The scandal swirling around Karl Rove continues to widen. As the GOP continues to mount a "defense" for Rove, it becomes apparent that without Rove to write the talking points, the party is in deep trouble. Each new Republican talking point seems to either strengthen the argument that Rove is intricately involved in this crime or implicate Rove and other Republicans for either conspiracy, perjury, or obstruction of justice.
Here is a brief summary of the things we know.
In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was flailing about for a reason that would be acceptable to the American people. The idea that Iraq had so much WMD that we needed to invade right away was simply a fraud concocted in Texas. So the administration cooked up a scheme to use a forged foreign intelligence report. The forged foreign intelligence report, they believed, provided the public a reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the report was "fragmentary and lacked detail."
Prodded by Dick Cheney, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson came back and reported no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium. For an administration gearing up for war as a first resort regardless of the reason, this was simply unacceptable.
Ignoring Wilson's report, Cheney warned about Iraq's nuclear capabilities all over TV. The president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address even went as far to pronounce: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Wilson declined to maintain his silence and publicly discredited the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed piece.
Shortly thereafter, Karl Rove and the GOP initiated a smear campaign against Ambassador Wilson and were quoted as saying "His wife is fair game." Then, columnist Robert Novak reported that he had been told by two administration officials that the Niger trip had been suggested by Wilson's wife, Plame.
It is a federal felony to knowingly identify an active undercover CIA officer and a federal grand jury is investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration unlawfully leaked the identity to the news media. Although the White House has previously said Rove was not involved in the episode, a Time magazine e-mail shows a conversation between Cooper and Rove took place a few days before Novak's column appeared in July 2003. Cooper says Rove raised questions about Wilson's credibility. Rove has maintained he neither knew Plame's name nor leaked it to anyone.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - roger painter
It looks like Novak got the information from one source and Rove's role was to provide the nudge (or excuse) to get it to press...The big question may be: Did Novak out another source in his testimony?....If so this guy is facing major prison time and he's gonna sing like a canary.
2 - Maynard
John Dean, former Nixon staffer, attorney and whistleblower, wrote this article today.
The normnally cited Law ain't the only thing to worry about. It seems the Bush administration's justice department has already showed how to legally deal with leaks.
Worth a read, IMO.
3 - billy
"Rove's role was to provide the nudge (or excuse) to get it to press"
I agree that this was his most likely motive. I think the "his wife is fair game" quote is as close to a smoking gun on motive as you can get.
So definitely the original leaker is some other republican. Rove either perjured himself or was a second leak (regardless of how he found out) or both.
4 - GPW
Balletshooz gets my nomination for the most idiotic post on BlogCritics today. There are so many incorrect points in this post that it's difficult to know where to begin. But I'll try.
Consider this gem: "The WMD theme was simply a fraud concocted in Texas, so the administration cooked up a scheme to use a forged foreign intelligence report to provide a reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger." Balletshooz must not be aware of the voluminous evidence collected through the 1990s that convinced international observers that Iraq possessed or was attempting to possess WMDs. In the event, it turns out that Bush was wrong. But if WMDs were a fraud, then the fraud got cooked up much earlier than Bush and somewhere other than Texas. In fact, if it got cooked up, it got cooked up by the Clinton administration, whose intelligence suggested Iraq had WMD. For a mainstream analysis of the intelligence about Iraqi WMD before the invasion of Iraq, see The Threatening Storm by Kenneth Pollack, who served in the Clinton National Security Council. Regarding the "forged foreign intelligence report," you seem to forget that Bush attributed the specific intelligence to the British who, by the way, have not retracted their contention that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in Niger. There was a forged foreign intelligence report, but the British did not rely on it, nor did Bush cite it in his State of the Union address.
Then there's this: "A second GOP strategy is to claim "technically" no crime was committed." Actually, amicus curiae briefs filed by 36 mainstream press organizations (including the AP, New York Times, Washington Post, etc.) contend that there is "no underlying crime" in the Plame affair, so "technically," the claim is not a "GOP strategy." Rather, it's a straightforward legal argument, and it's undoubtedly correct.
And then there's this: "The number of blown contacts overseas and the number of US lives that will be lost because of this leak is hard to determine, but certainly his actions have endangered the country, the troops, and spies in the field." You're kidding me, right? Valerie Plame was not an undercover agent at the time of the supposed "leak." According to Joseph Wilson, he and his wife had returned from jobs abroad in 1997. And Valerie Plame had a DESK JOB at the CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. In fact, her desk job had to do with tracking weapons of mass destruction. This seems to have been something of an open secret in the Washington community. If anyone endangered American lives by exposing Plame's identity, it was Plame herself when she drove to work at Langley every morning.
