The new Rove/Plame article, mentioned in this post, is out. Here’s the nut:
In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson’s criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time’s editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine’s corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a “big warning” not to “get too far out on Wilson.” Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by “DCIA”–CIA Director George Tenet–or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.” Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: “not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger … ”
Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame’s name or knew she was a covert operative.
So, in essence, absolutely no indication that a crime has been committed by Rove. According to what we know so far Rove identified Wilson’s wife, who he indicated worked in some function at the CIA, as the person who authorized his trip to Nigeria. That doesn’t indicate that Rove knew anything about Plame’s status as an undercover agent. It merely indicates that he was trying to communicate to Cooper that Wilson’s trip to Nigeria was a fraud from start to finish. Something which we learned later.
The fact that Plame sent Wilson on the trip to Nigeria was an important part of debunking Wilson’s report. This was no political smear, it was the pointing out of nepotism which further supported the idea that Wilson’s trip was politically, not factually, motivated. If keeping Plame’s identity a secret was such a top priority then maybe she and her husband shouldn’t have gotten involved with the phony trip to Nigeria.
If anything, these revelations are far more damaging to Plame and her husband than they are to Rove.
Update:
Yeah, okay, maybe there’s no crime, but it strikes me that Rove’s going to be conclusively identified as the/a leaker within days. Once that happens, he’s toast. He probably won’t go to jail, and he probably won’t even be indicted (unless he perjured himself, which I have know way of knowing), but I think it’s likely that his days as a White House advisor are numbered — and that that number is less than 30.
That’s one way to look at it, but I think Spoons is missing the larger picture. At the time Rove was talking to Cooper it was coming out that Wilson’s trip to Nigeria was one big politically-motivated canard aimed at smearing the President of the “Saddam was looking for uranium” issue. Rove had no doubt learned at this time about the nepotism involved with the selection of Wilson to travel to Nigeria and the CIA approval of it, so why shouldn’t he give that information to a reporter especially if he wasn’t aware that Wilson’s was an undercover CIA agent and/or he didn’t provide the reporter with her name. Especially in light of the scorching op/ed Wilson had just written for the New York Times.
Did Rove leak Palme’s name? Maybe. But even if he did I think we have to look at the circumstances of the leak as well. If Rove named her not knowing that she was an undercover CIA agent and in reaction to Wilson’s rather blatant and factually-challenged smearing of President Bush I have a hard time holding it against him.
Rob Port is the owner and operator of Say Anything.
So how long until the word coverup is used?
What a joke this post is. I’ll give you guys this much, you never say die. The problem is that Rove most likely committed perjury, and that is what he prosecutor is setting up a case for. Also, Rove has said he did not speak with any reporters before the Novak story was ran. This proves that is obviously a lie. One lie always leads to another, and another, and before you know, the actual truth comes out. Imagine that, the truth. Ever heard of it.
Joe
You know what Rove testified to in front of the Grand Jury?
No?
Oh.
Whatever.
RE: Joe Mama’s post (July 10, 2005 12:36 PM)
I’ll give you guys this much, you never say die.
Right back at ya’.
…Ever heard of it[?]
Hmm. Depends on what the definition of it is. Oops, my bad. I thought that read is.
Joe’s trolling again. Depending on facts not in evidence is his MO. I don’t know what the end result of all this will be but I am willing to wait until actual facts are presented. Not ‘Crowing’ now prevents eating crow later.
Tob
Hey, why don’t you guys start a huricane-blogging thread and I keep you updated as long as I have services. Right now Dennis is heading straight for my house, just like Ivan. It could be another cool eye experience like last time only better as it will still be daylight. Winds are starting to really gust and the rain is steady but light. If I lose broadband, I will switch to dialup and if I lose power, I switch to laptop. It maybe rather boring or not depending on many factors.
Tob
I can see from these comments as also elsewhere that this issue is making liberals’ minds explode…in a frenzy of overly complicated, grasping rationalizations…Rove…Rove…what to do?
