Redstate

From the Powerline piece:

Valerine Plame isn't very convincing as a covert agent of the United States, although she did fairly well as an agent of her husband and the president's other enemies.

I'd say she was quite effective as a covert agent... of the DNC. It seems that Wilson's trip was not a "CIA mission" at all, but Valerie Plame's own mission to put her husband in a position to cause trouble for the Administration.

We need more of these sorts of "civil servants" like we need holes in the head.

What stuns me is the real story emerging.  I had figured for years that Plame was a well known CIA agent inside DC's elite social circles - which Novak runs in.  I think now it is clear we have a rogue CIA agent who was against the war and tried to make up false information to undermine the President. And the media was so desparate they fell for it.  At least now someone admits it was known, pre-Novak article, Plame was CIA.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/258

You nailed it.  Plame was a rogue CIA employee using the MSM to distribute misinformation supposedly unearthed by her husband to undermine the President.

Two people who took oaths to protect this country tride to lie about Saddam Hussein' nuclear intentions...

I am fairly certain that is against the law.

And now we start to understand what the "crime" might be that Fitzgerald is investigating. In order for him to subpoena the reporters in the first place, he had to convince a judge that there was evidence that a crime had been committed. The media and rest of the lefties have assumed that the "crime" was outing Plame. But no one who ever looked at the statute could believe that.

Fitzgerald has been very aggressive in pursuing this, to the point of sending a reporter to jail. I couldn't believe he was doing this over a "crime" that hardly anyone thought he could get a conviction on. It had to be something else.

I think there is a conspiracy to do something here, and it involved Plame, Wilson, the New York Times, Time magazine, and whoever put them all together.

Yes, Fitzgerald's tenacity makes much more sense if he was going after Plame and Wilson instead of some name dropper.  What is key is the Powerline update where Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC admits Plame's employer was an open secret!  That absolves everyone and anyone related to the Novak piece in terms of naming names.

So it cannot be outing Plame, it must be somethig much more serious.  It must be Plame using government resources to fund her husband's political hit job.  The question here is will the NYTimes cover their behinds by turning on Plame or gamble Like Dan Rather and others they could weather a media feeding frenzy?

tough call.

Special Forces intercepted a shipment of yellow cake uranium loaded in fifty-five gallon barrels.  It was in transit from Iraq to Iran during an attempted smuggling operation just before the fall of Bagdad.

I hadn't heard this one.  Could you link to your source?

Pretty sure the adminstration would have made a hugh deal of that, if it were true, and that story would have gotton alot of media-play.

So I am curious..how is anti-sematism related to Plamegate?

I missed something here - where did an anti-semitism question come up? Please clarify.

Thanks.

there was a reference to anti-semitism in the diary...but I just read the link in the diary...I now know where the reference to anti-semitism comes from..it still doenst make sense to..but thats another matter..but yeah I should have clicked the link before asking that question.

n/t

in Iraq is reported by MSM.  Only the bad news.

I believe it was CNSNews.com that first reported the story.  I'll try to find the link for you.

The administration does not want everything Special Forces does to be widely disseminated in public so you will have to ask them.

Take a look at the latest entry in the other diary - a trollish conclusion, full of conditions with a curious ID.

Anyway - to pick up where Vivid left off over there - I don't think anyone is guilty of any crimes here on either side. I think the powerline story covers the legal aspects thoroughly, and in many ways I'm far more concerned about the CIA management practices which let this situation arise in the first place.

I think that is increasingly Rove's point, and the very latest newsweek articles really hedge off in this direction, and if that's where they're going, I think the MSM is giving up on the most nefarious, "frog-marching" aspects of the case.

Which further highlights how wrong Wilson/Plame were in this whole episode. Amb. Wilson took a trip under spurious guidance (I cannot wait to see or hear Cheney's testimony on the original request), delivered a slapdash report, which even the 9/11 commission had trouble dragging some info out of. Then, he reversed himself in the editorial, all the while leaving his professional background behind and jumping wholly into the political realm.

