Lawrence O'Donnel goes on record: Rove was the Plame leak. Rove lawyer denies it.

[Ladewig]

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=2155Here is the

Quote:

transcript of O'Donnell's remarks on the McLaughlin Group :

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/

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article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000972855
NEW YORK An attorney for Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, confirmed to the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times on Saturday that his client did speak with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper in July 2003. But the lawyer said Rove never identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative to Cooper in those conversations.

The attorney, Robert Luskin said that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Plame case, assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation.

"Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else," Luskin told the Post's Carol D. Leonnig. Luskin said the question remains unanswered: "Who outed this woman? ... It wasn't Karl."

[kimiko]

"The suspense is terrible - I hope it will last." -Willy Wonka

[Upchurch]

Assuming it's true, the biggest surprise to me is that they were able to trace it so high up in the Bush administration. That it came from within the White House was almost a given.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and predict that the same people who called for charges to be brought against Deep Throat are going to be standing up Karl Rove. (again, if all this is true.)

[WildCat]

Are political advisors normally given access to top secret material? If so, is that legal? It certainly seems inappropriate.

[WildCat]

Quote:

The attorney, Robert Luskin said that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Plame case, assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation.

That's exactly what Fitzgerald told former Illinois Gov. George Ryans' attorney. Right before he indicted him on corruption charges.

[varwoche]

Bush is already feeling the pressure of his flagging popularity. This is optimal timing (depending on perspective) for a good kick to the presidential groin, in terms of the looming scotus confrontation.

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by WildCat
Are political advisors normally given access to top secret material? If so, is that legal? It certainly seems inappropriate.

Are you talking about Rove? Rove is an employee of the government and assigned as is Bush's chief of staff. As such, he is cleared for all levels of classification. Certain restrictions apply.

I don't know if he did it or not but I'm going to be very surprised if they can prove he did. I'd be further surprised if, assuming they can prove it, they can win a legal case against him. The political case is easy.

[varwoche]

Some supporting evidence...

Quote:

Rove spoke to Time reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003, during the week before published reports revealed the identity of operative Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic and former U.S. envoy Joseph Wilson.

article

[crackmonkey]

How does that support the contention that Rove divulged Plame's identity? The reporter also talked to other sources around the same time - so I guess that would be considered exculpatory evidence, huh?

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
How does that support the contention that Rove divulged Plame's identity? The reporter also talked to other sources around the same time - so I guess that would be considered exculpatory evidence, huh?

It is evidence that it could have been Rove, not evidence that it was. Politically, for the time being, that's good enough. Legally, they've got a long way to go.

[varwoche]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
How does that support the contention that Rove divulged Plame's identity? The reporter also talked to other sources around the same time - so I guess that would be considered exculpatory evidence, huh?

It's so obvious (to me) that I'm not sure how to explain. Maybe where you and I use the word "evidence" you are thinking "proof".

It is alleged that Rove revealed Plame's name to Cooper.

If Cooper had not communicated with Rove, that would be evidence that the allegation is not true.

Whereas Rove supposedly did communicate with Cooper just prior to the leak, which supports the allegation.

[aerocontrols]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rob Lister
Are you talking about Rove? Rove is an employee of the government and assigned as is Bush's chief of staff. As such, he is cleared for all levels of classification. Certain restrictions apply.

Time restrictions.

Rove was not Bush's deputy chief of staff until Feb 2005. At the time of the Plame leak, Rove was working as "senior advisor and political strategist" and should have had little-to-no access to classified information.

[Regnad Kcin]

People, people... some perspective please. Do you really think any of this is important? I mean, it's not as if anyone got a blowjob.

[Manny]

Quote:

Originally posted by Upchurch
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and predict that the same people who called for charges to be brought against Deep Throat are going to be standing up Karl Rove. (again, if all this is true.)

Absolutely. And the people who thought that DT's frustrating of an FBI investigation made him a hero will be using the word "treason" to refer to the leaker in this case (and to refer to Rove if they turn out to be two people).

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by aerocontrols
Time restrictions.

Rove was not Bush's deputy chief of staff until Feb 2005. At the time of the Plame leak, Rove was working as "senior advisor and political strategist" and should have had little-to-no access to classified information.

Why not? Who signed his paychecks? If he was working for Bush in either capacity I can't imagine him not having legal access. If he didn't have legal access, that raises other difficulties. Mostly for the prosecutor.

