Let's review some interesting connections.
Today's article about the Plame case in the New York Times focused on this classified State Department memo. This is the memo which stated that Valerie Plame (identified as 'Valerie Wilson' in the memo) had recommended or arranged for Joe Wilson to make the fact-finding trip to Niger. And Fitzgerald's office appears to believe that that memo was the ultimate source of the information that eventually made its way into print in Robert Novak's column.
But remember, the CIA believes that that memo contains not just incorrect but fraudulent information. TPM Reader DK very helpfully reminded me of this passage from an article in the Post from December 2003 ...
But sources said the CIA believes that people in the administration continue to release classified information to damage the figures at the center of the controversy, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, Valerie Plame, who was exposed as a CIA officer by unidentified senior administration officials for a July 14 column by Robert D. Novak.Wilson, a prominent critic of the administration over Iraq, has said that was done to retaliate against him for continuing to publicize his conclusion, after a 2002 mission for the CIA, that there was little evidence Iraq had sought uranium in Africa to develop nuclear weapons.
Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.
CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.
"It has been circulated around," one official said. CIA and State Department officials have refused to discuss the document.
On Oct. 28, Talon News, a news company tied to a group called GOP USA, posted on the Internet an interview with Wilson in which the Talon News questioner asks: "An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"
The questioner, of course, was Jeff Gannon.
So a few <$NoAd$> questions.
Who requested that the memo be written? Who actually wrote it? Why does it contain the inaccuracies the CIA claims it does? Who were the administration officials who continued to circulate the classified document to conservative news outlets even after Plame's identity was initially revealed? And how did it get into the hands of Jeff Gannon?
--Josh Marshall
Yesterday evening, I started making a new timeline of events in the summer of 2003, the time that all this stuff was happening with Rove, Plame, et al. And I came across this short Post piece by Pincus, Dewar and Slevin from June 15th, 2003, that I had either not seen originally or had long forgotten.
Let me reprint it in toto ...
A key component of President Bush's claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program -- its alleged attempt to buy uranium in Niger -- was disputed by a CIA-directed mission to the central African nation in early 2002, according to senior administration officials and a former government official. But the CIA did not pass on the detailed results of its investigation to the White House or other government agencies, the officials said.The CIA's failure to share what it knew was one of a number of steps in the Bush administration that helped keep the uranium story alive until the eve of the war.
A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of "extremely sloppy" handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
A senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was [consistent] was not seriously scrutinized," the analyst said.
The controversy has expanded with the failure so far of U.S. teams in Iraq to uncover proscribed weapons.
Pay close attention to this. Because it raises several key points that have now been washed over and encrusted by two years of spin on both sides.
The key point that Joe Wilson got wrong, or seems to have gotten wrong, in his Times OpEd and subsequent statements is one that neither side has ever made that much of, because it doesn't fit neatly into either side's political narrative.
Here's the point.
In Wilson's original column, he wrote ...
Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.
In other statements, I believe he used a formulation that was something like, if you're senior enough to make the query, you're senior enough to get the report back, etc.
So Wilson didn't say he'd seen the report back to the vice president or that he knew for a fact that one had been sent. He said that he'd been in government long enough to know that this was standard procedure and that he was confident that it had been. And if it had this amounted to an indictment of the administration.
Only it hadn't, or that's what the people in the White House say. And unlike the question of whether his wife recommended him for the job, this actually is a relevant fact in understanding the story.
So the question is, why?
The explanation confected by the authors of the SSCI report was the rather contradictory one that either Wilson's trip generated no substantive information or that it in fact tended to confirm suspicions of an illict uranium traffic between the two countries. No one who's looked at the evidence involved believes that. Nor is that cover story compatible with the CIA's subsequent and repeated attempts to prevent the White House from using the Niger story.
Here in Pincus's reporting -- before the evidentiary and political battle lines were drawn -- is the answer: "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded."
It never made it back to Cheney's office because it wasn't what Cheney's office wanted to hear. They were looking for evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program, not ambiguous data and certainly not evidence that contradicted the claim.
In this key respect, <$NoAd$> the dismissal of the information is displaced from the VP's office to the CIA. And the reason is that they already understood what was wanted and what wasn't.
I think it's still an open question whether it made it back up the chain or not. But this remains the key question. Why did all the disproving evidence not get reflected in public statements? And why, if there was no disproving evidence -- as the harpies of the right want us to believe -- was the CIA constantly trying to get the White House to stop using it?
