You know, there are those who believe that even if Karl Rove was trying to debunk bogus information, as Ken Mehlman suggested yesterday [blogger's note: which was misleading: see here]-- perhaps speaking on behalf of the White House -- that when you're dealing with a covert operative, that a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape, or form. Does the President agree with that or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, we've been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don't have anything to add to what I've said the previous two days.

Q That's a different question, and it's not round and round --

MR. McCLELLAN: You heard from the President earlier.

Q It has nothing to do with the investigation, Scott, and you know it.

MR. McCLELLAN: You heard from the President earlier today, and the President said he's not --

Q That's a dodge to my question. It has nothing to do with the investigation. Is it appropriate for a senior official to speak about a covert agent in any way, shape, or form without first finding out whether that person is working as a covert officer.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, you're wrong. This is all relating to questions about an ongoing investigation, and I've been through this.

Q If I wanted to ask you about an ongoing investigation, I would ask you about the statute, and I'm not doing that.

MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.

Q You haven't even scratched the surface.

Q It hasn't started.

You think so? Can the journalists at 1600 Pennsylvania thwart Bush's stonewall strategy? Let's see if the White House reporters can keep kicking this sandbag. (And if you haven't seen the piece below explaining that Rove did indeed leak classified information, please check it out. I'd like to ask McClellan about this, but I have a hunch his reply wouldn't be worth the cost of the taxi ride to the White House.)

Posted by David Corn at 12:18 AM

July 13, 2005

Rove Did Leak Classified Information, and His Named-No-Name Defense Is Bunk

Can't stop posting on the Rove scandal. I just put the below piece up for my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. It punctures two Texas-sized holes in Rove's burgeoning defense, showing that two key assertions being put forward by Rove-friendly spinners are not true and irrelevant. If you've seen it already, please scroll down to other Rove-ish items

"The fact is, Karl Rove did not leak classified information." So said Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican Party.

"I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name." So said Karl Rove of Valerie Wilson/Plame last year on CNN.

"He did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." So said Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, after Newsweek reported Rove had been a source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper but before Newsweek revealed a Cooper email that said Rove had told Cooper that "wilson's wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues."

The White House may be stonewalling on the Rove scandal, but the Rove camp--aided by its echo-ists in the conservative media--has been busy establishing the twin-foundation for his defense: he did not mention Valerie Wilson/Plame by name; he did not disclose classified information. The first of these two assertions is misleading and irrelevant; the second is wrong.

Did not disclose her name

According to Cooper's email, Rove told Cooper that "Wilson's wife"--not "Valerie Plame," or "Valerie Wilson"--worked at the CIA. But this distinction has absolutely no legal relevance. Under the relevant law--the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--a crime is committed when a government official (not a journalist) "intentionally discloses any information identifying" an undercover intelligence officer. The act does not say a name must be disclosed. By telling a reporter that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA officer, Rove was clearly disclosing "identifying" information. There was only one Mrs. Joseph Wilson. With such information in hand, Cooper or anyone else could easily have ascertained the name of this officer. (A Google search at the time would have yielded the name--and maiden name--of Wilson's wife.) Revealing the name is not the crime; it's disclosing information that IDs the officer. Imagine if a government official told a reporter, "At 3:15, a fellow in a green hat, carrying a red umbrella and holding a six-pack of Mountain Dew, will be tap-dancing in front of the Starbucks at Connecticut Avenue and R Street--he's the CIA's best undercover officer working North Korea." That official could not defend himself, under this law, by claiming that he had not revealed the name of this officer. The issue is identifying, not naming. Rove and his allies cannot hide behind his no-name claim.

Did not disclose classified information

A reading of this law also indicates that if Cooper's email is accurate then Rove did pass classified information to Cooper. It's possible that Rove did so unwittingly. That is, he did not know Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA was classified information. But he and his posse cannot say the information he slipped to Cooper was not classified.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime to identify "a covert agent" of the United States. The law defines "covert agent," in part, as "a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information." (My emphasis.)

This definition clearly recognizes that the identity of an undercover intelligence officer is "classified information." The law also notes that a "covert agent" has a "classified relationship to the United States." Since the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate the Plame/CIA leak and the Justice Department affirmed the need for an investigation and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, once handed the case, pursued the matter vigorously, it is reasonable to assume that Valerie Wilson fits the definition of a "covert agent." That means she has a "classified relationship" with the government.

By disclosing Valerie Wilson's relationship to the CIA, Rove was passing classified information to a reporter.

"There is little doubt," says Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, that the employment status of an undercover CIA officer, "is classified information." He notes that the "most basic personnel information of the CIA--the number of personnel, the salaries--is classified. Anything more specific--like the identity of a NOC [an officer working under "nonofficial cover," as was Valerie Wilson] or the numbers and identities of officers working in a particular region of the world--is classified."

To sum up, it does not matter if Rove did not mention Valerie Wilson by name, and it is not true that the information he passed to Cooper was not classified.

Rove may still have a defense against criminal prosecution. Under the law, a government official is only guilty if he or she discloses information "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies" a "covert agent." Rove could claim that he was not aware that Valerie Wilson was working at the CIA as a covert official. After all, there are CIA employees--analysts, managers, and others--who do not work under cover. If special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicts Rove or anyone else, the most difficult part of the case will likely be proving that the person charged with the crime meets this he-knew-she-was-undercover test.

Not all wrongdoing is a crime. But leaking classified information is always serious business. George W. Bush took an unambiguous stand on the leaking of classified information when he was asked on September 30, 2003, about Karl Rove's possible role in the Plame/CIA leak. Bush noted,

I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

Well, now Bush knows. Rove, according to the Cooper email, did not leak a name but he did leak classified information. Much of his defense is in tatters. And where is Bush's "appropriate action"?

Posted by David Corn at 04:40 PM

Bush Catches McClellanitis; Dems Call for Rove Report: and I'm Recruited by the Rove Defense

McClellanitis is contagious.

Today--unlike yesterday--George W. Bush took questions on the Rove scandal. At the end of his Cabinet meeting, he granted White House pool reporters three questions. The first two were on Rove and the Plame/CIA leak. Bush was asked if Rove had spoken to Bush about the "Valerie Plame" matter and if Bush believes Rove had acted appropriately when he mentioned Valerie Wilson's CIA employment to a reporter. Bush answered:

I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate....I will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports....I will be more than happy to comment further once the investigation is completed.

Another reporter then took another swing and asked when Rove had informed Bush that he had talked to at least to one reporter regarding Wilson/Plame. (This question presumed Rove had told Bush, but that remains unknown.) Bush said:

We're in the midst of an ongoing investigation....It's very important for people not to prejudge the investigation based on media reports....I will be more than happy to comment once this investigation is complete.

Note any similarity between his second response and his first response--and the resemblance to what Scott McClellan has been saying from the podium at the White House press room. Hey, no one is asking him to "prejudge the investigation"--whatever that means. Reporters are asking him to respond to a piece of documentary evidence that shows Rove IDed Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA officer to a reporter. Bush is free to say, "Don't like it, don't like it a bit." Moreover, he is free to take action. Even if special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asked the White House not to comment on the investigation, I doubt he has asked it not to reconsider an aide's access to classified information or continuing employment at the White House if troubling evidence emerges about that aide's conduct. On the basis of the Cooper email that has been made public, Bush could ask for Rove's resignation or place him on leave. And Bush certainly could explain why he chooses not to do that without "prejudging" the investigation.

The question remains: how long can Bush and McClellan fend off the reporters with this misleading mantra?
*******

This just in: U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer will hold a press conference at 2:00pm...to release a letter from the Democratic leadership to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to not only release the report on the Plame Leak, but also call for a new investigation to respond to the White House statements that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was not involved....Is it better or worse for the Dems to make a big stink? It does keep the story going. But it has given all the right-wing spinners the opportunity to create a new framework for the story: this is just a partisan smear attack. I've done a host of radio shows in the past three days, and every Repub on the other side leads with this irrelevant point. If the White House can succeed in making the leak scandal look like another partisan catfight, that will be to Rove's benefit. Still, if the Dems stay mum, reporters might start to say that's nothing new to cover and if the Democrats are not treating this as a big deal why should we?
*******

I've been recruited by the right-wing spin machine. Yesterday on CNN, conservative columnist Joel Mowbray was putting in time defending Rove by blasting Joe Wilson. Yes, it didn't take the conservatives long to try to make the issue not the Rove leak but Wilson and Democratic criticism of Rove. And Mowbray--one of the friendlier conservatives I know--attempted to dismiss the importance of the Rove leak and cited me:

David Corn of "The Nation" has pointed this out -- that there was somebody, you know, from the CIA who was working at the NSC at the time on loan and that person may have mentioned that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife. She worked at the CIA and had a hand in sending him there. And it may be that Rove had no idea that she was either CIA or undercover. It could have been something that was completely innocent on his part.

True, in October 2003, I reported that I had discovered the name of a CIA officer (who was undercover) who was assigned to the National Security Council at the time of the Plame/CIA leak and who had previously worked with Valerie Wilson at the CIA in the WMD office. I wrote:

This NSC staffer might--I emphasize, might--play a role in the Wilson leak scandal. I know of no reason to suspect he or she is one of the leakers. (A recent Newsweek story referred to this NSCer, but it did not name the staffer.) But perhaps this individual--whom I was told is a CIA officer assigned to the NSC--mentioned Valerie Wilson's CIA connection to one or more White House colleagues during the period in which Joseph Wilson was causing the White House discomfort....Consequently, investigators probing the Wilson leak ought to ask this NSC officer--if they have not already done so--whether he or she talked about Valerie Wilson with anyone in the White House? If the Justice Department investigators can figure out how individuals in the White House came to know about Wilson's wife (if they did), then the gumshoes might be able to find a trail leading to the leakers.

Could it be that Rove and others had learned of Valerie Wilson's CIA position due to an offhand remark made by this person, in which he or she did not specifically say Valerie Wilson's worked at the CIA under what's called nonofficial cover (NOC)? I suppose that's possible. But it might be that this CIA loaner actually told people in the White House exactly what Valerie Wilson did at the CIA. Or he or she might have said, "Wilson's wife used to work with me at the CIA." And if an undercover CIA person said someone worked with him or her, wouldn't it be prudent to assume that the coworker also was working under cover? The fact that a former colleague of Valerie Wilson's worked at the NSC at the time of the leak is intriguing, but not telling. It offers Rove no defense.

And, sorry Joel, there's no "complete innocence" here for Rove. As I've noted previously, even if Rove wasn't explicitly told Valerie Wilson was a NOC, he still IDed her to a reporter without checking on her CIA status in order to undermine a White House critic. That was a reckless and cavalier act. But if there was merely an accident, then the White House should at least shift its stonewalling mantra to a one-word reply: "whoops."

Posted by David Corn at 12:29 PM

In Rove Scandal, Spin Turns into Stonewalling

It's going to be tough for White House reporters to sustain the level of intense distrust they have displayed at yesterday and today's White House press briefings. During Monday's session, the reporters lambasted press secretary Scott McClellan for (a) having made what appears to be false statements in the past when he claimed Karl Rove was not involved in the Plame/CIA leak and (b) for refusing to answer any questions related to those past statements or the recent news that Rove had told Time's Matt Cooper that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA officer, (See my firsthand account below). And on Tuesday they returned with essentially the same questions and the same disgust. Once more, McClellan wouldn't touch a single query, claiming yet again that he could not discuss anything related to the Rove scandal while there was an "ongoing investigation." He also declined to answer when a reporter asked if the White House has a "credibility problem." Pressed on this--he had to be pressed to defend his and the White House credibility?--McClellan said, "The president is a very straightforward and plainspoken person, and I'm someone who believes in dealing in a very straightforward way with you all, as well, and that's what I've worked to do." Yet there was no straightforwardness in the briefing, as McClellan continued to repeat the mantra that the White House cannot address the Rove matter while an investigation is underway.

