# Joe Wilson Fingers Karl Rove for Outing His Wife **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2003, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276 "2003-09-23T07:49:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/61 "2003-09-30T14:40:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*But if Karl Rove knows who is or is not a CIA operative, someone had to tell him. Knowledge of CIA personnel is not part of his portfolio as Resident Sleazemeister. > > The Bushiviks may be perfectly willing to let Rove fall on his sword for this. His chief function is as an advisor, he doesn’t need to be any further than a phone call away. They can dress him up in the Big Encilada suit, toss him overboard. He lands a job working for somebody _officially_ non-political (Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise, etc.) and keeps on keepin’ on. It will be publicly a big hairy ass deal, but in effect, zilch. > > Rove may very well have passed the info to Novak. But someone passed it to him, and that person is the source of the leak. > > I think it best to chuck 'em all out. \*\* Sure, let’s get the whole crew if we can (it’s gonna be damn difficult with the Pubbies holding all the cards) but it’s very possible that one reason the leak occurred is that the leakee had a good inkling that Rove would use it. And let’s not forget that Pappy Bush was once director of the CIA – there may be some old ties there that we don’t know about, that were responsible for the leak. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/62 "2003-09-30T14:42:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SimonX \* > \*\*I don’t think that independent counsel is an option anymore. I think that Starr was the last. \*\* A [Special Counsel](http://frwebgate5.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=933235134056+13+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve) _is_ an option, however. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2003, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/63 "2003-09-30T21:34:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jonathan Chance \* > \*\*The **decision** to run the story is a moral one, I agree. > > But the **right** (IMH-yet-media-backgrounded-O) to publish is absolute. \*\* I’m with you, there, tending to be something of a First Amendment absolutist, myself. Prior restraint, never, as long as you’re willing to take responsibility for the consequences of what you publish. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/64 "2003-09-30T23:46:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mack \* > \*\*A [Special Counsel](http://frwebgate5.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=933235134056+13+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve) _is_ an option, however. \*\* For some reason, I couldn’t get the link to dsiplay anything. Not a cannot find server, but just nothing. ---
**Author:** ![jamcracker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@jamcracker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jamcracker)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/65 "2003-10-01T05:04:17Z")
I saw Wilson interviewed on _Nightline_. He told Ted Koppel that:[ul][li]He got calls from reporters in the weeks after Novak’s article in which reporters said “I just got off the phone with Karl Rove and he said your wife is still fair game”.He’d be willing to cite the names of all those reporters if/when asked in the course of the investigation.[/ul](I’m paraphrasing in the above.)[/li] Investigators can just call up Wilson. Sounds like an easy way to start. Yes, Wilson got these calls _after_ Novak made Plame’s position public knowledge. Nonetheless - might these reporters be some of the [original six reporters tipped by two administration official to begin with](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11208-2003Sep27?language=printer)? Moreover, why is Rove still pitching the story after Novak’s article? Here’s Novak on _Crossfire_: (I googled this [cite](http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1222710.html), and can’t vouch for it’s bona fides - at a glance, it looks like a religious right type of site to me.) > [@](#): > > “When I called the CIA in July, they confirmed Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in a mission for her husband on a secondary basis,” Novak said on CNN’s Crossfire. “They asked me not to use her name but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.” > > Novak also disputed Democrats’ claims that Wilson’s wife was a secret agent. > > “According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operatives,” Novak added. “So what is the fuss about? Pure Bush bashing.” The original [cite](http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030714.shtml) and sentence: “Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.” jam “de-lurked when he smelt blood in the water” cracker PS - SimonX - looks like that empty page is a failed request against a WAIS search (check the URL and the title of the returned page.) If this were slashdot, we’d be getting that response because the slashdot effect knocked that search engine offline. That doesn’t seem likely here - may just be a bad URL or that WAIS is so old and rickety it got turned off by an admin or fell over and crashed the first time it got hit. ---
