Rove/Plame-gate is officially over (updated!)

UPDATE:

(h/t PowerLine and Betsy's Page)

As they say, "heh."

Ya think Joseph Wilson is getting a cut?

Also, as linked on InstaPundit, Stephen St. Onge has another good chronological Rove/Plame-gate timeline chock-full of linky goodness.

UPDATE 2:

From today's Drudge Report, Time's Matthew Cooper tells Howard Kurtz what the meaning of "double super secret background" is:

Well, Howie, I can now reveal that it was a joke. Karl Rove, when we had the conversation, wanted it to be on deep background, which I took to mean I could use the material but not quote it directly, and certainly not attribute it, that I had to protect the identity of my source. When I wrote the note to my bureau chief, just moments after the conversation with Rove, in a slightly playful way, I echoed the line in the movie "Animal House," where John Belushi's wild fraternity is put on double secret probation. So it was a little bit of humor.

... something the Democratic Party is sorely in need of.

UPDATE 3 (07-18-05):

This morning, courtesy of Michelle Malkin, we learn by way of the National Review's Andrew McCarthy that an amicus brief filed in defense of the New York Times' Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper asserts that Valerie Plame's cover was blown twice in the 1990's, once by a Russian spy and again in documents that were meant for the U.S. Interests section of the Swiss embassy in Havana, but which were intercepted by the Cubans.  A link to a story by the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, which details these leaks, is also provided.

Funny isn't it, that with all of the details provided by major newspapers about this story, they would forget to mention the details of their own legal brief.

UPDATE 4 (07-19-05):

Here's another piece of evidence that seems to indicate that Joseph Wilson showed little concern for Valerie Plame's identity.  Double Toothpicks notes that at the time Wilson published his July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times, his online bio at the Middle East Institute clearly identified "Valerie Plame" as his wife.  The bio has been pulled, but an archived copy is available at the Internet Way Back Machine.

Also, the Associated Press is reporting today that a memo drafted by the State Department for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, and circulated onboard Air Force One immediately after Wilson's New Yort Times op-ed was published, called attention to the role of Joseph Wilson's wife in securing him for a mission to Niger:

The memo said Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and suggested her husband go to Niger because he had contacts there and had served as an American diplomat in Africa. However, the official said the memo did not say she worked undercover for the spy agency nor did it identify her as Valerie Plame, which was her maiden name and cover name at the CIA.

But anyone in the Administration who saw this State Department memo, or any member of the press who might have obtained this information from an Administration official through questioning and then did a simple Internet search on Joseph Wilson, could have easily obtained his wife's name.  Secret?  I don't think so.

UPDATE 5 (07-20-05):

Courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, we have a snapshot of both of President Bush's statements regarding when the administration would discipline anyone who broke the law in the Plame case:

Sept. 30, 2003:  "If there is a leak out of my administration I want to know who it is, and if that person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."

July 18, 2005:  "We have a serious ongoing investigation here (press corps laughter) and it is being played out in the press -- and I think it is best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions, and I will do so as well ... I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts and if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

The conspiracy nuts are claiming that the President moved the goalposts between those two answers.   Frankly I don't see the difference between them.  "Violated law" and "committed a crime" reasonably mean the same thing.   In both statements, the President specifies that appropriate action will be taken when there is evidence of a crime.  So far there is no conclusive evidence that Karl Rove leaked anything to the press, much less broke the law.

_____________________________________________

Stick a fork in it - it's done.

The fat lady is singing.

Time to piss on the fire, bring in the dogs, and call it a night.

Karl Rove only answered reporter's questions and didn't "leak" anything, and Valerie Plame's identity was anything but secret.  Reality hit the Plame/Rove scandal this past week like Dorothy's bucket of water hitting the Wicked Witch.  And today, the story is melting into a pile of muck right before our eyes. 

A Rove "frog march?"  Don't hold your breath.  It ain't gonna happen.

According to the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, and National Review's Clifford May, here is  -- as best we can determine -- the way that things really played out in the Wilson/Plame/Rove mess.

