Harold Ford: Plame leak is a matter of national security

[Jackson4Gore]

July 13, 2005

If you didn't get a chance to see Congressman Ford on this morning's Imus inthe Morning on MSNBC, below is an excerpt from his interview with Don Imus.

Congressman. Harold Ford, Jr.: "Well I don't know if he should be fired or not ... Whether he should be fired or not is up to the President and up to the standards the President sets. If you recall, the President said some time ago, when this issue surfaced about a CIA agent - her identity being revealed - that if anyone in the White House was a part of this leak that they would be fired. Now, after that, several senior members of The White House said they had spoken with Karl Rove and they were assured by him that he had no role or involvement in the leaking of this CIA operative's name. Now the special prosecutor that has been appointed and the courts will take care of this, I assume.

"What I am more concerned about is whether or not there has been a national security breach here. I know that there are many of my colleagues, particularly Democratic colleagues, who are calling for Karl Rove - who I know, I might add - for Karl Rove to come before one of the government reform committees in the Congress and be held accountable. I think he should come before a committee but I think he should come before the Intelligence Committee and a closed hearing and let him share all that he shared with any reporter about Ms. Plame and what else he may have said because, understand, it's not just Ms. Plame who is in jeopardy here. She was an operative and she had a front company. This has all been written about and is now public knowledge unfortunately, but she had a company that she was a part of. So you have to wonder - all the operatives around the world who work with her on behalf of America's security, are they now in jeopardy and have they been put into jeopardy? It'd be good to know just from an intelligence standpoint and a national security standpoint what Mr. Rove knows and if he said it and let the courts handle all the legal implications.

"My chief concern is whether or not we've seen a greater breach or a greater compromise of national security."

[FreedomAngel82]

1. Rove should

be fired and put in jail if Fitzegerald can show it was him.

[H2O]

2. Rove knows

A lot more than that. If he does go to jail, he might just retaliate against his former mates and spill a lot more beans. This whole thing could blow up this administration. Assuming that this happens, it could lead to civil upheaval in the entire Country.

Of course, the longer the lies continue, the bigger the payback factor is. This could get really ugly.