The Non-Story with Legs

I've gotten really behind in my blog reading, so I've just recently come across Left Coaster's entry that dissects and dismantles the right-wing talking points in the CIA leak case. This is an evolving post that they are updating as new information comes in. That's a good thing because it seems like the talking points are changing on an almost hourly basis at times. In the latest incarnation, we have entered what Billmon calls the mirror universe, somewhat similar to that old Star Trek episode with the evil Spock. Now, it seems, Joe Wilson was the leaker and poor, poor Karl Rove was the whistleblower who was trying to set the story straight. In this latest tale, Valerie Plame's identity was well-known and Rove found out about her from the reporters. The NY Times and Washington Post both had stories on Friday morning that elaborated on the conversation between Rove and Novak. According to the Post story...

At the end of that 15- or 20-minute call, according to the lawyer, Novak said he had learned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
"I heard that, too," Rove replied, according to the lawyer, confirming the Times account.

That may be how the conversation went between Rove and Novak, but it still doesn't explain how Novak got the information to begin with. As Editor & Publisher reports...

In his first interview on this incident, on July 21, 2003, for Newsday, however, Novak said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." That would suggest that either Rove did initiate the contact, or there were two or more other officials who called Novak first.

Though Rove and his attorney are claiming that there is a big distinction between revealing classified information and confirming it, both are prohibited under Rove's nondisclosure agreement. And, as Rep. Henry Waxman's release states (see previous link), "under the nondisclosure agreement and the applicable executive order, even 'negligent' disclosures to reporters are grounds for revocation of a security clearance or dismissal."

In the comment threads of my previous posts on this matter, a couple of commenters have bent over backwards to try to convince me that this is a dead, non-story, but the leaks just keep on coming. This non-story continues to have legs. Today's papers have the story of the State Department memo aboard Air Force One and drags some other names such as Colin Powell and Ari Fleischer into the mix. Of course, being a member of the liberal minority, I would love to see a douche-bag like Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House, but none of us really knows all of the details that Fitzgerald has dug up in his two-year investigation. We only know what we read in the papers and the conflicting talking points. Karl Rove's name has been pretty prominent and everyone has focused on him, but he is not the sole subject of the investigation. The commenters have been pretty adamant that no crime has been committed, but I think it seems pretty silly to think that Fitzgerald has been conducting this investigation for so long without presenting witnesses to the grand jury to testify that, yes, there has been a crime. I think Fitzgerald is going to have a lot of explaining to do if he closes this investigation without charging anyone of anything. Why take so long? Why be so eager to imprison reporters to get to their sources? At this point, who gets charged and what they get charged with is anyone's guess. Perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice are just some of the possible crimes that might come up in addition to the charge of outing a covert agent.

What I'm trying to say is that these same commenters might as well save their breath. I am not the person they need to be convincing. I daresay that the person they need to convince does not even visit this blog. That person is Patrick Fitzgerald. The only thing I do is read and process and, if it seems interesting, pass it along here. But since these commenters are just trolling for a good argument, I'm sure this advice will fall on deaf ears. As for Fitzgerald, Billmon has a quote about him from a friend of a friend that might keep some of the people involved in this case up late into the night...

Fitzgerald is a prosecution machine. When he wants somebody, he goes after them with whatever he's got. If he can't make the case he started with, he'll figure out what you did do and hit you with that. He's relentless, and he doesn't give a flying fuck about the press or the First Amendment. He'd throw us all in jail if it would help him make his case.

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