This is a hilarious comment. The Republicans fired the original, highly-experienced independent prosecutor Robert Fisk because, in spite of being a Republican, he wasn’t independent enough in the sense that he had found no evidence of wrong-doing in the Whitewater or Vince Foster allegations.
In his place they put a zealous ultra-conservative attack-dog Ken Starr who was in bed with Jessie Helms and Judge David Sintell. This appointment was criticized by five former presidents of the American Bar Association due to its obvious political motivation.
In the Resolution Trust Corporation Inquiry, Republican Jay Stevens found “no grounds for a civil suit in Whitewater much less criminal action.” NY Daily News reporter Lars Eric Neslon wrote: “the secret verdict is in: there was nothing for the Clintons to hide. In a bizarre reversal of those Stalin-era trials in which innocent people were convincted in secret, the president and first lady have been publicly charged, and secretly found innocent.”
This report was completely ignored by Starr, who was only interested in maintaining the public appearance of any wrong-doing whatsoever until he could dig up something. Yet Clinton’s administration is accused of “smears” regarding the prosecution?
Hell, if it had been the Bush administration, Starr would probably have been covertly “renditioned” to a secret prison camp in Eastern Europe, forced to pose naked with a baton up his ass, and then doused with white phosphorous! Then when questioned about the incident, the Bush White House would’ve replied, “We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response.” (I think that’s what the Review means when it refers to Bush’s “noble forebearance”!)
Rove will either be charged with making false statements and obstruction of justice or enter a plea deal with Fitzgerald. If he makes a deal, one of the terms will be a requirement to testify in Scooter’s trial. Given the vagaries of grand juries and the upcoming holiday season, it’s hard to say with certainty when this will come down.
I’d be willing to take some odds though. The loser pays to the charity of the winner’s choice.
Define your terms a bit more and get back to me. I think you may be disappointed and I want to enjoy it at your expense. Again, you are right, it could happen but… I would be willing to bet it will not.
[quote=“fred smith”]Define your terms a bit more and get back to me. I think you may be disappointed and I want to enjoy it at your expense. Again, you are right, it could happen but… I would be willing to bet it will not.
Fred[/quote]
You’re the challenger. Give me fair odds on Rove’s chances of being indicted for lying and obstruction or copping a plea to same and you’re on.
[quote]Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, recounted to a jury on Monday his experience at an unusual lunch on July 7, 2003, during which he said that I. Lewis Libby Jr. passed on detailed information about the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative.
The lunch in the White House mess for senior staff took place three days before the date that Mr. Libby had sworn he first learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from reporters.
Mr. Fleischer was the fifth prosecution witness to provide damaging testimony in the form of an account that conflicted with the version Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury and investigators.[/quote]
Now, how was that date important?
[quote]The day before the lunch, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, had written an Op-Ed article in The New York Times that said he had taken a trip to Niger at the behest of Mr. Cheney’s office and had determined there was no truth to the assertion in the State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein had recently tried to buy uranium ore in Africa.
“Ambassador Wilson was sent by his wife,” Mr. Fleischer testified that Mr. Libby told him, disputing the notion that he had been sent by Mr. Cheney. “His wife works for the C.I.A.”
Mr. Fleischer also said that Mr. Libby used the woman’s maiden name, Valerie Plame, and that she worked at the agency’s bureau that dealt with efforts to curtail the proliferation of weapons.
“He said it was hush-hush, on the Q.T. and that most people didn’t know it,” Mr. Fleischer testified.[/quote]
So, a Bush administration official, knowing full well that Plame was a hush-hush CIA officer working on key weapons-proliferation issues, decided to go out and blow her cover. Makes one wonder how Republicans who have any shred of decency can still support this presidency of traitors.
You can repeat that as many times as you like but it does not make it so. Her ass was parked at a desk and it would never be hush hush or key again. Why? She married Wilson, a U.S. Ambassador. Forget about any future “hush hush” jobs.
shred? haha. That shred might be why the prosecutor chose to go after Libby for perjury because he sure as hell could not prove or prosecute the man because a “crime” had been committed. Strange given that Plame was such an important, nay, “key” officer on weapons proliferation issues. I am laughing so hard I have tears running down my face.