The reporters were not buying this dodge. Certainly, McClellan could reaffirm the previously made pledge that anyone involved in the Plame/CIA leak would be booted out of the administration. Such a statement would not hinder the investigation, but it would be bad news for Rove. And George W. Bush also stuck to the say-nothing strategy. After he met with the prime minister of Singapore, reporters asked him if he would still fire whoever leaked information on Valerie Wilson. He refused to answer and smiled awkwardly.

This stonewalling may work. There were fewer questions about the Rove scandal at Tuesday's session than Monday's; the indignation was high but perhaps not as high as the previous day. In a way, that is natural. White House aides know that the press corps cannot maintain the same degree of interest and passion in a story like this if each day there is nothing new to cover or say. How many times can you ask a reality-denying press secretary the same question? Eventually either the reporters will tire of hitting their head against McClellan's brick wall or some other story will emerge (a Rehnquist resignation?) that will demand their attention. At the White House, aides are probably saying to each other--and to McClellan--just make it through one day at a time. One day at a time. The sun will come out tomorrow. We're stronger than they are. We will survive. We will survive.

It's hard to argue with such tactics as tactics. After all, telling the truth would probably not help Rove and the White House. And if McClellan tried to counter the bad news with spin--concocting too-clever explanations for Rove's actions--he would open the door to questions from the press. Better to pretend nobody's home and hope they stop pounding on the door.

The spin job has been delegated to others. Foremost among them is Ken Mehlman, chief of the Republican Party. Shortly after McClellan finished saying nothing, Mehlman was on CNN, speaking with Wolf Blitzer. It was a rather brazen performance, even by party chieftain standards. Asked about Rove and the leak, he proclaimed that "what's so unfortunate" is that John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean "would follow the angry left and MoveOn.org" by slamming Rove. Yes, that's the real problem at hand. Repeatedly, Mehlman decried the "unprecedented partisan smear campaign" being waged against Rove. He maintained that when Rove spoke to Matt Cooper and said Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA, Rove was merely discouraging Cooper from writing "a false story." What a gent. But I cannot find the part of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 that says it's fine to reveal the identity of a US intelligence officer as long as you're helping a journalist not make a mistake. And it's wrong for Mehlman to claim that Rove was helping Cooper when Rove told Cooper, according to that infamous email, that Wilson's wife had "authorized" Wilson's trip to Niger. Conservative critics of Wilson have tried to make Valerie Wilson's role in her husband's trip an issue, but the record shows she did not "authorize" the trip. Rove's aim was not to assist a member of the Fourth Estate; it was to undermine Wilson's account of his trip.

Mehlman insisted that Rove did not leak classified information. Well, how does he know what Rove did in addition to talking to Cooper? And is the employment status of a CIA NOC--that is, someone who has nonofficial cover, as Valerie Wilson did--not classified information? Blitzer asked Mehlman if Mehlman had attended White House meetings on how to deal with Joseph Wilson. Mehlman replied with a lawyerly, "I don't recall those meetings occurring." And when Blitzer inquired if he had been called before the grand jury, Mehlman borrowed a line from McClellan: "I'm not going to comment on the specifics of this investigation." Think about this: Mehlman is on television defending the White House, but he won't say whether he's part of the controversy. At that point, Blitzer should have said to him, "If you cannot tell us whether you are involved or not in this investigation--as a witness or as a target--why should we believe anything that you say? And we're not going to continue this interview unless you fully reveal your role and interest in this." But Blitzer didn't. Still, this exchange was illuminating. It demonstrated that on the Rove leak even the spin eventually turns into stonewalling. I wonder why that is.

Posted by David Corn at 12:33 AM

July 12, 2005

Washington Poohbahs Pooh-Pooh Rove Scandal

Here comes the Washington Establishment, eager to say, Waitaminute, maybe poor ol' Karl Rove didn't do much wrong. So let's cut him some slack. Last night on CNN, I spotted two Washington poohbahs being interviewed on the Rove scandal and both offered let's-take-this-slow advice and suggested that Rove may have merely committed a tiny and insignificant mistake.

On Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs chatted with David Gergen, who carries the lofty title of "former presidential adviser." Dobbs asked Gergen what he thought of the story, and Gergen replied, "I think this is a complex case, and we shouldn't get caught up in our underwear so far." Not get caught up in our underwear? Is that how the wise men of the capital talk? And is that what those White House reporters were doing yesterday when they were grilling White House press secretary Scott McClellan and demanding he come clean. (See my eyewitness account below.) Gergen explained that Rove might not be in "legal trouble"--which is true. But for Dobbs, that was not the question. He said, "I am not particularly interested in the legal aspect of this so much right now, as I am in both the politics, and, frankly, the forthright, honest character of the people who make statements such as, it's 'ridiculous' to suggest that Karl Rove was behind this."

Still, Gergen remained calm and untroubled about the matter:

Well, Lou, I don't think it's all that remarkable. Listen, a lot of White Houses, you know, put stories out, and the question is whether Karl Rove did anything wrong. That's the basic question we're trying to ask. And in terms of telling somebody, hey, a guy's wife at the CIA might have been behind it, on its face, that's not wrong. If he put her name out and he knew she was a covert agent, that would be wrong.

Gergen was echoing the Rove spin. But if Rove was going to finger "a guy's wife" for working at the CIA--in order to discredit a White House critic--shouldn't he have checked on what the wife did at the CIA? Shouldn't he have wondered whether he was passing along classified information, which, if disclosed, might expose her and/or undermine national security? Leaking this national security information--without knowing what the consequences might be--was a reckless act. And how did Rove come to have such information? Did he obtain it while participating in an anything-goes White House campaign against former Ambassador Joseph Wilson? Gergen ignored all this, as he downplayed the leak. He added, "If there's something here that Karl Rove did wrong in the initial instance, I don't see it yet." David, get thee to an opthamologist.

Three hours later, the king of reporters, Bob Woodward, was on Larry King Live. Twice he referred to Rove's leak to Cooper as a possible "accident." True, Rove might not have known that Valerie Wilson was working at the CIA under cover. That has yet to be determined. But telling Time's Matt Cooper that "Wilson's wife" was at the CIA was no accident. Rove was using this information to try to convince Cooper that Joseph Wilson was not credible by claiming that Wilson had been dispatched on his now-controversial trip to Niger by his wife (as if that would make a difference). Woodward also claimed that "in this case, there's no harm to national security." But there's been no public accounting of the impact of the Plame/CIA leak. Woodward was just supposin'. He didn't even say, "My sources tell me...." It is known that the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the leak. That might indicate that some damage was done. Certainly, Valerie Wilson had her career harmed and perhaps her operations (past and present) were compromised. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has maintained that this leak was a serious matter, and his claim has been supported by decisions written by federal judges who have overseen the case. They could be wrong. But Woodward pooh-poohed the significance of the leak without offering any evidence.

With the Rove fire burning within the media, Gergen and Woodward came out with water hoses and tried to douse the flames. Will others join the It's-No-Big-Deal Brigade? (Yes, it was just a third-rate leak. Nothing to fret over.) Or will Washington's reporters and commentators press against the stonewall the White House has constructed? Inquiring--and nervous--minds at the White House want to know.
******
By the way, the gang at Media Matters makes a good point. They note that Rove's I-didn't-say-her-name defense is a rather thin slice of baloney. If Cooper, after being told by Rove that Wilson's wife was a CIA official, had done a Google search, he would have immediately found a reference to Wilson's wife, "the former Valerie Plame." The name was not the key thing; the CIA affiliation was.
******

Note of appreciation: Let me extend my thanks to the folks at Buzzflash.com for (a) often posting my work on their fine site and (b) for paying close attention to the Plame/CIA leak story since it began--that is, after I posted on July 16, 2003, the first article that suggested a scandal was afoot. Buzzflash, of course, promoted that piece.

Posted by David Corn at 12:15 PM

July 11, 2005

White House Stonewalls on Rove Scandal

Another post on the Rove scandal from my Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com If you've seen it already please scroll down to other postings and don't forget to check out this site's advertisers.

I advise all students of political speech to read the transcript of the press briefing conducted by White House press secretary Scott McClellan today. It was a smorgasbord of stonewalling. He entered the White House press room at 1:00 p.m., his eyes darting about, and started off by reading a statement from President Bush on the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica. Then the subject changed. Rather abruptly. Reporter after reporter asked McClellan about Karl Rove and the news--broken by Michael Isikoff of Newsweek--of a July 11, 2003 email written by Time's Matt Cooper that noted that Cooper had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." The email is proof that Rove leaked to a reporter information revealing the CIA employment of Valerie Plame (a.k.a. Valerie Wilson).

This puts Rove and the White House in a pickle. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, says that Rove did not mention Valerie Wilson's name to Cooper. But this is a rather thin defense. (I explain why here, and I also note why George W. Bush, if he takes his own rhetoric seriously, has no choice but to dismiss Rove.) But legal and criminal difficulties aside, the email is undeniable evidence that Rove leaked national security information to a journalist to discredit a critic (Joseph Wilson). How does that square with White House policy as it has been previously stated? Well, it doesn't. And the journalists in the White House press room knew that. Many had a list of previous McClellan statements at the ready. I was there, and I had a list, too. Here are some of the past White House statements I had collected.

On September 29, 2003, Scott McClellan said of the leak (which first appeared in a Bob Novak column on July 14, 2003):

That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No would be authorized to do such a thing.

Asked then about the allegation Rove had been involved in the leak, he said,

Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion....It is simply not true....And I have spoken with Karl Rove.

He also said that the White House would not stand for such conduct:

If anyone in this administration was involved in [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration..

On October 1, 2003, McClellan reiterated the White House position:

The president certainly doesn't condone the leaking.

And he said of Rove:

I made it very clear that he didn't condone that kind of activity and was not involved in that kind of activity.

On October 7, McClellan noted that prior to previously telling the press that Rove and two other White House aides--National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams and Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby--were not involved in the leak, he had spoken to each of the three and determined they had not been part of the Plame/CIA leak:

I had no doubt of that...but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

How could McClellan defend such a record? His strategy was clear: don't even try. When the reporters began firing Rove-related queries at him, he refused to answer any of them. The first query came from Terrence Hunt of Associated Press: Does Bush stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the Plame/CIA leak? McClellan replied that "while the [leak] investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it." Hunt tried again: "Excuse me, but I wasn't actually talking about any investigation. But in June 2004, the president said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak....And I just wanted to know, is that still his position."

McClellan would not say: "We're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation." He claimed that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had "expressed a preference to us" that the White House not comment on the matter. (I later called Fitzgerald's office and asked it to confirm whether Fitzgerald had made such a request. A spokeswoman for Fitzgerald said he would not have any comment regarding any part of the investigation. "Not even to back up what the White House said?" I asked. "No," she replied.)

Next up in the press room was John Roberts of CBS News. He asked if McClellan was contradicting himself since he had freely discussed the matter in the fall of 2003 when he claimed it was "ridiculous" to believe Rove had been involved in the leak. McClellan said, "I appreciate the question." (That was clearly not the truth.) He went on: "I remember very well what we previously said, and at some point would be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete."

NBC's David Gregory than piped up: "Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" Again, McClellan went to Index Card No. 1: "this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to that investigation." Did McClellan stand by his previous statements? No answer. A frustrated (justifiably) Gregory noted, "Scott, I mean, just--I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?" McClellan: "There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time."