**Author:** ![jamcracker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@jamcracker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jamcracker)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/66 "2003-10-01T05:57:47Z")
The Novak sentence I quoted above doesn’t mention the CIA. Yes, that was a bit of egg on my face. Here’s the whole paragraph: > [@](#): > > Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his 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. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me. Some possible explanations:[ul][li]Innocently and naively, administration sources told Novak that Wilson’s wife, Plame, suggested him for the Niger job? Novak guesses she’s CIA? He calls the CIA? They confirm Plame made the suggestion? Novak elicits or CIA blurts out that, additionally, Plame works for them?[_]A politically motivated source told Novak that Wilson’s wife suggested him - and the CIA can confirm that?[_]A politically motivated source told Novak that Wilson was selected because his CIA wife suggested him?[/ul]For the sake of argument: One can back my first explanation wholeheartedly. Novak is a fine reporter. Heck, maybe he called the State Dept, the FBI, and the INS too. He’s so good he got the CIA to say something they shouldn’t have said. Tenet is covering his ass with this whole investigation. Were I an administration apologist, I’d grab this and run. It seems better than the current spin: “everyone knew Plame was CIA”, “Wilson should have known he’d out his wife when he took the job”, and “she was an analyst, not an operative”. [/li] BTW, I suspect that Plame’s operative/analyst status is irrelevant. I can imagine how the KGB, say, would have wanted to to employ CIA janitors. Anyone wanna legwork that angle and prove its legal irrelevancy regarding a felony conviction for the sources? It seems common sense obvious to me. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/67 "2003-10-01T13:57:28Z")
Didn’t the Independent Counsel idea came about because of[Ed Meese and Iran-Contra?](http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_31.htm) When Meese was told to investigate the matter he went over to Reagan’s office and asked if he knew anything about it. Reagan said, “No.” so Meese called a press conferance and announced that after an exhaustive investigation of the matter he could positively state that all Executive Department employees had been cleared of complicity. Does anyone trust John Ashcroft to do better? And incidently, has anyone noticed in incongruety of GW administration officials emphasizing that this investigation will be conducted with the utmost purity because it is being run by a career civil servant in Justice? I thought GW and his crew were going to shake up and clean up the dead-head Washington bureacracy. I think that the first leak must have come from the highest possible levels in the Administration or from within the CIA itself. I can’t imagine that many people in the Executive Department know the names and position descriptions of individual clandestine operatives in the CIA. And if the leak came from the CIA it could very well have been a “pressure leak.” _I.e._ some high administration official told someone in CIA to get info to use against Wilson if they knew what was good for them. And don’t ask for cites because I don’t have them. However, does anyone really believe that it was mere coincidence that a scumbag newsman broke the news about Wilson’s wife after Wilson blew the whistle on GW? ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/68 "2003-10-01T14:03:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SimonX \* > \*\*For some reason, I couldn’t get the link to dsiplay anything. Not a cannot find server, but just nothing. \*\* hmmmm. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, here’s the relevant text: > [@](#): > > Authority: 5 U.S.C. 301; 28 U.S.C. 509, 510, 515-519. > > ``` > Source: 64 FR 37042, July 9, 1999, unless otherwise noted. > > ``` > > Sec. 600.1 Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel. > > ``` > The Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is > > ``` > > recused, the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel > when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or > matter is warranted and– > (a) That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a > United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department > of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or > other extraordinary circumstances; and > (b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest > to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the > matter. And so on and so forth. Another way to get to it is to go [HERE](http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html) and type 28cfr600 in the search box and item 13 on the search return has the whole powers of general counsel text. ---
**Author:** ![telesis2001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@telesis2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/telesis2001)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276/69 "2003-10-02T06:21:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SimonX \* > \*\*It seems odd that those in charge of those who’re in charge of investigating are those who’re being investigated. > > Great luxury, I’d say. \*\* Agreed. Keep in mind, the DOJ is headed up by the same man whose political career was all but over when he lost his congressional bid to a dead incumbent. Now he is suppose to objectively investigate the administration that breathed life in to his dead political carcass? I suppose he and G.W. Bush can get together on Sundays for “prayerful consideration” in the oval office to determine the course of the investigation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-wilson-fingers-karl-rove-for-outing-his-wife/203276.md?page=3)