Updated.
It seemed Karl Rove violated the Espionage Act - "(1) possession of (2) information (3) relating to the national defense (4) which the person possessing it has reason to believe could be used to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation and (5) wilful communication of that information to (6) a person not entitled to receive it."
(update - as Russ Steele points out in comments, this assumes that Rove _did_ provide the info to Novak, but newspapers now report he says he didn't, he merely confirmed it.
On the other hand, apparently he did volunteer the info to Matt Cooper of Time, so...)
The Union sees the news as "Rove's publicity could jeopardize his image" - this being the headline they applied to Tom Raum's July 12 AP story*, elsewhere* titled "CIA Leak Probe Focuses on Rove".
It echoes their June 20 "Downing Street memos reveal British reaction to U.S. plans for 'regime change' in Iraq" - I did an informal survey to see if anyone could infer the actual news from this, and the only person who had any inkling was an NPR listener, so knew full well.
(although the article's apparent AP title, "Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War", isn't a whole lot better)
Stale blog offering Perspective on ideas, issues and life from Nevada County, California - belaboring the obvious since 2003
Thursday, July 14, 2005
4 comments:
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ReplyDeleteRuss, you're right that this post was jumping the gun - I've updated it accordingly.
Fortunately it looks like we've got a tough investigator on the case, who's actually motivated to get to the bottom of this, so, with luck, the truth will come out. I expect it'll be interesting.
Just hold your ground, Anna. The "denial patriots" had their day last week, but the news over the past 48 hours has eroded their talking points and advanced the story.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether Rove will ever be indicted, but from a political perspective it hardly matters. The Plame Affair is a proxy for the larger issue of the phony case for the Iraq war, and the crumbling of the White House image is now well under way. New presidential approval rating? 42 percent. Congress? 33 percent.
Your pal Russ desperately wants to believe that his president isn't a crook, that if it wasn't for Liberal Media Bias, nobody would even be talking about this. But even his fellow Republicans are starting to defect now, and the Bush sandcastle eroding faster.
You know what 33 percent congressional approval means? A mid-term majority change. Democrats need just 15 seats to take control of the House. And the House is the body that drafts Articles of Impeachment.
Time to abandon ship, Russ. There won't be enough lifeboats to go around.
Anna - Like the Clinton problem. It's not what Rove did. It's the way he denied it. Clinton, under heavy pressure, lied to a grand jury. That's perjury. Rove, under heavy pressure signed an SF 312 which is a standard "under penalty of perjury, I swear" and lied on the form. Rove swore he had NOTHING to do with telling ANY reporter ANYTHING about Plame.
ReplyDeleteSorry Russ, your guy lied, Clinton lied, Your boss is going to let him off the hook and recant his earlier statements on fireing ANYONE associated with the White House who spread the information.
Stand your ground Anna.
The wonderful thing about this ground is that it makes no difference whether or not I stand it - Fitzgerald's going to find out what happened. And, unless at this stage everyone with integrity is by definition untrustworthy, minds will be changed.
ReplyDeleteArianna Huffington's speculation that the NY Times's Judith Miller might have played another role besides "martyr for journalism" is interesting.
And, from July 8 - "All the judges who have seen the prosecutor's secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment."