. . . and for a refreshing change, the media isn’t fooled: WASHINGTON – President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA-leak case, that person will “no longer work in my administration.” His statement represented a shift from a previous comment, when he said that he would fire anyone shown to have … Read More
SF 312
Administration officials who are given security clearance are required to read and sign a form known as the “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement,” of SF 312. A copy of the form can be found here (PDF format). Accompanying the form is a briefing booklet, the contents of which are here. Here’s a key excerpt from the booklet: Question 19: If information … Read More
Nice Little Twist
So focus has been on this classified State Department memo which says that Plame recommended or arranged for Wilson to go to Niger. Fitzgerald’s office appears to believe that that memo was the ultimate source of the information that eventually made its way into print in Robert Novak’s column. (Read more here). It looks like someone else may have had … Read More
Ronald Reagan – Remarks at the Signing of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act
Whether you work in Langley or a faraway nation, whether your tasks are in operations or analysis sections, it is upon your intellect and integrity, your wit and intuition that the fate of freedom rests for millions of your countrymen and for many millions more all around the globe. You are the trip-wire across which the forces of repression and … Read More
Another Plamegate Roundup
With the barage of silly excuses, sliming points, irrelevancies, and (occasionally) outright lies emanating from the right on the issue of L’Affaire Plame, it’s time for another link-o-riffic round-up. This time, it comes courtesy of Think Progress: CLAIM: White House Can’t Comment While Investigation Is OngoingMcClellan: “While that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on … Read More
More Wingnut Reasons Why It Is Okay For Rove To Out Covert Agents
The folks at World O’ Crap are spoofing the right-wing machine this week, by offering more reasons why it would be okay for Rove to expose Plame as a CIA operative: Reason #1: Because Plame made out with her husband before marriage. And, even worse, she goes by her maiden name. Reason #2: Because Karl did it to keep Plame … Read More
What TPM Says
Yup: There’s a point that’s probably worth raising with our scofflaw Republican friends. All of their arguments now amount to excuses, like those of a small child caught stealing cookies: Joe Wilson’s a liar. Plame’s covert status wasn’t protected well by the CIA. It was just a short phone call. Rove really wanted to speak about welfare reform. Wilson said … Read More
Rove and Espionage
UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman is happy to point out that Rove may have met the statutory requirements for espionage: But Rove’s conduct certainly meets the far less demanding elements of the Espionage Act: (1) possession of (2) information (3) relating to the national defense (4) which the person possessing it has reason to know could be used to damage the … Read More
Plamegate Roundup
From The Left Coaster, a link-o-riffic round-up of the talking points lies of the waterboys and Rove apologists: A number of rebuttals have been provided around the liberal blogosphere to the fakery from the GOP and their media arms about the Valerie Plame expose. Here’s a roundup. TALKING POINT: Valerie Plame (Joseph Wilson’s wife) was not covert.FACT: She was. TALKING … Read More
Supreme Court Rules On Valerie Plame Journalists
The Supreme Court ruled today that journalists cannot avoid grand jury subpeonae asking them to reveal their sources (or, put another way, that journalists can face jail time for failing to reveal their sources in response to a grand jury subpoena). This puts the plaintiffs, Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper and The New York Times’ Judith Miller, in a precarious position. … Read More
Uh . . . Question?
Fox News in August 2002 had an interview with Richard Clarke (then working for Bush White House). Clarke was on background, which is why Fox had to seek permission from the White House to release the transcript yesterday, identifying Clarke as the source. (The White House, of course, granted permission) Apparently, this is how it is done. I have no … Read More
Plame Affair Gets Interesting
According to today’s Newsday: WASHINGTON — The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer’s name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday. Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury … Read More