Hmm, I suppose if you've been pardoned then that's the equivalent of being found innocent. Should be an interesting week if Bush is going to clean house using the no-criminals-on-my-staff standard.

Return of the Iran-Contra Crew

It is certainly designed to eliminate him firing any leakers who did not committ a crime sort of like it "depending on the what the meaning of is is." You are are innocent until proven guilty so I presume that Bush's new standard is it is alright to be indicted you just can't be convicted.

Can someone at TpmCafe with a law degree tell us if Rove might have violated the law known as the Espionage Act?

Andrew Sullivan has a link to it.  Pay close attention to paragraphs d, e, and f of the statute.

Could Martha Stewart take a job in the Bush administration?

Is there a "born again" loophole to this new rule?

We need to remember that we're dealing with people who can create reality.  As such, I see no reason to assume that Bush officials can't work from prison.  Hell, they might even be able to get more work done there.  And if there are enough convictions, they could just open a prison in the Whitehouse basement. 

Needless to say, if Rove and others are convicted of crimes, Bush will merely revise his statement to be that if someone is convicted of a crime and fired, they will no longer serve in his administration.  Hell, I wouldn't doubt if he mumbled that part under his breath this time.

Next revision will be firing if "convicted" of a crime. Then it will be firing only after the conviction is upheld after requisite appeals are exhausted. Since you're never really guilty of anything in America while appeals are pending Rove will last through the end of Jeb's second term in 2016 and beyond. What really needs to happen is for us to completely drop the notion Bush possesses morals, ethics or standards beyond those needed to elect Republicans to higher office or steal money. Rove could be caught on camera sodomizing a small child and Bush would advocate awaiting an analysis of the film.

As someone in the WH press corps said this morning, I think the president's policy is to run out the clock.

But don't y'all just love Helen Thomas?  She really get's to the heart of the matter:

What is his problem? Two years, and he can't call Rove in and find out what the hell is going on? I mean, why is it so difficult to find out the facts? It costs thousands, millions of dollars, two years, it tied up how many lawyers? All he's got to do is call him in.

Actually, this helps put in perspective another thread, on whether  the Democrats need more to aspire to the Republicans as a part of ideas or as a party that knows how to frame them and stick to its message.  How about a party with no ideas and a constantly changing message but the power to keep everyone in line who might admit it?  Yes, it's Godfather Part IV. 

No proof of crime until conclusion of the trial.  Can someone ask the president if he would fire someone who avoided conviction by plea-bargan?

GWB on 7/18/05:  "if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

Looks like George is taking a tough-nosed stand against crime and criminals, whether felons or misdemeanants.

Say, didn't George himself commit the crime of DUI, and get convicted?  Looks like he better fire himself under his new, sweeping policy.

What a gaff. 

ABC has on it's front page: "Any criminals from leak will be fired."

CBS: "Bush vows to fire leak criminals"

WAPO:

"Bush Weighs In on Leak Case

<img width="1" vspace="1" height="1" border="0" src="http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/globalnav/images/spacer.gif" alt="spacer">
President appears to raise the threshold for firing any White House official who leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent."

 (Also "A side-step and a backtrack")

 Everybody is running with the same story - that he's hedging.

My favorite is MSNBC: "Bush signals shift in firing criteria."

So I wonder if this "new, lower standard" applies to ALL positions requiring security clearences...

Bush continues to lower the bar.

Reading the comments, it is interesting to note that most believe any tactic to avoid accountability is not beyond this gang. I agree.

Therefore it would seem the perfect solution for Bush would be to issue a blanket pardon for any and all potential criminals on his staff, to be effective immediately upon conviction. I'm sure they'd be able to come up with some spin as to why this is altruistically motivated.

Mr. Bush never actually said "felons" ... he said "if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration."

Ionically, that would seem to mean that both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney will now be required to immediately depart their positions, because they have three drunken driving convictions between them, and thus have both committed crimes.

Or maybe there will be a "clarification" of the policy in a day or two. 

...
The only question that will point us to whatBush will do next is this: 
What could he do with Rove thatwould annoy the Dems the most?
Gotta be Supreme Court,Its GOTTA be! Right?
Some kind of promotionthat is not in his administration.UN rep? 
I got it!  Attorney Generalafter Gonzo goes to SC!
...wait...uh...
..

