BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 11:47 AM

In a way I don't care if it's tossed out....it's the Principle of the thing that she is brave enough to try and make it PUBLIC

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: GUEST,08:49 AM
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 10:38 AM

It will be interesting to see if the court will allow the suit to proceed, as they did in the case of Paula Jones v. President Clinton.

That is the sort of lawsuit this is: one filed against government officials. Usually, they have immunity from lawsuits like this if the court finds the complaint to be political as opposed to constitutional.

The Paula Jones lawsuit was allowed to proceed because it was related to employment discrimination. Discrimination suits are allowed against the government. I believe this suit is about political retaliation, so Plame may not have much of a case, especially because her husband is also a plaintiff. It likely would have been a much stronger suit had she filed on her own.

Unless she is able to prove there is a direct link between the actions of the defendants that resulted in employment discrimination against her, I doubt the court will let this case proceed. That is, legally, probably better, because this suit is all about politics. The Wilsons, IMO, are using the suit to extract political payback--it is a tit for tat thing. That can really harm future administrations' abilities to take controversial actions, and even more importantly, it can water down the enforcement effect of suits like this against really bad employment discrimination against little guys like the rest of us.

I've never felt sorry for the Plame/Wilson publicity machine. I HATE the CIA & it's very existence (unconstitutional and very undemocratic IMO), and I'm REALLY not a fan of the law that says you can't expose an agent's identity. Dubya's Daddy (former head of the CIA, in addition to former prez) is a BIG FAN of the law, don't forget. Until it can be used against the political enemies of the Republicans, of course.

The Republicrats have conveniently forgotten this draconian law was passed in the wake of the reactionary Reagan era, to silence critics administration policies. So the irony that this administration is using this tactic to smear it's critics isn't lost on me.

But for those of you who don't know or remember, this bill was a piece of work by the William Casey CIA, Dubya's Daddy (who in addition to being a former prez, is also a former head of the CIA), and other avowed enemies of Philip Agee's.

It is hard to measure the importance of the publication of his book "Inside the Company" to the world's knowledge of the secret operations of the CIA in destabilizing the Third World's attempts to democratize and overthrow incredibly repressive authoritarian regimes that made the Soviet Union look like Girl Scouts. Had he and some other brave souls never dared to expose the identity of agents, the world would not have a record of all the really, really horrible things the CIA did then and continues to do now, with no constitutional mandate whatsoever.

How soon the desire for wreaking political vengeance helps us forget these things.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 09:24 AM

The reason the defamation stuff is pertinent is because the gummint will be claiming that she had already been outed and/or that at the time of the leak she was no longer under cover.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 09:10 AM

GUEST, why not just use a Blue Clicky?

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 09:09 AM

The media covere it ass by claiming Plame had already been outed:

THE MEDIA TELLS THE COURT: PLAME'S COVER WAS BLOWN IN THE MID-1990s
As the media alleged to the judges (in Footnote 7, page 8, of their brief), Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a spy in Moscow. Of course, the press and its attorneys were smart enough not to argue that such a disclosure would trigger the defense prescribed in Section 422 because it was evidently made by a foreign-intelligence operative, not by a U.S. agency as the statute literally requires.

THE CIA OUTS PLAME TO FIDEL CASTRO
Of greater moment to the criminal investigation is the second disclosure urged by the media organizations on the court. They don't place a precise date on this one, but inform the judges that it was "more recent" than the Russian outing but "prior to Novak's publication."

The press informs the judges that the CIA itself "inadvertently" compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 08:51 AM

July 14, 2003. All Novak reports is that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

Novak has said repeatedly that he was not told, and that he did not know, that Plame was — or had ever been — a NOC, an agent with Non-Official Cover. He has emphatically said that had he understood that she was any sort of secret agent, he would never have named her.

As for Novak's use of the word "operative," he might as easily have called her an "official," an "analyst, or an "employee." But, as a longtime newsman, he instinctively chose the sexiest term (one he routinely applies to political figures, too, i.e. "a party operative").