Rove ain’t going down. Cheney ain’t going down. Libby might actually (though I am still betting on the odds that he will not) get a “perjury” violation but hell what happened when this was slapped on Clinton? jail term? All he got was disbarment from Arkansas, right? This is a real yawner given that NO crime was committed. Get that? No crime was committed said the prosecution, but I do admire your dogged determination MFGR to stick to your guns on this one. Hell, I almost hope they do convict Libby just so you have a bone to chew on. Bit disappointing the lack of revelations and news on this since its inception eh?
You can repeat that as many times as you like but it does not make it so. Her ass was parked at a desk and it would never be hush hush or key again. Why? She married Wilson, a U.S. Ambassador. Forget about any future “hush hush” jobs.[/quote]
Hey, it’s not me calling it “hush-hush” – you’re taking Ari Fleischer’s testimony about how Libby himself characterized her position. If top-level Bush administration officials know she’s got a “hush-hush” position in a key area like weapons-proliferation, then it seems pretty awful that they would knowingly spread such secret information about the press. The timing further shores up the overall appearance that the Bush administration was trying to hurt Wilson by sucker-punching his wife.
[quote]A former New York Times reporter testified today that I. Lewis Libby Jr. disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. agent to her more than two weeks before Mr. Libby has said he learned of the agent’s identity.
The reporter, Judith Miller, said that Mr. Libby, who was then the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, made the disclosure to her in a June 23, 2003, meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, near the White House.
Mr. Libby also discussed the agent again on July 8, Ms. Miller said, when she met him for breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington.
Both dates are before the date Mr. Libby told a grand jury that he first learned from reporters that Mr. Wilson’s wife work for the C.I.A.[/quote]
Your quotes are getting trite. You have used this one too much already, and fair enough. Why is it “okay” for Wilson to sucker punch Cheney when he lied and said Cheney sent him on that trip but not for Cheney to refute that claim? Oh I SEE. Cheney is WRONG and the war is WRONG and the claim about yellowcake was WRONG (despite the fact that the British have never retracted their support of that view) and therefore ipso facto Wilson is RIGHT and Valerie Plame is RIGHT and they are martyrs to the cause who sought to protect her privacy and undercover status by contacting the MEDIA and doing a number of EXCLUSIVE interviews. haha Okay, if that is how things work on Planet MFGR. And hey, I really do hope you get Libby. I believe that he is lying. Given, however, that no crime was committed, then I guess he may have to pay a rather high price for lying. OR perhaps, he will “get off” like Clinton (har har har). Regardless, you can beat this horse for all it is worth but NO CRIME was committed. You do get that don’t you? NO CRIME was committed and no one is being prosecuted for ANY CRIME other than PERJURY. Snicker. Sucker punch? You betcha. haha
Why is it “okay” for Wilson to sucker punch Cheney when he lied and said Cheney sent him on that trip but not for Cheney to refute that claim?[/quote]
So Cheney’s hurt feelings are supposed to be enough to justify exposing a covert CIA officer? You see this? --------->. It’s the world’s smallest violin and it’s playing just for him and the rest of these traitors.
Did Valerie Plame or Joseph Wilson do a single interview with any reporters about her occupation prior to her cover being completely blown by this partisan Republican hatchet job? NO? OK, thanks for playing. I suppose the GOPpers expected her to just lay down and take it from them. Good for them for fighting back.
I’m not in the market. What would I do with him?
Obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements is what he’s charged with. What do you mean “no crime”? As Fitzgerald pointed out in his initial press conference, these activities are precisely the sorts of things that impede investigators from being able to do their jobs to determine what has actually been done. In your logic, “no crime” would be done if Rove, Libby, Cheney and Bush are simply willing to agree to any set of lies to cover up. Do you have kids? If so, then what happens when the cookie jar is empty and the chocolate-smeared kiddies are all saying “not me!”? If all the Republicans are so loony-tunes, it’s no wonder they can’t separate all their ideology and partisanship from the basic task of trying to govern.