So, if no crime has been committed, what's the big deal?
5 - Maynard
Read the article I put the link up for, GPW. According to legal precedent set by the Bush Justice department, there is plenty of crime for leaking. And that's above and beyond the Law that everybody has been talking about when it comes to "outing" an agent. Read, learn, decide for yourself.
6 - billy
"So, if no crime has been committed, what's the big deal?"
I guess you must know something the prosecutors and grand jury dont know. if so, you should let them know.
lets not forget there are already people in jail in this case and a grand jury has been working on it for two years.
i guess they are just playing chess and reading high times in the grand jury room. the reporter in jail isnt there because there is a crime, she just felt like going there for a while. right?
7 - GPW
And one other thing. Balletshooz writes: "Shortly thereafter, Karl Rove and the GOP initiated a smear campaign against ambassador Wilson...." It's hard to smear a liar, and Wilson has been caught up in a fair share of distortions of the truth. In the words of a recent Wall Street Journal editorial:
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The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.
But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.
The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.
About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."
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So, once again, where's the scandal?
8 - Dave
GPW: But, but, but...
ChimpyMcBusHitleRoveHalliburton stole the election or something!
9 - billy
typical republican. undermining the war on terror is no scandal to you because the gop is more important to you than national security.
10 - billy
"It's hard to smear a liar"
no, in fact, its quite easy to smear a liar. its hard to smear someone who told the truth.
since there was no nuclear program in iraq, wilson obviously told the truth on the matter in question and rove and bush lied.
is it really relevant wilson "lied" about whether his hair was dyed or the size of his waistline?
he told the truth about the fact in dispute. unless again, you know about some nuclear program in iraq that the entire world doent know about.
11 - GPW
Actually, Billy, Judith Miller is in jail for contempt of court because she won't reveal her sources to the grand jury. That's the only "crime" we know for sure has been committed. My further contention that there is no underlying crime involved is based on what I've read about the case so far, as well as my knowledge of what the press thinks about the issue, based on its amicus curiae briefs. If the special prosecutor has evidence that leads the grand jury to indict, that's his prerogative. Based on what we know so far, there's simply no basis for believing any indictment is forthcoming.
12 - GPW
Now Billy gets my nomination for most idiotic post on BlogCritics today (#9) Let's parse what Billy wrote:
"typical republican. undermining the war on terror is no scandal to you because the gop is more important to you than national security."
1. I don't think I identified myself as a Republican anywhere. Billy assumes it.
2. "Typical Republican" is a hasty generalization, and anyway, Billy hasn't provided one shred of evidence that I value the GOP over national security. He assumes it.
3. And then there's the little fact that Billy hasn't provided any evidence that the public identification of Valerie Plame as a CIA employee has undermined the war on terror, so his conclusion assumes facts not in evidence.
Billy, you see, assumes quite a lot. Two can play that game.
1. I assume that Billy is a Democrat or a leftist of some stripe or at best a Hagelite Republican.
2. I assume that Billy would like to undermine the war on terror by (a) bringing the troops home from Iraq now since (b) he failed to stop the war in the first place.
3. And I assume that Billy wouldn't give a fig about the Plame kerfuffle if it didn't give him and his friends yet one more opportunity to bash Bush.
Maybe I'm wrong about Billy. But I'm pretty sure I'm right about Karl.
13 - GPW
Read the Lord Butler quote (#7) once again, slowly: ""We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded." Everyone knew that Iraq did not have a nuclear program, thanks to the Israeli bombing run on the Osirak reactor in 1987. But many believed that Iraq was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear program by, inter alia, seeking uranium in Niger. British intelligence still does.
14 - billy
"But many believed that Iraq was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear program by, inter alia, seeking uranium in Niger. British intelligence still does."
Yes, and that is why Bush was forced to retract that statement.
15 - Dave
Billy, Wilson's lies were exposed by none other than the bipartisan 911 Commission.
Let's wait and see how this "scandal" turns out. To me it reeks of something mostly manufactured by the media.
Meanwhile, you may want to listen to this about Saddam's nuclear program and his ties to 911.
As for your concern about "scandals" that are supposedly undermining the WOT, which is worse,
16 - billy
no one disputes that saddam HAD wmd. like 20 years ago. we know because the US gave them to him. Remember your hero Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand right before he handed them WMD.
What the facts now show is Saddam didnt HAVE WMD anymore. The sanctions and inspections obviously worked and there was no reason for war.
Why do Bush loyalists have such a problem telling the truth?