It’s such a straightforward set of events and yet, liberals just can’t handle the truth. Thus, blowing their minds out.
Gusts increasing in strength and duration but rain is still just drizzling. Lost my first tree, a pine, but it was weakened by Ivan and was on my list to cut down anyway.
Tob
I think people are missing the bigger point, that Joe Wilson is a bald faced liar who repeatedly said that his wife had nothing to do with his being selected for the Niger mission.
Niger, not Nigeria
THIS whole sordid affair is nothing but:
A Cowardly Coverup of Traitorous Treason;
with Bush and company firmly behind it all from the get go.
FACT: this was a heinous act of TREASON during WARTIME.
“FACT: this was a heinous act of TREASON during WARTIME.”
Is that you Joe Mama? I find it hard to believe that there are 2 people with such psychic powers.
– Back to the storm –
Dennis is bringing hard rain and impressive sustained winds in the 40 kt range now. During the last 2 hours the center of the storm has tracked almost due North, directly at Pensacola. (Fox News has excellent coverage of PBeach) That will prevent a repeat of our most exciting night with Ivan. (no eye this time) and may make this just anti-climactic here in Baldwin county. Our condo at PBeach will probably be totalled now since the dunes and the condos between ours and the gulf (which protected it somewhat last year) are gone. Damn. The only good part is that we had made only structural repairs since we have been in dispute with the insurance companies (why do you have to have 5 different insurance companies if you have a place on the beach?) and the condo-owners assoc. The bad news is a total rebuild involves the newest building codes which make it cost the unblievable sum of $200 / ft2. We may just sell the space to some other suckers with deeper pockets. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Tob
I guess that I will only comment if something amazing happens now.
THIS whole sordid affair is nothing but:
A Cowardly Coverup of Traitorous Treason;
with Bush and company firmly behind it all from the get go.
FACT: this was a heinous act of TREASON during WARTIME.
Your right. Plame and Wilson shouldn’t be allow to skate on what they’ve tried.
whoops, misplaced the closing italics tag.
Although this “A Cowardly Coverup of Traitorous Treason” is an impressive bit of alliteration that is probably beyond JM’s ability.
Tob
Not coincidentally, a lot of conservative sites have been trolled in the last two days or so by whomever writing the very same thing (some version of “traitor” for Karl Rove, or “treason” as to his falsely described brief conversation with the reporter).
Such that, it’s some sort of liberal trolling meme by this point, writing wherever by ever-permutating I.D.s, on the internet, trying to advance the correlation of the words, almost certainly due to search engine ratings and future references.
It’s a very sad statement about liberals, not about Karl Rove — liberals cannot comprehend treason any more than they can not enthuse about Michael Moore, among other misplaced adulations.
Rove tried to get the point across that Wilson wasn’t reliable, was not someone that TIME’s reporter should place too much faith in, and said that Wilson’s wife had arranged his yellowcake trip, never used her name, never said she was an agent with anything — but the woman was known publicly to be employed in a federal position (not known to be an agent, just an employee) and such that Rove saying what he said compromised no one, revealed nothing, named no one, etc., etc.
It’s sad to read liberals ranting about all the wrong things and missing the more important points as to other very important things, like the war in Iraq, the truth and reality of the Rove comments, Wilson’s lying…
Another thing: does anyone actually believe that Judith Miller would go to jail to protect Karl Rove? Ridiculous! Probably Miller was the source to Cooper’s name-gain. She’s going to jail to protect her own misbehavior, which is far more realistic than to think Karl Rove would compromise his ethics just to court a reporter from TIME. The whole idea is ludicrous.
And, to repeat, Rove’s said that he spoke with Cooper and Cooper’s quoted Rove and no where in that brief quote did Rove reveal that Joe Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent. He said that Wilson’s wife arranged Wilson’s trip. To make the point to Cooper — my understanding after readin the information — that Wilson had lied to Cooper and/or in Wilson’s previous statements otherwise (in which Wilson presented himself as going to Iraq under other auspices, which he was lying about).