Reread Novak's article, and you'll also see that Novak in no way denigrates Wilson. On the contrary, he talks of Wilson's "heroism" in Iraq in 1991. And nowhere in his column does he say — or even imply — that Wilson was unqualified to conduct the Niger investigation or that Plame was responsible for getting him the assignment — merely that she "suggested sending him."

Even so, it is unclear whether Novak's sources may have committed a crime by talking to Novak about Plame. That would depend on a number of variables involving what they knew about Plame and how they came to know it. A prosecutor would have the power to compel Novak to testify regarding what was said to him and by whom.

Is this splitting hairs? Not at all. In Washington, plenty of people are acquainted with CIA operatives who are not working undercover. For example, when a CIA analyst wrote a book under the pseudonym "Anonymous," it was widely known that Anonymous was the Agency's Michael Scheuer. Before long, someone revealed that in print. No crime was committed or alleged — no classified information had been disclosed, no NOC had been exposed.

So if Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was a secret agent, who did? The evidence strongly suggests it was none other than Joe Wilson himself. Let me walk you through the steps that lead to this conclusion.

The first reference to Plame being a secret agent appears in The Nation, in an article by David Corn published July 16, 2003, just two days after Novak's column appeared. It carried this 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?"

Since Novak did not report that Plame was "working covertly" how did Corn know that's what she had been doing?

Corn does not tell his readers and he has responded to a query from me only by pointing out that he was asking a question, not making a "statement of fact." But in the article, he asserts that Novak "outed" Plame "as an undercover CIA officer." Again, Novak did not do that. Rather, it is Corn who is, apparently for the first time, "outing" Plame's "undercover" status.

Corn follows that assertion with a quote from Wilson saying, "I will not answer questions about my wife." Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn's questions about his wife — after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background? Read the rest of Corn's piece and it's difficult to believe anything else. Corn names no other sources for the information he provides — and he provides much more information than Novak revealed.

Corn also claims that Wilson "will not confirm nor deny that his wife …works for the CIA." Corn adds: "But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson …"

On what basis could Corn "assume" that Plame was not only working covertly but was actually a "top-secret" operative? And where did Corn get the idea that Plame had been "outed" in order to punish Wilson? That is not suggested by anything in the Novak column which, as I noted, is sympathetic to Wilson and Plame.

The likely answer: The allegation that someone in the administration leaked to Novak as a way to punish Wilson was made by Wilson — to Corn. But Corn, rather than quote Wilson, puts the idea forward as his own.

Keep in mind that from early on there were two possible but contradictory scenarios:

1) Members of the Bush administration intentionally exposed a covert CIA agent as a way to take revenge against her husband who had written a critical op-ed.

2) Members of the Bush administration were attempting to set the record straight by telling reporters that it was not Vice President Cheney who sent Wilson on the Africa assignment as Wilson claimed; rather Wilson's wife, a CIA employee, helped get him the assignment. (And that is indeed the conclusion of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee.)

Corn's article then goes on to provide specific details about Plame's undercover work, her "dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material." But how does Corn know about that? From what source could he have learned it?

Corn concludes that Plame's career "has been destroyed by the Bush administration." And here he does, finally, quote Wilson directly. Wilson says: "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."

Corn has assured us several times that Wilson refused to answer questions about his wife, refused to confirm or deny that she worked for the CIA, refused to "acknowledge whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee." But he is willing to say on the record that "naming her this way" was an act of treachery? That's not talking about his wife? That's not providing confirmation? There is only one way to interpret this: Wilson did indeed talk about his wife, her work as a secret agent, and other matters to Corn (and perhaps others?) on a confidential basis.

If Wilson did tell Corn that his wife was an undercover agent, did he commit a crime? I don't claim to know. But the charge that someone committed a crime by naming Plame as a covert agent was also made by Corn, apparently for the first time, in this same article. No doubt, the independent prosecutor and the grand jury will sort it out.

Criminality aside, if Wilson revealed to Corn that Plame worked as a CIA "deep-cover" operative "tracking parties trying to buy or sell" WMDs, surely that's news.