Sorry, let me rephrase. No crime involving the “outing” of Valerie Plame. So keep at it. But the simple fact remains that the outing of Valerie Plame was NOT a crime and NO ONE is being prosecuted for it. Tough luck there big guy but all the funny cartoons, nonsense and MFGRisms that you pull out of your… hat… cannot change that.
Also, Wilson LIED to the Senate not once but SEVERAL times regarding his involvement in the decision to send him to Niger and what he “discovered” while there. Did you read that Senate report?
So if I tell everyone on this forum that your decision regarding a certain company that your law firm is involved with was made to feather your own nest, thereby compromising your integrity, how would you react? Just sit back and take it or would you try to get someone to undercover any personal motivations that I might have had for doing so? and to answer any vile charges to the same? even if it involved revealing that my wife was “covertly” involved as one of the parties in the contract negotiations with said firm?
Yes, and I have no doubt that Libby lied, but that is not what this is all about. This is about an effort to go after Cheney and Rove and good luck with that because I cannot see how that will result in success for the MFGRites on this forum. This is about “feeling” sympathy for Plame and Wilson which I do not. They were playing a game and they got roughed up. Lesson for the unitiated. Don’t start something if you don’t want others to react.
Nobody’s being prosecuted for it yet. As has been previously posted, former Nixon-era lawyer John Dean has written an interesting piece.
Really? Well then start a thread.
An interesting question but a very simple one to answer, as lawyers, doctors and government officials all have strict secrecy requirements. In such a hypothetical there are strict confidentiality rules for lawyers that would prevent them for discussing (even to defend themselves) internal matters done on behalf of their clients. They could answer questions but not put confidential information out into the larger world without prior approval from their clients. If an actual investigation followed, then of course the lawyers should comply with appropriate candor to questions from investigators, prosecutors and judges. Probably some sort of trade libel claims could be brought against persons putting out false statements at a later date, but there really would be no excuse whatsoever for a lawyer to release confidential client information.
As to motivations, why would anybody give a rat’s ass about that in this scenario? The allegation is either true or false. Breaching a central obligation of confidentiality would be nuts.
Same answer as above. How about this – you go to the doctor’s office where a doctor runs an MRI scan on you and finds something in your keister that looks like a tumor the size of a canned ham. They operate to remove it and find out that it’s not a tumor – it’s actually a canned ham. You vaguely make rumblings on the internet that you’re “not happy” with the misdiagnosis that led to a flawed result and what you see as unnecessary surgery.
The doctors are aghast at your challenge, so they respond by releasing to Robert Novak your relatives’ medical records (including numerous scans and photos) to show that some members of your family have a prior history of colon tumors, prostrate cancer and the like. When asked about it, the doctors tell anybody who’ll listen that your family members were “fair game” and that their hospital “needed to defend itself”.
Meanwhile, experienced radiologists who hear of the situation do point out that a canned ham does not look anything like a tumor when scanned via MRI or any other method.
I don’t agree with this line of thinking. Exposing Plame was not only grossly illegal and dangerous, but harmful to our intelligence operations. Even if Plame was no longer an active case officer, blowing her cover compromised other CIA case officers and assets in the field who worked with her - it is possible some foreign assets have been kidnapped and/or killed as a result of their associate with Plame. And whatever her cover might have been - State Department official, private employee, etc. - the organization who “employed” her is now also marked as collaborating with the CIA. Whatever your personal feelings about Plame may be, surely you recognize that protecting the identity of a case officer, any case officer, is vital to our national interest. The perpetrators should be aggressively tracked down and brought to justice.
Haha MFGR. So you admit that Wilson lied and was wrong to expose information that he had gleaned from a “secret” or your preferred “hush hush” mission? Shall we prosecute him? Yes or no? Let us know how you want us to “feel” about this so we can be consistent.