That was for sure. Other reporters took similar swings at McClellan. He just stood there, counting the minutes, perhaps silently trying to convince himself that he was in his happy place and that he was not being beaten into a pulp. One reporter asked when Fitzgerald had requested the Bush White House not to talk about the investigation. McClellan said the request came in the fall of 2003. A-ha, one reporter said; Bush spoke about the leak investigation in June 2004 and renewed his pledge to fire anyone involved. Had Bush violated the White House policy against speaking about the probe? "You have my response," McClellan said. Of course, the reporter did not.

Carl Cameron of Fox News asked if Bush continues "to have confidence in Mr. Rove?" McClellan wouldn't even touch this down-the-middle pitch: "Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this." And when another reporter asked McClellan to describe the importance of Rove to the Bush administration, he replied, "Do you have questions on another topic?"

By the time my turn came, I realized I was not going to be able to cause any crack in the wall. But I had to try, and I attempted to slightly redefine the issue. I noted,

There's a difference between commenting publicly on an action and taking action in response to it. Newsweek put out a story, an email saying that Karl Rove passed national security information on to a reporter that outed a CIA officer. Now, are you saying that the president is not taking any action in response to that? Because I presume that the prosecutor did not ask you not to take action, and that if he did, you still would not necessarily abide by that; that the president is free to respond to news reports, regardless of whether there's an investigation or not. So are you saying that he's not going to do anything about this until the investigation is fully over and done with?

In other words, how about forgetting the crime and focusing on the leak? He responded,

Well, I think the president has previously spoken to this. This continues to be an ongoing criminal investigation. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States. And we're just not going to have more to say on it until that investigation is complete.

But Bush has not said what he intends to do about Rove now that there is public evidence that Rove leaked information on Valerie Wilson. (And if Bush wants to get to the bottom of this, shouldn't he just whistle Rove into his office and ask, "Karl, what gives?") So I pushed on:

But you acknowledge that he is free, as president of the United States, to take whatever action he wants to in response to a credible report that a member of his staff leaked information? He is free to take action if he wants to?

But there would be no such acknowledging. McClellan said,

Again, you're asking questions relating to an ongoing investigation, and I think I've responded to it.

He hadn't. But then why should my question receive special treatment this day.

Other Rove-related questions were hurled at him. He refused to touch a single one. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post took a stab as well:

Scott, I think you're [being] barraged[d] today in part because we -- it is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstratively false. Now, are you concerned that in not setting the record straight today that this could undermine the credibility of the other things you say from the podium?

McClellan showed no such concern:

Again, I'm going to be happy to talk about this at the appropriate time. Dana, you all -- you and everybody in this room, or most people in this room, I should say, know me very well and they know the type of person that I am. And I'm confident in our relationship that we have. But I will be glad to talk about this at the appropriate time, and that's once the investigation is complete.

Everybody in the room--and out of it--should review McClellan's exchange with the reporters to see how he and this White House do business. After what transpired, no reporter should take McClellan's word at face value (if they ever did). Moreover, the larger issue is not his--and Bush's--credibility, but the wrongdoing committed by a senior White House official and the apparent lack of a response from the White House. (And remember, Bob Novak's column outing Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer cited two unnamed senior Bush administration officials.) The White House is adopting a familiar media strategy: say nothing, don't fuel the story, wait for it to pass--and ignore the substance of the issue. Bush aides must be hoping that the media lose interest and are not provided any further reasons to headline this story. They are probably also hoping that the Democrats fail to create the sort of political storm that would compel journalists to continue to give the Rove scandal prominent play. Maybe their stonewall will hold. And what's the alternative? Tell the obvious truth and admit that Bush's most important adviser committed an act that Bush has said warrants dismissal? But what's the percentage in that? With McClellan providing no answers related to the Rove scandal, the question is whether the White House's we-can't-comment stance will allow it to dodge yet another troubling and inconvenient reality.

Posted by David Corn at 09:12 PM

Why Bush Has To Fire Rove

I posted this in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. If you've read it already, please scroll down to other postings.

In a weekend posting I asked if it was time to get ready for the Karl Rove frog-march? The question was prompted by a Newsweek article by reporter Michael Isikoff that disclosed the first documentary evidence showing that Rove revealed to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. In a July 11, 2003 email that Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent to his bureau chief, Cooper noted he had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." "Agency" means CIA. This is not good news for Rove and the White House.

The email--which Time had turned over to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the Plame/CIA leak--may not be enough to prompt Fitzgerald to indict Rove. Under the narrowly written Intelligence Identities Protect Act, Fitzgerald would have to show that Rove knew Valerie Wilson (a.k.a. Valerie Plame) was working at the CIA under cover--that is, as a secret employee--which she was. But Fitzgerald still could build such a case upon other evidence. And Rove also could be in legal peril if his previous testimony to Fitzgerald is contradicted by this email--or the other material Time surrendered, over Cooper's objections, to Fitzgerald or by Cooper's forthcoming testimony to Fitzgerald's grand jury. (Last week, Cooper declared his source, presumably Rove, had given him permission to testify before the grand jury.)

But let's put aside the legal issues for a moment. This email demonstrates that Rove committed a firing offense. He leaked national security information as part of a fierce campaign to undermine Wilson, who had criticized the White House on the war on Iraq. Rove's overworked attorney, Robert Luskin, defends his client by arguing that Rove never revealed the name of Valerie Plame/Wilson to Cooper and that he only referred to her as Wilson's wife. This is not much of a defense. If Cooper or any other journalist had written that "Wilson's wife works for the CIA"--without mentioning her name--such a disclosure could have been expected to have the same effect as if her name had been used: Valerie Wilson would have been compromised, her anti-WMD work placed at risk, and national security potentially harmed. Either Rove knew that he was revealing an undercover officer to a reporter or he was identifying a CIA officer without bothering to check on her status and without considering the consequences of outing her. Take your pick: in both scenarios Rove is acting in a reckless and cavalier fashion, ignoring the national security interests of the nation to score a political point against a policy foe.

This ought to get Rove fired--unless he resigns first.

Can George W. Bush countenance such conduct within the White House? Consider what White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on September 29, 2003, after the news broke that the Justice Department was investigating the leak. McClellan declared of the Plame/CIA leak, "That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing."

Apparently, it is how the White House operated--or at least how Rove operated. If he violated White House rules (and presidential expectations) that prohibit such skullduggery, he should be booted.

McClellan also maintained at the time that "the president knows" that Rove wasn't involved in the leak. And he said that the allegation that Rove was involved in this leak was "a ridiculous suggestion" and "it is simply not true."

McClellan was wrong. Did that mean that Rove had lied to McClellan about his role in this? That Rove had also lied to Bush? Or was McClellan knowingly misinforming the public? If the latter, then there should be two resignations.

Days later, Bush took a clear stand on the Plame/CIA leak. He said:

There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. If there's leaks out of my administration, I want to know who it is, and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.

According to Cooper's email, Rove did leak classified information, wittingly or not. Did he share that fact with Bush? If McClellan can be believed, Rove did not. If that's true, Bush should dismiss Rove for holding out on him. But it Rove did talk to Bush about his participation in the leak, what did he tell Bush? And what actions did Bush take? Did Rove tell Bush how he had come to know about Valerie Wilson's position at the CIA? Did he disclose to Bush who else knew about it? Did he tell his boss whether anyone else was passing this information to reporters? In the first column that disclosed Valerie Wilson's CIA identity, Bob Novak referred to "two" senior administration officials? So who in addition to Rove might have revealed this information to Novak?

Bush also said at the time that any government official with knowledge of the leak should "come forward and speak out." Rove certainly did not follow that presidential order. He should be pink-slipped for that, too.

But before Rove is cast out of the White House, Bush ought to demand that he come clean and--if he has not done so--tell Bush everything that happened with this leak. Then Bush should "come forward and speak out" and share the details with the American public. And an apology to Valerie and Joseph Wilson would be a nice touch.

Fitzgerald is handling the Plame/CIA leak as a criminal matter, as he should. That's his job. But the leak--whether a crime or not--was serious wrongdoing. The White House has taken no steps to address that in the two years since the leak occurred. But it need not wait for Fitzgerald to conclude his investigation. Rove may end up not guilty of a crime, but he is guilty of significant misconduct. With the disclosure of this smoking email, Bush has no excuse for inaction. Newspaper editorial boards and members of Congress (okay, Democratic members of Congress) ought to be howling for a White House response to the news that its current deputy chief of staff revealed national security information to a reporter in order to discredit a critic. The only appropriate response for such a thuggish infraction of White House policy and common decency would be to send Rove back to Texas.

Posted by David Corn at 12:11 PM

July 10, 2005

It's Here! Newsweek Does Nail Rove

The Newsweek story I described below is out. Reporter Michael Isikoff has obtained a copy of an email that Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent his bureau chief, Michael Duffy, on July 11, 2003--three days before conservative columnist Bob Novak first published the leak that outed CIA officer Valerie Wilson/Plame. In that email, Cooper wrote that he had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." "Agency" means CIA. Read the full Newsweek piece here, and read my item below on why it is so important. There now is clear-cut evidence that Rove was involved in--if not the chief architect of--the actions that led to the outing of Plame/Wilson. If he's not in severe legal trouble, he ought to be in political peril. I explain in full the ramifications of this smoking email below.

Posted by David Corn at 09:05 AM

July 09, 2005

New Explosive Rove Revelation To Come? Time to Frog-March?

Time to get ready for the Karl Rove frog-march?

I don't usually log on Saturday evenings. But I've received information too good not to share immediately. It was only yesterday that I was bemoaning the probability that--after a week of apparent Rove-related revelations--it might be a while before any more news emerged about the Plame/CIA leak. Yet tonight I received this as-solid-as-it-gets tip: on Sunday Newsweek is posting a story that nails Rove. The newsmagazine has obtained documentary evidence that Rove was indeed a key source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper and that Rove--prior to the publication of the Bob Novak column that first publicly disclosed Valerie Wilson/Plame as a CIA official--told Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson's now-controversial trip to Niger.

To be clear, this new evidence does not necessarily mean slammer-time for Rove. Under the relevant law, it's only a crime for a government official to identify a covert intelligence official if the government official knows the intelligence officer is under cover, and this documentary evidence, I'm told, does not address this particular point. But this new evidence does show that Rove--despite his lawyers claim that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA"--did reveal to Cooper in a deep-background conversation that Wilson's wife was in the CIA. No wonder special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursued Cooper so fiercely. And Fitzgerald must have been delighted when Time magazine--over Cooper's objection--surrendered Cooper's emails and notes, which, according to a previous Newsweek posting by Michael Isikoff, named Rove as Cooper's source. In court on Wednesday, Fitzgerald said that following his receipt of Cooper's emails and notes "it is clear to us we need [Cooper's] testimony perhaps more so than in the past." This was a clue that Fitzgerald had scored big when he obtained the Cooper material.

This new evidence could place Rove in serious political, if not legal, jeopardy (or, at least it should). If what I am told is true, this is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson--even classified information related to national security--to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that?

On September 27, 2003--after the news broke that the Justice Department, responding to a request from the CIA, was investigating the Plame/CIA leak--White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of the Plame/CIA leak, "That is not the way this White House operates, and no one would be authorized to do such a thing." He also declared that the allegation that Rove was involved in this leak was "a ridiculous suggestion, and it is simply not true." Days later, Bush issued a straightforward statement about the Plame/CIA leak:

There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. If there's leaks out of my administration, I want to know who it is, and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.