[crackmonkey]

Rove never denied talking to the reporter. If the fact that he had contact with the reporter 'evidence' of his guilt? Saddam had some contact with Al Qaeda as well... is that considered to be 'evidence' that he was involved with 9/11?
Rove said he never divulged the name, and the reporter contacted several other people. Is this similarly 'evidence' of Rove's innocence?

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
Rove never denied talking to the reporter. If the fact that he had contact with the reporter 'evidence' of his guilt? Saddam had some contact with Al Qaeda as well... is that considered to be 'evidence' that he was involved with 9/11?
Rove said he never divulged the name, and the reporter contacted several other people. Is this similarly 'evidence' of Rove's innocence?

That would be circumstantial evidence of their guilt as well. But they are not Rove and therefore not news.

When the reporters spill the beans, and I think they will, we'll know.

[varwoche]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
Rove never denied talking to the reporter.

So? That means he never denied the evidence, not that it's not evidence.

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If [sic?] the fact that he had contact with the reporter 'evidence' of his guilt?

Yes. (Assuming the act is a crime to begin with. I've seen varying opinions.)

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Saddam had some contact with Al Qaeda as well... is that considered to be 'evidence' that he was involved with 9/11?

Yes. (Though I find it non-compelling.)

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Rove said he never divulged the name, and the reporter contacted several other people. Is this similarly 'evidence' of Rove's innocence?

Yes.

However, I assign less weight to the part I underlined, versus the revelation of Rove's contact with Cooper just before the leak. It seems rational (to me) to discount denials of guilt, because this synchs with the behavoir of innocent and guilty people alike.

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rob Lister
That would be circumstantial evidence of their guilt as well. But they are not Rove and therefore not news.

When the reporters spill the beans, and I think they will, we'll know.

More interesting is Time's (the company, not the reporters) take on the matter.

"In surrendering a reporter's notes, TIME Inc.'s top editor says the rule of law trumps the promise of confidentiality. Where does journalism go from here?"

Source

I have no real opinion on that. But, in doing what they did their reporters are going to have a very, very difficult time every getting another high-level confidential source.

If the reporters gave up their source, they'd be ruined as investagative reporters.

But Time is condeming all it's investagative reporters. Time is condeming itself.

[aerocontrols]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rob Lister
Why not? Who signed his paychecks? If he was working for Bush in either capacity I can't imagine him not having legal access. If he didn't have legal access, that raises other difficulties. Mostly for the prosecutor.

You can't be serious. Some White House jobs come with classified access, and some do not. "Senior advisor and political strategist" generally does not.

If he did not have legal access to Plame's ID then it will be difficult for the prosecutor to convict Rove, (though if Rove was involved he should at minimum never work in government again) but then the Fitzgerald should be looking for the person who committed the crime of revealing Plame's name, shouldn't he? Whether or not it is difficult to determine who leaked to Rove should not dissuade Fitzgerald.

[crimresearch]

If anyone needs evidence of Rove's guilt, look no further:

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by aerocontrols
You can't be serious. Some White House jobs come with classified access, and some do not. "Senior advisor and political strategist" generally does not.

If he did not have legal access to Plame's ID then it will be difficult for the prosecutor to convict Rove, (though if Rove was involved he should at minimum never work in government again) but then the Fitzgerald should be looking for the person who committed the crime of revealing Plame's name, shouldn't he? Whether or not it is difficult to determine who leaked to Rove should not dissuade Fitzgerald.

I agree with para2 pretty much but I don't buy para1. Why would a Senior Advisor generally not have classified access? I have to ask for confirmation on that one. As a senior advisor to the president he would be either working directly for the government or he would be a contractor for the government. I've done both and held classified clearances during both.

[crackmonkey]

So if talking to a reporter is paramount to evidence of guilt, then it follows that to determine the amount of evidence pointing to the potential felon (if it was indeed a felony, or a crime at all), one must compile a list of all sources the reporter talked to. We should weigh the evidence for guilt against the evidence against. So far, we know that the reporter talked to three sources, one of which was Rove. It looks as if the evidence exculpates him by a 2 to 1 margin.

[Manny]

Heh. By that simplistic analysis the evidence actually works against him by 2-1, as Messrs. Novak and Cooper both had two sources for their stories.

[varwoche]

Efforts to incorrectly infer black/white absolutes into my statements notwithstanding, this is a piece of evidence, to be weighed along with whatever other evidence may or may not exist. At least we're past the whimsical notion that it's not evidence at all.

