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#1
07-12-2005, 09:54 PM
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Rove: Dodging another bullet?
Rove may face political fallout, but his legal status remains unclear
By Shannon McCaffrey Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Karl Rove talked. But did President Bush's deputy chief of staff break the law when he told a reporter that an administration critic's wife worked for the CIA? Legal experts said the answer to that question was far from clear. It appears to hinge on whether Rove knew that Valerie Plame was a covert officer and blew her cover anyway. It's a tough legal hurdle for Patrick Fitzgerald, the special federal prosecutor who has been investigating the Plame case for more than 18 months. "He has to find somebody who would say Rove knew that she was covert, that he knew that the government was making an effort to hide her identity," said Philip Heymann, former deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. "It would appear he is working very, very hard to prove that, because without it you don't have a crime." Enacted in 1982 to protect undercover CIA officials, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime to intentionally identify a covert agent knowing that the U.S. government is taking "affirmative measures to conceal" their relationship with the United States. The odyssey of the Plame case began with a trip to Africa in 2002 by her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons. Wilson discounted the claims, setting a bizarre chain of events in motion: Plame's unmasking as a spy, a reporter being thrown in jail and a special prosecutor setting his sights on the White House. The revelations about Rove came about after Time magazine turned over notes and e-mails from reporter Matthew Cooper earlier this month when Fitzgerald threatened to jail the journalist. Cooper told his boss he had a telephone conversation with Rove five days after an article by Wilson, which criticized the Bush administration as manipulating intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, was published on The New York Times' op-ed page on July 6, 2003. According to Cooper's e-mails, obtained by Newsweek, Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife, whom he didn't name, "apparently works" for the CIA. The e-mails were turned over to federal investigators after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Both were seeking to keep their sources secret. Miller was sent to prison last week for refusing to reveal her sources to prosecutors. Cooper will testify before a grand jury after Rove waived confidentiality. Plame's name first surfaced in a July 2003 column by Robert Novak, who has refused to comment on whether he's cooperating with authorities. Rove's attorney Robert Luskin didn't return a phone call Tuesday but has said Rove didn't reveal Plame's name and that Fitzgerald has told the White House aide he isn't the target of the probe. Fitzgerald's investigators also have questioned Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney; Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby; and former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who's now the attorney general. More than a year ago, President Bush pledged to fire the person who leaked Plame's identity. On Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Rove continued to have Bush's confidence. Several prominent Democrats have suggested that Rove, the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, be fired. Even though Rove apparently didn't use Plame's name in talking to Cooper, legal experts said the criminal case against him wouldn't be hindered, because he used enough information about her to make it clear whom he was talking about. Former federal prosecutor Lawrence Barcella said one large problem for Fitzgerald was that the statute making it a crime to identify a covert operative was virtually untested. "There are 10,000 opinions out there on how to interpret the mail fraud statute but this (the leak case) is exceedingly complex and all new," Barcella said. "Understandable care is being taken to make sure you're not stretching the statute beyond what was intended." Victoria Toensing, a former assistant attorney general who helped write the law, said in an opinion piece in The Washington Post in January that the law was being twisted beyond what was intended. She said Congress had intentionally adopted "a dauntingly high standard" for prosecutors to charge leakers and that Fitzgerald's case didn't appear to make the grade. Former prosecutors speculate that Fitzgerald also could be putting together a conspiracy case. Or, if he's unable to prove the leak case against Rove or others in the White House, he could be laying the groundwork for perjury charges, depending on what those officials have told the grand jury. That would echo Washington's other scandals - Watergate during the Nixon administration and the Monica Lewinsky affair of Clinton's tenure - in which the cover-up ends up being the problem. But with the grand jury's dealings cloaked in secret and Fitzgerald not talking, Rove is facing a trial of public opinion. "At this point his problem seems to be more political than criminal," former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said. here's the link if he gets away with this, we all need to form millitias........(sp?) 