Early 2002:

The CIA is interested in corroborating reports that Iraq is working to open trade negotiations with Niger, whose sole export of note is "yellowcake" uranium ore, which can be processed into fissionable uranium 235. 

Valerie Plame, who works in the CIA's weapons nonproliferation division, recommended that the agency send her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV to Niger to investigate these claims.  Wilson's bona fides include his heroic use of the US Embassy in Bagdhad as a shelter for hundreds of civilians during the Gulf War and a commendation by president George H. W. Bush as "a true American hero."  But Wilson is also a strong partisan who disapproves of the current Bush administration's plan to militarily oust Saddam Hussein. Writing in The Nation (hardly a non-partisan or pro-Bush publication) Wilson described America's policies in the Middle East as a "new American imperialism."  Wilson also had no prior experience as an investigator.

Feb. 2002:

Joseph Wilson IV visits Niger and prepares a report outlining what he learned.  The report is classified.

Around this time, Italian intelligence officers received documents purporting to contain evidence of Iraqi purchases of uranium ore in Niger.  Some have speculated that these documents spurred Wilson's trip.  Further investigation concluded that these documents were forgeries.

January 2003

President George W. Bush delivers the State of the Union address in which he outlines reasons why the United States will work to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  (A policy which, by the way, was formalized by President Bill Clinton in 1998.)  Bush utters this sentence: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

July 2003:

Joseph Wilson publishes an op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled "What I Didn't Find In Africa."  Despite the confidential nature of the report he prepared based on his trip, Wilson liberally divulged its information and confidently suggested that Vice President Richard Cheney authorized his trip.

Speculation began to rise in the media regarding the specifics of Wilson's trip.  In particular, rumors circulated that either CIA director William Tenet or perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney were personally involved in an attempt to hide or deny the information obtained by Wilson.

After the Wilson op-ed was published, an unidentified reporter called White House political strategist Karl Rove and asked him about the Wilson story.  This member of the press told Rove that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.  (I believe that there is now little doubt that this unidentified member of the press was the New York Times' Judith Miller, who now sits in a jail cell because she refuses to turn over her notes to the Federal prosecutor who is investigating this case.  If this is true, and her notes indicate that she told Rove about Wilson's wife -- and not the other way around, as Democrats have claimed for the past two years -- then the whole case against Rove evaporates.)

Robert Novak called Karl Rove.  Novak began the conversation discussing new deputy national security advisor Francis Townsend, but eventually turned the conversation to Wilson.  Novak told Rove that he knew Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.  Rove replied, "I've heard that too."

Matt Cooper from Time magazine called Karl Rove.  Like Novak, Cooper began the conversation on a different subject (welfare reform) and eventually brought it around to Wilson.  Cooper asked Rove if CIA Director Tenet or Vice President Cheney authorized the Wilson trip.  Rove responded with a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson."  He further told Cooper that neither Cheney or Tenet authorized the trip, rather it was "wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."  Rove added, "... not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... "

We also know that reporters began feeling out I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.  Libby confirmed that he too was aware of rumors involving Wilson's wife.

On July 14, not two weeks after Wilson published his New York Times op-ed, Robert Novak published a piece entitled "Mission to Niger," in which he stated that, "[Wilson's] wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report."

Then the excrement hit the fan.

Wilson castigated Novak for "outing" his wife, who according to Wilson was working covertly at the CIA.  Democrats pounced on Wilson's charges and accused Republicans of sacrificing Plame in order to discredit Wilson, with no disregard for Plame's safety.  Wilson and Plame appeared in Vanity Fair magazine.  Wilson wrote a book.  Wilson and Plame discussed who will portray them in the movie.  And leftist conspiracy theorists went to work full time, even trying to tie disgraced reporter Jeff Gannon to the controversy by suggesting that Gannon shopped the Plame story around until he found a patsy willing to publish it.

Unfortunately, Wilson's own book informs readers that he and Plame last served in any official capacity overseas in 1997.  They returned home, where Plame give birth to twins and began working at the Langley office of the CIA.  According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, an intellegence agent who has been stateside for at least five years is no longer considered to be a covert agent.  Plame and Wilson had been stateside for six years when Novak published his article.