--Josh Marshall
It's amazing how much can happen when you're out of town for a day.
From Friday's stories in the Times, Post and AP, it seems that Karl Rove was a source for both of the stories which revealed Valerie Plame's identity. On one he was the confirming source (Novak); on the other the original source (Cooper). The source for yesterday's round of stories -- Rove's lawyer or someone in a similar capacity -- says that Rove first learned the information about Wilson's wife not from access to other administration officials but from another journalist. Regrettably, he can't remember who the other reporter was or when he or she told him the information.
Oddly enough, I'm told, this version of events from the Rove camp apparently absolves him of any wrongdoing in the whole affair.
--Josh Marshall
There's a point that's probably worth raising with our scofflaw Republican friends. All of their arguments now amount to excuses, like those of a small child caught stealing cookies: Joe Wilson's a liar. Plame's covert status wasn't protected well by the CIA. It was just a short phone call. Rove really wanted to speak about welfare reform. Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa. Plame sent Wilson to Africa. Rove leaked Plame's identity in the interests of good journalism. Wilson went on too many TV shows. On and on and on.
The salient point is not that each of these claims is false. The point is that they're irrelevant. It's the mid-life version of 'He hit me first!' or 'He called me a name!' or other such foolery.
No presidential advisor should ever disclose the identity of a covert agent at the CIA. That doesn't require elaboration.
If it's done knowingly, it's a felony. Joe Wilson could be the biggest hack in the world. Plame could have cooked the whole trip idea up to damage the president -- as some GOP loopsters are now claiming -- and it wouldn't matter.
Rove (and, though we're not supposed to say it yet, several of his colleagues) did something obviously wrong and reckless. And they probably broke several laws by the time it was all done.
Pretty much every Republican in Washington today works for Karl Rove. So they can't deal with that fact. But fact it is.
And nothing was done amiss? If Rove et al. didn't do anything wrong, why have they spent two years lying about what they did? No law was broken? Then what is Fitzgerald looking at? Why is a grand jury investigating Rove? A prosecutor like Fitzgerald, a Republican appointee, wouldn't be throwing journalists in jail unless he thought he was investigating a serious crime.
What's their answer to that? They have none. Rove runs the Washington Republican party, owns it. So it's anything but hold him accountable.
--Josh Marshall
Don't miss Andrew Sullivan's extensive coverage of the "Schmidt report" on treatment of prisoners at Gitmo.
--Josh Marshall
I haven't been able to get a copy of the exact text yet. But the Republican counter-amendment on the floor is truly amazing. It would strip of his or her security access any senator who repeated a statement by an FBI agent which was subsequently used as "propaganda" by America's enemies. In other words, the law is targeted at Sen. Durbin, making it against the law to say what he said a month ago.
De-democratization ...
(ed.note: If anyone can send me a copy of the text, I'd appreciate it.)
Late Update: Here is the text of the so-called 'Frist Amendment': "Any federal officeholder who makes reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the United States Senate, or any federal officeholder that makes a statement based on a FBI agent's comments which is used as propaganda by terrorist organizations thereby putting our servicemen and women at risk, shall not be permitted access to such information or to hold a security clearance for access to such information."
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Roberts (R) just said that Fitzgerald's investigation had "a lot of leaks." Is he kidding?
--Josh Marshall
From another TPM Reader ...
Harry Reid just introduced an amendment to the homeland security appropriations that would prevent anyone who discloses the identity of a covert CIA operative from having a security clearance. There will be 90 minutes of debate, and then a vote.
It's on C-SPAN2.
Late Update: You've got to watch this. They've got Sen. Coleman (R-WH) as Rove's designate water-carrier ... Now other Republican senators are standing up with cries of fealty. Duce! Duce! Think of Sen. Geary's impromptu speech at Michael's hearing in Godfather II.
--Josh Marshall
Duke to hold press conference at 3PM Pacific at Cal State San Marcos.
Resigns?
To spend more time with family?
Won't run again?
More time devoted to sailing?
New home for sale at rock-bottom prices?
--Josh Marshall
Many readers are writing in to tell us that David Brooks just went on NPR's All Things Considered and repeated the bogus charge that Joe Wilson claimed that Dick Cheney had sent him to Niger. Did you hear him? Doesn't he write for the New York Times? Let us know at this thread.