Perhaps Bush won't have to "take care of" Rove if this new evidence does not lead to a prosecutable violation of the law. But Bush also called on any government official with knowledge of the leak to "come forward and speak out." Has Rove done so? No. So it seems he violated a presidential command. Would Bush be obliged to fire him for insubordination? And there's another key point to consider: whether Rove told the truth when he testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has acknowledged that Rove appeared before the grand jury, and Luskin has said that Rove did speak to Cooper prior to the publication of the Novak column. But what did Rove tell Fitzgerald and the grand jury about this conversation with Cooper? And--here's the big question--does Rove's account jibe with the new documentary evidence that Newsweek is scheduled to disclose. If it does not, Fitzgerald would have a good start on a perjury charge against Rove.

At a public meeting in the summer of 2003, Joseph Wilson, responding to a question about the leak, quipped that it would be interesting "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." He then had to pull back from that comment and concede he had no evidence to support his hunch that Rove was one of the leakers. (By the way, Novak cited two unnamed Bush administration officials when he published the Plame/CIA leak.) With Newsweek's latest article, we may be getting closer to frog-marching time.

Posted by David Corn at 11:43 PM

July 08, 2005

Rehnquist Resigning? Did I Post It First?

What a great way to start the weekend. Not too long ago, I posted the following short item on HuffingtonPost.com:

I just got a call from a TV station that produces a weekly panel show on which I am a regular. We finished taping this week’s show at 2:30 pm. The producer wanted to know if I could come pack at 8 pm. The reason: Chief Justice William Rehnquist is supposedly resigning at 4:15 pm. That’s about fifteen minutes from now. Double trouble?

I believe I was one of the first people to get this info on a site, for those who care about such things. HuffPost HQ says it was not yet on the Drudge site. Now I see that I might have been given the wrong time--or perhaps I misheard. George W. Bush supposedly is set to return from Europe at 4:50 pm. So any announcement will probably come after that. But bringing bad news to the world in a hurry is hardly anything to crow about. Enjoy your weekend, if you can. The ride ahead is going to be damn bumpy.

Posted by David Corn at 04:38 PM

Rehnquist Resigning?

What a great way to start the weekend. Not too long ago, I posted the following short item on HuffingtonPost.com:

I just got a call from a TV station that produces a weekly panel show on which I am a regular. We finished taping this week’s show at 2:30 pm. The producer wanted to know if I could come pack at 8 pm. The reason: Chief Justice William Rehnquist is supposedly resigning at 4:15 pm. That’s about fifteen minutes from now. Double trouble?

I see that I might have been given the wrong time--or perhaps I misheard. George W. Bush supposedly is set to return from Europe at 4:50 pm. So any announcement will probably come after that. But bringing bad news to the world in a hurry is hardly anything to crow about. Enjoy your weekend, if you can. The ride ahead is going to be damn bumpy.

UPDATE. 4;50 has come and gone. Apparently Bob Novak was one of the first to say that a Rehnquist resignation announcement would come after that. Did he trigger a chain of bad info?

Posted by David Corn at 04:38 PM

Poodle Blair Gets No Bone; Time for Rove WIthdrawal?

I almost--almost--felt sorry for Tony Blair, as I watched him on the telly this morning trying to sell the G8 agreement that was more disappointment than achievement. He did his best not to sugarcoat the agreement, but he still couldn't stop the spin (to mix a metaphor). He said that progress on global warming was made because he was able to coax George W. Bush into a "dialogue" on the matter and because Bush signed the communique which declared that global warming is a serious issue and that "we know enough to act now." Well, Bush may know enough to act, but he still has adamantly refused to take any significant action to address global warming--even though he promised to do so after rejecting the Kyoto accord in 2001. The Bush administration--perhaps reluctantly--has already acknowledged that global warming is real and requires action. True, once in a while an energy company lobbyist working within its ranks rewrites a report to say global warming ain't much to fret about, but officially the administration accepts the premise that it is a problem requiring a remedy. Yet Bush has done nothing to develop an effective remedy. Thus, Blair achieved nothing, vis a vis his pal from Washington, at this G8 on this critical issue, no matter how nicely Blair spins the agreement. Only goes to show: you can go to war for this fellow--even though your own foreign secretary says the primary case is "thin"--and you can assume enormous political risk in order to help him, and you will get nada in return. Even a poodle receives a bone once in a while.
******
I posted the below dose-of-reality on HuffingtonPost.com. In case you haven't seen it:

Time for Rove WIthdrawal?

What's a I-wanna-see-Rove-go-to-jail fanatic to do now?

For the past few weeks, the Plame/CIA leak was in the news far more so than it had been ever since the CIA first asked the Justice Department in September 2003 to investigate the leak from Bush administration officials that outed an undercover CIA official working on WMD issues (Valerie Wilson, a.k.a. Valerie Plame), who was married to a critic of Bush's war in Iraq (former Ambassador Joseph Wilson). That leak first appeared in a Bob Novak column published on July 14, 2003; Novak cited two unnamed "senior administration officials" as his sources.

What drew all the recent attention to the investigation was the face-off between special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and two reporters--Time's Matt Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller. Fitzgerald, in pursuit of the leakers (who may have violated a federal law making it a crime for a government official to identify a clandestine CIA official), wanted Cooper, who cowrote a Time article that also reported that unnamed government officials had said Valerie Wilson was a CIA official, and Miller, who had written nothing on this subject, to testify before his grand jury and talk about what their sources had told them. Initially they both resisted. And the ensuing clash--as troubling as it was for those of us who care about protecting reporter-source confidentiality--was a goldmine for anyone trying to figure out what has been happening with Fitzgerald's investigation. His inquiry has been surprisingly low on leaks, and it had been hard to suss out what he was doing and whether he was achieving any progress. But his fight with Miller and Cooper pushed facts and hints into the public record.

As regular readers of this blog know, Fitzgerald's tussle with these reporters moved Karl Rove to the top of the suspects list. Though much remains unknown, it does seem probable--as Lawrence O'Donnell has blogged about here and as Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reported--that the source Fitzgerald has so much wanted Cooper to talk about is Rove. Why is Fitzgerald intensely interested in Rove? We can only guess at this moment. But it's not unreasonable to presume this is because Fitzgerald considers him a chief suspect--even though Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has told reporters that Rove did not name Valerie Plame as a CIA official to any reporter and that Fitzgerald has informed Rove he is not a target. (For a thorough analysis--by me--of what the recent court proceedings do and do not tell us about Fitzgerald's investigation and Rove's place in it, click here.

But now Fitzgerald's fight with Miller and Cooper is done. Miller is sitting in a jail in Virginia, dispatched there by federal District Court Judge Thomas Hogan until she cooperates with Fitzgerald or his grand jury expires in four months. Cooper is a free man. Time magazine, over his objections, surrendered his emails and notes to Fitzgerald. Still, Fitzgerald wanted Cooper to testify before the grand jury. Cooper was prepared to say no and be imprisoned. Then at the last-minute, Cooper declared that his confidential source--Rove?--had granted him a personal waiver to speak to the grand jury about his conversations with this source. But this waiver did not allow Cooper to speak in public about this source.

With the Miller and Cooper cases resolved, we will be left with no new tea leaves to read. Fitzgerald's investigation will proceed under the cloak of secrecy that covers (or is supposed to cover) all federal criminal probes. Some, of course, leak. (Remember Ken Starr?) But Fitzgerald's inquiry has been rather tight. I've had Justice Department officials tell me that they tend to hear nothing about Fitzgerald's actions. Cooper's upcoming testimony to Fitzgerald's grand jury will be confidential. So what he says--or does not say--about Rove will only become public if it leaks or if Fitzgerald ends up issuing indictments and he uses Cooper's testimony to support the indictments.

So while it's been an exciting time for anyone yearning for details about Fitzgerald's work or for anyone wishing ill for Rove, those days may be over, as the investigation, like a submarine that occasionally has to surface, dives back into the deep, dark water. Let's hope this vessel does spring a leak or two--though none that harm the career of an honest public servant or that undermine national security.

Posted by David Corn at 11:42 AM

Poodle Blair Gets No Bone; Time for Rove WIthdrawal?

I almost--almost--felt sorry for Tony Blair, as I watched him on the telly this morning trying to sell the G8 agreement that was more disappointment than achievement. He did his best not to sugarcoat the agreement, but he still couldn't stop the spin (to mix a metaphor). He said that progress on global warming was made because he was able to coax George W. Bush into a "dialogue" on the matter and because Bush signed the communique which declared that global warming is a serious issue and that "we know enough to act now." Well, Bush may know enough to act, but he still has adamantly refused to take any significant action to address global warming--even though he promised to do so after rejecting the Kyoto accord in 2001. The Bush administration--perhaps reluctantly--has already acknowledged that global warming is real and requires action. True, once in a while an energy company lobbyist working within its ranks rewrites a report to say global warming ain't much to fret about, but officially the administration accepts the premise that it is a problem requiring a remedy. Yet Bush has done nothing to develop an effective remedy. Thus, Blair achieved nothing, vis a vis his pal from Washington, at this G8 on this critical issue, no matter how nicely Blair spins the agreement. Only goes to show: you can go to war for this fellow--even though your own foreign secretary says the primary case is "thin"--and you can assume enormous political risk in order to help him, and you will get nada in return. Even a poodle receives a bone once in a while.
******
I posted the below dose-of-reality on HuffingtonPost.com. In case you haven't seen it:

Time for Rove WIthdrawal?

What's a I-wanna-see-Rove-go-to-jail fanatic to do now?

For the past few weeks, the Plame/CIA leak was in the news far more so than it had been ever since the CIA first asked the Justice Department in September 2003 to investigate the leak from Bush administration officials that outed an undercover CIA official working on WMD issues (Valerie Wilson, a.k.a. Valerie Plame), who was married to a critic of Bush's war in Iraq (former Ambassador Joseph Wilson). That leak first appeared in a Bob Novak column published on July 14, 2003; Novak cited two unnamed "senior administration officials" as his sources.

What drew all the recent attention to the investigation was the face-off between special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and two reporters--Time's Matt Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller. Fitzgerald, in pursuit of the leakers (who may have violated a federal law making it a crime for a government official to identify a clandestine CIA official), wanted Cooper, who cowrote a Time article that also reported that unnamed government officials had said Valerie Wilson was a CIA official, and Miller, who had written nothing on this subject, to testify before his grand jury and talk about what their sources had told them. Initially they both resisted. And the ensuing clash--as troubling as it was for those of us who care about protecting reporter-source confidentiality--was a goldmine for anyone trying to figure out what has been happening with Fitzgerald's investigation. His inquiry has been surprisingly low on leaks, and it had been hard to suss out what he was doing and whether he was achieving any progress. But his fight with Miller and Cooper pushed facts and hints into the public record.

As regular readers of this blog know, Fitzgerald's tussle with these reporters moved Karl Rove to the top of the suspects list. Though much remains unknown, it does seem probable--as Lawrence O'Donnell has blogged about here and as Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reported--that the source Fitzgerald has so much wanted Cooper to talk about is Rove. Why is Fitzgerald intensely interested in Rove? We can only guess at this moment. But it's not unreasonable to presume this is because Fitzgerald considers him a chief suspect--even though Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has told reporters that Rove did not name Valerie Plame as a CIA official to any reporter and that Fitzgerald has informed Rove he is not a target. (For a thorough analysis--by me--of what the recent court proceedings do and do not tell us about Fitzgerald's investigation and Rove's place in it, click here.

But now Fitzgerald's fight with Miller and Cooper is done. Miller is sitting in a jail in Virginia, dispatched there by federal District Court Judge Thomas Hogan until she cooperates with Fitzgerald or his grand jury expires in four months. Cooper is a free man. Time magazine, over his objections, surrendered his emails and notes to Fitzgerald. Still, Fitzgerald wanted Cooper to testify before the grand jury. Cooper was prepared to say no and be imprisoned. Then at the last-minute, Cooper declared that his confidential source--Rove?--had granted him a personal waiver to speak to the grand jury about his conversations with this source. But this waiver did not allow Cooper to speak in public about this source.

