Rove Indictment in the Plame Case ?

[TOVisitor]

Lawrence O'Donnell broke the story this past spring that Rove was Matt Cooper's source. Soon after that piece of news was reported, Cooper was able to testify in front of the gand jury.

O"Donnell has a VERY provocative analysis of the current situation. Bottom line:

Prediction: at least three high level Bush Administration personnel indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators.

Let's see. Rove and Libby are two of the three. Co-conspirators? Cheney?

Read it all: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/plamegate-the-next-step_b_8447.html

 

[tompeepin]

I doubt that anything is gonna happen. Even though Rove learned and honed his craft under the Nixon administration, I think that there will only ever be one story like that in our life time. What a fucker though. And they have the nerve to call critics Traitors!

blah blah blah "he didn't break any laws" blah blah blah

That fucker Novak should have been the first to have been charged.

 

[The Mugger]

I doubt that anything is gonna happen. Even though Rove learned and honed his craft under the Nixon administration, I think that there will only ever be one story like that in our life time. What a fucker though. And they have the nerve to call critics Traitors!

blah blah blah "he didn't break any laws" blah blah blah

That fucker Novak should have been the first to have been charged.

I was about to get after you about the Nixon Administration - not thinking he would have been old enough and lo and behold I was wrong - he was a protege of Donald Segretti the official WH dirty trickster himself. I also found out that the first news article about Rove was when he was subject of an August 1973 Washington Post Article tittled Republican Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks

Hey you learn something new everyday

 

[tompeepin]

Hey you learn something new everyday

I try to. It makes life more interesting that way. And really the more I learn the more I realize how little I know.

Cheers

Now I gotta go and google some more. Gotta love the information age. 'tis a lot quicker than the ol' library searches.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1502533,00.html

 

[TOVisitor]

Rove going back before the grand jurY? Curiouser and curiouser.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051006...ezV8Fqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Rove Said to Testify in CIA Leak Case
By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer 31 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th-hour testimony in the case of a
CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.

The persons, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not made any decision yet on whether to file criminal charges against the longtime confidant of
President Bush or others.

The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment.

Rove has already made at least three grand jury appearances and his return at this late stage in the investigation is unusual.

The prosecutor did not give Rove similar warnings before his earlier grand jury appearances.

Rove offered in July to return to the grand jury for additional testimony and Fitzgerald accepted that offer Friday after taking grand jury testimony from the formerly jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Before accepting the offer, Fitzgerald sent correspondence to Rove's legal team making clear that there was no guarantee he wouldn't be indicted at a later point as required by the rules.

So what did Fitzgerald learn last week from Judy Miller that he now wants to check out with Rove. Hmmm.

 

[Vietor]

For an indictment to be issued from a grand jury, all that need take place is for a simple majority of the juors to find that probable cause exists based upon the evidence provided to them by the prosecutor that a crime has occurred. An appellate judge in NY once observed that, given a strong prosecutor, a "grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." There is no one to speak for the target in a grand jury proceeding, unless the target is invited by the grand jury to testify. Thus, particularly with political targets, one should not take an indictment as any indication of the guilt of the target.

Even assuming that Plame had some sort of covert role with the CIA at the time she was outed, the high profile prior actions of her husband certainly put her in the public light such that she was a well-identified "official" of the CIA.

 

[TOVisitor]

For an indictment to be issued from a grand jury, all that need take place is for a simple majority of the juors to find that probable cause exists based upon the evidence provided to them by the prosecutor that a crime has occurred. An appellate judge in NY once observed that, given a strong prosecutor, a "grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." There is no one to speak for the target in a grand jury proceeding, unless the target is invited by the grand jury to testify. Thus, particularly with political targets, one should not take an indictment as any indication of the guilt of the target.

Even assuming that Plame had some sort of covert role with the CIA at the time she was outed, the high profile prior actions of her husband certainly put her in the public light such that she was a well-identified "official" of the CIA.

Thanks for the misdirection and excuses, Vietor. Maybe you should take your brilliant surmise directly to Pat Fitzgerald. I am sure that he would welcome your counsel.