17 - GPW
A lot of usâ€"British intelligence especiallyâ€"were not happy when Bush retracted the famous 16 words of his State of the Union address. As a statement of fact, they are, in fact, true. That was my point: British intelligence stands by its conclusion that Hussein's Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from Niger. As for your "20 years ago" crack, if I remember correctly, Saddam still had WMD in the mid-1990s, which we discovered only because his sons-in-law defected to Jordan and leaked information to UN weapons investigators. As for the canard that the US armed Saddam Hussein, you might want to read Kenneth Timmerman's The French Betrayal of America, which points out that the French were the primary arms suppliers to Hussein's Baathist government, not the US. True, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, we supported Saddam's Iraq against Khomeini's Iran, but that hardly amounts to a full-hearted endorsement of the man or his policies. It was a lesser-of-two evils choice in foreign policy. We now know that "sanctions and inspections" helped rid Iraq of WMDs, but we didn't know that for sure at the time of the war. Plus, Saddam's unwillingness to cooperate with UNMOVIC inspectors increased suspicions about what was going on. As for the "no reason for war" if Iraq didn't have WMDs, I'd say that's a pretty big non sequitur. Bosnia, Serbia, and the former countries of Yugoslavia didn't possess WMDs, but we "went to war" there anyway. Rwanda didn't possess WMDs, but we should've gone to war there. Somalia didn't possess WMDs, but we sent in troops. And Afghanistan didn't possess WMDs, but we went to war anyway. The possession and use of WMDs is a reason for going to war, but not the only one. And there were plenty of other reasons for going to war in Iraq, including his financial support of Palestinian terrorism, violation of any number of UN Security Council Resolutions, near-genocidal treatment of Shiites and Kurds, sheltering of known terrorists such as Abu Nidal, etc. The Bush cited all these reasons in the leadup to the war in Iraq, but focused especially on WMDsâ€"like the Clinton administration hadâ€"because this was an area where Saddam was a known user of WMDs and was widely believed to be ready to use them again.
18 - Randy Kirk
I am shocked that this is still being discussed here. Even the MSM has concluded that Rove did not break any laws. In fact, I'm having a hard time even seeing an ethical lapse if its true that Plames friends and neighbors new she worked for CIA, and that Wilson even said she was NOT covert at the time of Novak's piece.
I've figured out why the Dem's hate Bush so much. Every time they think they have something on him, Bush just quietly waits for them to impale themselves on their wrong and wrongheaded info and speculation. Then the truth comes out and they look like .....
This has to be about the 5th time that has happened.
19 - John Bambenek
Another product of public education.
Even at the worst possible scenario being sent around by the left, it isn't treason, not even close.
20 - billy
randy, why are you so shocked?
i havent seen anyone say this isnt a crime, besides hard-core right wingers and their attorneys.
i definitely havent seen anyone say this isnt an ethical lapse.
since you are so shocked why dont you think for a moment why people are sitting in jail and there is a grand jury.
is this a big democratic conspiracy to get rove? are the grand jury and prosecutors now an arm of the DNC as well?
21 - GPW
I love Billy's question, "Why do Bush loyalists have such a problem telling the truth?" Umm, Billy, why do you have such a hard time responding to facts and arguments?
22 - billy
because you havent made any that are credible!
23 - GPW
I was unaware that the 36 representatives of the press who filed amicus curiae briefs arguing that there is "no underlying crime" in the revelation of Valerie Plame's identity were "hard-core right wingers and their attorneys."
I find it hard to believe that you would promote the honor of Joseph Wilson, who leaked his report about Niger to the press, when you criticize the alleged Rove leak as an "ethical lapse." Are lapses ethical leaks for everyone, including Wilson, or only for Republicans, meaning Rove?
There are not "people" sitting in jail, only a personâ€"Judith Millerâ€"and for contempt of court, not for the leak of Plame's identity.
Yes, there is a big Democratic conspiracy to get Rove. Or rather, it's not a conspiracy; it's an out-in-the-open partisan attack. No, the grand jury and prosecutors are not an arm of the DNC. Nor are the grand jury and special prosecutors necessarily a sign of Rove's guilt, or anyone else's. Prosecutors routinely make use of grand juries to conduct investigations. Until or unless there is an indictment, we should not assume that anyone is guilty in this matter.
Or have you and your Bush-hating friends given up on the principle of innocent until proven guilty?
24 - Randy Kirk
New York Times started it. LA Times now agrees. You can't out someone who is not covert. end of story.
25 - GPW
Me arguing with Billy is so unfair. It's like Nolan Ryan pitching fastballs to a Little Leaguer. I wonder if Nolan enjoyed striking out ten-year olds as much as I enjoy the drubbing I'm giving to Billy.