by hilzoy
Last night, word began to circulate around the blogs that Lawrence O’Donnell , an MSNBC political analyst, had identified Karl Rove as the person who leaked Valerie Plame’s name. Today, O’Donnell confirmed that he said this:
“I revealed in yesterday’s taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine’s emails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper’s source. I have known this for months but didn’t want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury. (…)
Since I revealed the big scoop, I have had it reconfirmed by yet another highly authoritative source. Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week. I know Newsweek is working on an ‘It’s Rove!’ story and will probably break it tomorrow.”
And now the Newsweek story is out:
“The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper’s sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove.
The controversy began three days before the Time piece appeared, when columnist Robert Novak, writing about Wilson’s trip, reported that Wilson had been sent at the suggestion of his wife, who was identified by name as a CIA operative. The leak to Novak, apparently intended to discredit Wilson’s mission, caused a furor when it turned out that Plame was an undercover agent. It is a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA official. A special prosecutor was appointed and began subpoenaing reporters to find the source of the leak.
Novak appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor, and other journalists who reported on the Plame story have talked to prosecutors with the permission of their sources. Cooper agreed to discuss his contact with Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s top aide, after Libby gave him permission to do so. But Cooper drew the line when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked about other sources.
Initially, Fitzgerald’s focus was on Novak’s sourcing, since Novak was the first to out Plame. But according to Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before Novak’s column appeared. Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove “never knowingly disclosed classified information” and that “he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.” Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He did say that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury “two or three times” and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. “He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else,” Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told NEWSWEEK that there was growing “concern” in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove. Fitzgerald declined to comment.
In early October 2003, NEWSWEEK reported that immediately after Novak’s column appeared in July, Rove called MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews and told him that Wilson’s wife was “fair game.” But White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters at the time that any suggestion that Rove had played a role in outing Plame was “totally ridiculous.” On Oct. 10, McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and “those individuals assured me they were not involved in this.” “
TalkLeft has a summary of earlier reporting on the Plame investigation.
I recall that when this story first appeared, there were people who cast aspersions on Joe Wilson. I have no reason to think that any of their claims were true, and I don’t care, since it’s completely irrelevant: outing a CIA agent is wrong no matter what her husband’s character is like. Moreover, I also don’t care whether or not whoever leaked her name thought that it was already widely known in DC circles, etc., etc. Something that is popular gossip in DC is not nearly as widely known, or as easy to find out about, as something Robert Novak prints in his columns. And outing a CIA agent, besides being illegal, is also deeply wrong. National security could be harmed; her previous contacts could be put at risk; any usefulness she might have had in the future as an undercover operative has been thrown away; and so on. And besides all that, there is something especially despicable about outing a CIA agent not to serve some genuine security need, but to damage a political opponent.
Suppose Rove did leak Plame’s name. A few thoughts leap to mind. First, there are some situations that you just can’t spin, since everything you might come up with as an excuse implies something really bad about you. SUppose, for instance, that you are a security guard at a museum, and the museum’s director stops by one night and finds you sitting at your post, calmly reading the paper, while hundreds of people are working, loudly, with noisy power tools and motorized forklifts, carting the museum’s treasures away. How do you spin this? Clearly it’s no good to say that they bribed you, or that you gave them permission. Should you then try to argue that you didn’t notice the hundreds of people streaming by your desk, the forklifts, the noise, the clatter? Besides the sheer implausibility of the claim, if it were true it would imply that you have no business holding the job you do. Should you try to say that you thought that those hundreds of people and their forklifts and so forth were normal; that you didn’t think they were doing anything wrong? Again: both implausible on its face and, if true, proof that you should be fired. In this situation, there really is nothing good for you to say; no excuse you can offer that would show that you were not at fault.
