when Carlson and others began downplaying the "crime" and encouraging the journalists to protect their sources (as I agree they should have).

I blogged earlier on the ramification of this here:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/5/203638/8749

Sure, it's "what if," but assuming Corn is correct, "if" is so.

If Newsweek has documentary evidence (per Corn) ie documents... who gave Newsweek the documents??

The documents must be Cooper's notes or emails, which only the execs at Time, Cooper, and Fitzgerald should have access to.

Was it someone leaking at Time?

or

Has Fitzgerald's office started to leak?

I'm sure I'm in the minority amongst TPMCafe readers, but when Rove's lawyer says he didn't knowingly do anything illegal, I believe him. Why? Because Rove isn't an idiot. He's the most cynically calculating brilliant bastard in American politics since Kissinger, yes. Vindictive, sure. But not an idiot - and he'd have to be a world-class idiot to knowingly and personally out an undercover agent working on WMD proliferation to a freakin' TIME reporter.

As per the Corn article, Rove told Cooper "that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson's now-controversial trip to Niger". It doesn't necessarily follow that Rove knew that Plame was an undercover operative. Rove's motive for revealing this info makes more sense if you assume that he thought Plame was some kind of paper-pushing desk jockey at Langley; then you have a real attractive bona-fide smear on your hands, a husband-wife team conniving to bring down a President from inside the beaurocracy. But then it turns out that Plame isn't in position to heavily influence those decisions, being an undercover operative rather than an administrative decision maker and whatnot. Rove's gambit backfires bigtime.

I've only heard two other explanations so far that properly account for the motives of the big players in the incident, and neither of them necessarily portray Rove as both (a) deliberately outing an undercover CIA agent for (b) reasons of petty vengeance.

In the first theory, Judy Miller discovered about the Plame-Wilson marriage on her own, then mentioned it in passing to Rove, who passed it along to Cooper. This seems feasible to me (if a bit tinfoil-hatty) because Miller worked the WMD-in-Iraq line to death, was in a position to be familiar with both Plame and Wilson, and has a vested stake in damaging Wilson's credibility. If this is what actually happened, it's not hard to imagine that Miller either didn't know about the undercover part or neglected to pass that bit of info along. This theory helps explain why Fitz has come down so hard on Judy, to find out how she got the info; but her source wouldn't be Rove in this case.

Secondly (and I'm affixing the tinfoil hat with superglue now), Rove DID know about Plame's undercover work, most specifically that her cover operation in Saudi Arabia was looking into (among other things) whether the Saudis were lying about their oil reserve capacity. The Sauds are great friends of the Administration, and to stop the CIA from delving further Rove took the Wilson brouhaha as an opportunity to undermine the whole undercover operation by outing one of its agents. Sure, in this scenario the outing is deliberate, but out of grand geopolitical calculation rather than petty vengeance. I can see how Rove might be willing to put his neck on the line to serve these ends.

I'm not saying these theories are correct. But I think they're both more believable than Rove leaving such an obvious thumbprint in the course of a simple smear job.

Maybe from Cooper himself. He sensed that his own editors were too chickenshit to run the story, so he sent everything off to a buddy at Newsweek.

Read the talkleft analysis linked below. The case is laid out in amazing detail

If Corn hyperventilates any more, he'll pass out. 

I was hoping for more as well, but after Rich in NJ sent me over to Talkleft I am encouraged that this investagation is heading somewhere.

Talkleft

Is it possible that Fitzgerald wants Cooper to tell what he and Rove talked about not to get Rove, but because that conversation may make a case against Libby and possibly others?

The facts are presented in chronological order using newspaper accounts and legal documents from Fitzgerald. It is incredibly well sourced.

There is a lot of material there, but the final points made at talkleft make sense and the facts seem to back it up.

Talkleft

In my view, this is much bigger than a simple perjury rap. It's about conspiracy to obstruct justice. I think the case is strongest against Lewis Libby and other members of Cheney's staff, possibly including Cheney - but it may also be strong against all members of the White House Iraq Group, and Karl Rove attended many of those meetings. So he's not off the hook.

You'll feel better, I did.

Reading all the links already posted, I think the most fruitful line of questioning dealing directly with the initial "outing" of the CIA operative's name goes straight to the extraordinary meetings between Cheney and the CIA itself. Everything else seems to flow from that, when it becomes a muddle of hearsay in which anyone, including Rove, can claim they were just casually passing on what others had told them.

What interests me most is what develops from actual testimony before the grand jury that may or may not deal with secondary crimes including perjury, conspiracy, and/or obstruction of justice.

It's tempting to review again the domino effect we observed in Watergate and the Kenneth Starr Inquisition.

