Rove lied on camera about having "any knowledge" of "the CIA agent".

[onehandle]

Pack your bags you traitorous snake.
_____________________________________

Reporter: Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?
Rove: No.
_______

Rove: Well, I’ll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.
_______

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/11/rove-not-careful/

[grumpy old fart]

1. I did not have sex with that woman.......

hm mm, sounds familiar....

[Zen Democrat]

4. It depends on what your definition of "IS" ... er, "NAME" is.

Since "Joe Wilson's wife" isn't her name, does he thinks this doesn't count as identification and disclosure? Especially since we know that he told Tweety that "Wilson's wife is fair game."

I think this about wraps it up. And I'm sure Fitzgerald knows much more.

[stumblnrose]

16. "I did not have sex with that woman......."

Well that's a line Karl could say without twisting the truth.

[still_one]

2. What are we going to tell the children

[sellitman]

3. Ok..

Can we lock the traitor up now?


Is it time?

[onehandle]

5. General Rove? Are you kidding?

Who will direct the Pentagon on defense matters?

Dubya?

:+

[jjstopes]

6. That isnt a lie, but it is splitting hairs.

He never did leak her name, he said "XXX's Wife", thats why he is getting away with this. If we had him on tape or in an email truely saying her name, then we would have an issue.

[onehandle]

7. Oh, would...we.

FYI: This just started. Rove is going down.

[jjstopes]

10. Gannon? DSM? No WMD? BBV?

The list goes on. How many times did we say "He is going down". 100? 1000?? The problem is we jump on the flavor of the month and never stick to one thing... The DMS is 10000000000000 times more important then this Rove crap. This is what he wants. He wants us to put our efforts into this to take the spotlight off everything else. And in the end we take the bait, he gets away with it, and everything else goes away. You really think Rove would tell the reporter its ok to name the source (him) if he didnt think he would get away with it? Rove lives for this shit.

[onehandle]

13. Unlike many issues, this is tangible and simple.

And this isn't about Bush, it's about Rove.

Rove will resign.

Nice try.

[magnolia]

19. It's YOUR bait...

...that we're not going to take.

pssst....you gave yourself away with the "this Rove crap"...it's way more than crap, it's a felony. It's the real deal.

[pgh_dem]

11. rrrright...he was talking about Wilson's OTHER wife

The fact that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife was NOT classified...

Rove is fucked.

Woohoo!

[skip fox]

8. It has no chance of working.

One or more indictments for Rove is nearly certain. One or more indictments for one or more high-ranking administrative official is likely.

The logic is very simple:

If Rove acted alone he made at least SIX calls (six reporters were contacted). Repeatedly and deliberately telling national reporters (at the least) that the Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and "arranged" his trip to Niger shows he KNOWINGLY exposed her identity (it was far from a slip or even a lapse), whether or not he used her name or knew she was covert. In addition, if he was the only primary caller, he would have had to arrange for confirmation by at least one other administration official at least THREE times (for Novak, Cooper, and Miller). (Since he could not control who the reporter would call for confirmation, he likely arranged for three or four others who would willingly--and "knowlingly"--confirm the story.) Therefore he CONSPIRED to expose a CIA official (since he knew the result of his leak would lead to exposure).

If Rove was the only primary source, however, that means he released Matt Cooper from his confidentiality agreement but he did not Judith Miller from hers. The logical reason is that his leak to her included a much more obvious case of illegal activity. Rove's hope, then, is that such a case will never be known. But with the national attention on the Plame matter and, especially, a tenacious and objective prosecutor tracking him down, Rove has little hope (especially with the fact that he had to have done this SIX times and arranged for at least one other to support his story THREE times).

But if Rove was one of at least two or more sources (which would explain why Cooper's released him but Miller's did not release hers), then it's far worse for him since he probably coordinated the entire leak with both planning and foresight (two elements which again indicate that he KNOWINGLY leaked Plame's identity).

Any administrative official originally realizing the Wilson-Plame-CIA link would immediately realize it could discredit Wilson, but much more importantly he would have known who to take the information to, the master of such discreditations (among so much else), Karl Rove. Rove would then insure that the leaks did not overlap and that at least FEW other officials could be counted upon who would readily confirm the information of the original sources (perhaps each having different details or a different slant to make it sound realistic and not a set-up), since he could not insure who the reporter would call for a confirmation.

How do you do ANY of this UNKNOWINGLY?????