Seems clear and easily understandable to my view.
….sorry, typo (^^): should have written, ‘Wilson sent to Niger,’ not sent to Iraq.
Nothing to see here, folks…no matter how much Newsweek wants to pin this on Rove. The White House debunked what we now know to be a false representation of Wilson’s trip to Niger. How and why he went is crucial to understanding how this false report came to be. Rove didn’t “out” Plame, she and Wilson did it themselves when they ginned up this trip and then filed a fradulent report. Who is the real criminal here?
Patriot(NOT!)1776, you might be a little more credible if you didn’t trot out the latest moonbat talking points and link to downingstreetmemo.com. Really, what’s next? Are you going to tell us the moon landings were faked?
“…then filed a fradulent report.” Wasn’t it a factual report but a fradulent op-ed? That’s why Wilson was hoisted by the 9/11 commission. I thought that his own words (made public by that commission) revealed that he was lying during the campaign season.
Tob
Wow. There sure are a lot of apologists for treason. If this was a Democratic administration, you would all be frothing at the mouth calling for a hanging in the town square. Since it’s your ideological brethren, we get a big yawn.
Whether or not Rove is the guy, SOMEBODY in the Bush administration committed treason, plain and simple. SOMEBODY outed an undercover CIA officer, a WMD expert no less, during a war. That you don’t care that a high-placed government official – regardless of party – betrayed YOUR country just floors me. Because it’s a Republican, they get a free pass.
Treason’s a pretty serious crime, about as serious as it gets. It makes you wonder what law or how many laws a Republican would have to break for you to get worked up about it and stop apologizing for them.
Not to mention that you all seem to believe Rove’s bald-faced lie that Wilson’s wife arranged the Niger trip. That is utterly baseless and wholly without merit. It’s called a smear and you all act like Rove’s an angel who wouldn’t push a lie to smear an opponent. You obviously don’t know him very well.
Rove is going down, if not for treason then for perjury and maybe even conspiracy.
And before you all start apologizing for perjury, just remember what happened to the last high-ranking government official that got caught for perjury. He was impeached for it.
So when Rove goes to jail for perjury, let’s not have any carping.
– Sorry dim-o-crap in-straightjacket – S and Sarah Van hit it on the nail – theres no way in hell Miller is going to jail to protect Rove… she’d eat her tin-foil hat before she’d ever do that… she’s protecting her lie’beral fellow Bush haters…. pure and simple… This whole Plame/Wilson fiasco is just another SeeBS effort by the moonbat press…
– But hey… Knowing the thought process of the wookies maybe they’ll be just as stupid as Rather and play it out to its totally ludicrious end… Somehow I think, like LurchKerry’s 180, the lefties behind this whole mess will probably never be known… But we can hope….
-S- may be onto something. There does appear to be a meme going on here. Is it spontaneous or is this some directive from Soros? Someone with a stronger stomach than me needs to lurk the LL sites and report back.
Tob
PS. Storms abating. Nothing cool to report, just more rain and wind.
Hmmm.
I still think it would be hilarious if it turned out that either Plame or Wilson was the original source.
“Hi. I am Ambassador Wilson and this is my wife, the CIA agent.”
Or
“Oh my wife? She works at the CIA in Langley, but she used to be a secret agent overseas.”
hehe.
LOL! Yeah, George Soros sent me. You go ahead and think whatever helps you get to sleep at night. I’m sorry that you can’t comprehend that some people actually think for themselves and don’t need someone to feed them their talking points.
And Judith Miller a liberal?! Where do you live, uder a rock? Judy is one of YOURS. She was one of the biggest cheerleaders for Bush’s Iraq folly and wrote all kinds of lies in support of the Iraq war. She was the administration’s darling. Chalabi was her biggest source for crying out loud.
Although I’m conflicted about her serving jail time for protecting a source, there is some poetic justice that she is rotting in a jail cell.
Joe Mama!, quit signing on with different id’s. Stand up for yourself man.
