Corn Correction
Because there is no way to comment on the earlier David Corn/Patrick Fitzgerald post, I'll do it this way.
David Corn does not say in the interview cited by Marathon Pundit that Fitzgerald should be disbarred; in fact, he says just the opposite - that that is the sort of thing that, much to his consternation, conservatives are saying in response to the revelation in the book Hubris that Richard Armitage was Bob Novak's primary source in Plamegate affair, and that Fitzgerald knew that early in his investigation.
Conservatives are using this information to argue that there was no White House effort to slime Joe Wilson and that Fitzgerald needlessly dragged on his investigation.
To the contrary, the reporting of Corn and Michael Isikoff in Hubris shows just the opposite. Their reporting, based in part on eyewitness accounts of events in the White House, show, that there was just such a campaign against Wilson, that White House officials leaked classified information as part of the campaign, and that Scooter Libby was indicted precisely because he told the FBI a story they didn't believe - and one that, according to Corn and Isikoff, didn't turn out to be true.
Aside from the audio cited by Marathon Pundit below, and I encourage everyone to listen to that, Corn has written of this on his own blog, davidcorn.com, and said this on CNN this weekend:
"Well, I think there's been a good job from the opposition here in terms of the Bush defenders by pointing to this disclosure in our book and saying that makes everything go away, that Karl Rove wasn't involved. The book that I co-wrote with Mike Isikoff shows that at the same time Armitage was speaking to Bob Novak, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and others in the White House were actively plotting as well to undermine Joe Wilson. And, of course, as has already been revealed, were leaking the same information to other reporters.
"So there was really a two-track process going here. And, you know, Armitage has come forward and disclosed what he's done. Karl Rove still hasn't. And the White House, that once vowed to fire anyone involved in the leak, still hasn't done anything.
"If Scooter Libby and Karl Rove had told the truth and had gotten it right at the beginning, then the Fitzgerald investigation would have been over in five months."
Just to set the record straight.
16 comments:
UPDATE 7:00PM CDT commnenter has posted that Corn may have been quoting the conservative arguement that Fitzgerald should be disbarred.
I'm unaware of any conservative call for that to occur. Still Corn deserved the benefit of any doubt. If I erred, it was out of irresponsibility, since I listed to that portion of the podcast at least five times before I wrote this post.
"This public service has been brought to you by the Beachwood Reporter."
It's also "possible" that this may be an example of the difference between reporting and punditry.
Possibly.
Two reporters went to jail.
Libby, as a Bush admin representative denied the 5th amendment which would have kept the average person from indictment.
Richard Armitage (or his boss Powell) didn't have the integrity to speak out in those three months between the time of Novak's story and Fitzgerald coming on board.
It's a pretty sorry story.
The Washington Post's Editorial concluded,
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
David Broder's written,
In fact, the prosecutor concluded that there was no crime; hence, no indictment. And we now know that the original "leak," in casual conversations with reporters Novak and Bob Woodward, came not from the conspirators' target in the White House but from the undersecretary of state at the time, Richard Armitage, an esteemed member of the Washington establishment and no pal of Rove or President Bush.
[***]
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
Broder is right.
Nice book report, Rhodes. If we had only Corn and Isikoff to rely on, that would indeed set the record straight. Luckily, there is much more out there than their silly book. Like OpenSecrets.org.
WILSON, JOSEPH C
WASHINGTON,DC 20007
J. C. WILSON INTL. VENTURES/STRATEG
3/26/1999
$2,000
Gore, Al
WILSON, JOSEPH C MR IV
WASHINGTON,DC 20007
J. C. WILSON INTL. VENTURES/STRATEG
3/26/1999
$2,000
Gore, Al
WILSON, JOSEPH C MR IV
WASHINGTON,DC 20007
J. C. WILSON INTL. VENTURES/STRATEG
4/22/1999
($1,000)
Gore, Al
WILSON, VALERIE E MS
WASHINGTON,DC 20007
BREWSTER-JENNINGS & ASSOC.