 

[tompeepin]

... Even assuming that Plame had some sort of covert role with the CIA at the time she was outed, the high profile prior actions of her husband certainly put her in the public light such that she was a well-identified "official" of the CIA.

Isn't this kind of "rationalization" grand? Kudos Vietor!

Ok so that makes it ok to "out" a CIA member for political dirty tricks reasons? Oh no not political dirty tricks ... "her husband's actions!"

In such urgent times of "terra" isn't infighting counter productive? Isn't it aiding the enemy?

"Yeah but it was the Democrats who started it!" What a bunch of partisan bullshit!

 

[Vietor]

What "misdirection and excuses"? You have this ongoing problem separating fact from opinion. My description of the grand jury process is factual. Your characterization is both ignorant and demonstrative of a lack of basic comprehension.

My "surmise" was an opinion based upon fact.

I am certain that Special Prosecutor Fitz. is more than capable of obtaining whatever indictment he desires and does not need my help in doing so. If asked, however, I will assist. I accept C.J. John Roberts' position that good counsel can shape an opinion and make arguments in a client's best interests without necessarily adopting such opinion as his/her own.

 

[TOVisitor]

For the interested reader, a long timeline of the Plame outing. Worth reading in advance of the upcoming indictments.

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/10/anatomy_of_a_wh.html

 

[TOVisitor]

For an indictment to be issued from a grand jury, all that need take place is for a simple majority of the juors to find that probable cause exists based upon the evidence provided to them by the prosecutor that a crime has occurred. An appellate judge in NY once observed that, given a strong prosecutor, a "grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." There is no one to speak for the target in a grand jury proceeding, unless the target is invited by the grand jury to testify. Thus, particularly with political targets, one should not take an indictment as any indication of the guilt of the target.

Even assuming that Plame had some sort of covert role with the CIA at the time she was outed, the high profile prior actions of her husband certainly put her in the public light such that she was a well-identified "official" of the CIA.

This is no ordinary case that we are talking about here, so your analysis is very flawed. We are talking about a treasonous act that may have cost the lives of many CIA agents and operatives. Mr Fitzgerald is walking a very fine line here and he MUST be certain that he has his i's dotted and t's crossed. That's why, among other things, he interviewed Judy Miller again before she left prison and that's why he seeks to interview Rove again. Fitzgerald also has 3 judges looking over his shoulder (2 of whom are Republicans) and they have given him the green light.

As to the "prior actions" of her husband possibly revealing her identtity, you are just spouting more right wing bullshit. Please, cite one source in any medium whatsoever prior to her outing that said she was a CIA agent. Furthermore, she worked for a CIA cover company on WMD issues, which you would think Bushco had an interested in protecting. They decided that political payback was more important than the security of the country.

While I agree with you that indictment does not equal guilt in a court of law, just as Delay is now toast even before he is convicted, so will the Rethuglican house of cards collapse even further when these indictments are announced.

So, once again, I say thanks for the misdirection and excuses. You have incorporated the Republican talking points well. But you words reveal a sad truth: you are most willing to put party above country. Your words are just another example of a long line of over-reaching by a most mendacious group of politicans and their apologists.

 

[TOVisitor]

Keith Olbermann interviews Lawrence O'Donnell about Rove on video:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/06.html#a5257

 

[TOVisitor]

Interesting analysis and timeline of recent Rovian events.

From: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Judy, Pinch and a Boy Named Scooter

In a furious bout of post-prison housecleaning, Judy Miller just "happened" to find notes today from June 2003 when she spoke with Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson.

Of all the amazing discoveries. She's the fucking Indiana Jones of dust bunnies, that one.

I keep coming back to the September 15 letter (PDF) from Scooter Libby to Judy Miller, kind of like a scab you just can't help picking at.

Consider:

1. In Patrick Fitzgerald's "leaked" letter of September 12, 2005 (PDF) to Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, he runs down the facts as told to him by Libby:

Mr. Libby has discussed a meeting with Ms. Miller on July 8 2003, at the St. Regis Hotel and a later conversation between Mr. Libby and Ms. Miller by telephone in the late afternoon of July 12, 2003. Mr. Libby has described his recollection of the substance of those two conversations, without limitation.