Think of the possibilities! At least two indictments for Rove (leaking Plame and leading a conspiracy to leak) and likely indictments (leaking Plame) for other high administrative officials: Rice, Cheney, Libby, etc. Maybe even W.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please!

[Beaver Tail]

9. You could always have this situation

Put on your Tin Foil Hats

Leak 1 - Rove: I did not know her name so could not have leaked her name (All I said was Wilson’s Wife was a CIA agent. I never said her name)

Leak 2: All I said was Wilson’s Wife was Plame. I never said she was a CIA agent

Technically nether person is lying in the context of the statements made by them.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. He didn't have to know her name

All he had to know (or say he knew) is that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked at the CIA; he also said, probably without reason, that she was responsible for sending him to Niger. Obviously, if she had enough influence at the company to determine who goes on what assignment, she was more than a file clerk.

Rove knows what to say and to whom. Notice that Bush is very careful to never flatly state that Saddam was connected to al Qaida or the September 11 attacks; Saddam "hates America" and therefore "is an enemy," just like Osama. Framed this way, invading Iraq didn't necessarily have anything to do with Saddam having a working relationship with any Islamist terror group or even being any kind of threat at all; as we know, Saddam didn't have any working relationship with any Islamist terror group nor was he any kind of threat at all. The just hated America; therefore, in Bush's worldview, it justified invading. I guess that really put any paper tiger who would dare call the USA a Great Satan on notice.

But I digress.

This is my theory, as I said on another thread yesterday:

Rove told reporters just enough to suggest that Wilson's trip to Niger was a junket arranged by his wife at the CIA and that his report said something different than Wilson said it did in his article for The New York Times that appeared on July 6, 2003.

So the reporter to whom Rove spoke knows that Wilson's wife works for the CIA. What is her name and what does she do at the CIA? A good reporter would start researching this. A good reporter would have no trouble finding that Mr. Wilson is married to a lady named Valerie Plame and that she works as an energy analyst for Brewster Jennings & Associates; if the good reporter doesn't already know that Brewster Jennings is a CIA front, he checks out the firm and discovers that Ms. Plame's employer is a not-very-well-disguised CIA front. And why would Ms. Plame list her employer as a CIA front rather than the CIA itself? She would only do that if she's undercover.

In this way, Rove indirectly outed an undercover CIA operative. My bet is that he knew damn good and well that's what he was doing, but it would be hard to prove. As I've said on other posts recently, Rove is really a glorified political hatchet man; it is hard to imagine that he would normally concern himself with who's who at Langley or which diplomat was sent on a special assignment to Niger. Therefore, my guess is also that somebody put him up to this. If Rove didn't know that Ms. Plame was undercover, then he is still enough of a team player to protect whomever put him up to this business. Of course, anybody who thinks it would have made the slightest difference to Rove if he did know Ms. Plame was an undercover operative is naive. Rove can assume, with good reason, that he'll be pardoned in the end; so, he'll keep on protecting his co-conspirators.

[skip fox]

14. The fact that it was repeatedly done (at lest 6 times) = it was deliberate

not to mention the at least 3 confirmations.

Good post. I think Fitzgeral is realing all of this.

[Jack Rabbit]

15. I'm rather proud of that theory

It's not a bad conspiracy theory for someone who's usually very skeptical of conspiracy theories.

The fact that it was done six times shows it was deliberate, but that's because Rove wanted somebody to run with the story. The more reporters with whom he planted the story, the more likely it would be printed somewhere.

However, it doesn't prove that Rove knew any more about Mrs. Wilson than thant she worked at the CIA.

[cthrumatrix]

18. treason time.... it's pretty clear

[veracity]

20. but did he lie to the grand jury?

It's not against the law to lie on camera....so long as you're not under oath before an official investaging agency. If he lied to the Grand Jury....he's facing jail time....
but Bush will pardon him ahd life will go on as usual. The WH is filled with felons and criminals. No one seems to be very disturbed by it.

[Disturbed]

21. V. Plame ties in directly with DSM.

Fixing the policy for the illegal Invasion of Iraq. Fake docs of Yellow Cake have still not been sourced. State of Union speech mentioning Saddam and request for purchase of unranium was false and the Regime knew it. The goal was to discredit J. Wilson's findings.

[paparush]

22. Rove is going to wiggle..Rove is going to Squirm..

and they aint gonna make it stick. He'll get dressed down by some Senate committee...maybe...and he won't lose one bit of power. Shrub** jumps when Rove says "Jump!"

[rman]

23. but you knew who's wife she is

this is going to be interesting, either way.