Journalist Clifford May also revealed that he heard rumors about Wilson and Plame at the time that Novak published his first article.  May never thought that Plame's identity was secret because he had heard her name mentioned casually by a number of people, none of whom seemed to express any concern over talking freely about her.

Regardless, a Federal prosecutor was appointed to investigate the circumstances surrounding Novak's story and to determine if a deliberate leak of Valerie Plame's identity was indeed orchestrated by White House operatives in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed.  The Bush administration pledged full cooperation with the investigation and promised that any individuals who were charged with leaking sensitive information would be "taken care of."

Interestingly, another Clifford May piece published today points the finger directly at Wilson for divulging the fact that his wife was a covert operative.  May points out that Novak's original piece only carried the two sentences that I quoted above.  But an article published by The Nation's David Corn carried the lead, "Did Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security — and break the law — in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?"  Novak did not say that Plame was working covertly.  So how did Corn know?

Corn's piece contains paragraph after paragraph of speculation about how Novak's piece could damage Plame if she were a covert operative.  Then it concludes with a direct quote from Joseph Wilson, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames."  May concludes (rightly, I believe) that only Wilson could have given Corn enough information for him to have written - and then cleverly denied - such speculations.

Further, in a follow-up to his original story, Novak explained that he had contacted the CIA with regard to Valerie Plame before he published it.  He writes,

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

Novak further states,

It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA ... Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry. 

... While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

July 2004

The British Government released its own investigation of WMD intelligence, headed by Lord Butler of Brockwell.  While the report found that much of Britain's WMD intelligence was faulty, it also reported that, in regard to the intelligence quoted by President Bush in his infamous "sixteen words,"

In particular, referring to a 1999 visit of Iraqi officials to Niger, the report states (6.4 para. 503): “The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.”

The United States Senate Intelligence Committee also released its own investigation of WMD intelligence and not only confirmed that Plame had arranged for Wilson to travel to Niger (Wilson said it was Vice President Cheney, remember?) but further revealed that the CIA had viewed the information in Wilson's report as a favorable indication that Iraqi officials had visited Niger with the intention of buying uranium ore.

Wilson't two main points were now directly contradicted by both the United States and British governments.  The Kerry presidential campaign, which had eagerly signed Wilson on as a foreign policy advisor, was forced to quietly drop him from their ranks, and purge their website of any references to Wilson being a part of their foreign policy team.

Forward To Today

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is now working to finish up his investigation into the Plame leak.  He was handed a huge break by the Supreme Court, which ruled that Time reporter Matthew Cooper and New York Times Reporter Judith Miller were required to turn over their notes related to the investigation, or be jailed for contempt.  Cooper complied; Miller didn't, and is now under arrest for contempt.  Cooper's notes confirmed that Karl Rove did not leak Plame's name, and that it was Cooper who approached Rove about the Wilson story.  And today's new revelations about Robert Novak's role further illustrate that Rove only answered questions, and did not volunteer information.

In the final analysis, this whole silly affair seems to be nothing more than an overblown case of "scandalitis."  Democrats hate Karl Rove with a passion rarely seen in Washington, even among rabid political partisans.  They blame Rove for every political defeat that they suffer.  And they have made "getting rid of Rove" one of their top strategic priorities.  They thought that this "scandal" would be manna from Heaven.

Democrats twisted Bush's promise to "deal with" anyone charged with leaking sensitive information into a promise to "fire" Rove at the faintest whiff of scandal.  Obviously this isn't going to happen.

The Democrats need ideas, honest policy debates, and the aura of leadership and determination if they want to take back control of Washington D. C.  Unfortunately, the best that they have been able to come up with is scandal-mongering and obstruction.

Good luck, Democrats.  At this rate, you're going to need it.

...

More good blogging at WizBang (1) (2), Protein Wisdom, Mac's Mind, Captain's Quarters, Sister ToldJah (ha!), Mark In Mexico, Michelle Malkin.
 

Comments

[BR]

Very well written, Mike.