--Josh Marshall
Another TPM Reader ads his two-cents ...
The parallel between the White House's attack on Clarke and the defense of Rove is spot on, but I think most people misunderestimate the effectiveness of this strategy.By being scattershot and offensive, they accomplish three things:
1) they shift the focus off their own misdeeds
2) they create a level of confusing noise that makes the passive public stop trying to understand
3) they knock the subjects of the attacks off message
Let's not forget that Clarke did not win.
Yep.
Late Update: Another reader responds thus: "That is exactly why all the defense on this issue should not focus on defending each specific issue, but rather on continuing to repeat what happened. The administration put the nation’s security in jeopardy for purely partisan means, they revealed the identity of CIA covert agent and put at risk hundreds of people and years of work and they continue to lie about it. Repeat that everytime one of these people try to come up with an excuse. Don’t focus on rebutting the outrageous charges, that’s what they want us to do. Be on the offensive, it’s worked for them for years."
--Josh Marshall
A TPM Reader checks in ...
I'm struck by how similar the Republican's attack on Richard Clarke and their defense of Rove are. Both issues cut right to the core of their right-wing being and needed to be defended, or else they risk losing everything. So that is why the defense is so ferocious. But it is also why, like the Clarke attack, it is so scattershot and incoherent.
Just so.
--Josh Marshall
Great moments in Mehlmanizing: "A leak is when you ask a reporter to write a story. [Rove] was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story."
--Josh Marshall
Ryan Lizza on Rove lawyer GB Luskin: "It is a make-or-break moment for the Beltway defense attorney, and one of the reasons that people like Luskin relish such high-profile cases. But Luskin is stumbling out of the gate. Not since William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky's hapless first attorney, has a lawyer had such an inept public debut."
Click here for the rest.
--Josh Marshall
Help us chart the movements of the Rove Slime Machine. Have you seen media attacks on Matt Cooper and/or Patrick Fitzgerald? Other relevant players? Let us know at this special discussion thread. What show? What time? Who's doing the sliming? Just the facts.
--Josh Marshall
Propriety watch: Should the selection of the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court be quarterbacked by a man who is currently the subject of an on-going criminal investigation?
--Josh Marshall
A TPM Reader updates on Rove's last public appearances ...
The Rove appearance in Nebraska was no reporters and not open to the public. The questions were pre-screened and I think limited to questions about Social Security.He also spoke to WaPo editors and reporters about Social Security recently, I believe immediately after the Newsweek article with Cooper's email came out but before much else came out. Somehow Rove prevented that prestigious publication from asking him ANY questions about his role in the leak scandal.
More to come.
--Josh Marshall
Duce! Duce! RNC releases list of Rove-loyalty pledges from Republican members of Congress. Images of Roman salutes, perhaps of the Chaplin variety, apparently to come.
--Josh Marshall
Star Tribune confirms TPM's mini scoop from Tuesday: Sen. Coleman (R-WH) tapped to lead defense of Karl Rove.
--Josh Marshall
If you have access to Salon, set aside a few minutes to read this new piece by Sid Blumenthal, which sets out the broad horizon of where the Rove/Plame story is at press, while knocking down much of the standing disinformation. See also the quotes from Kovach about what the Times is up to in this with Judy Miller. This goes to the earlier conversation about just how Miller is involved in this whole matter.
This also makes me think of the issue that, to the White House especially, is probably near the top of the issues on the ballot in 2006, though it probably never will be explicitly: congressional oversight. Having any actual scrutiny on what the administration has done on this stuff would be devastating. Picking through the disinformation in the Roberts Senate Intel report would just be the start.
--Josh Marshall
I was thinking this morning that if I had the right software and better business sense I'd set up one of those cool Internet futures markets, only in this case, the site would sell futures contracts on which day the Rove machine would go after which person involved in this scandal. Clearly, they've been on Wilson for a couple days already. Cooper was the emerging target yesterday. And of course the big enchilada is Fitzgerald himself. When's his day. I Day +1? Who else am I missing?
--Josh Marshall
It didn't escape the notice of the reporters at the Times or the Post today. Never one for subtlety, Rove lawyer Robert "GB" Luskin has started laying the ground work for accusing Matt Cooper of lying about his client. Said Luskin: "Cooper's truthful testimony today will not call into question the accuracy or completeness of anything Rove has previously said to the prosecutor or the grand jury."