Can't this be described as just another example (of many) of a flip-flop by Bush?  And should his own attack terminology become a standard description for most of his own activities?

My first question is whether the rule applies merely to indictment or whether conviction is necessary to trigger dismissal.

The outcome of the grand jury will determine how Bush handles Rove. If they convene without any indictments, they'll rush to the cameras to declare Rove guiltless and chastise the Democrats for rushing to judgement.
 
If Rove is indicted, Bush will reiterate that he said he'd fire a 'criminal' and since Rove has yet to be convicted, that standard doesn't apply.

If Rove is convicted of a crime, we might see him leave the administration .. or .. Bush will take the stance that since Rove's conviction is under appeal, people shouldn't judge until they know all of the facts.

If after every possibility is exhausted and Rove is still a convicted criminal, Bush will whip out the ol' p-a-r-d-o-n quill.

Bush was (nearly) completely created by Karl Rove and he knows it -- his loyalty to Rove will remain -- no matter what.

Since this is an obviously embarrassing move for Bush, it must have a rather important purpose. My guess is that a Bush statement of solidarity was needed right now to try to keep the wall of silence around the presidency from eroding. Perhaps Bush himself is vulnerable because of some kind of complicity. After all, he has sought outside counsel beyond the White House counsel, and so has Cheney. I think they are trying to prevent a "John Dean" from coming forth, and this latest announcement is part of that prevention strategy.

President Chauncy Gardener takes care of that stuff.

Re: The Limited Modified No Convicted Felons Whose Appeals Have Been Exhausted And Have Not Received A Pardon Rule (it says FelonS: we're allowed to have one)

I doubt that Rove, if indicted, could delay his trial more than a year. If he's indicted, stays on the job, and goes to trial next summer, isn't that the perfect solution for making the case against Republican mismanagement three months before the midterm elections? If he resigns now, it's a blip.

Yes, but what if Fitzgerald is really gutzy, and organizes a troop of Marshalls and FBI agents to "frogmarch" the indictees out of the White House one fair day. 

Fitzgerald could demand they hand over their passports, he could also suspend all security clearances.  He could demand high bail, and I suppose he could get a gag order on talking to the public, press, or co-defendents. 

Or he could do what Jaworski did to Nixon -- slap down some unindicted co-conspirator matters in court.  What that did at the end of Watergate was to keep all the indicted types from talking to Nixon. 

In Section 2 Clause 1, the Constitution states that the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. "

This has heretofore been interpreted to mean "case" in the narrow sense of the word - as in "a specific impeachment proceeding that's in progress."

I humbly submit that this phrase can arguably - and perhaps more appropriately - be interpreted by employing the definition of "case" in the broad sense, as in "any circumstance wherein a President could be subject to impeachment, regardless of whether any actual proceeding ever takes place."

This would preclude any grants of pardon by a President for any crimes perpetrated by individuals, in service to that President's administration - such as in Watergate or Iran/contra or Turdblossomgate, or even Lewinsky - since in such circumstances a President might potentially be culpable for criminal offense as well, and Presidents - it should go without saying - should not have an ability to violate the law with impunity, knowing they can simply grant pardons when needed to get away with their crimes - the way Bush daddy did to escape his own criminal liability in Iran/contra.

It has been argued, even by Nixon critics, that Ford's pardon was a good thing for the country - "putting it all behind us." (It was "put behind us, all right; they forced us to bend over so they could shove it up "behind us.") In fact, all that Ford's pardon of Nixon accomplished was to green-light a string of Republican Presidential crime sprees.

I believe legislation should be passed, directing that the meaning of the Constitutional clause with respect to presidential pardons be interpreted in the broad sense, perhaps with specific language, which precludes a President from the ability to grant pardons to persons who serve as employees in a President's administration - or in an administration wherein the sitting President served as Vice President.

Whether or not such legislation is ever proposed, I do believe that a Special Counsel could inhibit any potential grants of pardon by making the argument for using the broader definition of "cases" in a federal court preemptively.

