Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove

[ProSense]

Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove

By LORNE MANLY and DAVID JOHNSTON

<...>

Mr. Cooper found himself in front of the grand jury on Wednesday morning, a week after a receiving "an express personal release from my source," sparing him a jail sentence for civil contempt of court. Another reporter facing the same punishment that day, Judith Miller of The New York Times, was jailed after refusing to disclose her source for an article she never wrote.

<...>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/18rove.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Matthew Cooper Testifies Rove Told Him About Plame

By Laurie Asseo - January 31, 2007

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified today that top presidential aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell him that an Iraq war critic's wife was a CIA official.

Cooper, testifying in Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby's perjury trial, also contradicted Libby's account of a conversation the two had the following day, on July 12, 2003, about war critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

Libby, 56, Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, is accused of lying to investigators probing whether U.S. officials deliberately leaked Plame's identity to retaliate against Wilson for attacking the administration's Iraq war claims. Prosecutors say Libby falsely told a grand jury that, when Cooper asked about Plame, he said he heard about her from other reporters and didn't know if the information was true.

``I asked what he heard about Wilson's wife'' sending him to Niger to find out if Iraq sought to buy uranium there, Cooper said. ``Mr. Libby said words to the effect of `yeah, I heard that too.'''

<...>

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=alx7IIe2sXq0&refer=us

Did you support the Plame investigation?

The difference here is that phone records not reporters were targeted.

"The seizure of AP's phone records is legal"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022850071

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[freshwest]

15. Always wonder what Darth burned that day, too... So many Tricky Dickies.

[ProSense]

16. The Bush administration was on parade today

Cheney, Gonzales and Rumsfeld.

Gonzo was the funniest.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846160

It's like he was telling a bedtime fable.

[freshwest]

17. Oh, FFS! Gonzales the rubber stamp? Gonzales who:

...Gonzales's tenure as US Attorney General was marked by controversy regarding warrantless wiretapping of US civilians and the authorization of torture. Following bipartisan calls for his removal, Gonzales resigned from the office without explanation. Democrats were particularly opposed to Gonzales for his role in the firing of several US District Attorneys which they believe had politicized his office...[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_Gonzales

Oh, yes, let's take his word over that of Eric Holder.

[leveymg]

2. Big difference is that Rove et al outed Plame to destroy those at CIA who wouldn't falsify WMD intel

The AP matter involves much less weighty matters. A CIA operation that had already been wrapped up was disclosed after the fact. The double-agent who had penetrated the Yemen bomb cell had already been extracted. Disclosure did not threaten lives or the integrity of a CIA program - "the bad guys" already knew they had been had. In the Plame scandal, an entire division of the CIA was turned upside down because some officers refused to falsify WMD intel so the White House could invade Iraq.

This looks like a much smaller vendetta. The original AP report of May 7 spun the story so as to emphasize the White House and DHS had made misleading statements that there were no known AQ threats related to the anniversary of bin Laden's execution the previous September, when all this happened.

Convening a Grand Jury and subpoenaing the phone records of numerous reporters and Congressional staffers appears to be overkill after the White House went after AP. It was unnecessary, and makes Obama looks like Nixon. Let's not try to justify or diminish it's significance just because it was "our team" that did it if we are to have any credibility in our remaining outrage at gov't abuses.

[ProSense]

3. So you think

"Convening a Grand Jury and subpoenaing the phone records of numerous reporters and Congressional staffers looks like overkill after the White House went after AP. It was unnecessary, and makes Obama looks like Nixon. Let's not try to justify or diminish it's significance just because it was "our team" that did it if we are to have any credibility in our remaining outrage at gov't abuses."

...subpoenaing phone records is worse than targeting reporters?

I mean, the whole frame of the current issue to make it seem worse than it is involves implying that the reporters were the target.

Why wasn't everyone who is outraged now outraged at the launch of the leak investigation?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846070

[leveymg]

4. Subpoenaing phone records is targeting reporters. It's not like Plamegate at all.

The White House target in the Plame affair was a division of the CIA. It's not really clear what metaphor you're trying to construct.

[ProSense]

5. Wait

"Subpoenaing phone records is targeting reporters. It's not like Plamegate at all."

...are you saying that 'subpoenaing phone records is targeting reporters," but supoenaing reporters in Plamegate isn't targeting reporters?

[Voice for Peace]

10. much appreciation

for your posts today, & voice of sanity

[ProSense]

11. Thanks.

[cherokeeprogressive]

7. Does the DOJ plan to prosecute the phones? Are you saying the phones were the "target"?

Isn't it more likely the phone records were subpoenaed in order to target reporters?

[ProSense]

9. What about

"Does the DOJ plan to prosecute the phones? Are you saying the phones were the "target"?

Isn't it more likely the phone records were subpoenaed in order to target reporters"

...the leakers: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846070

I mean, wouldn't Republicans and everyone hoping to impeach the President love to find out if the leakers are inside his administration?

Of course, there are other theories: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022848186

[pacalo]

14. I'm thinking that the leaker could be one of Cheney's puppets inside the CIA or

in the DoD.

[ProSense]

22. I tell you,

"I'm thinking that the leaker could be one of Cheney's puppets inside the CIA or in the DoD."