No, not subtle.
--Josh Marshall
I think it's only late in the evening, when the email traffic slows and the other distractions fade, that I can really see and marvel at the collosus that is, as Brock calls it, the Republican noise machine, with its ferocity that is only surpassed by its nihilism.
Now we can see in full view what we've seen again and again in recent years, the favored tactic: terror by grand moral inversion, the lie so total and audacious that it almost knocks opponents off their feet.
John Kerry decorated war hero? No, coward and showboat.
We noted yesterday the great article by Josh Green in the Atlantic last year in which Josh chronicled the tactic as Rove practiced it in races he ran down in Alabama in the 1990s. In one state supreme court race his candidate went up against an opponent who'd developed an impeccable reputation on child welfare issues (he was a former family court judge). Once you understand the pattern, the strategy suggests itself. Rove orchestrated a whispering campaign to spread the word that the man was a pedophile. Like I said, audacious.
And so here now. Wilson, a whistleblower administration officials were trying to punish? A whistleblower calling out White House manipulated intelligence during the lead-up to war?
Not at all. Rove was the whistleblower trying to knock down a campaign of disinformation from Joe Wilson. The audacity of it is enough to knock some people off their feet. Like I said, terror by grand moral inversion.
And here we have them on their shows and newsprint boxes, having Plame simultaneously a glorified secretary and also a political operator scheming to upend the president's drive to war by sending her husband on a mission to Niger. What range!
The two words capture it: ferocity and nihilism, feeding off each other.
--Josh Marshall
Perhaps someone can help me with this.
When was the last time Karl Rove appeared at a public event and when was the last time he spoke to a reporter? (And I don't mean the calls he's making to them now in the spin war. I mean, on the record public questions.)
I don't mean questions about the Fitzgerald investigation. Questions about anything. Any public event.
Late Update: Okay, TPM Reader JG has just sent us this link to an article about a July 8th Rove appearance at the Ameritrade Holding Corp. facility in Bellevue, Nebraska. Fittingly, he was flacking phase-out. He spoke before an assembly of 500 employees.
--Josh Marshall
Duke won't cede ground to Rove in Capital corruption smackdown!
Dockmaster Kelvin Lee among four staffers from the yacht club subpoenaed to testify before the Duke grand jury.
In other news, the Duke Stir left its moorings at the Capital Yacht Club today, departing for parts unknown.
--Josh Marshall
"Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narco-trafficking, people killing each other, fundamentalists killing each other in the name of God. These and more. Many more. As our analysts know, as our collectors of intelligence know - these are our enemies. To combat them we need more intelligence, not less. We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."
--Josh Marshall
Emerging bamboozlement meme? A TPM Reader tells me that on the Hannity show the new line is that Cooper set Rove up, lulling him with talk about welfare reform, before slipping in the last minute question about Joe Wilson.
You really have to wonder how these robots process this stuff in their own heads.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, we're getting pretty amazing reports about veritable bamboozlement typhoons sweeping across several of the evening chat shows. We hear that Hardball was probably the worst, with a series of ridiculous claims by Ken Mehlman and later Ed Rogers. If you watched, please let us know what you saw and heard. We've set up this special discussion thread to chronicle the bamboozlement on this evening's show.
We also hear Rogers made a bamboozlement pit stop at the Newshour. Share what you saw there on this thread.
--Josh Marshall
Ouch! The AP gets reeled in after chomping down hard on the GOP bamboozle bait. We join the unfortunate moment in <$NoAd$> progress (emphasis added) ...
Still, Charles Black, a longtime GOP strategist, predicts Rove will survive."It's good fodder for a feeding frenzy. And Democrats are pouncing on Karl because they fear and hate him. But, based on what we know that Karl did, there's nothing wrong with that," Black said.
"The question at the time that was put to McClellan in 2003 was did Karl or these other guys intentionally leak the woman's name, which is a criminal offense. He didn't do that," said Black.
A 1982 law prohibits the deliberate leaking of CIA agents' names. Plame is the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, who accused the administration of manipulating intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. Wilson suggests his wife's name was leaked as retaliation.
Black has apparently found black letter law showing that Rove had to use Plame's actual name, which Cooper's email suggests he didn't do. And the AP buys it.
Only the law doesn't say anything remotely like that.
