posted on July 14, 2005 08:30:16 AM new
Lawyer who wrote law to protect agents says Plame charge doesn't meet standard
Posted: July 14, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Democrat leaders and editorialists accusing Karl Rove of treason for referring to CIA agent Valerie Plame in an off-the-record interview are ignorant of the law, according to the Washington attorney who spearheaded the legislation at the center of the controversy.
Plame's circumstances don't meet several of the criteria spelled out in a 1982 statute designed not only to protect the identity of intelligence agents but to maintain the media's ability to hold government accountable, Victoria Toensing told WorldNetDaily.
Toensing – who drafted the legislation in her role as chief counsel for the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – says the Beltway frenzy surrounding Plame's alleged "outing" as a covert agent is a story arising out of the capital's "silly season."
"The hurricane season started early and so did the August silly stories," Toensing said. "What is it that qualifies as a story here?"
Democrat leaders are accusing Rove of exposing Plame's identity as an act of retribution against her husband Joe Wilson, who returned from a CIA assignment to Niger with a report disputing the administration's suspicion that Iraq wanted to acquire uranium from the African nation.
Toensing, now a private attorney in Washington, says Plame most likely was not a covert agent when Rove referred to her in a 2003 interview with Time magazine's Matt Cooper.
The federal code says the agent must have operated outside the United States within the previous five years. But Plame gave up her role as a covert agent nine years before the Rove interview, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Kristof said the CIA brought Plame back to Washington in 1994 because the agency suspected her undercover security had been compromised by turncoat spy Aldrich Ames.
Moreover, asserts Toensing, for the law to be violated, Rove would have had to intentionally reveal Plame's identity with the knowledge that he was disclosing a covert agent.
Toensing believes Rove's waiver allowing reporters testifying before the grand jury to reveal him as a source – signed more than 18 months ago – shows the Bush strategist did not believe he was violating the law.
Rove, according to Cooper's notes, apparently was trying to warn the reporter not to give credence to Wilson's investigation, because he had no expertise in nuclear weapons and was sent to Africa on the recommendation of his wife. Wilson had claimed he was sent by Vice President Cheney.
Another element necessary for applying the law is that the government had to be taking affirmative measures to conceal the agent's identity.
Toensing says that on the contrary, the CIA gave Plame a desk job in which she publicly went to and from work, allowed her spouse to do a mission in Africa without signing a confidentiality agreement and didn't object to his writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times about his trip.
Columnist Robert Novak, who first published Plame's name, also apparently didn't think it was a big deal, Toensing said, or he would have put it in the first paragraph.
Novak's aim was to expose the incompetence of the CIA, she argued.
"These are the kinds of stories we wanted to still be put out there when we passed the law," she said. "We only wanted to stop the methodical exposing of CIA personnel for the purpose of assassination."
posted on July 14, 2005 01:53:35 PM new
Such words from the founding member of Idiots R us.
Apparently it is beyond your reading comprehension and understand that the author of the statute is stating that Rove didn't violate the rule of the law.
What don't you understand that Plame was no longer working undercover in the field and that Ames had already blown her cover. (That's why she was riding a desk at CIA,
A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
- Bill Cosby
posted on July 14, 2005 02:10:27 PM new
FACT??? You want them to even acknowledge the FACTS of that law as written? You're obviously kidding. They don't ever need facts....if they say this is the way it is....then nothing is going to ever change that. No law's been broken???? That doesn't matter to them. They want him and DeLay HUNG...and right now!!! Even IF they haven't been proven guilty on anything.
It really is funny to watch/listen to/read about though....as they try to MAKE something out of nothing.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on July 14, 2005 02:57:52 PM new
Dick Morris chime in with those who don't believe Karl Rove should step down.....and his reasons why he shouldn't.
----
The gotcha game is in full swing in Washington as the vultures circle slowly over the White House, hoping for Karl Rove's scalp.
The ritualized homicide/suicide is well-programmed. A White House insider is accused of doing something, the news media hype the story and, finally, without proof or presumption of innocence, the staffer resigns so as not to become a distraction from the president's agenda.
[my note: kind of what fenix and Ron are saying....]
