Might Karl Rove go to jail?

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Or have you already tried and convicted him based on what you've read in the papers or seen on the news?

I say again, from what we know of Cooper's and Novak's statements, there is not a shadow of doubt that Rove is guilty of the felony of revealing classified information.

There is possibly evidence which has not been made public which exonerates him, but I doubt it. As always, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong

 

[FriendlyFire]

Tell you what, when the special prosecutor charges Karl Rove with something, I'll come back and admit I was wrong. I just don't see it happening. I think it's a non-issue. I honestly believe this is nothing more than another witch-hunt in a long line of failed attempts (Rumsfeld, Chaney, DeLay, Rove). They had their shot at Bush but he won the election, so they go after everyone else. Not entirely blaming the Democrats, though, because the Republicans did the same thing to Clinton.
.

I agree. It is a non-issue Just like
UN is a non-issue
WMD is a non-issue
8.5Billion in missing funds is a non-issue
Massive debt is a non-issue
Globle warming is a non-issue
Failure to plan Iraq is a non-issue

 

[gorn]

Actually, I think most of those are pretty big issues, particularly compared to Karl Rove. Which is why I say Karl Rove is a non-issue. I wish even a fraction of the zeal going into this nonsense about Rove were directed at the money-for-food scandal in the UN. I'd like to see the same zeal directed at winning the war in Iraq. I'd like to see the same zeal in preventing Iran from getting nukes, or getting rid of North Korea's nukes (if they actually have them). I'm not sure which debt you're referring to, but if it's on the part of the US, I'm not particularly concerned. People have *****ed about the national debt as long as I can remember, and the US consistently has the mightiest economy BY FAR in the world. My dad had a good job and low taxes under Reagan, I've got a good job and low taxes under Bush. Kinda nice. Global warming is an issue which troubles me, and I'd like to see the current administration do more. I'd CERTAINLY rather see them spend more time on it than on this petty Karl Rove situation. You and a lot of other people shouting so loudly (and, I might add, selectively) clearly feel very differently, and you're entitled to, but for me it remains a non-issue. If he actually gets charged with something, well then obviously I was wrong. Until that time, though, there are other real issues out there that conern me more.

 

[wilbill]

Well, those who predicted the Rove/CIA leak debacle would be replaced as the big story by the appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice were right. For exactly one day. Then the second group of London bombings took over. But the Rove story didn’t really go away. During the last few days there have been some startling developments. It would appear that nearly everyone associated with the case except the special prosecutor himself, the judge, and most of the principals have been talking non-stop to every reporter who took the time to question them.

Heard it from a friend who
Heard it from a friend who
Heard it from another you been messin' around.
- “Take It On The Run” by REO Speedwagon. Theme of “Karl Rove Puppet Theater” feature on Countdown With Keith Olberman on MSNBC.

Yesterday Bloomberg News reported that a key memo, who had access to it, and when they had access is of central conern to the grand jury investigation.

“Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leaking of a Central Intelligence Agency agent's name is now focused on how Rove, one of President George W. Bush's closest advisers, and other administration officials dealt with a key fact in an equally key memo.
The memo, prepared by the State Department on July 7, 2003, informed top administration officials that the wife of ex-diplomat and Bush critic Joseph Wilson was a CIA agent. Seven days later, Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was publicly identified as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
On the same day the memo was prepared, White House phone logs show Novak placed a call to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, according to lawyers familiar with the case and a witness who has testified before the grand jury. Those people say it is not clear whether Fleischer returned the call, and Fleischer has refused to comment.”

The presence of the memo on an Air Force One flight seems to draw Fleischer into the middle of the investigation.

“The Novak call may loom large in the investigation because Fleischer was among a group of administration officials who left Washington later that day on a presidential trip to Africa. On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who was also on the trip.
In addition, on July 8, 2003, the day after the memo was sent, Novak discussed Wilson and his wife with Rove, who had remained in Washington, according to the New York Times.
The Times quoted an attorney familiar with Fitzgerald's probe as saying that when Novak mentioned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, Rove said, ``Yeah, I've heard that too.''”

It's worthy of note that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the memo was indeed “top secret.”

"A key department memo discussing Joseph Wilson’s Niger trip was classified “Top Secret,” and the passage about his wife’s CIA role was specially marked “S/NF” — not to be shared with any foreign intelligence agencies."

This would cast serious doubt on the Republican talking point that Plame was not considered an undercover agent. At the very least her identity was not to be made public.

