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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 3:14 pm Post subject: The Plame Name Game - Jack Kelly |
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Did Joe Wilson receive unauthorized leaks from CIA???
Is the NY Times protecting Valerie Plame for giving unauthorized CLASSIFIED information to her husband???
SOURCE: JACK KELLY Toledo Blade
| Quote: | The Plame Name Game
Jack Kelly
Saturday, July 16, 2005
WHY is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursuing so zealously the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, since it is all but impossible to prove that the leaker or leakers committed a crime?
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires that the leaker learned the identity of a "covert agent" from authorized sources. And it requires that the leak be deliberate.
The law defines a "covert agent" as someone working undercover overseas, or who has done so in the last five years. Ms. Plame had operated under non-official cover, but was outed by CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, and has been manning a desk at CIA headquarters since 1997.
So why is Mr. Fitzgerald acting like Inspector Javert in Les Miserables? The answer may lie in a sentence Walter Pincus of the Washington Post wrote on June 12, 2003. First, some background:
At Ms. Plame's suggestion, the CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger in February, 2002, to investigate a report by a foreign intelligence service that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium. In his report to the CIA, Mr. Wilson said Iraqis had approached Nigerien officials, but no deal had been made.
In September, 2002, the British government published a white paper in which it made public British intelligence's belief that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A month later, the CIA received from an Italian source documents purporting to show that Niger and Iraq had done a deal. These turned out to be forgeries.
President Bush mentioned the British findings in his State of the Union address in January, 2003. In his leaks to Mr. Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Mr. Wilson claimed Mr. Bush knew this was false. The key sentence in Mr. Pincus' story is this:
"Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,' the former U.S. government official said."
Mr. Wilson's official role ended when he returned from Niger in March. The CIA didn't get the Italian forgeries until October. Mr. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Mr. Kristof and Mr. Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.
Mr. Wilson outed himself in an op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which described his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger in 2002. On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wondered why Mr. Wilson, who had no intelligence background and strong anti-Bush views, had been selected for the Niger mission. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report," he wrote. That set off the Plame name game.
Journalists lost interest when in July, 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Mr. Wilson was lying about who sent him to Niger and what he learned there. Furthermore, the Butler Commission concluded reports that Saddam was trying to buy uranium were "well founded."
But by then the special prosecutor they'd sought had been appointed, and Mr. Fitzgerald was demanding testimony from two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote a story about Ms. Plame, and Judith Miller of the New York Times, who didn't.
Journalistic interest revived when Mr. Cooper revealed his source was Bush political guru Karl Rove. Mr. Novak (the journalist who outed Ms. Plame) hasn't revealed his sources. But a fawning profile of Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame in Vanity Fair in January, 2004, offers a clue:
"Wilson was caught off guard when around July 9 he received a phone call from Robert Novak who, according to Wilson, said he'd been told by a CIA source that Wilson's wife worked for the agency. "
Mr. Cooper is a free man because Mr. Rove gave him explicit permission to talk about their conversation. Ms. Miller is in jail because her source didn't, suggesting he or she is someone other than Mr. Rove.
Liberals want Mr. Rove's scalp. But the revelation Friday (if true) that Mr. Rove learned of Ms. Plame's occupation from a journalist makes it most unlikely that he could prosecuted successfully under the Identities Act.
Maybe Mr. Rove - or someone else - lied to the grand jury. Or maybe Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating a different crime.
What if someone in the CIA was leaking classified information to influence the 2004 election? Uncovering a crime like that would be worthy of Inspector Javert's doggedness.
I suspect the biggest shoe in this case has yet to drop, and liberal journalists won't be happy when it does.
Jack Kelly is a member of The Blade’s national bureau. |
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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CHECKMATE!
Remember many CIA analysts/officers are PHDs and most likely liberals. They infiltrated the agency in order to promote their own liberal agendas in the 70s and 80s.
The other intellegence agencies refer to Langley as the Berkerly East Campus.