[crackmonkey]

I suppose this could be considered evidence - of the most trivial kind. Seeing how anyone the reporter spoke to could be the culprit, Rove is just as much of a suspect as anyone else the reporter spoke with or met.
For that metter, there's no evidence that Rove even knew about Plame's past as a CIA agent.
There's also plentiful evidence that the reporter's editor is the culprit. I understand that they spoke on numerous occasions immediately before and after the identity was leaked...

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
I suppose this could be considered evidence - of the most trivial kind. Seeing how anyone the reporter spoke to could be the culprit, Rove is just as much of a suspect as anyone else the reporter spoke with or met.
For that metter, there's no evidence that Rove even knew about Plame's past as a CIA agent.
There's also plentiful evidence that the reporter's editor is the culprit. I understand that they spoke on numerous occasions immediately before and after the identity was leaked...

I think you're going off the deep end with some of this.

Rove knew she was an operative. To think not goes a little beyond the pale for me. That doesn't mean he leaked it. I'm thinking he's too smart to leak it and if he did, he wouldn't have testified to the contrary under oath (Rove would have had someone else leak it). But I could be wrong. We keep hearing from the left on what an evil genius he is but maybe in reality he's just an average guy.

But you're right about the editor. But if so, no laws were broken unless you can demonstrate that he got that information in an illegal manner.

[joe1347]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rob Lister
I think you're going off the deep end with some of this.

Rove knew she was an operative. To think not goes a little beyond the pale for me. That doesn't mean he leaked it. I'm thinking he's too smart to leak it and if he did, he wouldn't have testified to the contrary under oath (Rove would have had someone else leak it).

Agree. I can't believe that Rove was dumb enough to have directly leaked the name. He certainly knows that getting caught disclosing classified info is one of the surest ways that the mightly can be brought down by much weaker opposition. If it was Rove - I would think that he would have at least used some type of third party cutout.

[Manny]

Quote:

Originally posted by joe1347
Agree. I can't believe that Rove was dumb enough to have directly leaked the name. He certainly knows that getting caught disclosing classified info is one of the surest ways that the mightly can be brought down by much weaker opposition.

Let me offer a speculative situation in which he might have.

Suppose that Ms. Plame wasn't all that secret any more. She was -- when she was overseas she had a deep cover. But suppose that back in DC, she's pretty much "out." Introduces herself at dinner parties as a CIA analyst (people do!), has a Langley parking lot permit dangling from her rear-view mirror, etc.

Novak and others want to know, among other things, how it is that Wilson got the Africa gig. Rove says something like, 'Oh, you know his wife Val. She's a big shot over at Langley on WMD stuff and recommended him for the job. So that part makes perfect sense.' Under this scenario Rove may or may not know about Ms. Plame from confidential information but would also know about her from non-confidential sources.

As an alternative, he may have heard her name from someone with access to secret information who blabbed improperly. The first-generation leaker wouldn't have said something like 'this is top-secret information, so keep it under your hat...' he would have just said it, either out of carelessness or out of an erroneous belief that Rove is entitled to the information. Once he has that information, he's got no reason to believe that it was secret because he got it so casually.

Say that Wilson had been recommended for the gig by then-director Tenet or Robert Hutchings from the National Intelligence Council. No one would be accusing anyone of a crime for disclosing that -- everyone knows those guys are with the CIA.

To be clear, I'm merely offering up possibilities above, not my own opinion. There's a lot more we don't know than we do know, and frankly forming an opinion one way or another at this point is a good way to get caught wrong.

[Ziggurat]

Quote:

Originally posted by manny
There's a lot more we don't know than we do know, and frankly forming an opinion one way or another at this point is a good way to get caught wrong.

Indeed. There's lots of potential ways this could still play out, and only some of them have Karl Rove as the culprit.

Quote:

Originally posted by Upchurch
That it came from within the White House was almost a given.

As I pointed out in the other Plame thread, there were two SEPARATE pieces of information in Novak's original story: the first, that Plame was a CIA agent, and the second, that she recommended her husband. Go back and read Novak's original story carefully, and you'll see that Novak puts these two facts in separate sentences, and most critically, he only attributes the second piece of information to white house officials. He gives no indication where he got the first piece of information from - everyone seems to have assumed that Novak said he got it from white house sources, but that's not actually what he said.

Is it possible that Novak learned Plame was a CIA agent from a whitehouse official? Oh yes. Is it a given? No, it most certainly is not. I'm with manny on this one: there's too much we don't know to make any real conclusions yet.