With the Miller and Cooper cases resolved, we will be left with no new tea leaves to read. Fitzgerald's investigation will proceed under the cloak of secrecy that covers (or is supposed to cover) all federal criminal probes. Some, of course, leak. (Remember Ken Starr?) But Fitzgerald's inquiry has been rather tight. I've had Justice Department officials tell me that they tend to hear nothing about Fitzgerald's actions. Cooper's upcoming testimony to Fitzgerald's grand jury will be confidential. So what he says--or does not say--about Rove will only become public if it leaks or if Fitzgerald ends up issuing indictments and he uses Cooper's testimony to support the indictments.

So while it's been an exciting time for anyone yearning for details about Fitzgerald's work or for anyone wishing ill for Rove, those days may be over, as the investigation, like a submarine that occasionally has to surface, dives back into the deep, dark water. Let's hope this vessel does spring a leak or two--though none that harm the career of an honest public servant or that undermine national security.

Posted by David Corn at 11:42 AM

July 07, 2005

More Trouble for Rove in Plame/CIA Leak Case?

I just posted a piece at www.TheNation.com analyzing what happened at yesterday's dramatic courthouse hearing on the Plame/CIA leak case, paying particular attention to what it might mean for Karl Rove. To see the article, click here. If you've already read it, please check out the piece I also published today on Bob Novak's role in this affair and other postings below. The leak case keeps getting more and more intriguing, even as Fitzgerald, who seems to be truly interested in finding out what happened, undermines reporter-source confidentiality by chasing Judith Miller (of whom I am no fan) into the jailhouse.

P.S. There have been troubles this week with Movable Type, and these problems seem to affect the comments section. If you have not been able to post comments, please keep trying and please be patient. My wizard masters tell me that this is beyond our control (can you believe that?) and that somewhere there are some people doing some things--that I certainly do not understand--to remedy the situation. Though I have done absolutely nothing wrong, I apologize for the inconvenience and for any disappointment that may have been caused.

Posted by David Corn at 06:12 PM

Novak Squealed

As Judy Miller ofThe New York Times takes up residence in a prison because she refuses to disclose a source to prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who's investigating the Plame/CIA leak, I thought it was a good time to ponder Bob Novak's apparent cooperation with Fitzgerald. Consequently, I wrote the below piece that was posted today at TomPaine.com, which I encourage you to visit regularly.

Novak Squealed
By David Corn
July 07, 2005
www.tompaine.com

As Judith Miller of The New York Times sits in jail for refusing to reveal a source to Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Bush administration leak that identified CIA officer Valerie Wilson (nee Plame), the question remains, why is Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who published the original leak, enjoying his freedom?

Not that Novak should be a target for prosecution. Under U.S. law--particularly the Intelligence Identities Protection Act--only U.S. government officials who intentionally disclose the identity of an American intelligence official are fair game for a prosecutor. The journalist to whom they leak cannot be prosecuted. This is a good thing. We do not want reporters being tossed into the hoosegow for publishing secrets obtained from the government. England has an official secrets act; we former colonists do not. (I wish more people understood the legal distinction between Novak's leakers and Novak. I receive loads of e-mails from people who indignantly ask why Fitzgerald hasn't charged Novak with a crime.) But the issue is this: While other reporters have resolved to be imprisoned to protect their sources (whether these sources deserve protection or not), what has Novak done? The obvious answer: He has squealed.

To be fair, we don't know for sure. Novak has declined to answer any questions about the investigation and his interactions with Fitzgerald. But here are two pretty solid assumptions.

1. Fitzgerald wants to know the name of the two unidentified Bush 'senior administration officials" Novak cited in his July 14, 2003, column that outed Valerie Wilson, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a White House critic. That's the whole point of his investigation.

2. Fitzgerald at some point must have asked Novak to name names. After all, he requested that Matt Cooper of Time and Miller reveal their sources. (Cooper narrowly avoided going to prison on Wednesday when his source--Karl Rove?--gave him permission to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury. Previously, Time magazine turned over his notes and e-mails to Fitzgerald.)

Fitzgerald has not slapped Novak with a subpoena. Thus, Novak in some manner, shape or form cooperated with Fitzgerald. Otherwise, he would be in the same--or similar--legal quicksand as Miller.

Novak owes it to his fellow journalists--and to his readers--to explain how he has escaped the powerful claws of prosecutor Fitzgerald. In fact, had Novak offered such an explanation prior to the final actions in the Cooper and Miller cases, it might have strengthened their legal position. But Novak elected to remain silent and adopt a protect-my-backside crouch. He has said he will "reveal all" only when the leak case is completed.

With that stance, he leaves the door wide open for speculation. So let's accept the invitation.

We've established it's likely that Novak somehow cooperated with Fitzgerald. That would mean that he disclosed to Fitzgerald the identity of these two senior Bush administration officials. Would Fitzgerald accept anything less? And that would present two possibilities: Novak either burned his sources, or he named them with their permission. (White House aides, such as Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, have signed waivers allowing reporters to testify about their conversations with them.) My guess is that it was more of the latter. I've known Novak for years; I co-hosted Crossfire with him several times. He does fancy himself a newsman, and I don't think he would be a complete rat (or risk becoming known as a complete rat) regarding the protection of sources.

So the odds are that Novak talked with the approval of his sources. Which leads us to the next question: What did he say? Fitzgerald obviously would not be satisfied with merely the names of the sources. He would want to know what these people told Novak. It's theoretically possible that Novak hung them out to dry and said something like, They told me quite clearly that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA official, and they knew they were blowing her cover. Such a statement would place Novak's sources in legal jeopardy. But would Novak, a conservative ideologue, cooperate with Fitzgerald--with the permission of his sources--knowing that he could be sending senior Bush officials to the slammer? His standing as a hero in the conservative world would certainly be diminished if that occurred. Consequently, I find such a scenario hard to believe.

That brings me to my best guess of what did happen: Novak told Fitzgerald a story that helps his sources. It went something like this:

Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald, Bush Aide X and Bush Aide Y both told me that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA and that they suspected she had sent Joseph Wilson on his now-infamous trip to Niger where he determined it was highly unlikely that Iraq had been shopping there for uranium to be used in a nuclear weapons program. But neither one of these two fine Americans told me that she was an undercover operative at the CIA. If you will again look at what I wrote, I referred to her as an "Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." I never reported she was in a secret position. In fact, the use of the word "operative"--which I suppose could connote a clandestine position but does not necessarily do so--was mine alone. These sources merely said to me she was employed at the CIA. As a newspaper columnist, I used the most evocative term I could think of at the time. I take full responsibility for that.

And to make everything neat and tidy, Bush Aide X and Bush Aide Y each essentially said the same thing to Fitzgerald:

I heard hallway chatter that Valerie Plame was at the CIA and that she had something to do with Wilson's trip to Niger. I passed this on to Novak and Time magazine. I was never aware that she was working undercover or that by sharing this gossip I would be disclosing confidential information that identified a covert official. After all, as you know, Mr. Fitzgerald, not every CIA employee is a clandestine official.

Voila. No crime. A thuggish act of political retribution that destroyed a CIA officer's career and undermined national security, yes. But no crime. The relevant law--the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982--says that an offender has to "intentionally" disclose information "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies [a] covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

Ignorance can be a defense under this act. A person indicted by Fitzgerald could argue that he (or she) didn't know that Valerie Wilson was working undercover. Case in point: After Rove was recently named in media reports as one of Cooper's source, his lawyer said Rove, who has appeared before Fitzgerald's grand jury, "never knowingly disclosed classified information" (my emphasis) and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA."

If the above scenario is how things played out (or close enough), Novak could indeed defend himself by saying he was protecting his sources--protecting them from prosecution. But in such a situation, Fitzgerald would have to ask himself, are Novak and his sources telling me the truth? And how could he answer that question? Novak's notes--if there are any--might confirm or undermine their joint account. But imagine if phone logs show there were calls between Novak and these sources after the investigation had begun. There well could be innocent explanations for these contacts. But Fitzgerald might be suspicious.

In this (imaginary though possible) scenario, if Fitzgerald doubted what Novak and these officials had told him, discovering what Novak's sources told other reporters, such as Cooper and Miller, would be essential for him. It wouldn't matter that Miller had not written a story on the Wilson business. If Fitzgerald had phone logs indicating one of Novak's sources had also spoken to Miller in the relevant timeframe, he'd be damn curious to know what had been said. Regarding Cooper's case, Fitzgerald does know that Time reported three days after Novak's column appeared that "government officials" had told the newsmagazine that "Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." (Again, there is no clear indication that these "officials" had explicitly informed Time that Plame was an undercover CIA employee.) Squeezing information out of Cooper and Time could help Fitzgerald determine if Novak and his sources were being honest with him. And if he uncovered information contradicting their accounts he might even be in a position to contemplate perjury or obstruction of justice charges. (I'm not defending Fitzgerald's pursuit of Cooper and Miller and his destruction of reporter-source confidentiality. I'm merely exploring why he has chased after them in Javert-like fashion.)

Of course, I'm just supposin' here. Perhaps what occurred was completely different than the above-detailed scenario, maybe even unimaginable. But Novak gives us no other choice than to guess. And he cannot blame anyone for wondering how he has avoided the dilemma confronted by Cooper and Miller. He could come clean and share what he told Fitzgerald. He could at least describe in general terms his apparent cooperation. But as another reporter faces jail time for defying a prosecutor investigating a leak that Novak made public, Novak sticks to his mum's-the-word position. Miller is in prison to protect a right that Novak appears to have finagled.

Posted by David Corn at 10:52 AM

July 06, 2005

Blaming HIllary; Pessimism on the Supreme Court Fight; and Safire Needs a Factchecker

Did you see the following news dispatch?

Associated Press - New York. Following the announcement of the International Olympic Committee's decision to hold the 2012 summer games in London, not New York City, a coalition of conservative political organizations known as 527s announced a campaign to air $13 million worth of television ads blaming Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for failing to persuade the IOC to bring the games to New York. "Maybe if she had spent more time on this instead of hanging out with her lesbian-friendly pals, New Yorkers would have something to look forward to seven years from now," said Morris Harlinsen, deputy executive of Blame Hillary, one of the 527s. "If she cannot deliver for her own state, how can she deliver for the entire nation?"

Just kidding.
******

What to do? What to do? With a pivotal vacancy on the Supreme Court, interest groups--a term I don't like since many are citizens groups--on both sides are mobilizing, raising money, cutting TV ads, concocting battle plans. But will any of this matter? I think not. The White House knows what social conservatives want. The religious right doesn't have to spend money to deliver that message. Still, religious right groups will mount a make-us-happy campaign, at least to show off for their members and funders. And I see little possibility for outfits on the left to affect the debate. Bush and Republican Senators will not be swayed by an "stop-the-extremists" campaign waged by progressives. Will such an effort buck up Senate Democrats? Perhaps. But it's clear that already several Dems will not go along with a filibuster (unless Bush nominates someone who shows up for his or her confirmation hearing in a hooded robe and carrying a burning cross). And it is equally clear that several of the seven Republicans who were part of the so-called Gang of 14 that cut the deal on the judicial filibuster will vote with their fellow Republicans to eliminate the filibuster should the Democrats use it against a nominee who merely is too far right. As I noted at the time of the deal, it was a better in the long-run for Republicans than Democrats and all but eliminated the use of the judicial filibuster. That seems to becoming truer by the day.