And it is consequential: On the basis of Novak's story alone, it is highly unlikely that anyone would have had a clue that Plame — presumably under a different name and while living in a foreign country — had been a NOC. At most, her friends in Washington would have been surprised to learn that she didn't work where she said she worked.

But once Corn published the fact that Plame had been a "top-secret operative," and once he quoted Wilson saying what exposing his wife would mean — and once Plame posed for Vanity Fair photographers — anyone who had ever known her in a different context and with a different identity would have been tipped off.

But they would not have been tipped by Novak — nor, based on what we know so far, by Karl Rove. Rather, it appears they would have been tipped off by Joe Wilson who, the publicly available evidence strongly suggests, leaked like a sieve to The Nation's David Corn.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 08:49 AM

Actually, I doubt the suit will get far. A party needs permission from the US government to sue the US government & it's representatives.

These types of suits usually get thrown out early in the game as a result of the government not granting jurisdiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 08:45 AM

Money Money Money

Are you going to buy their book?

NEW YORK May 5, 2006 (AP)— Valerie Plame, the former CIA operative whose unmasking led to a federal investigation and the indictment of a top vice presidential aide, has agreed to a book deal with the Crown Publishing Group.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but two sources close to the negotiations said the deal was in the low seven figures. Several publishers had competed for the memoir, scheduled to come out in the fall of 2007 and tentatively titled "Fair Game."

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 08:29 AM

It wasn't so much that she worked for Spook Central at Langley, but that her particular job required her to be involved in clandestine operations (i.e., spying) when on an overseas rotation. Once she was outed, her career in that particular branch of the agency was totally dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 11:27 PM

Whether or not she wins, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how the spin doctors work it, some truth must be revealed, even to those who would not otherwise allow themselves to see.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:45 PM

It's not just the leak anymore. It's defamation.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:08 PM

Both...

She was a CIA operative and therefore, irregardless of the job, she whoudl have been protected...

The way it looks is that even though this trial will probably go many years with the administartion sandbaggin' and callin' in political markers from the folks they have appointed, the rerason for filin' now was statutes of limitation which were about to run out...

Good on her... Bush/Rove done her wrong and we don't even have a clue as to how many other operatives and cooperatives were compromised is their little ball game but, hey, Lee Atwater would have been ashamedly proud of this little dirty trick...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:06 PM

I'll certainly be following this story closely.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: Troll
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:54 PM

Was it her employment that was classified or her specific job or both?

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:42 PM

At the bottom of the story at the link I gave above, there is an additional link to a .PDF of the suit itself. Here's the story, though.

~S~

Ex-CIA agent: Cheney, Rove 'betrayed' trust
Plame and husband explain lawsuit against vice president and Bush aide

• Plame sues Cheney, Rove in leak case
Updated: 1:03 p.m. ET July 14, 2006

WASHINGTON - Former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said Friday they decided to sue Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove because they engaged in a "whispering campaign" to destroy her career.

Followed in and out of the National Press Club like Hollywood celebrities - by a swarm of cameras and reporters - Plame said, "Joe and I have filed action with heavy hearts," adding, "I and my former colleagues trusted the government to protect us in our jobs" and said it "betrayed that trust. I'd much rather be continuing my career as a public servant than as a plaintiff in a lawsuit."

Said Wilson: "We are under no illusions about how tough this fight will be. But we believe the time has come to hold those who use their official positions to exact personal revenge accountable and responsible for their actions."

In the suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, Plame and her husband said that Cheney, Rove and Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, leaked her CIA status to reporters to punish Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.

Plame's identity as a CIA officer was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak. At the time, Plame's job as an operations officer was classified information. Novak's column appeared eight days after Wilson alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children's lives at risk by exposing Plame, who left the CIA in January and is writing a book about what's happened to her.

Subject: RE: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:39 PM

Is THAT the blonde whistleblower
I saw on the teevee news while we were in an RV-place waiting room with no sound???????

GOOD GIRL!!!

~S~

Subject: BS: Plame Sues Cheney/Rove!
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:56 PM

Look for it...go girl!!!! Sic em!