4/22/1999
$1,000
Gore, Al
I don't know who called for Fitz to be disbarred, but here's what the NYT wrote per my earlier post,
Now, the question of whether Mr. Fitzgerald properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion in continuing to pursue possible wrongdoing in the case has become the subject of rich debate on editorial pages and in legal and political circles.
I think he owes us an explaination of why he did what he did...considering the impact he's going to have on Illinois.
He did the country no good failing to bring charges or issuing any kind of report on the Plame affair.
From Steve Chapman, September 7, Chicago Tribune:
"Last week, the news broke that when columnist Robert Novak identified Plame as a CIA operative, one of his sources was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. This revelation, we are told, destroys the theory that Plame's name was leaked to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for writing a newspaper article criticizing the president.
"The White House, in short, was not engaged in any campaign to `out' Ms. Plame," proclaimed an editorial in The Wall Street Journal. The more liberal Washington Post heartily concurred. The revelation, it said, shows that "one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House--that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson--is untrue."
But the logic here is the equivalent of saying that because I am chewing gum, I cannot possibly be walking. All the evidence indicates there were two separate courses of action that exposed Plame's identity--one attributable to Armitage and one to people in the White House. That Armitage was guilty of carelessness does not mean Libby is innocent of malice.
Armitage spoke with Novak on July 8, 2003, six days before the column appeared. But according to the indictment, Libby told New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Plame two weeks earlier. He apparently also discussed Plame with Matt Cooper of Time before the Novak column saw print."
Chapman is right.
...except Libby is getting slapped with purgery, not leaking secrets.
Fitz really owes the country an explaination for all the money we've paid him.
Bill owes this thread an explanation as to why the deliberate destruction of a CIA agent's career by the highest officials of the Bush administration through dissemination of her covert identity in violation of the law does not deserve criminal investigation and prosecution.
Let's not forget the major revelation contained in Corn and Isakoff's book--that Valerie Plame had a key role in collecting intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs--which, as she and many others tried to point out before Bush went to war, did not support the conclusion that Saddam Hussein had WMD. Discrediting her husband by ruining her career--I'm sure the Bush administration saw that as killing two birds with one stone.
Of course, Bill is from the IOKIYAR school of intellectual incoherence, so I'm sure he has a good explanation why using classified information to wage political warfare is 100% acceptable.
Look, folks, you can debate this all you want but to quote David Broder and others misquoting Corn and Isikoff is to simply perpetuate intellectual laziness and dishonesty.
Corn and Isikoff have reported the story deeply and written a book. If you want to dispute their reporting, fine. Show us where it's wrong. You'll have to read it first, but show us.
But to misquote what Corn and Isikoff say because it doesn't square with your already deeply held beliefs is no way to run a democracy. Do we all really want to live with ideological blinders, or do we want to devote ourselves to the truth?
And Marathon Pundit, your hedging is disturbing and depressing - just as in the audio you link to Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, just decides to ignore Corn's facts in favor of his predisposed belief. There's no question as to what Corn is saying, and it's something he's been saying, as I've pointed out, in many other forums.
If the president was Bill Clinton, I'd be saying the same thing. Would you?
anon....way to stick to the party line my friend...it must have hurt when you found our Libby and Rove didn't our Plame, but someone in the State Department opposed to the war did.
Tough one my friend, hang in there.
Hey Anonymous:
You missed a few -
WILSON, JOSEPH C IV
WASHINGTON, DC 20007
JCWILSON INTERNATIONAL VENTURE BUSH, GEORGE W (R)
President
BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC. $1,000
primary 05/20/99
Wilson, Joseph C. Mr. IV
Washington, DC 20007
Self/Consultant ROYCE, ED MR (R)
House (CA 40)
ED ROYCE FOR CONGRESS $500
general 06/12/02
Wilson, Joseph C. Mr. IV
Washington, DC 20007
Self/Consultant ROYCE, ED MR (R)
House (CA 40)
ED ROYCE FOR CONGRESS $500
primary 06/28/01
WILSON, JOSEPH C IV
WASHINGTON, DC 20007
CONSULTANT ROYCE, ED MR (R)
House (CA 40)
ED ROYCE FOR CONGRESS $500
general 06/25/00
From Corn's magazine: Armitage was not part of a White House effort to assail Joseph Wilson, but this doesn't mean there was no campaign to discredit a high-level critic. The record is clear: Rove and Scooter Libby also leaked to reporters about Valerie Wilson. Rove confirmed the leak for Novak and days later passed the same secret information to Matt Cooper of Time. "Scooter and Karl are out of control," one White House aide told another. And in a court filing, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald noted that White House officials had engaged in a "concerted action" to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson.