    Nobody seems to know where or even how to take a leak in The White House. And nobody seems to know anyone who has ever done it.

    This may not be Ameriica's biggest problem, but it is big enough. 

"If Rove is indicted and the charge is espionage ..."

If, by some miracle he is indicted at all, it will be for obstruction or perjury.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I indicated to you earlier that everyone here serves at the pleasure of the President. And the White House has been working to cooperate fully with the investigators. That was the direction that the President set. That's what we've been doing. We hope they come to a conclusion soon.

McClellan begins his remarks speaking for the President and finishes his last two remarks with "we."    WE? 

Who is "we?" 

Maybe "we" refers to a team of advertizing/promotional agents trying to recussitate Bush's credibility. 

I gotta put in a plug for my new partner over at http://cardcarryingmember.blogspot.com.

 
CORNHUSKERBLOGGER lays down the funniest gauntlet yet of the sad story of the lying WH conspirators.

Check it out right here 

chriso, I sympathize with your concerns, but it does matter that the left continue to respond to the right's attempts to pervert the facts of this case.

Check out Christopher Hitchens's vile column today for a look at what the right is trying to do. If we allow the right to paint Joe Wilson as a feeble, scheming opportunist and Rove as the victim of a smear campaign, we might as well fold up shop and acknowledge that from now on, Truth will be whatever the latest talking-points memo from the RNC dictates it to be.

If anything, the main problem here may be that the opinions voiced on blogs like this one aren't then taken out into the open and voiced towards independents and Republicans. But I don't think we should stop talking about Rove. This scandal is important, because it illustrates the way the White House perverted and distorted reality in order to gin up a case for invading Iraq. If those who tell the truth in the face of such lies can be portrayed by the White House as liars and self-serving mediocrities, and we let them get away with that, then nothing we attempt to accomplish politically has any chance of sticking. We have to keep repeating the truth, over and over, week after week, in the face of their attempts to turn it upside-down.

That may be boring, but that's politics. As Matt Bai points out in this weekend's NY Times Magazine. 

All this talk about why Bush doesn't ask Rove for the truth or what is Bush's standard for firing his staff, it all misses what I think may be the true point here. Namely, that what we all expected back in 2000 is true: Bush is a puppet. How is he going to ask Rove what he leaked to whom when it is Rove who tells him what to say in every press conference, fund-raising speech, policy negotiation, summit meeting, etc.? How is he going to lay out a criteria for White House employment when it is Cheney who chooses the personnel? I believe that, like a 1986 Reagan, Bush simply lacks the capacity for leadership of an institution as complex as the Executive. He has bobbed along for four years humming a few invariant tunes, hammered in by Rove and Cheney. He has gotten away with it because of the political gimme that was 9/11, and because all the doctrines, policies and strategies that have been since implemented could be delegated away to the actual thinkers. Now that it is the thinkers who have gotten him in trouble, he has nowhere to turn for strength and advice. It cannot come from within. The Emperor truly has no clothes.

Josh Marshall in TPM: Here he [Christopher Hitchins] claims among other things that Iraq really was interested in getting its hands on Nigerien uranium. That's based on?

Well, Josh, you obviously need to read the Senate Select Committee Report signed by such well know Democrat apologists for Republicans as Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Durbin and John Edwards.  If you do you will find that the report of Joe Wilson of his trip to Niger confirmed the findings of the CIA that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium in Niger. 

According to the portion of the Report agreed to by all members of the Committee:

"Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March, 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal.  For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal..." (Report, p. 73)

"The intelligence report [based on Mr. Wilson's debriefing following his trip to Niger] indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states ... however, that in June 1999 [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Niger and Iraq.  The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." (Report, p. 43)

"[The CIA reports officer] said he judged that the most important fact in the [Wilson] report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting." (Report, p. 46)

Mr. Wilson confirmed that a high level Iraqi delegation met with former Prime Minister Mayaki of Niger to discuss "expanding commercial relations."  Mr. Mayaki took that to mean the Iraqis wanted to discuss the purchase of uranium.  