So what are the opportunities for the citizens groups? I hate to say it, but there ain't many. Look at this story from The Hill: GOP senators are readily blowing off the concerns of the rightwing lobby groups that are trying to prevent Bush from nominating Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The leaders of these outfits seem to view him as a closet communist, though his favorability rating among average Republicans is quite high. I'm hoping Bush does choose Gonzales. Not because I think he'll be a moderate and reasonable justice, but because I'd be delighted to spend the summer watching a nasty cat fight on the right. But I doubt Bush will give liberals such a gift.

Unfortunately, the Democrats don't possess the ability to thwart any Bush pick that is not absolutely ridiculous. (If he nominates Sean Hannity, they might be able to do something about that.) Still, citizens groups of the left and right will mount their attack-ad campaigns, explaining they're attempting to win over the public and influence the atmosphere in which the nomination fight will occur. But if this plays out over the summer, much of the public won't be paying attention. That's what happens in summers: Americans tune out. And on cable news channels these days, the missing teen in Aruba warrants more airtime than the Supreme Court vacancy. Yesterday, Gallup released a poll noting that only 50 percent of the public cares "a great deal" about who will be the next Supreme Court nominee. And that number is obviously inflated. That is, a significant. portion of this 50 percent probably doesn't care "a great deal" but they believe they should.--or they believe they should say that they do. Thus, trying to nudge popular sentiment one way or the other in order to affect the outcome of a vote in the Senate (where the Republicans have a strong majority) is akin to a double bank shot--in which one tries to sink a soft ball into the pocket.

At the Fourth of July parade in my town of Takoma Park, a progressive woman I know came running up to me and plaintively asked, "What can I do?" "About what?" I asked, as I tried to get out of the way of the County Executive's car. "About the Supreme Court. I hear there's some conservative judge who we're all supposed to support." I apparently had missed that meeting of the not-so-vast leftwing conspiracy. Relax, I said. There's nothing much to do--especially before Bush makes a selection. And you may want to wait on sending any donation to a save-the-court organization until after Bush makes his pick; money spent before that is probably being wasted. "I don't have any money to give now," she said. "I tapped out during the election." Then enjoy the parade, I said.
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I'm still surprised by all the misinformation peddled about the Plame/CIA leak case. Last week, writing in The New York Times, William Safire blasted special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for conducting a runaway and pointless investigation that has sideswiped Times reporter Judith Miller, whom he calls "a superb and intrepid reporter." I share his concern for the awful impact the Fitzgerald inquiry is having on reporter-source confidentiality, though I take issue with his description of Miller, who, like Safire, misled Times readers about the case for war in Iraq. But I also would like to suggest that Safire hire a factchecker, for he is dead wrong in saying that Fitzgerald can have no case against the leakers under the relevant law. He writes:

The case was about the "outing" of an agent--supposedly covert, but working openly at C.I.A. headquarters--in Robert Novak's column two years ago by unnamed administration officials angry at her husband's prewar Iraq criticism.

To show its purity, the Bush Justice Department appointed a special counsel to find any violation of the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That law prohibits anyone from knowingly revealing the name of a covert agent that the C.I.A. is taking "affirmative measures" to conceal. The revelation must be, like that of the 70's turncoat Philip Agee [a former CIA officer] -- "in the course of a pattern" intending to harm United States intelligence.

Evidently no such serious crime took place.

Now let's see what the law really says:

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

That's the portion of the law that applies to government officials--and that might apply to the Bush officials who leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Novak. There need not be any "pattern" or intent to harm the United States. There is another section of the law that does cover anyone who engages in "a patter of activities" to identify US intelligence officials in order to "impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States." As Safire should know, this part of the law was enacted to thwart people like Agee, who in the 1970s mounted a campaign to identify CIA officers around the world to hinder CIA operations. The point of this section of the law is to target anti-CIA activists like Agee without drawing journalists into the net. Under this law, it is not a crime for a journalist--such as Novak--to publish a leak identifying a CIA officer, unless that journalist engages in a "pattern of activities."

Safire applied the wrong part of the law to Novak's leakers and once more gave his readers bum information. Why can't this fastidious wordsmith get his facts straight?

Posted by David Corn at 11:33 AM

July 05, 2005

Is Rove the Plame/CIA Leaker?

I posted the below at my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. If you've seen it there, please scroll down and peruse other items.

Is it Karl Rove?

This past weekend, a pundit and a journalist each reported that Rove, Bush's uber-strategist (and now, officially, the deputy White House chief of staff), was a source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who has resisted cooperating with a court order to reveal his sources to Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Bush administration leak that revealed undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. (Plame, a.k.a Valerie Wilson, is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a Bush administration critic). Last week, after the Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller (who also was subpoenaed by Fitzgerald for her sources), Time magazine decided to cooperate with Fitzgerald and turn over Cooper's notes and emails. (Cooper said he disagreed with--but understood--his employer's decision; Miller and the Times vowed to continue resisting.) Appearing on The McLaughlin Group--which was taped on Friday--commentator Lawrence O'Donnell said that the documents handed over byTime to Fitzgerald would reveal that Rove had been Cooper's source. The next day, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek posted a piece that reported,

The e- mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article.

O'Donnell's comment and Isikoff's report set off a wave of reaction. I received numerous emails proclaiming "Rove is it, he's the [deleted] who revealed Plame's identity." But a careful reading of the available facts leads to this unsatisfying conclusion: not so fast.

The issue at hand is the identity of who told conservative columnist Robert Novak that Plame was an undercover CIA official working on counterproliferation (that is, anti-WMD) matters. On July 14, 2003, Novak published a piece that was essentially a conveyor belt for White House criticism of Joseph Wilson. A week earlier, Wilson had written a much-noticed op-ed piece in The New York Times that argued that George W. Bush had misled the nation in his January 2003 State of the Union speech by claiming that Iraq had been shopping in Africa for uranium to be used in a nuclear weapons program. In his article, Wilson revealed for the first time that he had been dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate rumors of such Iraqi activity and had reported back that it was highly unlikely that Iraq was procuring weapons-related uranium there. Wilson's article--which followed his previous criticism of the administration for launching the war in Iraq--placed him in the line of fire. Republican and conservative allies of the White House blasted away. In the course of this attack, Novak wrote the piece that outed Wilson's wife and suggested that Wilson's trip to Niger had been a nepotistic junket of some sort.

Novak seemed to attribute his disclosure about Plame (which destroyed her career and perhaps threatened anti-WMD operations) to two unnamed "senior administration officials." (I use the word "seemed" because the attribution was technically indirect, though it appears clear these were Novak's sources.) Two days after Novak's column was published, I became the first journalist to write that these two Bush administration sources might have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection act of 1982, which makes it illegal for a government official (not a reporter) to reveal the identity of an undercover intelligence official. (It would not be until September 2003 that the CIA would ask the Justice Department to investigate this leak and an official inquiry would begin. ) Then on July 17, 2003, Time posted a piece by Matthew Cooper, Massimo Calabresi and John Dickerson headlined "A War on Wilson?" The article noted,

And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched [to] Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices.

This passage raises several obvious questions. Who told Time about Plame? Were these "government officials" the same as Novak's "two senior administration officials"? And when did these government officials tell Time about Plame? Presumably it was before Novak's column appeared, though these two sentences don't say that outright.

Which brings us to Rove.

His name has emerged in this scandal before. In the summer of 2003, Joseph Wilson appeared at a public event in Seattle and was asked about the investigation of the Plame leak. Wilson replied, "Wouldn't it be fun to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs?" Wilson subsequently conceded that he had no basis for accusing Rove of leaking his wife's CIA identity. But to explain his wish to see Rove in prison, he pointed to a news report that maintained that Rove had told Hardball's Chris Matthews after the leak that Wilson's wife was "fair game." On October 10, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with reporters. McClellan said he had spoken to Rove and the others and that they had "assured me they were not involved in this."

So does the recent revelation place Rove in jeopardy?

Luskin, Rove's lawyer, told Isikoff that Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before the Novak column appeared but that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." He also noted that Rove had appeared before Fitzgerald's grand jury and had signed a waiver that would permit reporters to set aside any confidentiality agreement they had with him and testify about what Rove had told them.

If Luskin is telling the truth, Rove has nothing to fear. But defense lawyers have been known to spin the facts. The contents of Cooper's emails and notes might support or challenge Luskin's account. They might be inconclusive. (You should see my notes sometimes.) That Rove, a top White House aide, spoke to Cooper, who was covering the White House for a major newsmagazine, during this white-hot episode would not be unusual. And the piece Cooper co-wrote covers far more ground than Plame's post at the CIA (which accounted for only two sentences). It is certainly conceivable that Rove was tossing other anti-Wilson information at Cooper (and others) at this point. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, also talked to Time for this article, and he was quoted by name saying that Cheney had been interested in the Niger allegation but didn't know about Wilson's trip to Niger. (After Libby gave permission to Cooper to tell Fitzgerald about their conversations, Cooper did so.)

Rove talking to Cooper days before his piece--and Novak's--was written is an intriguing lead for Fitzgerald. But this does not solve the mystery. Before anyone can expect to see Rove frog-marching, Fitzgerald will have to determine what was said in these conversations. (Perhaps Fitzgerald will continue to pursue Cooper on this point.) [UPDATE: On Tueday, Fitzgerald did just that. He demanded that Cooper testify before his grand jury despite Time's decision to surrender Cooper's emails and notes to Fitzgerald.]

But all the hubbub stirred by the disclosure that Rove was a source for Cooper raises other interesting questions.

* Both the Novak column and the Time piece refer to a plural number of sources for the Plame information. Novak cited "two"; Time referred to "officials." Apparently Rove--or whoever--did not act alone. Shouldn't Fitzgerald be seeking more than one name from Time, Cooper, and the coauthors? Are there other names in the material turned over by Time? Or must Fitzgerald continue his pursuit of Time?

* The Time magazine article, as I've noted, had three co-authors. Why no subpoenas for Cooper's co-writers? Does this suggest that Fitzgerald chased after Cooper because he had information in addition to the article--such as emails, phone logs, etc.--from suspects?

* Rove's lawyer stated that Rove did not "knowingly" disclose classified information. Does this mean he "unknowingly" revealed such information? The distinction is important because the Intelligence Identities Protection Act essentially says that for a crime to have been committed the offender must have realized that he or she was disclosing top-secret information. (Otherwise someone could be prosecuted for making an honest mistake.) True, Rove's mouthpiece also said that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." But his use of the word "knowingly" can be read by those wishing to see Rove frog-marching as the start of a criminal defense strategy.

It is not too difficult to envision such a defense being concocted should any White House official come to be officially accused. The law only covers government officials with "authorized access to classified information" and who "intentionally" disclose information revealing the identity of "a covert agent...that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal." Consider this scenario. Rove--let's just use him as an example--hears someone at a meeting say, "Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, does counterproliferation work at the CIA and we hear she was involved in sending him to Niger." Then he tells this information to Novak, not realizing that Plame is officially undercover (after all, not every CIA officials work undercover). He could then argue that he did not break the law. (In October 2003, I wrote a piece that reported that a CIA colleague of Plame was working at the National Security Council at the time of the Plame leak. This person might have told White House aides about Plame's connection to Wilson's Niger trip. I suggested that Fitzgerald ought to make sure to interview this possible witness. I did not name the person, who was still working undercover. Since then, I have seen no reference to this person in any news accounts.)

Fitzgerald has a difficult mission. He has to determine (a) who in the administration spoke to Novak and Time--and perhaps other media outfits, like The New York Times--about Wilson, (b) what precisely was said in these conversations, and (c) whether the get-Wilson leakers knew they were slipping classified information to the journalists.