Bush apologists have used the Armitage news to slam Fitzgerald: Since he knew at the start that Armitage was the original leaker, they ask, why did he waste our time (and taxpayer dollars) for more than two years? The answer: Armitage quickly confessed his role to FBI investigators; Libby and Rove did not. Libby claimed he'd merely shared scuttlebutt from some reporters with other reporters. (The Libby indictment notes that he and Dick Cheney gathered information and that Libby then disclosed it to two reporters.) Rove first told investigators he'd confirmed the leak with Novak; for a year, he refused to acknowledge he'd leaked to Cooper. Fitzgerald ultimately concluded he couldn't indict anyone for violating the law that makes it illegal for government officials to reveal information about undercover CIA officers. He would have had to prove that these leakers knew beyond a reasonable doubt that Valerie Wilson was undercover.
http://tinyurl.com/lwez2
Here's what Fitz owes us an answer on: Victoria Toensing in the WSJ,
What Mr. Fitzgerald knew, and chose to ignore, is troublesome. Despite what some CIA good ol' boys might have told Mr. Fitzgerald, he knew from the day he took office that the facts did not support a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; therefore, there was no crime to investigate. Although he claimed in Mr. Libby's indictment that Ms. Plame's employment status was "classified," Mr. Fitzgerald refuses to provide the basis for that fact and, even if true, can point to no law that would be violated by revealing a "classified" (not covert) employment. It was this gap in the law that created the need to pass the act in the first place.
So why did our prosecutor keep at it? He didn't bring charges. He needs to report why he spent all the money and wrecked a few lives.
Not to mention spending a whole pile of money.
Yep, SR, I missed a few. But note the one I put in bold - this isn't a point about partisans.
Valerie Wilson.
1999.
On OpenSecrets.org, a matter of public record.
Either, Valerie was 'undercover' in the 5 years prior to the disclosure AND the CIA has been WOEFULLY lax on OPSEC training, or she 'outed' herself before George W. Bush even took office.
Anon 8:26,
Can you please clarify your post? She outed herself by revealing that she existed? Is it common knowledge that Brewster Jennings is a front for covert CIA operatives? Are CIA employees who contribute to campaigns in violation of OPSEC (?) training?
I don't understand what your post is getting at. Does anyone else?
Go to Google. Enter "Define: OPSEC". Works for any word that's outside your vocabulary.
It's a military term, short for 'operational security', refers to not giving out information that can compromise your cover or safety, or that of your peers. It's not so much terms of cloak and dagger, just a matter of taking measured strides to not end up in public view.
BJA was a CIA front business. Basically an answering machine and a voice, and the rest existed on paper. Yes, it was, or at least is now, common knowledge that it was a CIA front.
Her cover was Valerie Plame. By listing her real name as an employee of BJA (instead of her cover), she could be tied to Joe Wilson - diplomat, public figure. (As well as by a listing in 'who's who'.) It wouldn't have been very difficult for a foreign power to connect the dots. BJA = CIA, BJA employees = CIA employees. Had she used her cover name, no connection (might have even contributed to the 'legend' behind her cover). Had she not listed a CIA cover firm as her employer, no connection. But she didn't do it that way. She left a trail.
And for that matter, can anyone answer for me how a diplomat like Joe Wilson is supposed to go to Niger, stay in a hotel, say 'Hi, I'm here on a fact finding trip for the US Government', and talk to a handful of people and determine conclusively whether or not 'Iraq sought to buy Uranium from Africa'? Like the guy who arranged it is going to say 'Oh, yes, let me provide you with copies of my receipts...is there anything else I can do to help?'
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