Libby was most probably quoting the party line that everyone else was testifying to -- namely, that whatever was done to Joe Wilson came in response to his July 6, 2003 editorial in the New York Times entitled What I Didn't Find in Africa. They weren't trying to smear him, doncha know -- they were just providing appropriate counterbalance to what he was saying, trying to helpfully provide the press with some mitigating factors.

Thus began the Rove as Whistleblower meme we all remember with so much fondness.

2. Joe Wilson, in his book and elsewhere, has long maintained that the White House Iraq Group -- whose notes and records Fitzgerald has subpoenaed -- did a workup of him in March, before his editorial was ever published. As early as his October 13, 2002 article in the San Jose Mercury News, Wilson was calling 'em all a bunch of hosebags. He had been flying in their radar for a while.

3. When Libby wrote his sodden mash note to Judy it seems to me that he was quite obviously trying to hip her to the fact that it was okay to talk about anything that happened in July:

The Special Counsel identified every reporter with whom I had spoken about anything in July 2003, including you. My counsel then called counsel for each of the reporters, including yours, and confirmed that my waiver was voluntary.

Translation: It's okay for you to talk about July meetings but nothing else.

Judy Miller was sitting in fucking prison on tenterhooks. She's had plenty of time to think about each and every time she met with poor lovestruck Aspen-riddled Scooter, and what the implications were of each and every one of those meetings along the way. She didn't fucking "forget" an entire month there looped on pruno. Scooter let her know what she could say. And she probably complied.

4. If Libby was lying, he did not believe that there was anything provided to Fitzgerald that was going to contradict what he had to say, like -- oh -- the minutes of the White House Iraq Group, or the testimony of those in WHIG, including Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, James Wilkinson and Nicholas Cailo, in addition to the Rove man himself.

5. On Thursday, September 29, when Judy agrees to testify, Fitzgerald goes to the slam and spends a little quality time with her, just to get her story down before she goes and has a steak with Pinch. (Does she have a thing for men with awful names or what?)

That night, Fitzgerald calls up Joe Wilson, and confirms what he probably already knew one way or another -- Judy and Scooter were talking as early as June, contrary to what both were saying.

6. Suddenly Judy REMEMBERS her earlier "notes" and meeting with Scooter. I'm guessing the dog didn't just barf 'em up -- her attorney probably got a helpful memory-prodding phonecall from Fitzgerald, who probably knew Judy was going to lie her lying face off all along.

7. Suddenly -- VOILA! -- a SLEW of people want to come in and spend quality time with Fitzgerald and the grand jury again. They are VOLUNTEERING. Because, as you know, testifying before Fitzgerald's grand jury is all the rage in DC these days, and everyone needs a hobby.

I will leap to the presumption that the "we were just reacting to Joe Wilson's editorial" group bullshit is falling apart faster than a cheap thong in a hot dryer. It's hard to know just how much sleight-of-hand went into perpetuating this particular lie, but I will wager no small amount.

Note to self: do not EVER play poker with Patrick Fitzgerald.

 

[TOVisitor]

From William Kristol today on Fox News Sunday:

"Criminal defense lawyers I’ve spoken to who are friendly to the administration are very worried that there will be one or more indictments in the next three weeks of senior administration officials, just looking at what Fitzgerald is doing and taking him at his word, you know, being a serious prosecutor here. And I think it’s going to be bad for the Bush administration."

And he ends this segment of the program with this bon mot:

"I hate the criminalization of politics.”

You gotta be farking kidding me! Criminalization of politics? Let's start with the criminalization of a blow job.

Goodness gracious. The temerity of this guy to say that is astounding. He's complaining about criminalizing a treasonous act and yet he was in the forefront of the hunt for Clinton. What an a-hole.

 

[The Mugger]

From William Kristol today on Fox News Sunday:

"Criminal defense lawyers I’ve spoken to who are friendly to the administration are very worried that there will be one or more indictments in the next three weeks of senior administration officials, just looking at what Fitzgerald is doing and taking him at his word, you know, being a serious prosecutor here. And I think it’s going to be bad for the Bush administration."

And he ends this segment of the program with this bon mot:

"I hate the criminalization of politics.”

You gotta be farking kidding me! Criminalization of politics? Let's start with the criminalization of a blow job.

