I am going to post this here because I want feedback and discussion. It is already on my own blog, but I get little traffic.
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This is what Tim Russert explained yesterday on Meet the Press.
“between host Tim Russert and GOP Chairman (and former Rove deputy) Ken Mehlman:
RUSSERT: When one is given classified clearance, they are asked to sign an oath, and they are given a briefing book with form. <u>Standard Form 312</u>, it’s called.
And if you read this briefing book, it says this:
<u>”Before…confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of [the] SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not…confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.”</u>
So by confirming a story from Robert Novak or sharing information with Matt Cooper, no matter where it came from, if, in fact, it was classified information, without seeking to determine whether it was declassified, it is an unauthorized disclosure.”
So even if Karl Rove is not the original source of the information that Valerie Plame is a CIA employee and merely confirmed it to Bob Novak, he still illegally released classified information.
Was Valerie Plame a CIA asset under Non Official Cover? A NOC? Was giving her name and employment to the Press a crime? The CIA seemed to think so when they referred a criminal complaint to the Justice Department for prosecution. The Justice Department appeared to believe that a crime was committed when Ms. Plame’s CIA status was published in Novak’s column when they assigned Fitzgerald as a Special Prosecutor on the case. The federal judges appear to have thought a crime occurred when they subpoenaed notes from Matt Cooper and Judith Miller.
The federal grand jury has been acting on Fitzgerald’s requests for over a year now. The very first thing any prosecutor would have to do to get the grand jury to act is to show that a crime was likely before any further actions would be taken.
Did Karl Rove know that Valerie Plame’s CIA status was classified information when he spoke to Matt Cooper? Here is what he said based on Matt Cooper’s notes provided by Mark Klieman.
“Rove, asked about Wilson’s trip, spontaneously mentioned Wilson’s wife’s job working for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction, said that some information was about to be declassified, and then said “I have already said too much.”
So what do we know? We know that Rove and Libby talked to the press about Valerie Plame’s CIA status. We know that Rove thought he was discussing classified information when he spoke to Matt Cooper about Valerie plame’s status. We know that Bob Novak published it. We know that the CIA, the Justice Department, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, three federal judges and a grand jury all believe that it is very likely that a crime was committed that is worth investigating.
Against this is a set of weak and unsubstantial assertions that Rove did not commit any crime. Their best defense now seems to be that no matter how unscrupulous and immoral Karl Rove’s behavior was, he has not been indicted for a crime.
Even George Bush concedes this as he Lowers the bar on White House employment from
“The president has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration. He’s made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct.”
Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
September 29, 2003″
to
“I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.”
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
July 18, 2005
Rove is in trouble.
The polls reported by Ruy Teixeira indicate that between the failed preemptive war in Iraq, Bush’s failed efforts to destroy Social Security, and the Karl Rove – Valerie Plame scandal at the core of the White House, Bush is himself in real trouble.
I don’t think we’ll know whether or not they’re in real trouble until Bush proposes a new justice. Then watch what corporate media does. If Rovergate falls off the radar then, I think they’re home free until Fitzgerald publishes, and then who knows? I’m not as sure he’s the national Eliot Spitzer as some people are.
I spoke of this briefly earlier on in their front page.
In my job I have to sign a paper stating that I will not release any pt information without their permission. In the military, once, I worked around classified material and had to sign a paper to which you are talking about. I just couldn’t remember the number of it, if in fact it is the same agreement. NO one took the bait, and no pun intended>>>:o)
I rather doubt we will really know how bad it is until after Bush reacts.
When Nixon announced that he was going on TV to give a major speech in 1974, my bet was that he was going to announce that the 82d Airborne had surrounded the Congress and that the members of Congress had been placed under arrest. His announcement of his resignation really caught me by surprise. But Nixon had already fired the special Prosecutor, had already replaced Spiro Agnew as Vice President and relieved Erlichman and Haldeman.
I heard later that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had put the word out that no General was to take any order from Nixon unless they had countersigned it.
In comparison with the Nixon sequence, Rove is the mastermind comparable with Nixon, while Bush himself is the person promoted well above his level of competence as had been Agnew. Rove will be the first person to become aware that things have gone so far that they have to quit. He has the connections that tell him what is happening and the control of the Republican Party.
The key in Watergate was the Impeachment process. With Tom DeLay controlling the House, that won’t happen to Bush. Instead, I think the comparable pressure will come as the Republicans go home to run for reelection in 2006. I think the damage that Bush has done to the Republicans by going after Social Security, wasting American lives and Treasure in a useless war in Iraq, and the damage that Rove has done to White House credibility that the pressure for them to take some action can only build over the next 15 months.
As I think about it, Bush won reelection because enough people felt that he could deal with terrorism. The annual al Qaeda terrorist attacks (Madrid and London) have eroded that conviction. The military has been saying for weeks that they thought that they had broken the back of terrorism in Baghdad, and the terrorists have come back this week and proven them wrong. I am reasonably sure that Bush will have to pull out of Iraq in the Summer of 2006 because the Republicans cannot maintain control of the Congress without some apparent ‘success’ in Iraq before the election.
If they do it near enough to the election they will spin it as success in Iraq, although it will actually be an admission of complete American defeat. It will be an even greater recruitment tool for al Qaeda than is the current occupation of Iraq. Bin Laden will take credit for defeating the USSR in Afghanistan and the U.S. in Iraq although he actually was not major in either. It will lead to 20 more years of international terrorism, though, and that will be the fault of Bush and the Republicans.
Back to the present, though. The full-court press in the media by every known Republican leader in support of Rove tells you that they really feel threatened. The RNC Chairman, Ken Mehlman, is a protege of Rove and the Republican National Committee belongs to Rove. The fact that Mehlman has been on every possible media venue this last week tells us a lot. The threat to the Republican Party as a whole is major, and they are reacting. It may die down a bit, but as the next election nears, the pressure will continue to rise for them. Their only defensive techniques are PR blitz’s like the current one, a military action (Wag-the-dog type actions like the invasion of Grenada to cover for the disaster to the Marines in Beirut) and illegally manipulating elections.
A recess appointment for John Bolton to the UN Ambassador job will indicate they still don’t have a clue. I expect them to try that because they have invested so much in putting Bolton into the UN that anything else is an admission of defeat. They have got to fear that such an admission of defeat while they are under attack from so many other directions will cause the dam to break. The reactions the recess appointment will be instructive.
If we see a middle of the road all-around acceptable nominee for the Supreme Court, we will know they really feel the heat. How they dampen the reaction of the Christian right wing in that case I can’t even guess.
But that is mostly just speculation. What do I know?