The Plame story is like this, especially if Karl Rove, one of the President’s closest advisors, is behind it. What are the options? If Bush knew that Rove leaked Plame’s identity, he could have revealed this fact, or, if he didn’t want to turn Rove in, he could have asked Rove to resign and allowed him to drift off into the sunset. If, instead, he knowingly kept someone who broke the law and harmed our national security for purely political reasons as one of his advisors, then I can’t see how to avoid the conclusion that he just doesn’t care about our national security, moral responsibility, integrity, or his constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. If Bush didn’t know that Rove leaked Plame’s name because he didn’t really try to find out, then that same conclusion follows. The only option that allows us to conclude that Bush really does take the outing of a CIA agent seriously is to suppose that he didn’t know despite having really tried to find out the identity of the leaker. But, besides being implausible on its face, that raises fairly serious questions about the degree to which Bush is in charge of his own administration. Are we supposed to imagine that Bush was outraged by this; that he called all his advisors in to talk with him, separately and in private, and made it clear to them that he was completely serious about wanting to know who leaked Plame’s name, and yet no one told him? That would imply that he is useless as a chief executive, and has lost control of the administration that is supposedly ‘his’. In no case can we avoid drawing really damning conclusions about Bush and his leadership.
Second, if, as we keep hearing, lots of people in the press have known about this for ages, why on earth didn’t any of them let us know sooner? Those who were actually contacted by Rove had to keep their sources secret. But as I understand it, they had in fact told colleagues who the leak was. Why couldn’t one of those colleagues have run with the story, with one (or more) of the people Rove had contacted as an anonymous source? Since several people seem to have been contacted, it’s not even as though Rove would have known who the source was.
Plus, having spoken to the press from time to time myself, the way it works for normal people is that once you say something to them, it is very hard to keep it out of their stories. You can ask, beforehand, that what you say be ‘on background’, which means that it will not be quoted, and that your name will be kept out of it. You can provide quotes but ask that they be kept anonymous. But you cannot say something and then ask them not to use it without giving them some sort of compelling reason, e.g. that lives depend on their not printing what you have told them. (E.g., if you are Eisenhower and you inadvertently reveal which beach in northern France you’re planning to invade.) It seems pretty unlikely that there was any such reason to be given in this case. And if there wasn’t, then they were treating their friends differently than they treat everyone else.
Here I agree with Digby:
“Is it normal that members of the press know the answer to a major mystery but they withhold it, as a group, from the public? I thought their job was to reveal the answers to major mysteries. In fact, this seems like the scoop of the decade. Back in the day, reporters were racing to get the news of semen stains and talking points on the air mere seconds before their rivals. Now, they all keep quiet?
This is a very interesting professional and ethical question for the media. Does the reporter’s privilege extend to his friends? Here you apparently have quite a few members of the DC press corps with a piece of very juicy information (allegedly) about the most powerful political operative in the United States — information that also has to do with an important matter of national security and a Justice department investigation. In some sort of friendship extension of the reporter’s privilege they say nothing. Amazing.
And during the time they say nothing an election is held in which the political operative in question works feverishly to smear his client’s opponent with scurrilous charges of borderline treason and cowardly behavior during wartime. The entire election is premised on the fact that the president, this man’s client, is the only one capable of handling national security. His prior campaign had been waged with an overt promise to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Still nothing.
Finally, when their friend seems headed to jail and his boss has agreed to turn over notes, they start to step up and reveal what they know.
Hookay. I think it’s time to convene another conference on blogger ethics and professional journalistic standards. I get so confused about these things. “
I think the press comes out of this looking bad. Time has, as far as I can tell, ensured that no source who wants to remain anonymous will ever speak to its reporters again. And those reporters who were not initially contacted, but who kept the information secret until now, failed to do their jobs, in ways that harmed the country. It was not for them to decide whether or not to cover this story. And it was not for them to decide whether or not it might be relevant to an election that turned on questions like ‘who can keep us safe?’ that George W. Bush’s closest political advisor was a person who exposed undercover CIA agents for no better reason than to harm his political opponents.
Third, of course, having recently had Rove accuse me and people like me of being traitors, if this turns out to be true I will enjoy the irony of it all. Much better, though, if I had never had occasion to. Because this sort of thing should never be about politics. And it’s because, unlike the person who leaked Plame’s name, I do think that national security is more important than politics that, delightful as it will be if I get to watch Karl Rove go down in flames, I would much, much rather the leak had not taken place to begin with.