Goodness gracious. The temerity of this guy to say that is astounding. He's complaining about criminalizing a treasonous act and yet he was in the forefront of the hunt for Clinton. What an a-hole.

It's way to early to say about an indictment here. I wouldn't read to much into Rove's 4th trip to the grand jury because it might be as simple as being overkill on Rove's part to insure that the grand jury understands how an indictment will effect the White house, and show this jury that the White house has nothing to hide. I am not sure, but I thought I heard on the Sunday talk show circuit that it was unknown whether Rove requested this chance to speak to the grand jury or whether the prosecutor did. If this is unknown then the overkill scenario I described might be true.

...and I don't even like the guy, but its too early to celebrate. Mind you I would be just as pleased if the only other person to go to jail was Bob Novak.

 

[TOVisitor]

It's way to early to say about an indictment here. I wouldn't read to much into Rove's 4th trip to the grand jury because it might be as simple as being overkill on Rove's part to insure that the grand jury understands how an indictment will effect the White house, and show this jury that the White house has nothing to hide. I am not sure, but I thought I heard on the Sunday talk show circuit that it was unknown whether Rove requested this chance to speak to the grand jury or whether the prosecutor did. If this is unknown then the overkill scenario I described might be true.

...and I don't even like the guy, but its too early to celebrate. Mind you I would be just as pleased if the only other person to go to jail was Bob Novak.

I agree that it is probably too early to say, but the whole country is on tenderhooks waiting to see what happens.

I heard that Rove had offered to come back after his last appearance, and only now is Fitzgerald taking him up on the offer. This, after the "discovery" of more of Judy's notes and additional conversations between Fitzgerald and Wilson.

The Feds don't like people who do not remember so well and they don't like jogging peoples' memories by making them come back again and again. If they get too many times to return, the story changes too much -- and then ... well, what's your definition of perjury?

 

[TOVisitor]

Even assuming that Plame had some sort of covert role with the CIA at the time she was outed, the high profile prior actions of her husband certainly put her in the public light such that she was a well-identified "official" of the CIA.

Vietor:

Here's about the best I could do to find something to buttress your position:

From: http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3345

A month before Robert Novak wrote his column supposedly outing Valerie Plame, Joseph Wilson gave a speech in which he talks in the third person about a person who is obviously himself, allows Valerie Plame to be identified as his wife, and discloses his intense opposition to the war in Iraq, as well as his anti-Israel sentiments. He makes clear that he is the source of the Kristoff/Pincus leaks about his mission. He even says that “this thing has legs,” that it will take two or three months, but it has legs – implying, perhaps, that he had already been working with the Kerry campaign to make this issue big – attacking the President's credibility on the war.

Clifford May noted this Wilson speech in July 2003, but only to show that Wilson wasn't credible because of the kind of groups to which he was speaking and how easy it was to find out from non-Administration people who his wife was and where she worked because he, in fact, had done so. He did not go into the substance of the speech or the important fact that his wife was already listed there on the website bio.

[snip]

Here are some highlights [from the speech]:

"Let me just start out by saying, as a preface to what I really want to talk about, to those of you who are going out and lobbying tomorrow, I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the President's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the President is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa.

That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States, so I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did."

[snip]

"But I do know. . .that in order to have a liberation strategy, you have to have people who are willing to fight for their own liberation. Otherwise you will never get that liberation bounce that Ken Adelman promised us--that Richard Perle promised us, when he said that Iraqis would be cheering us from the rooftops at our marching in there."

[snip]

"The real agenda in all this, of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum which was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90s, which was called 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm'. And what it is, cut to the quick, is if you take out some of these countries, or some of these governments, that are antagonistic to Israel, then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions on the Palestinian people. . .But that is the real agenda. You can put weapons of mass destruction out there, you can put terrorism out there, you can put liberation out there. Weapons of mass destruction got hard-headed realists on board, through a bunch of lies. . ."

And this is from the website about the program:

He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children.