As for Ms. Plame, until the VF shoot, she at least tried to keep a low profile, but the scant reporting so far on her role in the original decision leaves out a lot. What was her job, should she have had any role, what are CIA rules for nepotism/conflict of interest/political appointees? Now, some of this may be classified and rightfully so, but if Cheney and Goss have this mess to clean up at the CIA, what Rove did is small beer.

As for Wilson/Plame criminality, I believe they have plenty of legal defenses. To play devil's advocate, there is a whole lot of intent you need to impute to them to get near espionage or treason. And as sorry as it seems, Amb. Wilson actually benefits from the contradictions between his official trip report and the NYT editorial. He can point to the report and claim it's accurate, and point to the NYT and claim that was a political opinion. A prosecutor will have a tough time joining the two into an indictment.

At most, I expect Rove to get unjustifiably and mildly smeared, but am hopeful that the press may decide that he really knows what he's doing and try to avoid another credibility blow like CBS and CNN suffered, and that the CIA will dramatically alter it's internal controls and relations between field staff and Langley staff.

Just my two cents worth.

I see Leon H. was all over the troll - that was fast!

Has anyone seen any reference in any article indicating that Prosecutor Fitzgerald has questioned either Ms. Plame or Amb. Wilson under oath before the grand jury?

The discussion on RS is markedly moving in the direction of what's up for them in this case, and aside from Wilson's original grandstanding back in 2003, I've seen no reference to either of them appearing under oath or answering questions. Even answering questions not under oath - they seem to have noticeably quieted.

Sorry, but they have no excuses for appropriating federal dollars to execute a hoax or a inaccurate information.

It is interesting to see your standards for minimal professionalism and honesty are so low...

A reflection you may wish to reconsider since it has nothing to do with Plame/Wilson and everything to do with what you will tolerate for political gain.

Consider me unimpressed.

To the Mock impeachment hearings.  There was a FP story on it here when it occurred, but I haven't gone digging.  Give the site a search for the story and the background for the use of the term in the diary.
-bro

According to source, Plame initiated this falsified propoganda - wishful thinking.

Which means nothing in reality.

Can you give me some evidence of the accusations against Plame/Wilson?

I agree with you, if they are true, but disagree strongly with this characterization: " It is interesting to see your standards for minimal professionalism and honesty are so low..."

The point I am making is that all the disclosures so far involve Rove and related administration sources' testimony, the applicable anti-disclosure laws, and relevant blogs' analysis.

Aside from the speculations here, I've seen no evidence about Plame, and Wilson's evidence is the apparent conflict between his trip reporting, as discussed in the 9-11 committee report, and his NYT editorial.

Finally, if you were a prosecutor would you seek an indictment based on your inferences? Don't you need evidence?

If Fitzgerald is headed that way, good for him, but nobody is reporting that.

PS - politically, what Plame/Wilson did is wrong and dangerous - I just don't think it's criminal.

Also, to quote you, "It is interesting to see your standards for minimal professionalism and honesty are so low...

A reflection you may wish to reconsider since it has nothing to do with Plame/Wilson and everything to do with what you will tolerate for political gain."

That is an "ad hominem" attack, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem and I am unimpressed with it.

Thanks.

I would second the fact that I don't really find this a fair response to Cadwalj's original post.

And I would further say that, while I obviously hold very little respect for either Wilson or Plame, the prospect of either of them being brought up on criminal charges is virtually nil.

Make that outright nil.

Which is, I think, what Cadwalj was saying.

Yes.

Huffington is dead wrong. Rove is being assailed -- being a Dem I think rightfully so! -- as hard as he can be without opening the Newsmags up to criticism. As Huffington herself notes the stories are full of legalese and vagueries designed to escape exact meaning. That's because the facts available are so rarefied that it's hard to know what's going on, but the story's so juicy they can't pass it up.