John Kerry is one of their heroes.
_________________
Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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They wanted Bush/Rove so bad during the election it is possible that someone (maybe just Wilson) played this thing out with an agenda. It probably started with a way to smear Bush and the bonus came to them with info that Rove had said something.
From the news reports today, it looks like the attention may be turned to Novak. |
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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Lawyer: Identity act may not apply in CIA leak case
~snip~
"CNN anchor Kyra Phillips talked Thursday with Bruce Sanford, a Washington-based First Amendment attorney who helped draft the law."
~snip~
"PHILLIPS: So, Bruce, how would you define a covert agent?
SANFORD: I think a covert agent under the act has to be someone who has deep cover, who is working abroad. Not just traveling abroad, but is stationed and working abroad sometime within the last five years.
And USA Today reported that Joe Wilson's book has even made -- if you do the timeline, the Wilsons were married in 1998. There's some question whether she was even abroad during the last five years.
She really had a desk job at [CIA headquarters in] Langley [Virginia] and was driving in and out of the CIA every day. That's not exactly deep cover."
~snip~
"PHILLIPS: Well, breaking the law or partisan politics, do you think Valerie Plame [Wilson's wife] is now damaged goods?
SANFORD: Well, ... it is worth remembering that when Robert Novak, the columnist, disclosed her identity in his column, he had called the CIA to tell them he was going to do that, and they didn't stop him.
They did not do what the CIA normally does in that situation if they want to protect or continue to protect somebody's identity. ...
They didn't call his syndicate. They didn't scream at him, say you're going to endanger her life or [en]danger her career, that sort of thing. They just sort of shrugged and said, "Well, I guess she won't be getting any more overseas assignments."
I don't think that's the kind of affirmative measures that the agency needs to be taking in order to invoke the statute."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/14/sanford/ |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 2:49 am Post subject: |
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Hmmm.
O'Donnell (of all people) provides a view of the reasoning of the Judges who ordered Judith Wilson to go to jail. Of course Larry is trying to say that it refers to Rove's supposed crime, but I think the prosecutor is now focused on a much bigger crime, like treason??
Prosecutor Fitzgerald already suspects Judith Miller made a phone call to tip off some Islamist group shortly before a raid was to be conducted.
Does he believe a mole in the CIA is leaking information to Miller which threatens our national security?? Possibly Plame??
EIGHT PAGES of the Judge's opinion re the prosecutor's secret information are redacted. Only the Judges saw this information and it convinced them THE GRAVENESS OF THE CRIME warrants sending reporters to jail!!
Just my opinion, but it seems a bit much to think it was about Rove's little leak that didn't even mention a name. I read it as Fitzgerald going after a much bigger crime. What da ya think??
READ AT:Huffington/Lawrence O'Donnell
Excerpt: (bolding and emphasis mine)
| Quote: | In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”
Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The]gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”
Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case “which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.” Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters’ shield law -- but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he “might have” let Cooper and Miller off the hook “[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.”
Tatel’s colleagues are at least as impressed with the prosecutor’s secret filings as he is. One simply said “Special Counsel’s showing decides the case.”
All the judges who have seen the prosecutor’s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment. |
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:37 am Post subject: |
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Connection?
If Rove was Judith Miller's source, she would not still be in jail.
She would have no need to still be protecting him.
Judith Miller was the New York Times exclusive premier reporter on WMDs.
Valerie Plame was the CIA's WMD expert.
Connection??
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:42 am Post subject: |
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| Shawa you may be onto something - although I still haven't quite grasped the motive. I know I know, to tumble Bush - but I wonder just what the Wilson's would have to gain? A place in Kerry's administration? But then the CIA bosses would have to be in on it. Major conspiracy. Even though it sounds possible, it just seems far fetched. We sometimes give these people more credit than they deserve. But possible... |
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wonhyo
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 85
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 5:11 am Post subject: What about Senator Leahy leaking security information |
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| Why didn't the Dems scream and call for Senator Leahy's resignation when he leaked the information about how the military was able to follow bin Laden by his cell phone? I think that put more people in danger than this supposed leak about a non covert CIA?!!! |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:44 am Post subject: |
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Rdtf, What I'm thinking is it's not Wilson, he's just a media-hound boob married to a spy who leaks CIA confidential info.
It's Plame the prosecutor is after.
I found it very unusual that the judge who WANTED to institute reporter's shield laws ruled against Miller and ordered her to testify or go to jail.
There's gotta be something huge here.
| Quote: | Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”
Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “having carefully scrutinized the prosecutor’s voluminous classified filings.”
Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case “which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.” Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters’ shield law -- but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he “might have” let Cooper and Miller off the hook “[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.”
Tatel’s colleagues are at least as impressed with the prosecutor’s secret filings as he is. One simply said “Special Counsel’s showing decides the case.”
All the judges who have seen the prosecutor’s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment. |
I'm thinking the prosecutor suspects Plame is a mole in the CIA who has been leaking classified information not only to Judith Miller but to our enemies. We know she's a leftist and anti-war. Maybe a traitor??
Look at the language used here--gravity of the crime; were the leak less harmful to national security!
In today's world leaks are common, they get a few words of condemnation, but are quickly forgotten about. Senators do it all the time, but no prosecutions follow. Secret memos and covert operations are blurtrd out, Leahy, Kerry. No big deal?
This prosecutor is after a much bigger charge. A grave crime, harmful to national security! 8 redacted pages of secret information supplied only to the judges, the gravity of the crime very well developed in those 8 pages, VOLUMINOUS CLASSIFIED FILINGS!!
Sure is far-fetched, but I sure am interested in what may develop.
Remembered posting this John Podheretz piece on another thread:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_10_corner-archive.asp#069334
| Quote: | Fitzgerald already has a major bone to pick with Miller. He believes she materially and dangerously impeded his investigation into a terrorist-financing scheme run by the Holy Land Foundation.
When Miller found out that Fitzgerald was on the verge of indicting Holy Land, she called the Foundation for comment -- and right after her call Fitzgerald believes the Foundation may have commenced a shredding party that ensured prosecutors would find little paperwork to go on when they raided the Holy Land offices.
As the Washington Post put it, "On Dec. 3, 2001, Times reporter Judith Miller telephoned officials with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based charity accused of being a front for Palestinian terrorists, and asked for a comment about what she said was the government's probable crackdown on the group. U.S. officials said this conversation and Miller's article on the subject in the Times on Dec. 4 increased the likelihood that the foundation destroyed or hid records before a hastily organized raid by agents that day."
Fitzgerald sought her phone records on that occasion to uncover the source of a potential leak in his own office and was blocked by a liberal New York judge named Robert Sweet. Miller didn't get so lucky this time. Fitzgerald thinks Miller has a loose tongue, and for good reason. It's possible he's trying to figure out what other mischief her loose tongue might have caused. |
Maybe he has found a connection between Miller and Plame??
Remember what the Prosecutor submiitted to the Circuit Judge--secret information supplied only to the judges, the gravity of the crime very well developed in those 8 pages, voluminous CLASSIFIED filings!
There's also another story somewhere that mentions Plame may have been outed by Aldrich Ames back in the nineties. Maybe he turned her and she became a counterspy.
Lots of speculation on my part, but I love figuring out the pieces to a puzzle!
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776)
Last edited by shawa on Sun Jul 17, 2005 7:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 7:36 am Post subject: |
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Remember those aluminun tubes that the Dems keep saying can not be used for Nuclear Weapons? It seems Judith Miller was at one point on the side of the nuclear weapons theory.
September 10, 2002 Tuesday
COMMITTEE HEARING
COMMITTEE: HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ) HOLDS HEARING ON IRAQ'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROGRAMS
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ), CHAIRMAN
LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.