The leaked email confirms my suspicion that Rove's lawyer Luskin's denial was not as categorical as some reporters & pundits took it to be:

"What I can tell you is that Cooper called Rove during that week between the Wilson article and the Novak article, but that Karl absolutely did not identify Valerie Plame."--Robert Luskin

Rove did not identify Valerie Plame; he identified "Wilson's wife," maybe even "Valerie Wilson," but not Valerie Plame, her professional name.

Seems like hairsplitting, but it may be hairsplitting upon which Rove's defense (against perjury & ob./justice charges as well as leaking charges) depends. In Rove's own words: "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name." He's not culpable if reporters identified "Wilson's wife" as Valerie Plame.

This is at least on a par with "depends on what 'is' is" as a defense and one can only hope it gets the same treatment in the press.

If Rove didn't know Plame was NOC at the time he told Cooper she was CIA he had a day or 2 to find that out before Novak spilled it.  And Rove is a guy who makes it his business to know.  Is he one of Novak's 2 sources?

For positions with a high security clearence, it is customary and usual to submit to polygraph tests from time to time to retain security clearences.

Has Karl Rove or any other WH personell been subjected to a polygraph subsequent to the beginning of this leak investigation?  If so, what are the results of that polygraph test?  If not, why hasn't anyone been subject to a polygraph?  Has anyone's security clearences been pulled for the duration of this investigation, or do all members under suspicion retain access to the nations most critical secrets?

Wow. Not only were they discrediting Wilson's report within the WH, they were conveniently ignoring 2 other reports on the alleged Niger uranium sale. One from then US Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, and from Marine General Carlton Fulford. Both said the info about Niger was false.
[tinfoil hat secure]Was Wilson set up with this mission because the neocons didn't have any way to discredit the authors of the first 2 reports?  These guys are always thinking 4 or 5 steps ahead.
I really want to be wrong. 

Hey look everyone! Sandy Berger sneaked out a copy of one of his memos from the national archives!! See, look! Over there! 9/11, 9/11, 9/11......

If Rove is in fact the leaker, which seems quite probable, can someone explain how he -legally- got access to the classified information?   At the time was he not heading up the WH Office of Political Affairs and if so why would such an office need to have security clearences for information on such matters?

I ust ran across this in the DKos comments. Credit to cici414

from FindLaw

According to the law in question, identifying the person by name is not required.  The law specifically states that anyone who intentionally "discloses any information identifying such covert agent" may be guilty.  

Rove would not have had to utter the words "Valerie Plame" to be guilty....but there is a series of other criteria that must be met for Rove to be considered guilty of breaking this law.

In recent weeks, I've gone through Joe Wilson's book extracting checkable facts about the set of events here -- and there is much to consider.  Given that Wilson publixhed his book after the Justice Department handed off the case to a special prosecutor, I would imagine everything stated as fact is in fact something Wilson can prove up. 

Anyhow -- most people are not focused in on WHEN and WHERE the decision was made to some how smear Wilson because he had the authority and ability to criticize Bush's Iraq policy.

Using Wilson -- we know that.  It was during the first week of March in 2003.  It was a meeting in the VP's office, perhaps seven persons attended, and Libby called the meeting.  The decision was to do a "workup" on Wilson, to find material to use against him.  To smear him so as to discredit his knowledge of Iraq and all.  Different people in the meeting made different contributions.  We have five names of staffers at the meeting, they include David Wurmser, John Hannah, Elliott Abrams, and Libby -- and others may have been involved.  As Wilson puts it they had about four months to collect information before it was used. 

We also know that during this period, Wurmser and Hannah were the liason between John Bolton and Cheney.  If you wanted to find out everything you could about Wilson, the place to start would be the Department of State -- Afterall Wilson was a FSA for 22 years, retired with many honors, and would have had a nice thick personnel file -- all his postings, his fitness reports, physiocal and mental health, security checks -- just a huge starting point for learning where to focus your smear research.  My guess is that they used Bolton's office for this purpose.  Wilson tells us that the Wurmser-Hannah connection to Bolton's office was important in the run up to the invasion. 

Note, Wilson's authority for the Niger trip came through the State Department, from which he was retired.  Once CIA wanted him to make the trip, he asked them to refer it to State -- and State issued his diplomatic passport and framed his mission.  Yes, he gave an oral report to a CIA reports officer on return, but he also reported back through State -- and his expenses were handled that way.  Put simply, he traveled with State Department cover. 

Note I have not mentioned Rove.  Yes, he was the PR operative in this -- but only after others had manufactured the false legend about Wilson -- and those others who CONSPIRED to do the "workup" and frame the narrative, they were in Cheney's office. 