The news about Rove might be of use to Fitzgerald, though I suspect he already knew about Rove and Cooper. And, of course, unless the notes say something like, K.R.: JW's wife--Valerie Plame--works undercover at CIA and this is TOP SECRET, the material turned over by Time may not make the case. Optimistic Bush-bashers can hope that Fitzgerald is also investigating perjury or obstruction of justice violations--which would probably be easier to prove. If White House Aide X testified before the grand jury that s/he did not speak to Reporter Y and notes or emails show otherwise, Fitzgerald could have an easy indictment.

But this is all speculation. And that is mostly what Plame-leak-watchers have had to work with from the start. Fitzgerald's investigation has been remarkably low on leaks. But the recent Rove revelations--whether they aid Fitzgerald or not--have served a valuable purpose. They have focused attention on the original sin: the leak. Ever since Fitzgerald started to go after reporters other than Novak (who apparently has cooperated in some fashion with Fitzgerald for he was not subpoenaed by the prosecutor), this case has been discussed primarily as a media-and-the-law matter. Can reporters shield their sources? What will happen to journalism if Fitzgerald forces Time and The New York Times to give up their sources or if Cooper or Miller have to go to jail to protect these sources?

Those are indeed damn important questions. But the news about Rove has shifted the discussion back to the leak itself and the question, whodunit? It's been two years since the leak occurred. In that time, Bush has expressed little outrage about this despicable act. His White House took no steps of its own to determine who leaked the Plame information. At one point, Bush practically joked that finding the leaker would be rather hard. Even if the leak, for reasons I noted above, does not meet the threshold for a prosecution, it still was a thuggish act and a firing offense. Does Bush want on his staff people who out CIA officials (who are working to protect the nation from the WMD threat) in order to score political points? If Fitzgerald, at the end of the day, says he does not have enough evidence to indict anyone, will Bush take actions of his own to find and boot the leakers? He has given no indication he feels so compelled. On Capitol Hill, the House and Senate intelligence committees, controlled by Republicans, never mounted investigations of their own. And, by the way, Fitzgerald, should he fail to bring indictments, has no obligation at the end of his inquiry to produce a public report that explains what he did and did not uncover.

Rove may be in trouble. Or this could be a false alert. But this did-Rove-do-it bubble is a useful reminder. Two years ago, senior Bush administration officials revealed classified information, undid the career of a national security official, and endangered ongoing anti-WMD programs in order to pursue a political vendetta against a critic, and to date there has been no accountability.
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Note to visitors: There seems to be a technical problem with the comments section. The appropriate technoligical wizards have been notified. I am hoping they come to the rescue soon. So please keep checking back and trying.

Posted by David Corn at 01:49 PM

Is Rove the Plame/CIA Leaker? -- UPDATED

I posted the below at my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. If you've seen it there, please scroll down and peruse other items. But first make sure you see the update at the end of this piece.

Is it Karl Rove?

This past weekend, a pundit and a journalist each reported that Rove, Bush's uber-strategist (and now, officially, the deputy White House chief of staff), was a source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who has resisted cooperating with a court order to reveal his sources to Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Bush administration leak that revealed undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. (Plame, a.k.a Valerie Wilson, is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a Bush administration critic). Last week, after the Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller (who also was subpoenaed by Fitzgerald for her sources), Time magazine decided to cooperate with Fitzgerald and turn over Cooper's notes and emails. (Cooper said he disagreed with--but understood--his employer's decision; Miller and the Times vowed to continue resisting.) Appearing on The McLaughlin Group--which was taped on Friday--commentator Lawrence O'Donnell said that the documents handed over byTime to Fitzgerald would reveal that Rove had been Cooper's source. The next day, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek posted a piece that reported,

The e- mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article.

O'Donnell's comment and Isikoff's report set off a wave of reaction. I received numerous emails proclaiming "Rove is it, he's the [deleted] who revealed Plame's identity." But a careful reading of the available facts leads to this unsatisfying conclusion: not so fast.

The issue at hand is the identity of who told conservative columnist Robert Novak that Plame was an undercover CIA official working on counterproliferation (that is, anti-WMD) matters. On July 14, 2003, Novak published a piece that was essentially a conveyor belt for White House criticism of Joseph Wilson. A week earlier, Wilson had written a much-noticed op-ed piece in The New York Times that argued that George W. Bush had misled the nation in his January 2003 State of the Union speech by claiming that Iraq had been shopping in Africa for uranium to be used in a nuclear weapons program. In his article, Wilson revealed for the first time that he had been dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate rumors of such Iraqi activity and had reported back that it was highly unlikely that Iraq was procuring weapons-related uranium there. Wilson's article--which followed his previous criticism of the administration for launching the war in Iraq--placed him in the line of fire. Republican and conservative allies of the White House blasted away. In the course of this attack, Novak wrote the piece that outed Wilson's wife and suggested that Wilson's trip to Niger had been a nepotistic junket of some sort.

Novak seemed to attribute his disclosure about Plame (which destroyed her career and perhaps threatened anti-WMD operations) to two unnamed "senior administration officials." (I use the word "seemed" because the attribution was technically indirect, though it appears clear these were Novak's sources.) Two days after Novak's column was published, I became the first journalist to write that these two Bush administration sources might have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection act of 1982, which makes it illegal for a government official (not a reporter) to reveal the identity of an undercover intelligence official. (It would not be until September 2003 that the CIA would ask the Justice Department to investigate this leak and an official inquiry would begin. ) Then on July 17, 2003, Time posted a piece by Matthew Cooper, Massimo Calabresi and John Dickerson headlined "A War on Wilson?" The article noted,

And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched [to] Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices.

This passage raises several obvious questions. Who told Time about Plame? Were these "government officials" the same as Novak's "two senior administration officials"? And when did these government officials tell Time about Plame? Presumably it was before Novak's column appeared, though these two sentences don't say that outright.

Which brings us to Rove.

His name has emerged in this scandal before. In the summer of 2003, Joseph Wilson appeared at a public event in Seattle and was asked about the investigation of the Plame leak. Wilson replied, "Wouldn't it be fun to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs?" Wilson subsequently conceded that he had no basis for accusing Rove of leaking his wife's CIA identity. But to explain his wish to see Rove in prison, he pointed to a news report that maintained that Rove had told Hardball's Chris Matthews after the leak that Wilson's wife was "fair game." On October 10, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with reporters. McClellan said he had spoken to Rove and the others and that they had "assured me they were not involved in this."

So does the recent revelation place Rove in jeopardy?

Luskin, Rove's lawyer, told Isikoff that Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before the Novak column appeared but that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." He also noted that Rove had appeared before Fitzgerald's grand jury and had signed a waiver that would permit reporters to set aside any confidentiality agreement they had with him and testify about what Rove had told them.

If Luskin is telling the truth, Rove has nothing to fear. But defense lawyers have been known to spin the facts. The contents of Cooper's emails and notes might support or challenge Luskin's account. They might be inconclusive. (You should see my notes sometimes.) That Rove, a top White House aide, spoke to Cooper, who was covering the White House for a major newsmagazine, during this white-hot episode would not be unusual. And the piece Cooper co-wrote covers far more ground than Plame's post at the CIA (which accounted for only two sentences). It is certainly conceivable that Rove was tossing other anti-Wilson information at Cooper (and others) at this point. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, also talked to Time for this article, and he was quoted by name saying that Cheney had been interested in the Niger allegation but didn't know about Wilson's trip to Niger. (After Libby gave permission to Cooper to tell Fitzgerald about their conversations, Cooper did so.)

Rove talking to Cooper days before his piece--and Novak's--was written is an intriguing lead for Fitzgerald. But this does not solve the mystery. Before anyone can expect to see Rove frog-marching, Fitzgerald will have to determine what was said in these conversations. (Perhaps Fitzgerald will continue to pursue Cooper on this point.) [UPDATE: On Tueday, Fitzgerald did just that. He demanded that Cooper testify before his grand jury despite Time's decision to surrender Cooper's emails and notes to Fitzgerald.]

But all the hubbub stirred by the disclosure that Rove was a source for Cooper raises other interesting questions.

* Both the Novak column and the Time piece refer to a plural number of sources for the Plame information. Novak cited "two"; Time referred to "officials." Apparently Rove--or whoever--did not act alone. Shouldn't Fitzgerald be seeking more than one name from Time, Cooper, and the coauthors? Are there other names in the material turned over by Time? Or must Fitzgerald continue his pursuit of Time?

* The Time magazine article, as I've noted, had three co-authors. Why no subpoenas for Cooper's co-writers? Does this suggest that Fitzgerald chased after Cooper because he had information in addition to the article--such as emails, phone logs, etc.--from suspects?

* Rove's lawyer stated that Rove did not "knowingly" disclose classified information. Does this mean he "unknowingly" revealed such information? The distinction is important because the Intelligence Identities Protection Act essentially says that for a crime to have been committed the offender must have realized that he or she was disclosing top-secret information. (Otherwise someone could be prosecuted for making an honest mistake.) True, Rove's mouthpiece also said that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." But his use of the word "knowingly" can be read by those wishing to see Rove frog-marching as the start of a criminal defense strategy.

It is not too difficult to envision such a defense being concocted should any White House official come to be officially accused. The law only covers government officials with "authorized access to classified information" and who "intentionally" disclose information revealing the identity of "a covert agent...that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal." Consider this scenario. Rove--let's just use him as an example--hears someone at a meeting say, "Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, does counterproliferation work at the CIA and we hear she was involved in sending him to Niger." Then he tells this information to Novak, not realizing that Plame is officially undercover (after all, not every CIA officials work undercover). He could then argue that he did not break the law. (In October 2003, I wrote a piece that reported that a CIA colleague of Plame was working at the National Security Council at the time of the Plame leak. This person might have told White House aides about Plame's connection to Wilson's Niger trip. I suggested that Fitzgerald ought to make sure to interview this possible witness. I did not name the person, who was still working undercover. Since then, I have seen no reference to this person in any news accounts.)

Fitzgerald has a difficult mission. He has to determine (a) who in the administration spoke to Novak and Time--and perhaps other media outfits, like The New York Times--about Wilson, (b) what precisely was said in these conversations, and (c) whether the get-Wilson leakers knew they were slipping classified information to the journalists.

The news about Rove might be of use to Fitzgerald, though I suspect he already knew about Rove and Cooper. And, of course, unless the notes say something like, K.R.: JW's wife--Valerie Plame--works undercover at CIA and this is TOP SECRET, the material turned over by Time may not make the case. Optimistic Bush-bashers can hope that Fitzgerald is also investigating perjury or obstruction of justice violations--which would probably be easier to prove. If White House Aide X testified before the grand jury that s/he did not speak to Reporter Y and notes or emails show otherwise, Fitzgerald could have an easy indictment.

But this is all speculation. And that is mostly what Plame-leak-watchers have had to work with from the start. Fitzgerald's investigation has been remarkably low on leaks. But the recent Rove revelations--whether they aid Fitzgerald or not--have served a valuable purpose. They have focused attention on the original sin: the leak. Ever since Fitzgerald started to go after reporters other than Novak (who apparently has cooperated in some fashion with Fitzgerald for he was not subpoenaed by the prosecutor), this case has been discussed primarily as a media-and-the-law matter. Can reporters shield their sources? What will happen to journalism if Fitzgerald forces Time and The New York Times to give up their sources or if Cooper or Miller have to go to jail to protect these sources?