WITNESSES:
DR. DAVID A. KAY, FORMER U.N. CHIEF NUCLEAR WEAPONS INSPECTOR IN IRAQ, U.N. SPECIAL COMMISSION ON IRAQ, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY ASSOCIATION
DR. RICHARD O. SPERTZEL, FORMER HEAD OF BIOLOGY SECTION, UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL COMMISSION ON IRAQ
| Quote: | WELDON: You share that view?
KAY: I share that view. I think it's -- in the areas of nuclear and ballistic missiles a somewhat similar problem. When you combine money with how far the Iraqis are and the way technology progresses, it's become a much worse problem. Let me give you the case of the aluminum centrifuge rotors that was in the weekend piece by Michael Gordon (ph) and Judith Miller (ph). The Iraqi centrifuge pieces that a team I led discovered were made of maraging steel. Maraging steel is harder to get access to. It's a more specialized technology. Not everyone can produce it.
They were going to carbon fiber rotors because carbon fiber winding machines, although controlled because they're relevant to missile technology, as you know, Mr. Weldon, in addition to centrifuges were at that point where they were becoming generally available because of Callaway golf clubs, high performance fly rods and a whole series of other issues. So they were on the slope and they understood it. By going to carbon fiber they were better off. Going to aluminum is even easier because the number of countries that have the capabilities to extrude high performance aluminum tubes is almost any country that has a machine tool industry.
So the problem has become worse. We have not found an effective way of dealing with it. But let me tell you I am pessimistic that there is an easy way to deal with it other than replacing the regime. We're very much, in talking about export controls and all, and I'm certainly in favor of them relevant to Iraq, it's very much like putting your finger in the dike when in fact, you ought to be examining the nature of the flood control system as a whole there. And it's why you have the problem. It's much worse than it was in the '90s.
WELDON: One final question, Mr. Chairman.
And this gets to the point that you both made which I was going to ask. You've already answered it. And that is that you're convinced that the only solution here is a regime change. And I'm coming to that conclusion very quickly myself. But knowing the kinds of considerations that our colleagues have to make on an up and coming vote, I think it's going to behoove us to take whatever step we can to convince overwhelmingly our members that that's the course of action we have to take. So therefore, I happen to believe that we have to put more pressure on Russia. |
SBD |
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Ohio Voter
PO2
Joined: 09 Aug 2004
Posts: 360
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 10:14 am Post subject: Re: The Plame Name Game - Jack Kelly |
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I can't wait to get to the bottom of this media feeding fiasco. The first thing I thought when the journalist would rather go to jail than disclose her source is, it must be a Democrat she is protecting... A big fish Dem.
| shawa wrote: | <snip>
I suspect the biggest shoe in this case has yet to drop, and liberal journalists won't be happy when it does.[/b]
Jack Kelly is a member of The Blade’s national bureau. |
[/quote] |
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Uisguex Jack
Rear Admiral
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 613
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 11:04 am Post subject: |
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This is looking pretty interesting.
Mrs. Wilson has maybe been leaking stuff to Judith Miller for years and years?
Mr Wilsons attack on Rove yesterday was pitifull.... he looked and sounded angry and scared.
Hopefully we're getting close to the bottom of a big nasty mess which has been screwing with our national security for thirty or forty years. I do hope. |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| PhantomSgt wrote: | CHECKMATE!
Remember many CIA analysts/officers are PHDs and most likely liberals. They infiltrated the agency in order to promote their own liberal agendas in the 70s and 80s.
The other intellegence agencies refer to Langley as the Berkerly East Campus.
John Kerry is one of their heroes.
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Got that right Sarge. We have serious issues with that damn agency. It is supposed to be protecting America, not our enemies.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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roughfun
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 105
Location: California
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Just a thought. Could Plame be the women who passed the "fake but true"Bush military records? Semper Fi |
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DaveS
Ensign
Joined: 19 Sep 2004
Posts: 61
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Interesting theories but I think we will find that some at the State Dept. have involvement as well. Could be Colin Powell? |
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