As to his wife, why prosecute at all? There was no crime in outing her so what’s the big deal? And I assure you that despite your many impassioned pleas to the contrary, once that woman had made the decision to marry an acting ambassador, her Rolodex was being wrapped up and her ass was going to be planted on a desk for the rest of her career. Her official status may have been “covert” but there are degrees and there are degrees and hers was not to the level where she or anyone she works with is or was or ever will be in any danger from any “outing” unless she targets the wrath of some Cindy Sheehan stalker or Code Pink fanatic.
If it were grossly illegal, why no “crime?” why no prosecution? and how was it “harmful” to our intelligence operations? IF there was harm, it was in Wilson’s very public discussion of his activities in Niger, which the last time I checked was a foreign country. He may have put a number of officials who had been cooperating with US officials at risk.
Not likely. The major action that would have compromised said assets was her decision to marry Wilson, who was then an acting ambassador. Kind of tends to draw the wrong sort of attention.
Million to one shot. Her marriage was the spotlight that would have done that and I can guarantee you that as soon as she told her CIA bosses that she was even going out regularly with Wilson a high-profile US official, her contacts were being transferred, moved around and covered.
So why not the same level of outrage over Wilson’s far more serious revelation of who he had been talking to where and when? THAT was the far more serious abuse. Also, to my understanding, Plame was serving primarily as an “analyst” which for the unitiated means newspaper clipping desk jockey. Who were the all-important contacts that were to be betrayed despite MFGR’s brainwashed rote repetition of “key weapons proliferation expert?”
IF Plame had been of any relevance, this might have been a serious enough matter to warrant, sing along with me now, an investigation into an ACTUAL crime. The fact is that it wasn’t. She, on the other hand, might want to have this played both ways. She wants protection of her covert identity? and prosecution of those who outed her? Fine. Then, let the investigation into her actions appointing her husband to lead the mission to Niger be investigated. The US federal government has some very strong regulations about sending “unbidded” business to relatives and cronies. Funny that we only hear about Halliburton from the easily outraged. This seems to fit the same kind of pattern of influence peddling for direct personal monetary gain, no?
Why? IF Wilson is not prosecuted first, why should anyone else be? He made a number of slanderous and false allegations that were reported in the Senate hearings on these matters where it was pointed out that he had LIED a number of times. He was acting on a CIA mission and chose to reveal his findings WITHOUT government approval. Try doing that the next time without your bosses’ permission on say financial results or sales strategies or market research. See how far THAT gets you. If anyone suffered from this it was the president of the US and Cheney. They were slandered regarding the “truth” of the claim that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger. The matter WAS told to us by the British. EVERYTHING in that claim as made by Bush was TRUE. We retracted the inclusion but the British never did. How does that change the accuracy of the quote that Bush made? AND Wilson was found to have lied by the Senate regarding what he “found” in Iraq. Either he was too stupid to realize what he had found or deliberately lied about its relevance. THIS is a matter of public record.
I don’t know why there is no criminal prosecution under way. It is inconceivable to me that it is legal to reveal the identify of a covert operative. And it is self-evident that revealing the identify of an undercover agent is harmful to intel ops. In the very least, it is an embarassment to our intelligence community. At the worst, Plame’s assets could be discovered and killed.
No, the main action was her identity being leaked to the press and the irresponsible journalist who published the article. It is commonplace for case officers to date and/or marry State Department personnel.
According to the information we have at hand, she continued on as an active NOC case officer even after marrying Wilson.
Fine. Let’s investigate Wilson too.
Negative. We know that she was an NOC (No Official Cover) operative in the field her entire career, which means she was either an operations officer (aka case officer) who recruited foreign assets, or a CMO (Case Management Officer), meaning she was the handler for a group of case officers. If she was an analyst she’d be back at Langley.
As I said, if Wilson is guilty of a crime, then let him be brought to justice.