It would appear that the Rove/CIA leak investigation is moving toward proving once again the Washington adage that “the coverup is worse than the crime.” According to The Washington Post

White House chief political strategist Karl Rove reportedly told the grand jury that he first learned of Valerie Plame's identity from columnist Robert Novak -- but Novak's version of the story is that Rove already knew about her when the two spoke.

· Rove didn't mention his conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to investigators at first and then said it was primarily about welfare reform. But Cooper has testified that the topic of welfare reform didn't came up.

· Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby apparently told prosecutors he first heard about Plame from NBC's Tim Russert, but Russert has testified that he neither offered nor received information about Plame in his conversation with Libby.

· And former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer apparently told prosecutors that he never saw a classified State Department memo that disclosed Plame's identity, but another former official reportedly saw him perusing it on Air Force One.

But that’s not to minimize the possible seriousness of the actual leak of Valerie Wilson’s name.

““This points toward a potential problem for Rove in the direction of Fitzgerald's investigation. It now has expanded beyond its original mission -- to determine if the 1982 law was violated -- to encompass whether any White House officials, including Rove and Fleischer, have testified falsely about the case or obstructed justice by trying to cover up their involvement in the leak, according to people familiar with the case who cite a pattern of questioning by Fitzgerald.
In addition, there is strong reason to believe that Fitzgerald is hunting big game, according to several legal experts. They say that is demonstrated by the fact that he has done something that no federal prosecutor has done in 30 years: send a reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, to jail for refusing to divulge with whom she spoke about the Wilson-Plame case.
``You wouldn't expect him to go to these lengths unless he thought he had something serious to look at,'' said Randall Eliason, the former chief of the public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington. ``You don't compel reporters to testify or jail reporters unless you have a pretty good reason.''
That ``pretty good reason'' was highlighted by U.S. Appellate Judge David Tatel in his Feb. 15 opinion concurring that Miller and Cooper must testify in the Plame case.
Tatel noted that the vast majority of the states, as well as the Justice Department, ``would require us to protect reporters' sources as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less harmful or more newsworthy.'' “

 

[zulu9812]

That does sound like a collective political decision was made to leak the woman's identity

 

[wilbill]

You'd really be making a mistake to let yourself think the Republicans have reached their limit when if comes to cynicism and audacity. With her former colleagues chastising them for supporting those who outed Valerie Wilson and the fact that her identity was to be kept secret no longer in doubt, the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee have now decided to prove that she really wasn't an undercover operative. Congress is pointedly not investigating the leaking of classified information from the White House. Instead they're going to spend their time second guessing (not for the first time in recent years) the CIA.

Senate Panel to Examine Use of Cover by U.S. Spies

The New York Times

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: July 25, 2005
The Senate Intelligence Committee will conduct hearings on American spy agencies' use of cover to protect the identities of intelligence officers, the committee chairman said on Sunday.

The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said on the CNN program "Late Edition" that the committee was "going to go into quite a series of hearings in regard to cover." The practice of intelligence cover has come under scrutiny during the investigation of the disclosure of the C.I.A. employment of Valerie Wilson, who had worked under cover for the agency for 18 years before being publicly identified as a C.I.A. operative in 2003.

"You cannot be in the business of outing somebody" working under cover, Mr. Roberts said. He said, however, that there were questions about the depth of Ms. Wilson's cover, because after spending many years overseas, she had been based at the Virginia headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency at least since 1997.

"I must say from a common-sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the C.I.A. headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert," he said. "But generically speaking, it is a very serious matter."

 

[eyrei]

Just a bit of an update:

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei

Updated: 1:09 a.m. ET July 27, 2005
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

Link to entire article.

It seems Rove is hardly the only suspect here (I just don't buy his lawyers assertion that he isn't). I wonder how many White House officials were involved in this episode...

 

[wilbill]

It seems Rove is hardly the only suspect here (I just don't buy his lawyers assertion that he isn't). I wonder how many White House officials were involved in this episode...

One of the more interesting items in the article actually leads me to believe that Robert Novak, "outer-in-chief", is an even bigger sleeze than I thought. It appears he was warned not once, but twice that Valerie (Plame) Wilson's name should not be used in his story.

[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 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.

Also, there's now an answer to the repeated claim by Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, that he's been assured that his client "is not a target" of the investigation. Lawrence O'Donnell clears that up in HuffingtonPost.com (He rhetorically asks Luskin, "if your client isn't a "target", is he a "subject" of the investigation?