It's the same thing that happened during Clinton's various scandals. No one knew what the truth was so these carefully worded teaser articles came out. The media isn't right or left, in my opinion, but alternatively for saccharine human interest or salacious scandals, anything to get the Hallmark-card crowd. Sometimes that helps one party, sometimes that helps the other.

In any case, Huffington has misjudged some of the media's desire to cover this story -- Newsweek want it, but I don't think the NYT wants to touch it in-depth for a while -- thinking that the legalese is about protecting Rove instead of protecting themselves.  

politically, what Plame/Wilson did is wrong and dangerous - I just don't think it's criminal.

Unless they did it as part of an attempt to affect a partisan political race then in progress. If that happened, they turned government resources to their own private and nefarious ends.

If they did it as part of a conspiracy with others, then it becomes even more interesting. Then we have politcal partisans twisting the CIA into a tool for their campaign.

Whose campaign might that have been? Well, Wilson's "Restore Honesty" web site had a little note at the bottom that said, "Paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc." And of course Wilson was prominently featured on the Kerry web site, until he vanished like a discredited Soviet commissar once he was exposed as a fraud.

Let's also remember that Mr. Wilson's 15 minutes of fame began with his own op-ed in the New York Times, a Sunday Washington Post story, and a spot on Meet the Press. John McCain hasn't pulled such a trifecta. How did Joe Wilson?

There was a very high level Democratic operative somewhere in the background here, orchestrating this from the get-go.

observations are not attacks.  If that is your standard for professional conduct that is your standard.  I am just pointing it out and letting people know I am not impressed.

I understood his comments.  They basically set the bar for professional conduct so low as to be ridiculous. And erroneous.  A government employee cannot use federal funds in this manner.  This is not a subjective statement.  If they deliberately set out to misinform or if the bungled the entire thing out of ineptitude the result is the same.  They were wrong in their conclusions.  The fact they grand standed in an Op-Ed piece and then Vanity Fair puff piece indicates deliberation on their part.

Some one who made an error in judgement would be a lot more humble.

He can be upset with my observations his standards are low - fine with me.

Deserve Reasoble responses, so here you go.

"The point I am making is that all the disclosures so far involve Rove and related administration sources' testimony, the applicable anti-disclosure laws, and relevant blogs' analysis"

Wrong.  There are also disclosures Wilson lied about his wife's role - possibly under oath.  There are also disclsoures his results are a complete sham.  It is clear he went out in an Op-Ed outside normal channels when his stories did not deflect our heading into Iraq.  There are disclosures many people in DC knew Plame worked for the CIA - it was general knowledge.

Sorry, but my point had been the myopic tunnel vision on this story and how it could turn.

"Aside from the speculations here, I've seen no evidence about Plame, and Wilson's evidence is the apparent conflict between his trip reporting, as discussed in the 9-11 committee report, and his NYT editorial."

Read the Senate report.  It was linked here or on the other story debate comments.  But simply being not aware of something is not much to stand on, now is it?

"Finally, if you were a prosecutor would you seek an indictment based on your inferences? Don't you need evidence?"

That is what the grand jury is deciding right now....

"PS - politically, what Plame/Wilson did is wrong and dangerous - I just don't think it's criminal"

If it is dangerous it is usually illegal.

One interesting note to make is that targets of grand jury's do not have to testify.  Rove has, as have many others.

Plame and Wilson I am not sure about.  But if they were a target they shouldn't testify since they cannot have council with them.  At least that is my recollection.

be called can't they?

Basically they can be issued a subpeona, but they can take the 5th, once sworn in-although I admit I may be wrong on this.

Apparantly Rove did testify to the Grand Jury as did several of the reporters.

I am not sure they can be called since people who testify cannot be represented by council inside the grand jury.

It depends if they are named a target or not - something we do not know.

Saying about when Fitzgerald might be wrapping up this investigation so that the story at least heads toward some kind of closure, the speculative stories get put to bed -- and Scott McClellan can quit being the un-Press Secretary -- once and for all?  What's the time line?  Anybody have any idea?