Those are indeed damn important questions. But the news about Rove has shifted the discussion back to the leak itself and the question, whodunit? It's been two years since the leak occurred. In that time, Bush has expressed little outrage about this despicable act. His White House took no steps of its own to determine who leaked the Plame information. At one point, Bush practically joked that finding the leaker would be rather hard. Even if the leak, for reasons I noted above, does not meet the threshold for a prosecution, it still was a thuggish act and a firing offense. Does Bush want on his staff people who out CIA officials (who are working to protect the nation from the WMD threat) in order to score political points? If Fitzgerald, at the end of the day, says he does not have enough evidence to indict anyone, will Bush take actions of his own to find and boot the leakers? He has given no indication he feels so compelled. On Capitol Hill, the House and Senate intelligence committees, controlled by Republicans, never mounted investigations of their own. And, by the way, Fitzgerald, should he fail to bring indictments, has no obligation at the end of his inquiry to produce a public report that explains what he did and did not uncover.

Rove may be in trouble. Or this could be a false alert. But this did-Rove-do-it bubble is a useful reminder. Two years ago, senior Bush administration officials revealed classified information, undid the career of a national security official, and endangered ongoing anti-WMD programs in order to pursue a political vendetta against a critic, and to date there has been no accountability.
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Note to visitors: There seems to be a technical problem with the comments section. The appropriate technoligical wizards have been notified. I am hoping they come to the rescue soon. So please keep checking back and trying.

UPDATE: First, the comments section now appears to operational. Fire away. Second, this afternoon Jonah Goldberg of The National Review wrote:

I've gotten a lot of email from over the weekend asking me who I think the Plame leaker was if I think it wasn't Rove. I'm sorry to say I can't say until I get a green light to say. But I'm working on it. And, it's not a just wild guess. I could be wrong but my confidence is high.

But remember that Novak said there were "two" senior Bush administration officials who leaked the Plame information to him and that Time reported that "officials" had told it about Plame's CIA identity. So unless Goldberg shares with us--once he gets that greenlight--two or more names, that won't clear Rove.

And while we're considering other possibilities--hmmmm, who can the conservatives throw overboard to save Rove?--let's remember former White House spinner Ari Fleischer. Last November, I reported here that a former White House aide had told me that Fleischer had had a difficult time before Fitzgerald's grand jury. I bring this up just as a reminder--or a public service announcement. Meanwhile, I await Goldberg's pronouncement.

Posted by David Corn at 01:49 PM

July 02, 2005

A Birthday Card for America

I posted this ditty of a piece on the Huffington Post. Have a good Fourth and try to imagine what Thomas Jefferson would think of the fellow now in charge.

"Who's in charge of America?"

That was my nearly-six-year-old asking me this question.

"What do you mean?" I inquired.

"Well, who's in charge of America in Takoma Park?" She was referring to our town, which borders Washington, DC, in Maryland.

I still was wondering what she had in mind, and I've learned as a parent not to give answers until I fully understand the question and--just as important--why it is being asked.

"Why do you want to know?" I said.

"I want to make a birthday card for America," she said.

That made sense. She and her younger sister (four and a half years old) had requested that I explain the Fourth of July to them. Instead of reading books before bed tonight, I had concocted an abridged and kid-friendly version of the birth of the United States--running from the Pilgrims to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I left out the war part. After all, I've spent the past two years telling my children--whenever they see pictures from Iraq on the front page of the newspaper--that wars happen in far-away places and that Iraq is very far away. (I took that course of action when the older girl, a sensitive soul, once anxiously asked, "Are soldiers with guns going to come to our house?") So--sorry, George Washington--I deleted Valley Forge, the Continental Army, the defeat of Cornwallis, and the rest. (When they're old enough the girls can rent The Patriot and watch Mel Gibson employ ruthless guerilla tactics to achieve freedom for the colonists.) But I did, for some reason, attempt to explain the tea tax--which they had a hard time grasping. (Where's Grover Norquist when you need him?) And when I mentioned mean ol' King George III, the younger one asked, "Not King Tut?" (Recently, she came home from a play date singing the Steve Martin tune about the Egyptian royal.)

I emphasized that the folks in America didn't like how King George did business and that a smart fellow named Thomas Jefferson (we didn't get to Sally Hemings and the slave-ownership issue) then wrote a letter to the King called the Declaration of Independence. And this created the United States of America. I know, I know, Donald Rumsfeld reminds us practically daily that it took another thirteen years of toil and--Heavens to Betsy!--trouble before America had a functioning democracy.

After all this, the older girl wanted to send America a birthday card. But she immediately recognized a problem: where to send it?

"Well," I said to her, "if you're looking for the person who is in charge of America, I guess that would be the president."

Now, George W. Bush is not too popular in our house. I did write a best-selling book with the demure title, The Lies of George W. Bush. I don't indoctrinate my kids. (Really, really, I don't.) But apples don't bounce far. More than once when I have challenged them on a statement and suggested that they have not been truthful, I've received the reply: "Daddy, I'm not a liar. George W. Bush is a liar. I'm not." So it goes. And they were both very upset when Bush won reelection in November. "But everyone I know was voting for John Kerry," my nearly-six-year-old said at the time. "Everyone, like Zoe and Cali." Zoe and Cali were two girls who lived up the street. They were, respectively, four- and two-years-old. Yes, my daughter had conducted a focus group of her peers. But, alas, the sampling was too small and slightly biased.

I wasn't surprised, then, when my daughter responded to me by saying, "But I don't want to give the card to George W. Bush. It's for America. Not for him."

For America. Not for him. Here was something to be proud of. She had already learned on her own--and she wasn't taught this--that there is a difference between America and the person in charge of America. Many scoundrels who wave the flag of patriotism try to deny this distinction. In recent days, I've noticed that more and more Bush-backers have accused critics of Bush's handling of the war of undermining the national interest--that is, being unpatriotic--and, worse, undercutting the troops in Iraq. But speaking the truth about Bush's misguided war is in the national interest. Had the patriots of the antiwar movement of the 1960s won the day in 1968, 25,000 or so Americans (and untold numbers of Vietnamese) would not have lost their lives in the subsequent six years of fighting that accomplished absolutely nothing. If a citizen believes that Bush is misleading the nation (or "disassembling") on the war, how can it not be that citizen's duty to point this out and agitate accordingly?

But back to my daughter's dilemma. She had already concluded that Bush was not a worthy recipient of her card. But, she figured, there had to be somebody in Takoma Park who was also somehow in charge of America, who could accept this card on behalf of the nation.

"That would be the mayor," I said.

"She's in charge of America for Takoma Park?" she asked.

"Close enough," I said.

"How can we get it to her?" she asked.

"She'll probably be at the Fourth of July parade," I answered. "We could give it to her there."

"Are they going to throw candy to the children again at this parade like last year?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said.

"Then let's give it to her at the parade," she said.

"Good idea," I replied.

So on Monday, as we watch the bands and floats--as well as the push-lawnmower brigade and a delegation of students and teachers from a local dog-obedience school--pass by on the main street of our small town, my daughters and I will be waving small, plastic American flags (probably made in China), holding a home-concocted birthday card for America, and looking for the mayor. Happy Fourth of July to you.

Posted by David Corn at 10:27 AM

July 01, 2005

O'Connor Resigns; Ugliness To Come; Bush Foes Ought To Think about the E-word

I was not happy to see the flood of mails with similar subject headings: "O'Connor resigning." From a parochial point of view, a titanic fight over a Supreme Court nomination can really ruin a summer in Washington. (Actually, despite the heat, summers in Washington tend to be quite pleasant; the town slows down, Congress is gone for a good spell, traffic eases, there's plenty of parking, and I can catch up on a year's worth of filing.) But, worse, the expected war over the nominee (whoever it is) will be ugly. It should be ugly. There will be much at stake. But ugly is ugly--and the Democrats are hardly in a strong position to block George Bush if he makes a not-dumb choice. So the pessimist in me--which is usually, though not always, right when it comes to predicting the success rate (or lack thereof) for the Dems--fears that after all the ugliness transpires Bush will win out, and the court will veer further to the right. The operative question may be, How much?

Let's be clear about this. During the nuclear option fight, the Democrats were not able to court enough Republicans to prevent Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from killing the judicial filibuster in an up-or-down vote. It took a tilted-to-the-GOP compromise fashioned by so-called moderates in both parties to thwart (perhaps temporarily) Frist's desire to eliminate the judicial filibuster. Any fight over a Bush nominee to the Supreme Court will eventually have to come down to a with-us-or-against-us vote. That means if Bush nominates someone who the Democrats believe warrants a filibuster, there will be a replay of the nuclear option drama. Only this time it will be more dramatic. The Democrats will threaten a filibuster; Frist will threaten the nuclear option. And those same six or so Republicans whom the Democrats tried (and failed) to win over as a bloc on the nuclear option fight will again be the targets for the Democratic leaders. But what would make these GOPers side with the Democrats this time, especially when the stakes are higher? And, unlike the last episode, these Republicans will not be saved by the bell of a compromise that kicks the can down the road (to mix metaphors). There will be more pressure on them to stick to the party line when a Supreme Court nomination is at stake.

The above analysis is based on the assumption--or presumption--that Bush will nominate a jurist whom the Democrats can sell as filibuster-material. If he does not do so, then what will the Dems and the progressive outfits do?

Of course, they will correctly note that replacing O'Connor--often the key swing vote on the court on crucial matters (such as abortion rights)--will change the ideological composition of the Supreme Court. Bush's social conservative supporters have been demanding he select someone who will clearly shove the court toward the right. Much has been written and pundited on this topic. Will he go with proven conservative jurist and please the Dobson crowd? Or will he reward Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Bush loyalist who conservatives suspect (for whatever paranoid reasons they have) might turn out to be another David Souter? Is Bush planning a surprise for everyone? (Orrin Hatch?)

In any event, the Democrats and progressives may be placed in the position of having to oppose an experienced jurist whose opinions they do not like on policy grounds. They should fight such a nominee vigorously, and they should be upfront about their reasons. Rather than label that person an "extremist," they ought to argue that the Senate ought not to confirm a nominee who is likely to vote to curtail or eliminate abortion rights, to favor corporate polluters over consumers, or to restrict the federal government's ability to advance social justice. The "extremist" strategy, I fear, is worn out and ineffective. It worked for Robert Bork, thanks to his too-honest writings and wacky beard. But most of the far-right jurists on the list of potential nominees will be able to appear before a Senate committee, not drool, answer questions about their opinions politely, and come across as intelligent and somewhat reasonable people, not extremist monsters plotting to lead America into a Time of Darkness. So progressives, beware, the E-word is probably not your friend.

And there's this to think of: Bush will probably get another Supreme Court pick soon. Perhaps real soon. Chief Justice William Rehnquist may not be there much longer--by choice or not. One smart move for Bush would be to nominate for the O'Connor vacancy a decidedly conservative person but one who is well-equipped to beat back the expected charges of extremism from the left and who goes on to be confirmed. (Does Gonzales fit this bill?) Next--for the Rehnquist opening--Bush could nominate a true conservative whacko, a Bork II. The Democrats and the left would have a tough time redeploying the extremist attack, even if it were warranted this time. Once more--from a political perspective--Democrats and progressives ought to think carefully about how and when they use the charge of extremism. They can only cry "wolf" so many times--even if Bush unleashes a pack of wolverines.

Will any good come out of this? It may be entertaining, for a while, to watch the tussle that ensues between social conservatives and the White House if Bush does not nominate a person to their liking. That would certainly have reverberations for the Republican presidential race, perhaps causing a more divisive primary contest. Then again, if Bush does decide to elevate Gonzales--a fellow who has protected Bush's legal backside numerous times during Bush's political career--and nominate the first Hispanic-American to the highest court of the land, the Democrats might find it more difficult to stop the drift of Hispanic-American voters toward the GOP.

All in all, this battle is Bush's to lose. A clever move or two on his part could place the Democrats and progressives at serious political disadvantage. They must now devise a damn smart and sophisticated campaign of opposition designed for more than the vacancy of the moment.

Posted by David Corn at 11:45 AM