Regarding the forgeries in the time line:

1999 - Wilson goes to Niger on private business trip.

1999 – Iraqi diplomat(s) visit Niger; a businessman acts as an intermediary to Niger officials.

2001 – After 9/11 happened, Italy informed US of the 1999 visit of Iraqi diplomat to Niger. Italy knew about it because this Iraqi was stationed in Italy, at the Vatican.

2002 – February – Wilson goes on Niger mission.

In various articles we read reports of his description of forged docs known about and recognized by him as forgeries , including description of a document dated 2000, signed by a former Niger official who had retired 11 years earlier. He also testified on this subject of Feb 2002 era forgeries to the Senate Committee. He later denies having ever seen any forged docs.

Now here comes the twist:

2002 – September – a French agent "Giacomo" passes a dossier with 22 pages of real and forged docs to Italian journalist Burba. [This news was not known until it broke on 5 Sept. 04 in the British press, ironically right at the time of CBSgate. [UK Telegraph link].

2002 – October – Burba hand delivers these docs to the US Embassy in Italy. Eventually the CIA receives them. This is long after Wilson's Feb 02 trip to Niger.

2003 – March – The UN's ElBaradei publicly exposed Niger docs as forgeries. (I presume it's the Burba docs, but don't know yet.) (At this time in March 03, no one besides "Giacomo's" co-conspirators knew of the French agent "Giacomo" being Burba's source.)

So, Wilson couldn't possibly have seen the Burba docs in Feb 02 – unless the Burba docs or other forgeries were in the hands of or created by CIA malcontents (like Plame and her boss) - not in "late summer" of 2002 as Seymour Hersh reports the CIA malcontents' forgeries taking place, but long before the Burba events.

There's still something fishy we don't know. More sleuthing in the posts and comments sections here, here, and especially here.

[BR]

Links showing Wilson's claims about forgeries of Feb 02 era (which he later denied to the Senate Committee and on the internet):

5/6/03 article by Nick Kristof of NYT.
6/12/03 article by Walter Pincus of WaPo.
Jan 04 article in Vanity Fair.
7/10/04 article by Susan Schmidt in WaPo.
JustOneMinute site. There's lots more research at that site, besides this link.

Links of Wilson denying that he saw forged Niger docs:
9/18/03 Wilson interview by Josh Marshall.
And the 7/10/04 WaPo article already linked.
7/18/04 WaPo article.
Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq has 521 pages. Here is the part on Niger.

Link re veracity of actual Iraq/Niger uranium transactions (which Plame so cavalierly dismissed): here. (Not read yet, just found it tonight.)

[Mike]

BR, Thanks for all the info about the forged documents.

- Mike

[BR]

Hi again! What fun to watch this triple-cross poker game :)

Yup, the Niger forged docs and the contrived INR memo were all Trojan horses. Pretty serious, if it ends up being exposed as collusion with the French govt/UN/Iraq to prevent the war.

I wouldn't be surprised if both Bush and Blair were aware that some Niger docs were forgeries and set a trap for the culprits in the French govt / Plame/Wilson / INR / UN's IAEA / MSM by vaguely referring to uranium and Africa in their speeches. Rove's e-mail to a security official in the WH after a reporter's call (Cooper, I think it was), saying he [Rove] didn't take the bait, is a hint the WH knew of the cabal all along. How wonderful that the screams for investigation came from the left. I hope Fitzgerald goes all the way with his counter-intelligence experts' investigation into the CIA.

Links:
Trojan Horse: Wizbang thread at July 23, 2005 10:35 AM, and the next 4 items below it.

Forged Niger docs – originating from anti-Bush faction of CIA: Besides the one I linked earlier in Seymour Hersh's article, there's also this: VIPS data at JustOneMinute. (Great sleuthing at JustOneMinute - they saw the plot two years ago!)

Forged Niger docs exposed as la grande trappola: in addition to the
UK Telegraph 9/5/04, later also found this: UK Telegraph 9/19/04. (Transposed from the British dates within the links which were day/month/year.)

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer's July 24, 2003 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Counter-intelligence investigations into CIA: WP 12/26/03.