 

[TOVisitor]

And here's a nice response to the above BS:

From: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/10/213022/60

Look, I'm going to make this simple. As simple as I can possibly make it. As simple as the laws of physics allow. I'm going to venture into the madness of the primitive mind, and make it "Dumbass Republican" simple. I'm going to travel to far-off mental realms, and bring back a map to the Fountain of Simplicity. I'm going to board the U.S.S. Really Fucking Simple, and snag you a seat at the captain's table. I'm going to go to the Republic of Simple, and bring you back a T-shirt. I'm going to call up the Home Shopping Network, and buy you a goddamn Clue at the special sale price of one hundred thirty seven dollars, which is a good deal considering that they have less than two hundred cases left at that price.

I am going to journey past the Singularity of Stupid that has lodged itself in the shared cortex of the planet, fighting the demons of Mental Craptitude that seek to bring about the Dumbass Rapture and Moronic Apocalypse, and bring you the most cherished jewel of all: A Functional Goddamned Synapse.

-Ahem-

Despite your breathless and unending discoveries to the contrary, Joseph Wilson having a wife IS NOT THE FUCKING CLASSIFIED PART.

Joseph Wilson having a wife is not a classified secret of the United States.

Joseph Wilson having a wife named Valerie Plame is NOT a classified secret of the United States.

The CLASSIFIED part is that, up until unnamed "senior administration officials" decided otherwise, Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph Wilson, WAS AN UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATIVE.

THAT is the part that the CIA, Wilson, Plame, their children, everyone Plame ever worked with, foreign or domestic, every company Plame ever used as nonofficial cover -- and every American with even the slightest concern over the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and U.S. efforts to track and curb the same -- thought maybe should stay classified, since, you know, IT WAS CLASSIFIED.

Yes, even if Joseph Wilson was a big meanie. Yes, even if he had the audacity to piss someone in the administration off. Yes, shock of goddamn shocks, even if he proved to be a Democrat.

Despite the urgently proposed Republicans Can Commit Whatever Crimes They Want Act of 2005, sponsored by Tom DeLay, leaking classified information to multiple reporters is still considered a crime, even if you "had a really good reason."

But we are two years into this case, and we still have people suddenly "discovering" that Joseph Wilson previously admitted having a wife! And, like, she ate at dinners! And bought clothing! And had children! And didn't wear a grocery bag whenever she went into public, for fear someone might see her! And guess what? Before "senior administration officials" outed her, she didn't have to, because nobody knew she was an undercover CIA agent.

And just as an aside, to the blogger(s) who are still, two years into the case, "eagerly awaiting" word on "whether Plame was even officially covert", or whether a "crime was even committed" (and damn the devil-soaked trackbacks that lead me to these shipwrecks of mental corruption):

If we can be sure of one thing, over the last two years, I think we can be sure that Plame was covert. We have the implicit word of the CIA, who referred the case for investigation. We have the implicit word of the Justice Department, that appointed a prosecutor to pursue it. But most importantly, we have the implicit word of the judges who had to determine whether or not throwing a reporter into jail for nearly three months constituted a necessary act. Unanimously, and using eight pages of redacted, classified arguments, they asserted it did.

It takes an act of wanton dumbassitude to assert, after the case has been investigated for two years, that maybe Plame wasn't really covert, and they'll get around any day now to figuring that out. Call me an excessive believer in the powers of investigative deduction, but I'm pretty sure that before spending two years of investigation, the CIA figured out whether or not Plame was actually covert.

Yes, this is the intellectual movement that is going to take down the mainstream media with their hard-hitting news analysis. These are the New Pundits, the FactCheckers, the Socket Rientists of Journalism. From the militia members stocking up for the nuclear apocalypse to be caused by Y2K, to the network-busting power of small animated gifs, to the monkey howls of Hillary! Hiiiiiillaryyyyyyy! that accompany the slightest dull thud in the political landscape, these are the members of "Bush's Base".

Lord help us all, we're going to die.

"... an act of wanton dumbassitude ..."

Note to Vietor: I think he's talking about YOU.

 

[TOVisitor]

21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

Hat tip to Think Progress for this compendium, with pictures and quotes.

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal

 

[tompeepin]

I must have missed it somewhere but has Robert Novak had to reveal his sources? If not why not? If he refuses to reveal his sources he should have had to go to jail. This whole loop of "I did not know or mention the "name"" and "I did not break any laws" is bullshit.