The State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that Mr. Wilson’s report “supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.” (Report p. 73) This arose from a belief in the State Department that France adequately controlled the sale of all uranium from Niger and would not allow sales to rogue states such as Iraq. State also believed that Niger would not trade with a country under UN sanctions. (Report, p. 44)

"Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick told Committee staff she recalled the former ambassador (Mr. Wilson) saying 'he had reached the same conclusions that the embassy had reached, that it was highly unlikely that anything was going on." (Report, p. 42) Thus, INR and Mr. Wilson had such faith in France and Niger that they would prevent any sales of uranium to Iraq.
Of course, this does not speak to or contradict the CIA conclusion that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger.  INR and State believed that regardless of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium, Niger would not sell it to Iraq. 

Mr. Wilson’s report of his conversations with the Prime Minister confirmed the CIA's analysis that Iraq had, in fact, attempted to purchase uranium from Niger regardless of whether an actual sale occurred or whether Niger could deliver uranium if a contract were entered into.

The importance of Iraqi attempts to purchase Nigerien uranium far exceeds the issue of whether they were successful in doing so or whether France would have allowed such sales.  Niger is not the only country in the world selling uranium.  Furtherjmore, a known attempt to purchase uranium in Niger indicates a desire to acquire nuclear arms that might have led to purchases of weapons from other sources.

Cheers.

Abu Et Banal, why do you keep insisting on believing this partisan fantasy? Even George W. Bush has disavowed the 16-word statement in the SOTU message, after the CIA said there was no evidence to support such a conclusion. About the only people on the planet who believe that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger are Dick Cheney and a few radical-right bloggers. 

I still say readers who find this whole "WH can't comment but the RNC, Rove's lawyer Luskin can" dichotomy a bit too much should contact both.
Luskin's direct telephone number at his firm, Patton Boggs, is 202-457-6190.  His e-mail address is rluskin (at sign) pattonboggs(dot)com

I hate to run the risk of injecting reality into this thread, but have any of you actually looked at the context of Bush's remarks?

Let's expand the quote a bit:

And I think it's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. And I will do so, as well. I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it. 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.

 It seems clear to me, from reading the transcript of Bush's remarks, that he's not speaking generally about anyone convicted of any crime.  His comment appears specific to the Plame investigation. 

That is, if this investigation finds that someone in his administration committed a crime, that someone would be fired.  Or asked to resign.  Or given a leave of absence.  Or whatever. 

As to the question of political strategy, all this foaming at the mouth over Rove seems ill-advised.  If he is not indicted, then all this hullabaloo is fodder for the right's ridiculous yet somehow believable by most claim of a vast left-wing conspiracy against the right, the politics of personal destruction, all that rot. 

More distressing is that focusing our vitrol on Rove works to the right's advantage just as focusing our defense on Wilson does.  Both ignore the big picture: This WH has demonstrated that it lies, cheats, and steals to get what it wants, bending the facts to their reality instead of shifting their reality to comport with the facts.

And here's the real kicker: They're damn good at all this.  It seems that we on the left haven't even a wet fart of an idea how to effectively disrupt the spin of the average citizen's head.   

Perhaps this would be a good time to try again to find Mr. Bush's lost military records and find out what happened with the missed flight physical.  I always thought the best place to start cleaning house was at the top.

I think the best way to get around all this -- and to force the administration out of their refusal to comment on an "ongoing investigation" -- is to push Henry Waxman's line of inquiry re:  Executive Order 12958 which seems to require Bush to take action regardless of any criminal matters (and which, btw, seems from Waxman's letter and fact sheet to state clearly that what Rove did is grounds for some kind of sanctions).

See http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/story.asp?ID=893&Issue=
Iraq+Contracting+and+Reconstruction

I disagree.  I think the public realizes that Bush changed the ethical standards when he changed his verbage.  It was reported all over MSM as a lowering of the bar.

I believe the American people demand higher standards for access to classified information than "not a criminal".

I could be mistaken but I thought that Nixon pardoned Spiro before Spiro was ever charged with a crime. My understanding is that this was unprecedented though.

Although I don't see firing Rove as having any practical effect on Rove's ability to control the path of our government, the more attention this gets, the better it is for Democrats and democracy. We cannot get a regime change unless we can show the masses how utterly despicable the current administration is.