Here is the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual's definition of target: “A ‘target’ is a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant.”
Getting an assurance that you are not a target is pretty easy until the prosecutor really has the goods on you -- “a putative defendant.”

Here’s the Manual’s definition of subject: “A ‘subject’ of an investigation is a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation.” Subjects frequently have their status upgraded to target when prosecutors get new information, like this one did on Friday.

Subject is a scary status. Prosecutors have to attach an "Advice of Rights" form to all grand jury subpoenas served on any "target" or "subject" of an investigation. Here’s what the form says:


* You may refuse to answer any question if a truthful answer to the question would tend to incriminate you. * Anything that you do say may be used against you by the grand jury or in a subsequent legal proceeding.

* If you have retained counsel, the grand jury will permit you a reasonable opportunity to step outside the grand jury room to consult with counsel if you so desire.

Mere witnesses don’t get those forms attached to their subpoenas. Was it attached to any one of the three subpoenas Rove got from the grand jury? Three trips to the same grand jury is frequently an indicator of subject status

.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

The LA Times says "it's a good bet" that perjury has already been committed and that the prosecutor has now collated evidence to back that charge up.

 

[gorn]

The LA Times? If they printed something PRO-Bush, I'd be inclined to believe it MUST be true -- just as if Fox News printed something ANTI-Bush, you know it's got to be cold hard undeniable fact. The LA Times pronouncing a member of the Bush team as already 100% guilty? Sorry, I don't buy it. When the prosecuter announces real charges, then I'll believe it.

 

[eyrei]

The LA Times? If they printed something PRO-Bush, I'd be inclined to believe it MUST be true -- just as if Fox News printed something ANTI-Bush, you know it's got to be cold hard undeniable fact. The LA Times pronouncing a member of the Bush team as already 100% guilty? Sorry, I don't buy it. When the prosecuter announces real charges, then I'll believe it.

Maybe not Rove, but someone is most likely going to be charged. Had there been lack of evidence of some crime, the grand jury probably would have been disbanded early.

That said, some of us may hope that Rove goes to jail and still be able to look at the situation with some semblance of objectivity...

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Actually, "it's a good bet" is the LAT's version of "allegedly". It's a bit of the ol' C.Y.A. and is near meaningless.

Anyone who's been following this story knows that Karl Rove lied to FBI investigators about what he told Cooper and Novak (unless both Cooper and Novak are lying, I guess). Therefore Rove is almost surely guilty of perjury. The only element of uncertainty is whether the prosecutor has botched the evidence-collecting in such a way that there remains the fabled "shadow of doubt." But this prosecutor shows all signs of being very competent.

If they printed something PRO-Bush, I'd be inclined to believe it MUST be true -- just as if Fox News printed something ANTI-Bush, you know it's got to be cold hard undeniable fact.

You've forgotten one crucial aspect, though. In this case, the facts have a liberal bias

 

[wilbill]

Tangential to the leaking of Valerie Wilson's name in an effort to discredit her husband is the State Department's internal investigation looking into how American intelligence agencies came to rely on fabricated reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. Those reports, of course, led to Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger which led to.... well, eventually it all led to a Grand Jury investigation.

Earlier it had been reported that John Bolton, controversial nominee to be UN Ambassador had been questioned in that probe, conducted by the State Department's Inspector General. This afternoon the State Department stated that Bolton had not been questioned. But that statement is now "inoperative", to borrow from the jargon of Watergate.

State Dept Admits Bolton Gave Inaccurate Answers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department reversed itself on Thursday night and acknowledged that President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in.

The acknowledgment came after the State Department had earlier insisted nominee John Bolton's "answer was truthful" when he said he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.

"When Mr. Bolton completed his form during the Senate confirmation process he did not recall being interviewed by the State Department inspector general. Therefore his form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Earlier, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said he had information Bolton was interviewed as part of a State Department-CIA joint investigation on intelligence lapses that led to the Bush administration's pre-Iraq war claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that should have been noted on the questionnaire, for which nominees swear out affidavits stating the information is true and accurate.

"It now appears that Mr. Bolton's answers may not meet that standard," Biden wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The questionnaire asked if Bolton had been questioned or testified in any sort of investigation (listing FBI, Grand Jury, and Inspector General among others) during the last five years. Bolton "forgot" being questioned about false WMD intelligence by the Inspector General.

It's not apparent yet whether this disclosure will put a stop to Bush's likely "recess appointment" of Bolton as early as next week, which would put him in the job for a year before Senate approval would be required for him to keep the job.