I found this analysis of the leak amusing.
But would the friends of the journalists first contacted have had any proof that it was Rove? If they had gone out and said that they’d heard it was Rove, they would have been buried. Stories about their wives, about their children, about every business dealing ever would start to circulate.
Sure, being terrified of Rove’s willingness to destroy people isn’t a really good excuse, but accusing a ruthless political operative of treason without evidence (ie the now turned-over notes) sounds suicidal.
And the rumors kept burning long and hot enough that it has indeed finally come out.
(It’s a beautiful day; I must be channeling Pollyanna…)
Jackmormon: If one of the reporters who had actually been called by Rove told another, it would be first-hand knowledge. If the second reporter knew the first to be reliable, it would be as good as it gets for a reporter, absent actually listening in on the phone calls. Think of other contexts: someone who was at a meeting tells a reporter what was discussed, for instance. If that person is credible, of course you go with it.
On a completely different note, I went over to see how LGF was dealing with this, and read all of 50 comments before I began to worry that the insanity might be contagious. Highlights:
Her husband’s reactions within hours of the story just didn’t feel right to me.
A bit too non-chalant,almost choreographed.
Along with a lot of people calling O’Donnell insane, and going on about the stupid illogical moonbats at DU. (I think being called stupid and illogical by an LGF commenter would be like having Truman Capote call you vain.) Truly amazing.
If one of the friends came out saying that “Matthew told me that Rove did it,” wouldn’t Cooper or Miller have to confirm it for the statement to have any credibility? Denying it, during an investigation, would put them in a tricky legal position; confirming it would blast open privilege; neither confirming nor denying would hang the colleague out to dry in the media flap. Am I wrong about this?
I would think the standard thing to do when you’re asked about sources would be to refuse to discuss them, whether or not whoever was asking had hit on the right person. — And as there were, iirc, six people called, no one would know who had talked except the source and the reporter. By the same token, it could have been confirmed, if two people had talked. (And my sense is that a bunch of people had.)
Oh — and my assumption was that Cooper or Miller would tell another reporter anonymously.
And let’s not forget what Plame’s “beat” was: Weapons of mass destruction.
Publius at Legal Fiction channels Shakespeare, in re Rove… it’s really good.
Despair and die!
We hope.
The idea that Miller and Cooper would leak anonymously, though, doesn’t really work: the journalists to whom the leak was leaked were known pretty quickly, and an anonymous rumour is, well, pretty much the currency of the blogs, which kept the heat on until the prosecution managed to force the proof out.
I feel dirty defending this, but I really don’t know how journalists who had heard this confidential information from Cooper and Miller should have behaved without endangering their own reputations, Cooper and Miller’s reputations, journalistic privilege, or all of the above. Surely some better solution could have been worked out, I agree, but amidst our indignation, it may be useful to see the bind Rove put the press corps into. (Divide and Conquer! Solidarity is dead! Whoops, does that imperil free speech privilege?)
Back in the day, Ken Starr was leaking a bunch of stuff he should have kept under his shirt – it now strikes me as (similarly?) odd that no one in the press ran with that story (as far as I recall).
Under his shirt? Didn’t he have a hat? [Makes me think of documents “in socks.” — ha ha, docs in socks]
That’s a lie! It’s another lie! That’s a lie! Abso
Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, October 22, 2004 in interview on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country,” attacking John O’Neill. Pardon me if I take this one with just a teeny grain of salt.
That’s a lie! It’s another lie! That’s a lie! Abso
Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, October 22, 2004 in interview on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country,” attacking John O’Neill. Pardon me if I take this one with just a teeny grain of salt.
That’s a lie! It’s another lie! That’s a lie! Abso
Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, October 22, 2004 in interview on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country,” attacking John O’Neill. Pardon me if I take this one with just a teeny grain of salt.
Well, just in case anyone’s interested, here are some statutes that struck me as possibly relevant:
Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources
Perjury
False declarations before grand jury or court
Obstruction of criminal investigations
Statements or entries generally
Apologies for the multiple trackbacks – problems with Haloscan.