You can read the whole thing here. But here are some examples of the language the law uses ...
identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent ... intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent
Intent is a very important component of the law, as is how the person in question learned the information. And either could be enough to get Rove off the hook. But the idea that the individuals name has to be used is completely ridiculous. But that didn't stop Charlie Black from bagging the AP pretty nicely on this one.
--Josh Marshall
Fox News runs with new bamboozlement line ...
Cooper's e-mail said Rove warned him away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney."He gave proper guidance to a reporter who got disinformation in a leak" meant to assign responsibility to Cheney, former Bush aide Ed Rogers told FOX News.
Karl Rove, anti-leak warrior.
--Josh Marshall
A TPM Reader frames it very nicely: Is the president going to stand by his word or stand by his man?
--Josh Marshall
Emerging Bamboozlement Alert!
Newt throws lifeline to Rove and W.! Katie Couric mans the deck!
In his appearance this morning on the Today Show Newt Gingrich said: "The president's been pretty clear: if somebody's broken the law they will be fired. The question is whether or not, uh, what karl did was in any way breaking the law."
When did the president say anything about breaking the law? Didn't he just say that he'd fire whoever was involved in the leak?
Have you seen other examples of emerging bamboozlement strategies? Let us know in this discussion thread.
--Josh Marshall
John Kerry responds to Rick Santorum's claim that Massachusetts liberalism is the cause of pedophilia and priest abuse of minors ...
"The families of Massachusetts soldiers who have given their lives for their country in Iraq know more about the mainstream American values of Massachusetts than Rick Santorum ever will.As a prosecutor in Massachusetts putting criminals behind bars, I saw some of the worst criminals who had abused children and not once did I hear them hide behind Sen. Santorum's bizarre claim that the state was responsible for their acts.
Rick Santorum owes an apology to the families of abuse victims and an apology to the faithful who fill the pews of Massachusetts churches every Sunday."
Nothing more to add<$NoAd$>.
Late Update: Okay, I have nothing to add. But Sen. Kennedy does.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-WH) speaks out!
"My Democratic friends would be doing the nation a great service if they spent half as much time getting legislation passed that will benefit the country as they do in attacking Karl Rove. When you're out of ideas and lack vision, you are left with nothing but personal attacks and negativity. We have enough to do in the Senate in minding our own business than to be sticking our noses into someone else's business. Everyone needs to cool the rhetoric, focus on the business of the people, and allow the investigation to run its course."
Late Update: This clip from an April 2005 article in The Forward suggests Norm Coleman knows who his daddy is ..."In 2001, Rove disrupted Pawlenty's plans to run for the Senate against the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone. Rove was backing Norm Coleman, who was elected in 2002, and Pawlenty ran for governor instead."
Even Later Update: Another golden oldie from Sen. Coleman (R-WH), this one from October 1st, 2003: "What we're hearing is a little rank political hypocrisy when it comes to claims about a special prosecutor, and I also want to note, the president of the United States has been very, very, very clear. If someone in his administration leaked information or did something that is illegal, they will be held accountable."
--Josh Marshall
Too much hilarity!
Yesterday, Karl Rove protege and RNC chairman Ken Mehlman sent out an anti-Joe Wilson smear sheet in an effort to throw a lifeline to his mentor.
As we've now mentioned several times, one of his claims is that Wilson was caught lying when he claimed Cheney had sent him to Niger -- something which, of course, he never said.
But look at one of the news clips Mehlman adduces as evidence ...
Joe Wilson: “What They Did, What The Office Of The Vice President Did, And, In Fact, I Believe Now From Mr. Libby’s Statement, It Was Probably The Vice President Himself ...” (CNN’s “Late Edition,” 8/3/03)
So there it is. Wilson saying that it was the vice president himself.
Look at the actual transcript of the show Mehlman is referring to with the parts Mehlman chose to leave out in bold (we come into the interview with Wolf Blitzer talking to Wilson and about to play a tape of another interview with Condi Rice) ...
BLITZER: I know you were sent to go on this mission long before the State of the Union Address. When Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, was on this program a few weeks ago, on July 13th, I asked her about your mission. Listen to this exchange I had with her.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I didn't know Joe Wilson was going to Niger. And if you look in Director Tenet's statement, it says that counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, sent Joe Wilson. So, I don't know...
BLITZER: Who sent him?
