# Karl Rove - CIA leaker? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896 "2005-07-03T04:01:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/301 "2005-07-18T04:46:43Z")
> **[The Desert Sun | Palm Springs and Coachella Valley news](https://www.desertsun.com)** > > The latest Palm Springs area news from The Desert Sun newspaper in the California desert. Coachella Valley photos, obituaries and events calendar. Two of the attorneys who helped draft the 1982 act that protects covert agents’ identities do not think there is any crime here. The timing is off…_according to Wilson’s own book_. From the above article: … In “The Politics of Truth,” former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins. Six years later, in July 2003, the name of the CIA officer - Valerie Plame - was revealed by columnist Robert Novak. The column’s date is important because the law against unmasking the identities of U.S. spies says a “covert agent” must have been on an overseas assignment “within the last five years.” The assignment also must be long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say. Wilson’s book makes numerous references to the couple’s life in Washington over the six years up to July 2003. … I think this pretty much explains why Wilson has gone around screaming that his wife has been “outed” to anyone who will listen…but then claims he “can’t talk about that” whenever he’s asked directly if his wife was a covert operative at the time. Well, duh, Joe. If you’re claiming her cover was blown doesn’t that sort of imply she was _under_ cover? I think this also explains why Wilson has backtracked from “Rove should be in jail” to “Rove should lose his clearance” to, finally, “Rove should be fired for smearing people.” Wilson may be a publicity-starved egomaniac…but he’s not stupid. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/302 "2005-07-18T04:47:15Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Jose Padilla? A hit! A very palpable hit! And yes, something’s rotten in the District of Columbia… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/303 "2005-07-18T04:49:56Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Either the press told Rove, or someone in government told Rove. > It sounds like someone has cracked who wasn’t supposed to crack, or maybe the web of lies is just getting too complicated to manage. -If there _is_ a web of lies. 😉 Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen? (Juvenal) ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/304 "2005-07-18T04:59:10Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Jose Padilla? Are you talking about the al Qaeda-trained Jose Padilla? The one who, according to the BBC, “made contact with Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda commander who is in American custody and apparently co-operating with the FBI.” The Jose Padilla who was further asked “to go to Lahore in Pakistan, where he learnt how to make a dirty bomb”? The Jose Padilla was was “arrested after flying into Chicago’s O’Hare airport from Pakistan, for what the US authorities say was a reconnaissance mission.”? He’s an enemy combatant who would like nothing more than to kill innocent Americans. Remember when FDR was rounding up _actual_ innocent US citizens based on nothing more than their ethnicity and tossing them into prison camps? They were harmless. Jose Padilla is not. Here’s the BBC link: [BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Profile: Jose Padilla](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2037444.stm) ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/305 "2005-07-18T05:10:59Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Are you talking about the al Qaeda-trained Jose Padilla? I like the [Brandon Mayfield case better:](http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_sarasohn/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1121508189164810.xml&coll=7) > [@](#): > > Richard Montague was just about the most apologetic lawyer you could find. > > Over and over Friday morning in the Portland federal courthouse, the trial lawyer for the Justice Department repeated how sorry the government was about what had happened to Brandon Mayfield, the Muslim lawyer from Beaverton who was arrested and held as a material witness in the Madrid bombings because of a fingerprint match that actually didn’t match. Mayfield was innocent, Montague kept saying, it was “an unfortunate mistake,” and Mayfield had “no connection to these events whatsoever.” > > And everybody was really sorry. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/306 "2005-07-18T06:34:58Z")
**Stephe** , dear, the point about Mr. Padilla only concerns your selective shock regarding jailing American citizens without trial. One suspects that you were simply making a rudimentary _ad hominem_ attack. Mr. Padilla may very well be guilty of all of these things. But you and I only know what we have been told. For a certain kind of American, that is sufficient. Not for this American. I am a Tom Paine patriot, and most definitely not a John Ashcroft/Karl Rove patriot. How do we know that Mr.Padilla didn’t scam Al Queda out of 10 large that he intended to squander on wine, women, and song? Would that be illegal? Dunno, personally, I would be inclined to find in downright laudable. You exhibit a terrifying willingness to accept at face value the word of people how have lied to you many, many times. Besides, you knew perfectly well that **Evil** wasn’t actually suggesting Rove be slammed up without trial, now didn’t you? Furthermore, without a trial…a trial that might very well adjudge Rove unindicatable due to one or another of the technicalities you have so urgently thrust into our discussion…without a trial, we might not have access to some of the jucier details, the who’s, the whats, and oh! yes! the whys! Radical lefty that I am, I suspect that those facts will not reflect favorably upon these men you are so eager to protect. Surely you are as eager as I to have all of these facts brought into the light of day? Since you have faith, do you not, that all of these facts will only show that GeeDubya and Co. are naught but the very finest, the most blameless and upstanding of men? ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/307 "2005-07-18T06:53:23Z")
**Stephe96** , please provide evidence for your “overseas in the last five years” assertion. [Here](http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html) are the key provisions of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. I see no sign of the requirement you mention, nor have I heard reference to it from any source other than you. While you’re at it, why don’t you respond to some of the people who’ve put up factual rebuttals of your arguments instead of merely putting out more nonsense? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/308 "2005-07-18T07:27:29Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Listen very carefully, Stephey, dear… > > Maybe you should read that first part again, just to be sure, before we move on to more complex issues… > > Ready? That’s nice, dear. OK, here goes… > > Stephe, dear… Could we put a kibosh on this condescending crap? Is this the new ‘clever’ way to get around GD rules about flaming, while still being able to treat your fellow SDMB members like shit? ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/309 "2005-07-18T11:37:49Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > How did Sandy Burglar manage to skate away with such a slap on the wrist? Technically, we have no idea the ‘value’ of what he stole from the US government…he admits he went home and destroyed it. Because he used the documents in a manner consistent with the reason they were provided to him? Because he did not leak their contents to a third party for political vengeance? ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/310 "2005-07-18T11:48:54Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > How did Sandy Burglar manage to skate away with such a slap on the wrist? Technically, we have no idea the ‘value’ of what he stole from the US government…he admits he went home and destroyed it. Ask Mr. Ashcroft. IIRC, it was his call at the time to prosecute or not. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/311 "2005-07-18T11:51:28Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Are you talking about the al Qaeda-trained Jose Padilla? The one who, according to the BBC, “made contact with Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda commander who is in American custody and apparently co-operating with the FBI.” The Jose Padilla who was further asked “to go to Lahore in Pakistan, where he learnt how to make a dirty bomb”? The Jose Padilla was was “arrested after flying into Chicago’s O’Hare airport from Pakistan, for what the US authorities say was a reconnaissance mission.”? > > He’s an enemy combatant who would like nothing more than to kill innocent Americans. Remember when FDR was rounding up _actual_ innocent US citizens based on nothing more than their ethnicity and tossing them into prison camps? They were harmless. Jose Padilla is not. > > Here’s the BBC link: [BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Profile: Jose Padilla](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2037444.stm) Since he’s such a bad guy, how 'bout we honor the Constitution of the United States and its Ammendments and charge him with something? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/312 "2005-07-18T13:59:10Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Could we put a kibosh on this condescending crap? Is this the new ‘clever’ way to get around GD rules about flaming, while still being able to treat your fellow SDMB members like shit? Upon reflection, you have a point. I should be mindful to focus my sarcasm on the sheer bogosity of the arguments and refrain from any suggestion, however indirect, that they arise from defects of character or intelligence. I shall endeavor to do so. **Stephe** , you have my apology. Of course, I might not be so quick to an admission such as this were I not held accountable by a poster whose own conduct as regards sarcasm is so entirely blameless and above reproach. ---
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/313 "2005-07-18T15:02:21Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > I mean, **Mal Adroit** seems to have referred to genitals because he was hurt that people didn’t comment on his point in post #144 (about how Rove’s conversation with Cooper was the point at which he clearly committed a crime). I thought it was a good point. So much so that I had made it four posts (and 2 and half hours earlier). He didn’t comment about my point when he re-made it, but you didn’t notice me throwing around genitalia references. First of all, I’m very sorry for referring to this place as a \*dick-waving corral, \*which possibly contributed in attracting a stern eye from the mods. I was under the impression that flaming and poopy talk in general was only forbidden when aimed at someone _directly_; apparently I need to brush up on my SDMB rules. I sincerely apologize. Secondly, **Hentor,** I am also guilty for skimming the thread too quickly (a major Achilles heel of mine) and thus missing your post about the Rove-Cooper e-mail. I surely would have quoted you or otherwise acknowledged that you had already made this point earlier if my perusal of the thread hadn’t been so sloppy. Upon re-reading, my second post in this thread does indeed come across as “hurt” if not flat-out “whiny.” You have only my word, any Dopers who are interested, that _woe-is-me_ was not remotely the overriding emotion prompting me to marvel at how the prevailing atmosphere in this thread had degenerated. Again, my apologies to all. Mods, classy debaters, and snippy arguers alike. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/314 "2005-07-18T16:09:48Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > 1. Contrary to the Democrat’s spin that he ‘outed’ her to ‘punish’ Wilson, Rove claims that he only told Cooper who she was to correct a lie being spouted by Wilson. Wilson was claiming that Dick Cheney sent him to Niger. Cheney said that wasn’t true. So when Cooper asked Rove about it, Rove said that Wilson was picked on the advice of his wife, an analyst for the CIA, and not by Cheney’s office. [Top Aides Reportedly Set Sights on Wilson](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak18jul18,0,4779848.story?coll=la-home-headlines) > [@](#): > > A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove’s interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: **"He’s a Democrat."** ---
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/315 "2005-07-18T16:48:03Z")
> [@](#): > > In his article, Cooper also recalls that Rove ended their conversation with a cryptic caution: “I’ve already said too much.” Best quote _evah._ ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/316 "2005-07-18T16:49:55Z")
As regards goalposts, and the impermanence of location [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=949360](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=949360) > [@](#): > > …“It’s best people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. I don’t know all the facts. I want to know all the facts,” Bush said. “I would like this to end as quickly as possible. **If someone committed a crime** , they will no longer work in my administration.”… (Emphasis added with increasing revulsion…) In a related development, The President advised that no one who lies to the American people should be permitted to retain public office unless a Presidential Finding of “King’s X” has been invoked… ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/317 "2005-07-18T16:55:29Z")
[Bush steps back from his ethical abyss](http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=3&u=/nm/20050718/pl_nm/bush_leak_dc) > [@](#): > > President Bush said on Monday his administration would fire anyone found to have committed a crime in a federal investigation of the leak of a covert CIA agent’s name, shifting from a broader vow to simply dismiss the leaker. Presumably ‘found to have committed a crime’ means _convicted_, so we can look forward to a long period when the president’s chief of staff is also on trial. _That_ should give Bush’s lagging agenda a well deserved shot in the arm. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/318 "2005-07-18T16:58:05Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > As regards goalposts, and the impermanence of location… I think he has set new standards that all future presidential candidates are going to have to meet. “As president, I can promise you that we will have absolutely no felons working in the administration!” (Don’t forget to note that his prior promises were to fire anyone involved in the leak of the information. Criminality was not a criterion back then. Just so you know that the goalposts were moved about 35 yards.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/319 "2005-07-18T17:01:46Z")
As regards legality… (Heavily excerpted from a liberal blog, _The Carpetbagger Report_, which the reader is encouraged to peruse, though Tighty Righty Dopers must be advised to approach “shields up”) [http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/](http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/) > [@](#): > > …Anyone who works for a presidential administration and needs clearance to receive classified materials has to sign something called Standard Form 312, which is a nondisclosure agreement for fedearl _(sic)_ officials… > > ``` > Question 19: If information that a signer of the SF 312 knows to have been classified appears in a public source, for example, in a newspaper article, may the signer assume that the information has been declassified and disseminate it elsewhere? > > Answer: No. Information remains classified until it has been officially declassified. Its disclosure in a public source does not declassify the information. Of course, merely quoting the public source in the abstract is not a second unauthorized disclosure. However, before disseminating the information elsewhere or confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, further dissemination of the information or confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure... > > ``` (Emphasis in quoted source) Offered without the needless adornment of comment. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896/320 "2005-07-18T17:04:05Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Jose Padilla? touche! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/karl-rove-cia-leaker/310896.md?page=17)