Mark in Mexico
Actually, the angle about the press not reporting the long-held belief that Rove was the leaker shows that the intimidation of the press by Rove, et al. works. These press cowards weighed the benefits of printing the story and decided not to. And as pointed out above by others, they gladly would run with the hot story otherwise — the only clear explanation is that they were fearful of taking on Rove.
What is funny is the right’s reaction that the press is allegedly so tough on Bush. The “liberal media bias” logic has devovled so that it means “any time press doesn’t unflinchingly reprint right-wing talking points.”
But this beliigerence apparently works.
Who are these pro-White house lawyers and why are they confirming this deal? Why do I have the feeling that Rover will screw us over. A-gain. and over. again. I feel like we are bound fo a shiv- its too good to be true.
As important as the apparent mass media failure is, and I do think it is important, lets not lose sight of the ball here:
Frog marched. In handcuffs. I want video.
Aramco?
Just a link for some background, via James Wolcott. Dated, and maybe a little tin-foil, but a lot of fun.
They managed to beat the arms-for-hostages thing – being caught while selling arms to the enemy in Iran and using the money to finance their own private war in Central America.
This one is nothing.
I don’t know just how all this is going to turn out but I thought the photo of Wilson and Plame together in Vanity Fair was a great shot. Reminded me of an old James Caan movie”Hiding in Plain Sight”. Sort of a reverse psychology gambit to protect her secret identity. Was Karl Rove the photographer? Will Vanity Fair,it’s staff,have to frog walk out of their office? Is frog walking while handcuffed permitted in Gitmo?
At worst (for the administration), Rove will go down, and be replaced by a hack of similar abilities. This will look pretty bad for the White House in the short term, mainly due to the vastly overinflated sense of importance that’s been attatched to Rove by all parties, but in the end it won’t matter that much. Rove is just another replaceable cog in the machine, and the guru they stick in his place might just even be competant this time.
No way does Rove go anywhere; this isn’t going to be the bonanza for which everyone hopes. And frankly, I don’t particularly think it should be – this is a squalid little tale about score settling, and is indistinguishable from probably thousands of others before and after it. I’d be happy to use it as a weapon if I thought it would slow down the Mindless Juggernaut(TM), but I won’t feel ethically violated if it isn’t addressed.
SCMT: I have no idea how it’s actually going to turn out. However, it does matter to me that the person who outed Plame, whoever it is, pay some serious price. To me, you Just Do Not out an undercover agent for petty political purposes. You just don’t. It would be petty political score-settling if someone in the Bush administration had gotten them blocked from a country club. Outing CIA agents is, and ought to be, completely different.
And SCMT, every little bit helps. Every little bit tears a few more people away from Bush.
Hilzoy:
IMO, on the long list of sins that have been attributed to Karl Rove (including his role in cynically getting us into Iraq, the SC whisper campaign against McCain, and the whisper campain alleging child diddling against (IIRC) an Alabama Dem), this ranks pretty low. If the last few years have taught us anything, it should have been that the value-add of the CIA is fairly small and may even be negative. It’s not right, it ought to be punished, but it’s not the worst thing he’s done by a long shot. And I am all but certain that Dems have, in the past, done things I would consider equally egregious.
I might feel differently if someone could show me an actual material harm rather than a series of potential harms.
Not only was she a CIA op, she was working on the WMD issue.
That’s vital to keep in mind, because it’s become clear the Bush Admin wasn’t really all that worried about WMD. The way the troops were deployed proves that; the failure to secure known weapons caches proves that.
And the way the Bush Admin rushed into the war proves that. They knew there weren’t any WMDs, but they had sold the war on the basis of WMDs, and had to start the war before everyone else knew there weren’t any WMDs.
Outing Plame – who was working on the WMDs issue – has to be seen in this context. Did the Bush Admin destroy her network (and probably get people killed) in order to head off public confirmation that there were no WMDs in Iraq? Or in order to head off discovery of who the “Niger yellowcake” forger was?
Maybe ruining Plame wasn’t just about the politics of personal destruction. Maybe there was more to it: destroying an intel op that would have disproved Bush’s claims and undermined his case for war.