Tob
Man, this is getting good. Now, not only did George Soros send me but I’m Joe Mama signing on under a different ID (I assume, Toby, that your comment was directed at me but please correct me if I’m wrong).
I know that you probably find it difficult to comprehend that more than one person doesn’t agree with you but if you got out a little more and didn’t spend all of your time preaching to the choir on web sites friendly to your point of view, you might be surprised.
Well, DinA, if your not JM, accept my apologies. He’s no one you want to be mistaken for. I just jumped to the conclusion since your styles are so similar. In with a insult, long string of assertions of facts not in evidence, a faux pleasure at being engaged. Hard to tell the difference. 😉
Anyway, my apologies for defaming you.
Tob
Besides, aren’t you Canadian? Treason against the United States, (if treason acquired) is for us to determine.
It is not treason to point out that Wilson, who supposedly was representing the interests of the United States was sent on the Niger trip by his WIFE. It’s also not treason to point out that he wrote an editorial lying about his findings. He and his wife misused their positions and taxpayer funds for partisan anti-administration purposes. During a time of war, perhaps that’s a hell of a lot closer to treason than pointing out the FACTS behind the story.
Hey, democracy_inaction.
You’ll never get through to most of these people. They have such an irrational hatred of Democrats and liberals that they would never allow any argument or evidence to suggest that Rove was anything but an honest player.
I have no idea how they would, for example, justify Bush/Rove’s sliming of McCain in South Carolina, but justify it they would.
Sorry Toby, you missed again. I’m very much American.
If you got thrown off when I said that someone in the Bush administration betrayed YOUR country, that was simply a rhetorical device to illustrate that you should be just as outraged as I am by an act of treason.
Karmafish, thanks for the laugh. I always love it when moonbats try and pretend to be reasonable while vomiting out terms like treason where none exists.
Gosh Sarah, you assume so much. You assume that Rove wasn’t lying when he tried to argue that Wilson was sent to Niger at his wife’s suggestion, as assertion which it utterly baseless. You also assume that Wilson lied in his editorial, which is also utterly baseless.
The only reason that you think any of those things have merit is because if they did, then your world view wouldn’t be threatened.
Cognitive dissonance can be ugly.
Yikes, I’ve added insult to injury with that Canadian question.
I’ll stop jumping to conclusions now. 😉 And I hope you’ll do the same. The wheels of justice grind slow but they grind exceedingly fine. I wll await the issuing of warrants or a report from the SP or some evidence at all before I judge on the Plame matter.
Tob
“ou assume that Rove wasn’t lying when he tried to argue that Wilson was sent to Niger at his wife’s suggestion, as assertion which it utterly baseless.”
What would constitute a basis for you DinA? Am I mistaken in remembering that the 9/11 commission report said that she did, in fact, recommend that her husband be sent, since he had such good contacts there and also with the French?
Tob
I’m off to check the 9/11 Commission report to see. Be back in a bit.
Yeah, thanks Karmafish for the laugh. You got Sarah all riled up and she’s funny when she’s mad.
I’m only surprised that someone didn’t accuse you of being me or vice versa.
Perhaps, I am wrong. A quick check for the 9/11 Report doesn’t even find the word wilson in it. More checking.
Tob
Odd the same people calling Rove a “traitor” tend to defend Alger Hiss.
And they wonder why no one takes their claims seriously.
Stay on topic (and in the 21st century), Gabriel, no one here has even mentioned Alger Hiss but you.
I wonder where the moonbats will go with this if it turns out that Wilson himself leaked Plame’s name to make his fictitious report look legitmate. That’s been my guess all along, he outed her when his report came under fire to bolster his own credentials, knida like saying “I know what I’m doing, I’m qualified to be doing this because my wife double-checked it for me”. Does anyone here think the left will be calling it treason if that turns out to be the case?
Off to do some work, back in a bit.