If it were grossly illegal, why no “crime?” why no prosecution? and how was it “harmful” to our intelligence operations? IF there was harm, it was in Wilson’s very public discussion of his activities in Niger, which the last time I checked was a foreign country. He may have put a number of officials who had been cooperating with US officials at risk.[/quote]
That’s the problem. It was illegal – there are a few laws that cover these situations. However, the investigation was hampered from the git-go hence this initial case.
Not likely. The major action that would have compromised said assets was her decision to marry Wilson, who was then an acting ambassador. Kind of tends to draw the wrong sort of attention.[/quote]
Why take a chance with Plame or other CIA officers? Sources? There are tons of people who marry ambassadors, and although there are few statistics kept on these things, I’ve never heard from anybody in the State Dept. that ambassadors are required to marry CIA agents. :loco:
Million to one shot. Her marriage was the spotlight that would have done that and I can guarantee you that as soon as she told her CIA bosses that she was even going out regularly with Wilson a high-profile US official, her contacts were being transferred, moved around and covered.[/quote]
Right… the U.S. went into all those other countries and immediately relocated everybody just because she was dating an ambassador. You have any idea how many diplomats we have around the world, how much of a churn we go through. But still, you’re avoiding the obvious issue – the exposure of other CIA officers who had relied on similar cover companies. (“Hey, remember Valerie Plame’s co-worker Bob who was working here three years ago? I think I’ve got his business card somewhere…”)
So why not the same level of outrage over Wilson’s far more serious revelation of who he had been talking to where and when? THAT was the far more serious abuse.[/quote]
Wilson risked everything to write that Op/Ed piece to expose the president’s lies – he blew the whistle on the Bush administration’s fudging of intelligence and could still be prosecuted at any time for it. Why hasn’t he been prosecuted? Ask the Bushies.
Are you claiming insider knowledge of Plame’s work at the CIA? Scooter Libby sure seemed to think she was a weapons-proliferation person, and if you think that’s not a “key” thing to be an expert in I’m afraid I’ll have to remind you that we got into the whole Iraq War over Bush’s pretence over such weapons.
IF Plame had been of any relevance, this might have been a serious enough matter to warrant, sing along with me now, an investigation into an ACTUAL crime.[/quote]
A CIA officer’s identity is pretty important stuff. President George HW Bush thought those who would expose the identity of a CIA officer were the worst kind of traitor. Sorry that you disagree.
None of this was her choice. The administration went out of its way to tell the press of her identity and has lied about it since then. However, I think we owe it to our serving CIA officers to not use them as political pawns for partisan gain – that the Republicans have done this is ridiculous. What will the GOP do next? If they can sell out one officer, they can sell out the others – it’s going to be hard to recruit people into the CIA if they’ve got to defend themselves from their own government. Come to think of it, this appears to be a pattern – look at the 3,000+ Americans who have died out of a Republican oil fantasy aimed at material gain.
Sure. They were looking for a guy with a lot of Africa experience – she knew one. End of story, right?
The US federal government has some very strong regulations about sending “unbidded” business to relatives and cronies. Funny that we only hear about Halliburton from the easily outraged. This seems to fit the same kind of pattern of influence peddling for direct personal monetary gain, no?
Why? IF Wilson is not prosecuted first, why should anyone else be?[/quote]
Quitcher whining. Wilson can be prosecuted anytime Bush’s DoJ wants to. The ball’s in Bush’s court, right? Let’s see… who does the Attorney General report to? Bush.
There you go again… that’s an interesting story. Why not open up a “Wilson fiction” thread.
Yep. Like Elsberg he did this and has to face the piper. Anytime Bush wants to have his DoJ prosecute him, they can go ahead. What? No prosecution? Well, why isn’t Bush’s Attorney General doing his job? Oh, that’s right… Wilson was a whistleblower exposing what a lying sack of crap the President was.
Exactly! Wilson took the risk himself. Why on earth isn’t the DoJ prosecuting him?
In that line of thinking, you probably also figure that if anybody suffered from the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman it was OJ.