[varwoche]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
I suppose this could be considered evidence - of the most trivial kind ... Seeing how anyone the reporter spoke to could be the culprit,

"The most trivial"? It doesn't take my avatar to cross off the doorman, newstand clerk, mother-in-law, barista, panhandler and other incidental contacts.

And unless you're suggesting there is out-and-out malfeasance on the part of Cooper and Time, the suggestion that his editor could the unnamed source is fairly ludicrous. (As I suspect you know.)

That leaves N people who are actually in a position to know the facts about Plame, a subset of whom might have a motive to leak.

How small would N have to be for the evidence to rise above "the most trivial"?

In top of which, Rove has now been identified by a colleague of Cooper's. (Preemptively, I realize this is heresay. But this isn't court.)

Rob Lister, I'm with you that Time's actions are bizarre.

[crackmonkey]

I suppose it would depend on how big the set N is, and whether Rove is a member. Neither of which is yet known.
So, Rove's speaking to a reporter may be meaningless (if he isn't in the know) or perhaps momentous (if he IS in the know and N is small). Until N is defined numerically and Rove is found to belong to the set, it's pretty damned trivial.

[Skeptic]

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and predict that the same people who called for charges to be brought against Deep Throat are going to be standing up Karl Rove. (again, if all this is true.)

I don't think there should be charges brought against "Deep Throat", but the difference is that he ADMITTED he did it, while Rove DENIES he did it.

Perhaps there should be a formal investigation about it, but I am quite sure you'd defend anybody from being charged with criminal acts because a journalist SAID he is "Deep Throat".

[Upchurch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Skeptic
I don't think there should be charges brought against "Deep Throat", but the difference is that he ADMITTED he did it, while Rove DENIES he did it.

My comment was mostly aimed at the grotesquely partisan and hypocritical nature of politics and commentators these days.

However, to my knowledge, there have been a great number of people throughout history who have denied having done things that they actually did do. Bill Clinton, for example, DENIED having an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He even did it under oath, which I would think is an even stronger denial. Did that have any bearing whatsoever on whether or not he actually did have such a relationship?

A denial is only relevent if it is a situation of one person's word versus one other person's word in the absense of any other physical or corroborating evidence. If Time's source material contains what it is claimed it contains, there should definitely be an inquery into the situation to see if there is anything to support the claim. Rove's denial is meaningless at this point. For what reason should we take his word on it?

Quote:

Perhaps there should be a formal investigation about it, but I am quite sure you'd defend anybody from being charged with criminal acts because a journalist SAID he is "Deep Throat".

I prefaced (and post-faced) my comments with "if it is true" for a very definite reason.

[corplinx]

I won't mourn Karl Rove being run out of Washington on a rail. He is the guy who keeps Bush anchored the the religious right as his power seat. However, I find this rampant speculation about him being the leak most disturbing. If he wasn't the leaker, then all of this was just slander.

[crimresearch]

And if he was the leaker, then some people on this forum just blew their chance at a million dollars.

[Upchurch]

Quote:

Originally posted by corplinx
However, I find this rampant speculation about him being the leak most disturbing.

Is it speculation? At this point, I believe it is a claim made by Lawrence O'Donnell, and possibly Matt Cooper. Whether or not either of them have the evidence to back that claim has yet to be seen, but it has been promised.

[steinhenge]

Quote:

Originally posted by Regnad Kcin
People, people... some perspective please. Do you really think any of this is important? I mean, it's not as if anyone got a blowjob.

This may be the most perfect thing I've ever read on the internet. Thank you.

[Ladewig]

Quote:

Originally posted by Regnad Kcin
People, people... some perspective please. Do you really think any of this is important? I mean, it's not as if anyone got a blowjob.

Well, then why don't we reactivate one of the Jeff Gannon/Guckert threads and speculate about records showing him entering the White House without records showing him leaving the White House?

[varwoche]

An article by O'Donnel about his revelation...

Quote:

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years. The next day, Luskin was forced to open the first hole in the Rove two-year wall of silence about the case. In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Luskin then launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

As you can see Crackmonkey, O'Donnel attaches significance to Rove's admission of contact with Cooper.

Until O'Donnel's revelation, I had no opinion as to who leaked. Because O'Donnel is (to my knowledge) a respected journalist, I now suspect that it was Rove who revealed Plame's name to Cooper. (No comment on legality.)

Crackmonkey, I'm going to give you an opportunity to demonstrate confidence in your assesment of the evidence as "flimsy". I propose a monetary wager -- the proceeds will go to jref. If you are preliminarily agreeable, we can hammer out the terms here (if permissible under the new, stricter moderation) or else here.

Well?