The prosecutor did interview Bush. Surely if he thought that was a possibility, he would have asked the president; and the president would have replied truthfully.
Seems like the sort of thing the president would volunteer in order to bring the investigation to a close.
Interesting…Bush and the word truthfully in the same sentence.
Stretches the imagination.
Well, apparently that doesn’t really matter, friend Bricker isn’t asserting that any of this matters in the slightest, he’s just taking a moment to educate us on a triviality of constitutional law. I’m sure we are all appropriately grateful.
We are?
Why didn’t I get the memo?
Have you ever gotten the memo? 
While you’re correct in a technical sense, it would still be a political disaster of monumental proportions for both Bush and the Republican party if he said to Rove (or whoever is the source) something like: “Go ahead and out her. As of today, I’m reclassifying her as non-covert.”
So the (legal) crux of the matter for Rove (or whoever is the source) is whether or not Plame was actually a covert opertative. The spin from the right wing analysts is that she was not a covert operative, and the “outing” was just a matter of pointing out that her husband, due to his ties to her, was not an objective voice in the yellowcake bru-ha-ha.
So, how do we, as citizens, know whether or not Plame was in fact classified as a “covert operative”? How do we, as citizens, know what questions were asked of Rove (or whoever the source was) in the the grand jury tesitmony? Was that person asked: “Did you out Valerie Plame” or “Did you out a covert operative”?
Even if the outing was technically legal, if it turns out to be Rove, this willl mark the end of his career as a political advisor, and will be a huge negative for the Republicans in the next elections ('06 and '08).
If it turns out to be illegal, and it was Rove, he’s going to be learn a whole new meaning to the phrase “Yes Sir!”
Well, sure, if they’re from the right political party.
Want to guess which one?
I find it amazing the our Founding Fathers were prescient enough to put in all those footnotes reading “IOKAIYAAR”.
Shows what truly great men they were.
-Joe
I’m with you John until the bolded part – this is too arcane a matter to influence many voters. We’ve known since (IIRC) 2003 that someone in the White House outed a covert agent, and it didn’t impact much on the 2004 election.
I agree that it’s a horrific abuse of power – it was basically what made me decide not to vote for Bush a second time. But I haven’t met many others whose minds were changed by it, and most of them have been fellow intelligence community members, who rightly took it pretty personally.
Does classified information cease to be actionable once that information has been released anywhere, by anybody? If there were a two-line ad in the classified section of the Podunk Smart Shopper and Garage Sale Guide, to wit: “Valerie Plame is a covert CIA agent and Martha: Come home! The cat forgives you!” would this mean that the information is no longer classified?
If Roger Schmendrinck revealed Ms. Plame’s covert status to his wife at 12.05 am, July 10th, does this mean that Mr. Rove was free to reveal such info as of 12.06 am of the same date? Even if he did not know? What provision of the relevent law renders “classified” informtion “unclassified” upon revelation? What provision renders only the original revelator culpable?
Absolutely. Especially if the decision was political and not operationally driven – which we can assume it would be, if the order came directly from the President.
It would be a clumsy questioner indeed who failed to ask specific, pointed questions. I agree that if the only question asked was, “Did you out a covert operative?” AND if Ms. PLame was not so classified, then there’s no perjury, but I regard the chances of that as slight.
As citizens, we can’t know much about the grand jury testimony. It’s secret, and with good reason. However, if and when the grand jury returns an indictment, we’ll know that they found probable cause to believe SOMEONE broke the law.
A link to some of the relevant law we’re talking about:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Covert_Agent_Identity_Protection_Act
The initial release of the covert agent’s information by someone who has authorized access to is against the law. The law is vague, as I read it, as to what happens to people who spread the information once it has been disseminated. Are they in the course of “a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States?” In that case, I’d read it to say they, too, are culpable. Does the information, once disclosed, cease to be classified? I’d bet it does. What would be the point of keeping it classified?
However, it doesn’t take an act of Congress to declassify anything - that’s the perogative of the Executive Branch.
The administration of the government rests with the President and the members of the Executive Branch. The Congress has oversight responsibility (GAO, committee hearings, power to subpoena, etc.), but more importantly appropriates the funds to pay for the enterprise. The administrative details of how the money is spent (including determining who gets classified information, who is named a covert agent, how many rolls of toilet paper get put in the Executive bathroom), all rest with the President. That was my point about the President being able to go on TV and say, “OK. I hereby declare that there are no more state secrets. I’ve signed an executive order completely doing away with the restriction on identifying covert agents. And here’s the list…” There is no actionable activity under the law we’re talking about because the President, who under the Constitution gets the right to set the rules about who is and who isn’t covert, has declared that the rules now say, “There are no secrets.” Is that likely to ever happen? Of course not, but there doesn’t appear to be anything in the law we’re discussing to stop it from happening.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why this keeps being brought up. OK, GeeDubya could if he wanted to. Surely no one is going to suggest that he did so? At the very least, he would owe her a memo saying “You’re ass is in the wind, slut!”
Nor, I trust, is anyone likely to suggest that he can wave his magic executive wand after the fact and create legality from sheer executive mojo.
So of what possible relevence is that Constitutional Trivia question?
Because it directly speaks to who can be held in violation of the law. And given his other questionable decisions, I wouldn’t put it past Bush to do just about anything in order to exact political payback.