Ah, testimoney before the SENATE 9/11 committee.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60223-2004Jul18.html
Money graf:
In the recently released Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the panel, and two other Republican members concluded that the plan to send Wilson to Niger “was suggested” by his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA employee who specialized in weapons of mass destruction. Wilson and senior intelligence officials have repeatedly denied that Plame played a role in selecting him to go to Niger other than as a conduit to come to the agency to discuss the issue.
Roberts based his conclusion in part on a memo Plame sent to her boss describing Wilson’s “good relations” with Niger officials. The committee report also disclosed that a CIA reports officer had told the staff that Wilson’s wife had “offered up [Wilson’s] name.”
Wilson said yesterday on CNN that the reports officer’s statement “was taken out of context” and in a letter to the Senate committee he had asked that the reports officer be re-interviewed. As for his wife’s note to her boss about his Niger contacts, Wilson said that “he was told that somebody in that chain of command asked Valerie to do my list of curriculum vitae.”
On how his trip to Niger was initiated, Wilson said, the committee “got that particular point wrong.”
– note that Wilson disputes the point –
I could look for me, do I need to?
Tob
“I could look for me, do I need to?”
Damn, poor brain-to-finger coordination.
I could look for MORE, do I need to?
Tob
democracy_inaction:
Historical precedent is always relevant. And the century is irrelevant, given that most of the intel failures that contributed to 9/11 stem from piss poor management of our intel community during the 90’s.
Team Lefty continues to embarass itself by pushing a non-story, the media is complicit in their keeping it front page.
A question if anyone can answer it, why on earth would any reporter protect Rove? If something doesn’t pass the smell test it is that Time, Newsweek, and the NYTimes have in essence protected someone that they have spent the last 4 years trying to destroy. It doesn’t make any sense.
It wasn’t Rove that was being protected. It was Wilson’s credibility. You can’t hold Rove accountable for long without leading to the discussion of what exactly he said and what that means.
I expect this story will have a real short halflife to prevent digging into the contents of Roves remarks. We’ll go from ‘Rove outted a CIA agent’ to ‘Bush is protecting him, what can you do.’ in no time.
Painful admission on pg 445 of REPORT ON THE US. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY’S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ:
Additional Views of Chairman Pat Roberts joined by
Senator Christopher S. Bond, Senator Orrin G. Hatch
…
Despite our hard and successhl work to deliver a unanimous report, however, there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s public statements were not based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador’swife who recommended him for his trip to Niger.
…
“In an interview with Committee staff, Mr. Wilson was asked how he knew some of the things he was stating publicly with such confidence. On at least two occasions he admitted that he had no direct knowledge to support some of his claims and that he was drawing on either unrelated past experiences or no information at all. For example, when asked how he “knew” that the Intelligence Community had rejected the possibility of a Niger-Iraq uranium deal, as he wrote in his book, he told Committee staff that his assertion may have involved “a little literary flair.” The former Ambassador, either by design or though ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading. Surely, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has unique access to all of the facts, should have been able to agree on a conclusion that would correct the public record. Unfortunately, we were unable to do so.”
And more on point from pg 443:
“The former ambassador’s wife suggested her husband for the trip to Niger in February 2002. The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on behalf of the CIA, also at the suggestion of his wife, to look into another matter not related to Iraq. On February 12, 2002, the former ambassador’swife sent a memorandum to a Deputy Chief of a division in the CIA’SDirectorate of Operations which said, “[mJyhusband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’’ This was just one day before the same Directorate of Operations division sent a cable to one of its overseas stations requesting concurrence with the division’s idea to send the former ambassador to Niger.”
Now google for yourselves. 😉
Tob
And DinA, before you point out that this was in the Republican only part of the report, read pages 36 forward (the part that both parties agreed was correct). Same facts. Indeed, none of the facts were in dispute, just those two conclusions drawn from the facts. Read them and see who you agree with.
Tob
Sorry. For the google-impaired:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html
Tob
After rereading the thread and the report, I have to agree: “Cognitive dissonance can be ugly.” 😉
Tob