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#2
07-12-2005, 10:01 PM
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#4
07-12-2005, 10:06 PM
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#5
07-12-2005, 10:11 PM
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Did you see the press HAMMER Scott McClellan yesterday and today? It was WONDERFUL! Sounds like the prosecuter may be going after Rove for obstruction. Randi Rhodes was brilliant today regarding all of this.
I'm SO tired of being lied to on a daily basis by this administration, when will the other 50% of this country wake up to this group of criminal thugs? I can deal with idealogical differences... it's the LYING that makes my head feel like it's going to explode!!
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#6
07-12-2005, 10:23 PM
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#7
07-12-2005, 11:07 PM
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and this is truly the first time in a long time that I have seen the press put their balls on and ask the hard questions. This thing ain't going away. Conspiracy, obstruction, perjury it all works for me. Actually the one who is really obstucting is Miller.
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#8
07-12-2005, 11:17 PM
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__________________
"Although the arrogance of fame lingers like a thick cloud around the famous, the sun always seems to shine for Stevie." -- Richard Dashut, 2014
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#9
07-13-2005, 10:28 AM
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 The f*cking White House says they are behind Rove or whatever. I'm like, wha? And the republican talking point is that the dems are playing politics again. Wha?  I guess it doesn't matter that the story that Rove leaked Plame's name is true. It's the most messed up thing, this administration is worse than Nixon's.
__________________
~Suzy
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#10
07-13-2005, 10:32 AM
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 Lies lies lies. AND MORE EFFIN LIES.
__________________
~Suzy
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#11
07-13-2005, 11:02 AM
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#12
07-13-2005, 11:15 AM
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#13
07-13-2005, 12:49 PM
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It’s Confirmed: Karl Rove Exposed a CIA Operative
TrueMajority sent me this, they wrote a great blurb about what happened in plain English which is refreshing.
It’s Confirmed: Karl Rove Exposed a CIA Operative White House Credibility Gap Captured on Video ... http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/rove_must_go Here’s what we know: An ongoing investigation into this scandal eventually will conclude whether Rove should go to prison or was just inept. In the meantime, the Commander-in-Chief has an obligation to protect our nation and our troops by making sure Rove doesn’t get another chance to leak something that, next time, may cost someone more than their career. In his State of the Union message in 2003, George Bush said that Saddam Hussein was trying to get uranium from Niger. In the following weeks, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson disclosed that he was sent to Niger by the CIA to look into this and had reported to top administration officials months before the speech that there was no Niger-Iraq uranium connection. In a discussion with a reporter at Time magazine about Wilson’s disclosure, Rove said that Wilson’s wife was the CIA operative who sent him to Niger. Three days later columnist Robert Novak published the fact that Plame was a CIA operative thus ending her career, possibly endangering her life and ending an important operation. Rove may have been punishing Wilson for embarrassing the President. If Rove exposed Wilson’s wife, a covert member of the CIA’s weapons of mass destruction team, it would be an act of treason. Rove’s lawyer counters that he didn’t know she was a covert operative and didn’t mean any harm. Either way his disclosure was dangerous and President Bush needs to pull his security clearance and get him out of the White House right now. [1] For Newsweek's confirmation of Rove’s disclosure, see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek [2] See the AP’s analysis of this breaking scandal, “Newsview: CIA Leak Probe Focuses on Rove”, July 13, 2005. Click here: http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topsto...ist=topstories When you go to this site you can send a fax to your legislators through the Web page. You can also see the Puffy McMoonface video where McLellan lies his ass off. This org was started by Ben of Ben and Jerry's and I signed up for their information when I saw his "Pants on Fire" Bush float in Boston. What I like about them is, once you sign up, if they send you an alert you just hit reply and send in your email and they do the rest.
__________________
~Suzy
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#14
07-13-2005, 01:21 PM
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thanks for posting that action link, Ive just signed the petition.
Lessee: we've got the gas, we've got the entree, all we need now is.... a MATCH! Rove BBQ! and for desert: Bush Banana splits (obvious reference to the "monkey pants" jokes)  here's the site that the pic came from
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