SCMT: Do you consider the war in Iraq ‘actual material harm’?
Not only was Plame a CIA op, she was working on the WMD issue.
That’s vital to keep in mind, because it’s become clear the Bush Admin wasn’t really all that worried about WMD. The way the troops were deployed proves that; the failure to secure known weapons caches proves that.
And the way the Bush Admin rushed into the war proves that. They knew there weren’t any WMDs, but they had sold the war on the basis of WMDs, and had to start the war before everyone else knew there weren’t any WMDs.
Outing Plame – who was working on the WMDs issue – has to be seen in this context. Did the Bush Admin destroy her network (and probably get people killed) in order to head off public confirmation that there were no WMDs in Iraq? Or in order to head off discovery of who the “Niger yellowcake” forger was?
Maybe ruining Plame wasn’t just about the politics of personal destruction. Maybe there was more to it: destroying an intel op that would have disproved Bush’s claims and undermined his case for war.
That accursed typepad!
I might feel differently if someone could show me an actual material harm rather than a series of potential harms.
Do you favor letting drunk drivers off as long as they didn’t actually cause an accident? Should it be legal to fire a gun randomly in a crowd, as long as you don’t hit anybody?
We punish behavior that has a high probability of causing harm precisely to deter it, thereby reducing actual future harm.
SCMT: Contemptible, unethical, immoral & disgusting as other Rove political activities have been, the difference this time is that outing an undercover CIA operative (if it is proven that Rove was indeed the source of the leak) is clearly, unambiguously criminal. To me this merits a whole different level of scrutiny and accountability.
In quick succession:
1. Do you consider the war in Iraq ‘actual material harm’? Not only was Plame a CIA op, she was working on the WMD issue.
It would be harm, but that will be impossible to prove. Moreover, I think the analysis (using the media as a proxy for the public) of the WMD issue was so laughable that I assume that another quanta of evidence in one direction or another would not have made any difference at all in support for the war.
2. Do you favor letting drunk drivers off as long as they didn’t actually cause an accident?
Not in a perfect world, but prosecutors (and police) use their discretion to do this all of the time. Furthermore, given Rove’s position, I’m deeply unconvinced that conviction would deter similar acts any more than Watergate convictions prevented political campaigns from playing dirty tricks.
3. the difference this time is that outing an undercover CIA operative (if it is proven that Rove was indeed the source of the leak) is clearly, unambiguously criminal.
Which makes it an infinitely more useful lever, and on which basis I absolutely support any actions we can manage against Rove. So more scrutiny, etc – absolutely. But only b/c this lever allows us to do it, not b/c I find this more egregious or worthy of punishment than a host of other acts.
… prosecutors (and police) use their discretion to [let drunk drivers off] all of the time.
IANAP (either kind) so I can’t speak to this, but I suspect “all of the time” is a stretch. And wouldn’t the seriousness of the offense play a role?
Furthermore, given Rove’s position, I’m deeply unconvinced that conviction would deter similar acts any more than Watergate convictions prevented political campaigns from playing dirty tricks.
How could we possibly know the Watergate convictions did not prevent some similar acts?
Isn’t this basically treason? Since we are at war, isn’t the punishment for treason execution?
I’m with SCMT, though not wedded to the position. Outing a CIA agent in this case was despicable. What makes me a bit uneasy is that I can imagine cases where I’d probably cheer the outing of a CIA agent–one involved in overthrowing a government or something else nefarious. Would the law make a distinction between Rove’s outing of Plame (assuming he really did this) and some whistle-blower exposing CIA misdeeds?
Liberal Wet Dream
Next to George W. Bush, there is probably no one that the liberal-left hates more than Karl Rove. With that in mind, its perhaps not surprising that Lawrence O’Donnell, suffering from a lack of sleep and snoozing during the taping…
Karl Rove and Patrick Fitzgerald,
Ok folks, let’s see if we can get some things straight about this Valerie Plame – Joseph Wilson – Matthew Cooper – Judith Miller – Karl Rove – U. S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald – Robert Novak – Scooter Libby – Federal District Court Judge Thomas F. H…