It also addresses your question posted in Post 121 of this thread. You asked for a Constitutional text.
Now this is more on the right track. At any intelligence briefing I am told that “CNN is not a declassifying authority”, and what that means is that just because everybody knows it does not mean that I am allowed to talk about it. It’s tough to prove, but if it can be demonstrated that he knew it was still a secret even if it wasn’t he’d still be toast.
All of this is idle speculation, though. I don’t think that Bush would cover Rove if it went down that way. It would be political dynamite, and while Bush is bulletproof as far as impeachment goes it would still hurt him badly enough that he would be screwed with Congress for a long time.
With all due respect, P, let me be sure I’ve got this right. Are you in fact suggesting that the decision to fuck over Ms. Plame went to the very top? Even given my enormous disdain for the person who currently infests the Oval Office, that is, frankly, stunning.
Setting aside the legality (and tacitly conceding that he may very well have been within the letter of the law…) could he possibly have been that stupid?
On the other hand, it would explain why the investigation has gone ahead at such a crippled-snails pace and the massive amount of stonewalling over what would seem a comparatively trivial matter.
But wouldn’t that stop the investigation dead in its tracks? If Rove or anyone else could wave a Presidential Get Out of Jail Free card, then wouldn’t that mean there was no crime to investigate? And could there be any basis to compel the special prosecutor to reveal that?
And even if Rove had such an ace in the asshole, wouldn’t he realize that he would be expected to fall on his sword regardless?
No, I’m not suggesting that it took place, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it did. Why would it surprise you that anyone in the Oval Office (and this Oval Office in particular - given the place that loyalty holds in the Administration’s pantheon of virtues) would play political hardball? You don’t get to be elected President unless your (or someone who works for you) is willing to do it.
As to stupidity - what endeavour hasn’t been stupidly handled? You don’t really think it would tak a Ph.D. in International Relations, the combined wisdom of the Joint Cheifs of Staff, and the intellect of Einstein to come up with a better plan for post-war Iraq than what we’ve got, do you? Hell, a couple of kids playing toy soilders in the dirt would recognize that after you win the war, you’ve got to win the peace. Do current events lead you to believe that there’s an abundance of smarts in the White House? Hubris? Yes. Loyalty? Yes (unless it comes to principles, then all bets are off given the political expediency needed). The willingness to throw their political weight around as long as their base constituency is satisfied? Yes. But smarts? No. I don’t see much evidence of it. They’re smart enough to keep themselves one or two steps removed from having to take direct responsibility, but that’s about the extent of it. The President and his handlers are also smart enough to get him (and those like him) elected, but I don’t think they know shit about governing. There’s a huge difference.
As to Rove having a Get Out of Jail Free Card - I don’t think he got one, but I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t. Like I said before, its up to the President (through the CIA Director and whoever else he decides gets to play) to decide who has access to classified information. Congress can make all the laws it wants about what happens should the information get leaked, but they have nothing to say about the internal workings of the Executive agencies.
As to Rove falling on his sword - In his father’s campaign, GHWB’s role was loyalty enforcer. “You’re either for us or you’re against us.” Black/white. I wouldn’t expect him to surround himself with anyone other than people that would cleave to the same line. “Karl, you’ve done good work for me, but I’ve you’ve got to take the hit. Don’t worry, I’ve lined up a soft-landing spot for you at <insert name of conservative think tank, multi-national corporation here>.” “OK, boss. Glad I could be of use to the cause.” End of conversation. Besides, you don’t think Bush would grant him a pardon even if he was found guilty? Maybe not right away, but in the 11th hour?
Be that as it may, and I concede that it may, surely the President cannot make such a finding after the fact, and de-criminalize a crime that has already been committed. If he stripped the protected status from Ms. Plame, and, hence, no crime was committed, that’s one thing. But no amount of executive perogative includes the capacity to go back in time. (See Hawkings, Stephen and Einstein, Albert et. al.)
As to stupidity, I am reminded of the words of the apostate Dennis Miller, to the effect that GeeDub surrounds himself by intelligent men much like a doughnut hole surrounds itself with doughnut. Surely one of them would have spoken up? And wouldn’t such an order to remove covert status necessarily involve some sort of paper trail? Surely Ms. Plame would have to have been informed!
Far simpler to assign the rat-out to an underling and preserve deniability.
So, do we know for a fact that Plame was a covert operative?
How does one even go about determining that? Are there job classifications at the CIA that make the answer clear cut-- ie, you either are or are not a covert operative based on specific job classifications?
Suppose Rove was, in fact, the leaker. Does the ambiguity (if there is any) of who is and who is not a covert operative give him wiggle room? For that matter, does it give whoever the leaker was wiggle room? (Assuming of course, that the investigation is unable to prove negligence.)
Think back:
The conversation above seems pretty clear. I pointed out that the President is the final authority on “covert”. You asked where in the Constitution I got this. I referred you to Art II, Sec 1. You somehow twisted that answer into my claiming that the executive branch is exempt from the law, or that his role is the result of some excutive privilege shrouded in mystery.
I’ve already answered the question as regards retroactive changing: no. The moment a covert operative is revealed, the crime is complete. The President cannot retroactively make the crime vanish.
Of course, he can pardon all federal offenses. But that’s not quite the same thing.