I really doubt that Fitzgerald is relying on the public to be an ally in his quest.  Ken Starr leaked like my old transmission and that seemed to get him nowhere.  And I also doubt that Judy would knuckle under to public pressure.  She would seem to be somewhat insulated now that she's registered at the same hotel as Zacharias Moussaoui (Did I dream that?).  And being held in low esteem by the public is probably the least of her problems.

"Ken Starr leaked like my old transmission and that seemed to get him nowhere."

Yeah, he only managed to get the President of the United States impeached based on the most legally non-existant case in history.  His leaks perpetuated and fed a case that should have been dead in the first month based on the actual facts.  I'd say it was one of his top weapons and it worked brilliantly for him.

If it becomes common knowledge that Judie is sitting in jail as part of an agreement to protect herself and Rove from prosecutation under subsection (c), it certainly won't be helpful to her.  She'd stop getting support from the Times, for instance.  That means hiring private counsel at great expense.   More importantly, she's been able to spin her current incarceration into a kind of redemption for her sins during the Chalabi debacle.  If it becomes apparent that she's in this for herself and Rove, her only form of redemption would involve turning Karl in. 

Here's a question for you legal types here. Can Rove claim "national security" as a cover and refuse to answer a question asked by the investigator/grand jury and avoid contempt?

Wilson was on the record as being opposed to the Iraq War.  As the acting ambassador to Iraq who stood up to Saddam Hussein in 1991, he had a lot of credibiliity as a critic of Bush War II.   The "Wilson Plame Timeline", however, says that the first "anonymously sourced" press account of Wilson's Niger trip did not appear until May 6, 2003 in a column by Nick Kristof.

The "March 2003 meeting" may have been about discrediting war critics, including Wilson, rather than focussed on Wilson exclusively.  Walter Pincus's account of his conversation in which he was told of the Wilson/Plame connects says that the White House disregarded Wilson's findings because it was a "boondoggle" that was "set up by his wife".   To me, this says that the White House knew of the Wilson/Plame connection while they were involved in the PR campaign to justify the war in 2002. 

Its also possible that the March 2003 meeting was done in response to the the IAEA's conclusion (released publicly on March 7) that there was no evidence that Iraq had a nuclear program of any kind, and that the Niger documents were forgeries.)

Paul, I think you have it correct here.

Joe Wilson's efforts to participate in the debate about the Second Gulf War (Bush's War) actually began in the fall of 2002 before the congressional vote.  On October 13, 2002 he publisheed an op/ed in the San Jose Mercury News -- and in his book mentions much earlier discussions with Jim Baker, Scowcroft, Eagleberger, and communication with Bush One.  He was invited to join a think tank, the Middle East Institute in the fall of 2002, and they then arranged for Wilson to appeaqr on talk shows, mostly Fox, some on CNN, and some Radio shows.  They booked him against Right Wing and Neo-Con advocates. 

He also mentions meeting in closed session with both the House and Senate Intelligence Oversight Committees about the time the Intelligence Assessment was finally delivered to congress, and having other meetings with House and Senate Committee Staff.  I don't think anything regarding what was said at those meetings has ever been published.  Wilson just mentions that the meetings were arranged.  I suspect he helped the staff work their way through the NIE as filed with congress.  As we know that version did not include the footnotes where all the exceptions were included.   

It is also important that during the fall of 2002, Wilson also began to meet with factions of the Peace Movement.  He had, in fact, never worked with it before -- but gradually he sorted through the factions.  Joe Wilson is not a Pacifist. One of the delights of Wilson's book is that he includes his growing awareness of the Center-Left-Progressive world in the US.  We get Jon Stewert's show -- Wilson's awareness of the demographics the Daily Show reaches, His first meeting with the Editorial Board of "The Nation" -- where he was introduced as a recruit from "the Establishment" -- Prior to meeting David Corn in DC Joe Wilson had never read "The Nation"  -- it apparently was not the sort of material State sent to Embassies Wilson served in during his career.  

 

"double super secret background"
Good God.  These people live in a comic book world don't they?

It seems to be saying the statute only applies to people who satisfy each of the elements under 421.

I don't think the defenses would apply to either Miller or Rove under the scenario I've described.

Miller would be covered; Rove would still be on the hook.  Subsection (a) of Section 421 applies only to those who have, or have had authorized access to classified information.  Whatever access Miller may have had, it was not authorized.  (If Miller did have knowledge of Plame's NOC status, though, whoever gave her that information could well be subject to prosecution.) 

The rule of thumb is that the law only applies to those who work within government.  It was specifically written to exempt reporters.

can Karl be punished under the statute if Novak messed up?

Sure.  Read subsection (a) again.  "Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, . . ."

Novak did not have authorized access to information about Plame's identity; if Rove did and disclosed it to him, then he has followed that particular requirement for being subject to prosecution.  No expansive reading of the statute required that I can see.