But maybe this time the cycle can be stopped before it runs its bloody course.
Karl Rove did nothing wrong. The statute he allegedly violated has a number of very specific triggers. The person who reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative has to intend to uncover her identity, know she is a covert operative and know that he is blowing her cover.
The law is designed to stop the likes of Philip Agee, whose 1975 book Inside the Company revealed secret CIA information to sell books. Rove's actions are a far stretch from those the statute was designed to cover.
Rove did not call Time magazine's Matt Cooper. Cooper called him. He did not mention Valerie Plame's name. He may not have even known it. He had no intent to reveal her identity. The context of the conversation was that Rove was trying to disabuse Cooper of the impression that CIA Director George Tenet had been the moving force in choosing former Ambassador Joe Wilson to investigate the nuclear dealings reported to be going on in Niger.
Rove said that it was not Tenet who pushed the appointment but that it likely stemmed from the fact that Wilson's wife "apparently works" at the CIA.
To call that conversation a deliberate revelation of an agent's identity designed to blow her cover is a far, far stretch of the statute's wording and intent.
But just as Rove did not intend to blow Plame's cover, so the Democrats demanding his head are not very interested in upholding the statute in question. Their motives are totally political. They want revenge against Rove for his successful role in piloting the Bush election and reelection campaigns, and they want to be sure that Bush does not have access to Karl's advice in the remaining years of his second term.
Washington is a mean town where human sacrifice has been raised to an art form. But Karl Rove does not deserve this fate. He has served loyally and well, resisting enormous opportunities to leave midway and reap a bonanza of income in the private sector. He has shown himself to be a man of uncommon integrity and selflessness in serving this administration and this country. He should not be tossed to the partisan wolves.
Bush, having appointed a special prosecutor and pledged to fire anyone who was responsible for revealing Plame's identity, cannot just sweep the matter under the rug. But he should allow Rove to clear his name through the normal process of investigation and testimony.
He should keep Karl onboard, stipulating only that he fully answer all questions from a grand jury as he has done already, should the prosecutor need him to appear again.
If Rove is indicted or even named as a target, Bush will have to let him go. But that's not going to happen based on the current fact pattern, and Bush should not let himself be pushed ahead of the process by firing Rove.
Indeed, there is some question that the reporters who took Rove's lead, looked up Plame's name and published it may themselves be more likely to have violated the statute than is Rove himself. Whoever took the information Rove provided and outed Plame was, in fact, deliberately outing a CIA operative and may be a better fit for the statute's intent than Karl Rove.
Bush should not fire Rove. He should stick by him until or unless the criminal investigation makes it evident that he may have violated the statute. Otherwise, he should stay on the job.
-----
Morris is the author of Rewriting History, a rebuttal of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton?s (D-N.Y.) memoir, Living History.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on July 15, 2005 12:02:40 AM new
Since I've seen a lot of nasty comments about Ted Kennedy from the neocons here all I got to say is ROVE IS FAT AND BALD!
posted on July 15, 2005 04:57:20 AM new
And he knows how to get revenge on those who don't tell lies for Bush by committing an act of treason and endangering the lives of many people! What a guy!
posted on July 15, 2005 05:35:19 AM new
My good, close, personal friend ..who, what was his name ????
NO defense of his friend here!
""Bush declines to comment on Rove’s role
• Bush deflects questions on Rove
July 13: President Bush refused to comment on the political firestorm surrounding senior aide Karl Rove over a news leak that exposed a CIA officer’s identity. NBC’s David Gregory reports.
Nightly News
By David Gregory
Chief White House correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:37 p.m. ET July 13, 2005
David Gregory
Chief White House correspondent
WASHINGTON - In the White House Cabinet Room Wednesday morning, President Bush refused to comment on the political firestorm surrounding his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, who was seated directly behind him.
"I also will not prejudge the investigation," Bush said.
Nor did the president choose to express confidence in his senior adviser, though an aide said later he would have, had he been asked directly.""
They don't ever need facts....if they say this is the way it is....then nothing is going to ever change that. No law's been broken???? That doesn't matter to them. 
They want him and DeLay HUNG...and right now!!! Even IF they haven't been proven guilty on anything.