It doesn't look good for Karl Rove (FindLaw via CNN)

[MinneapolisMatt]

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/15/dean.rove/

snippet:

"There are stories circulating that Rove may have been told of Valerie Plame's CIA activity by a journalist, such as Judith Miller, as recently suggested in Editor & Publisher. If so, that doesn't exonerate Rove. Rather, it could make for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute (which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate)."

- Matt

[Bluebear]

1. So Judith Miller in this scenario would be culpable as well?

Surely jounalistic immunity doesn't apply to TELLING on sources?

[Just Me]

4. As a co-conspirator which was what I suspected from the beginning.

She's prolly in some knee-deep caa caa for her involvement.

[Bluebear]

5. No WONDER she was making such a "stand" for journalism

Judy, Judy, Judy. Tsk.

[hedda_foil]

8. It certainly looks better than taking the Fifth!

If we're right, that would be the only other way for her to keep her mouth closed.

[Jacobin]

10. Miller is in this up to her eyeballs

The history over the last six years or so is simply not consistent with that of a reporter or journalist. She is some kind of fucking PNAC operative.

She's in jail because she doesn't want to take the 5th before the grand jury...NOT to protect some source

[CityZen-X]

2. Obstruction Of Justice

If not treason should be applied to Rove, Rove, Rove, Swift Boat.

Treasongate, is the catch phrase here my friends!

[xchrom]

3. sniff -- i feel for him.

not.

[dogday]

6. How many careers do you think this guy has smeared?

when you look at all the dirty nasty tricks and the smears and slander? Well you have to admit---It helps to think some of his own sh*t has come around to haunt him.....

[natrat]

9. how about the 130,000 dead iraqis

[Oreo]

7. Thanks... this is one everyone should read.

It's saying that while Rove may not be guilty of the law everyone is focusing on, he could get hammered by a precedent setting case in which the Bush regime went all out on a DEA leaker. Bush's precedent may do in his brain!


Precedent bodes ill for Rove

Rove may be able to claim that he did not know he was leaking "classified information" about a "covert agent," but there can be no question he understood that what he was leaking was "sensitive information." The very fact that Matt Cooper called it "double super-secret background" information suggests Rove knew of its sensitivity, if he did not know it was classified information (which by definition is sensitive).

United States District Court Judge Richard Story's statement to Jonathan Randel, at the time of sentencing, might have an unpleasant ring for Rove.

Judge Story told Randel that he surely must have appreciated the risks in leaking DEA information. "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country," the judge observed. Judge Story concluded this leak of sensitive information was "a very serious crime."

"In my view," he explained, "it is a very serious offense because of the risk that comes with it, and part of that risk is because of the position" that Randel held in DEA. But the risk posed by the information Rove leaked is multiplied many times over; it occurred at a time when the nation was considering going to war over weapons of mass destruction. And Rove was risking the identity of, in attempting to discredit, a WMD proliferation expert, Valerie Plame Wilson.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

11. I am rather skeptical

that a reporter would know this information but the White House Chief of Staff wouldn't? Hmmmmmmmmm :shrug:

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

12. I am rather skeptical

that a reporter would know this information but the White House Chief of Staff wouldn't? Hmmmmmmmmm :shrug:

[PurityOfEssence]

13. Interesting how doggedly this administration has gone after leakers...

Something like compromising Plame's work should have REALLY set them off if they really cared about the country. Of course, we all know that their loyalty is to themselves and nobody else.

Not only did they not pursue this prosecution, they had to be pushed into it by the CIA.