Speculating

I've been meaning to write a little more about the case of the leaks of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, but who really knows anything about what's going on here. Until the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, or the grand jury give us any information, it's all just speculation.

The speculation starts with the special prosecutor. Is Fitzgerald adequately pursuing this case or is he just going through the motions? After all, it's been two years. For the time being, let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

Next, enquiring minds want to know -- What's the deal with Robert Novak? The right-wing columnist and general all-around douchebag is the one that wrote the column that outed Plame. In his column, Novak wrote that two senior administration officials had told him that the reason Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium there was because his wife, a CIA agent, had lobbied for him to go. Whether or not these two officials identified her by name, this had the effect of outing her to Novak, who outed her to everyone else in the column. So the big question is why is Fitzgerald focused on Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller and any conversations they may have had instead of Novak. The only speculation that makes any sense, if we're still giving Fitzgerald the benefit of the doubt, is that Novak has already told everything he knows to Fitzgerald and the grand jury.

Just as an aside, if my wife ever tries to use any influence she may acquire sometime in the future to get me sent on a trip on the government's dime, I hope she finds a better place for me to go than Niger.

Again, just speculation, but it seems safe to say that Karl Rove was somehow involved. If he was not one of the "senior administration officials" to call Novak and other reporters, he was almost certainly directing all of this behind the scenes. This sleazy attempt to discredit an administration critic...well, according to James Moore, it's right out of the Rove playbook...

The simple, unavoidable truth is that Karl Rove orchestrated the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. No one who knows this man and has watched him work has any doubt that Rove came up with the idea of the leak and then set the plan in motion. Having watched him as he leaked, lied, obfuscated, and denied for political goals over the past 25 years, my own conviction of Rove's involvement is unwavering. He has a history of seeking revenge and the Texas landscape is cluttered with political cadavers he left behind before departing for the big show. In every campaign Rove has managed, there have been questionable tactics and unethical attacks. None of them has happened by accident because nothing that happens in Rove's world is accidental. And neither was the eposure (sic) of Ms. Plame. It was no more spontaneous, independent, or random than the campaign run by the Swift Boat Veterans.

And almost nothing goes on in the Bush White House without Rove, "Bush's Brain," being aware of it. Rove has long been thought to be behind all of this, but he received a lot of new attention last weekend when Lawrence O'Donnell, an MSNBC political analyst, went on the McLaughlin Group and announced that Rove was the leaker. Rove's lawyer, Karl Luskin, spent the rest of the holiday weekend making these weird, nebulous denials. Yes, Rove talked to Cooper, but he "never knowingly disclosed classified information." He also denied that Rove was a target of the grand jury probe. O'Donnell, writing in the Huffington Post, had three questions for Luskin...

Q: You've said Rove is not a target of the investigation. Is he a subject of the investigation?

Q: Since Time delivered its e-mails to the prosecutor on Friday, have you asked the prosecutor whether Rove's status has changed? From witness to subject? Or subject to target?

Q: You told Newsweek that your client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Did Rove ever unknowingly disclose classified information?

O'Donnell quotes from the U.S. Attorneys' Manual to explain the distinction...

A 'target' is a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant.

Getting an assurance that you are not a target is pretty easy until the prosecutor really has the goods on you -- "a putative defendant."

Here's the Manual's definition of subject: "A 'subject' of an investigation is a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation." Subjects frequently have their status upgraded to target when prosecutors get new information, like this one did on Friday.

In the past few days, Luskin's denials have gotten a little more emphatic, and Rove, in a television interview, declared, "I didn't know her name, and didn't leak her name." Of course, Rove would not have had to know her name or leaked her name to out her to Novak. All he would have needed to know what that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent who used her maiden name in her work. Novak could have found out the rest.

So what's Fitzgerald up to? Why go after Cooper and Miller? O'Donnell, writing in a different Huffington Post entry, declares that the federal law that protects covert agents identities "is not an easy law to break"...

First, and most obviously, Valerie Plame had to be a covert agent when Rove exposed her to Cooper. It's not obvious that she was. The law has a specific definition of covert agent that she might not fit -- an overseas posting in the last five years, for example. But it's hard to believe the prosecutor didn't begin the grand jury session with a CIA witness certifying that Plame was a covert agent. If the prosecutor couldn't establish that, why bother moving on to the next witness?

Second, Rove had to know she was a covert agent. Cooper's article refers to Plame as "a CIA official." Most CIA officials are not covert agents.

Third, Rove had to know that the CIA was taking "affirmative measures" to hide her identity. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing a political operative would or should know.

Fourth, Rove had to be "authorized" to have classified information about covert agents or at least this one covert agent. Doesn't seem like the kind of security clearance a political operative would or should have.

I'll be surprised if all four of those elements of the crime line up perfectly for a Rove indictment.

It seems much more likely that Fitzgerald will be trying to make the case for conspiracy. After all, it seems that there was more than one leaker, and it seems that there was a concerted effort to discredit Joseph Wilson after his NY Times editorial disagreeing with the president's assertion that Saddam tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Fitzgerald may also be trying to make a case for perjury. Rove has already testified before the grand jury two or three times. Did he lie to the grand jury? Did he lie to federal agents investigating the leak? Conspiracy and perjury seem easier to prove than all the planets that have to be in line for a conviction on this covert agent law.

All of which leads me to believe that Judith Miller needs to give up her source. This is not a confidential source that was giving her the inside track on governmental or corporate wrongdoing. This was an administration stooge trying to use her to discredit an administration critic. Whether they realized it or not (and they probably did), they were committing a crime by revealing the identity of a CIA agent. They are still using her to keep their ass out of a sling. If (back to our first assumption again) Fitzgerald is really pursuing this case, Miller's testimony is vital to prove conspiracy and/or perjury. It seems obvious that Miller's source is not the same as Cooper's. Otherwise, why give Cooper the green light to testify, but not Miller. It's vital to have testimony about multiple sources to prove that there was a conspiracy. It's also vital to have multiple sources to prove perjury. Otherwise, it's just one person's word against another's. Miller needs to stop protecting whomever she's protecting, save herself a lot of grief, and testify. She needs to become the whistleblower.

PBU28

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