...it's going to take time to rid the Government of these cronies. Look at the IRS, it was headed by a Bush appointee until his term ran out in November 2012.

[randome]

6. You don't know what 'weighty matters' are involved. Presumably the grand jury knows.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[leveymg]

19. There was a slew of reporting on the Saudi double-agent who was extracted.

Most of the details revealed about that operation were revealed by WaPo and NYT reporters, not the original AP article that had little to say about the specifics of what happened in Yemen.

I believe we have a sufficient amount of information to make the judgment call that Plamegate involved far weightier issues.

[DevonRex]

8. So you don't think preventing a CIA operative on the inside of Al Qaeda from

forewarning us and the British about future terrorist attacks is weighty?

[leveymg]

20. The CIA operative had already been extracted. AQ knew that. The op was over.

There was going to be no more forewarning from that source. The AP story didn't tell AQ anything they didn't know.

[DevonRex]

24. Absolutely and totally wrong on all counts. AP cost us dearly.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/15/184274166/leaks-bombs-and-double-agents-more-on-that-ap-story
"Although the double agent did hand the new underwear bomb technology to U.S. officials, "they had hoped the agent could do more [and] ... one consequence of the story is that this agent's identity was blown," she says.

Dina says the bomb was of special interest because of who made it — Ibrahim al-Ashiri, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's master bomb maker.
..snip..
Ashiri is considered a genius at building bombs and authorities had hoped to use the double agent to get at him, Dina says:

"Officials tell us the plan was to reinsert the agent into al-Qaida's arm in Yemen after [authorities] got their hands on the bomb," but the AP leak made that impossible."

[leveymg]

25. You're confused. The double-agent was pulled out of Yemen in Sept. Article published in May

They weren't going to send the SAME guy BACK. Especially after the bomb was never planted and al-Quso was droned. As for the super-genius bomb maker, none of his bombs ever did any damage, except to his brother who blew up prematurely in an apparent attempt to kill the Saudi defense minister.

What does Dina know? How can people be so naive as to believe this heavily back-filled CYA account?

[DevonRex]

26. Oh good grief. You're actually saying that outing a CIA operative did no harm.

Good fucking god. Tell that to Valerie Plame Wilson. I'm sure the NYT, Judith Miller, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney all agree with you and thank you heartily. And they certainly had their own CYA accounts to tell. Or his behind privilege.

Al Qaeda thanks you, too. They also thank AP, without whom they'd still have a CIA op within their ranks.

[leveymg]

28. The operation was long over. Figure it out for yourself.

The double-agent was an expendable, unlike Plame who had career Non-Official Cover (NOC) as a manager in the Counter-Proliferation Division that was gutted by Cheney because they wouldn't go along with the Iraq WMD fabrications. There is no comparison.

[DevonRex]

29. And the MSM tried to sell us on Valerie Plame Wilson not being undercover, too.

Figure that out for yourself.

[pacalo]

12. This is the first time I've heard this theory...

Big difference is that Rove et al outed Plame to destroy those at CIA who wouldn't falsify WMD intel

Cheney's retaliation against the CIA is possible, but his primary motivation for outing Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's NYT editorial.

[leveymg]

21. Cheney and Rove et al. destroyed Val's operations by outing her. She was NOC and had a career cover

All of her agents were potentially exposed in the process. The Division within CIA where she worked was attacked by Cheney because it wasn't going along with the fabrications about aluminum tubes and other "evidence" the Bush Admin. was publicly raising as its rationale to attack Iraq.

Joe Wilson's NYT editorial that debunked the Niger yellowcake claims was just one in a series of push backs by CIA-Counter Proliferation Division (CPD) that pissed off the neocons.

[galileoreloaded]

13. old and irrelevant. you can do better! :) NT

[tosh]

18. Another kick!

Effin-A!

[Dash87]

23. Why is this traitor still free?

He committed treason and yet somehow gets continued praise from the GOP idiots.

[zipplewrath]

27. I didn't support the jailing of Miller

I thought that was a real bad idea, although the only one to "blame" was really the IC. The "Right" thing would have been for Bush to order his staff to "release" their anonomous protections.

[MinM]

31. Judith Miller was a political apparatchik...

NOT a reporter. Now she gets to show her true colors at Fox News.

[ProSense]

32. That's the problem

"Judith Miller was a political apparatchik..."

...with the corporate media: They get to push bullshit and hide behind freedom of the press protections. It would be one thing if this was an isolated incident, but the media are GOP/corporate shills.

[patrice]

30. KICK

[hughee99]

33. I supported the Plame investigation.

Another difference is that a specific person was targeted, not two months worth of both personal and professional phone records for, if I understand correctly, about 20 people. This is exactly the sort of thing we would have condemned under * and called out the administration for trying to intimidate the press or at the very least, called it a fishing expedition.

As I've read, according to the Justice Department's strict rules,

"A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules."

I think many people are having a hard time seeing how 2 months of 20 peoples home and work phones meets this standard.

I'm not arguing that the seizure of the records has necessarily broken any laws, but he administration has asserted that drone strikes are legal as well. That doesn't mean I support them.

[Scurrilous]

34. K & R