RICE: Well, it was certainly not at a level that had anything to do with the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Is that true?
WILSON: Well, look, it's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. Rice nor even George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.
What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby's statement, it was probably the vice president himself...
BLITZER: Scooter Libby is the chief of staff for the vice president.
WILSON: Scooter Libby.
They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed.
This is Mehlman's evidence for his claim that <$NoAd$> "Wilson Falsely Claimed That It Was Vice President Cheney Who Sent Him To Niger."
Any talking head going to call him on this?
--Josh Marshall
You too can be part of the rough and tumble with the GOP slime and spin machine!
On show after show this week, Republican bamboozlers like Newt Gingrich, Ken Mehlman and others are going on the air and spouting the most ridiculous lies. But in most cases their talking head interlocutors don't call them on it. One example among many is the GOP claim that Wilson lied when he claimed Cheney had either sent him to Africa or 'authorized' his trip. Of course, as we noted below, Wilson never said any such thing. It's just one more made up story.
Katie Couric this morning on Today is one. Chris Matthews is another.
But we need your help to put together our rogues' gallery of the GOP's willing-self-bamboozlers in corps. Really, this is important and there's no other way to keep track of all the waves of mendacity that will be crashing over the nation's tv sets today.
Watch the shows; watch the lies; write down which talking heads let them stand or join in the orgy of bamboozlement themselves; then send them in to us. TPM Shirts for the best catches!
--Josh Marshall
Gingrich enlisted in the lie and smear campaign! The Old Bulls suit up to spout the Mehlman bull! More soon!
A TPM T-Shirt to the first person who can find me a transcript of Gingrich on the Today show this morning!
--Josh Marshall
Another TPM Reader <$NoAd$> checks in ...
You're overlooking something HUGE in Novak's quoteRe-read the following quote: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
And then compare that with the Rove testimony (and right-wing noise machine) claiming that Rove, at least, did not supply Plame's name to Cooper et al.
Because here we have Novak, back in real time, saying straight out "they gave me the name." The only remaining question is, who?
More importantly, Novak's admission should knock this particular meme (that nobody in the administration supplied Plame's name) out of the park, should it not?
Good point. See this post below for the quote the reader is referring to.
--Josh Marshall
The comedy still doesn't end!
Wall Street Journal headline: "Karl Rove, Whistleblower."
On the other hand, can you blame them? Most of the kids there want White House jobs or other GOP-based promotions.
--Josh Marshall
Larry Johnson is a retired CIA officer who was a classmate of Valerie Plame's when both entered the CIA in the mid-1980s. Johnson just did a guest post over at TPMCafe in which he explains the damage that was done when administration officials revealed Plame's identity, who's lying and who's not.
--Josh Marshall
As Atrios rightly notes, the real scoop or hint in Murray Waas's blog post tonight is the suggestion that Fitzgerald is looking seriously at conspiracy or obstruction charges against Rove et al. and perhaps even Novak himself.
Here are two key passages ...
Federal investigators have been skeptical of Novak's assertions that he referred to Plame as a CIA "operative" due to his own error, instead of having been explicitly told that was the case by his sources, according to attorneys familiar with the criminal probe.That skepticism has been one of several reasons that the special prosecutor has pressed so hard for the testimony of Time magazine's Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
...
Also of interest to investigators have been a series of telephone contacts between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days just after press reports first disclosed the existence of a federal criminal investigation as to who leaked Plame's identity. Investigators have been concerned that Novak and his sources might have conceived or co-ordinated a cover story to disguise the nature of their conversations. That concern was a reason-- although only one of many-- that led prosecutors to press for the testimony of Cooper and Miller, sources said.
They're right to be skeptical of Novak's mendacious claim.
I know I've been something of a <$Ad$> broken record on this. But I have to again refer back to this October 9th, 2003 post which I think shows quite clearly that Novak has a history of being careful and precise when he uses the term 'operative' in a CIA or intelligence context.
A review of Novak's earlier columns shows he only uses it to refer to clandestine or covert agents.
To suggest that in this one case he simply lapsed into a colloquialism (as one might refer to a 'Democratic political operative'), as he has repeatedly claimed, just doesn't pass the laugh test.
And, if you'll indulge me, a reference to one more old post, this one from several hours earlier on the same day, October 9th, 2003.
As I've stated above, once the Plame story burst into the open and the DOJ got involved, Novak made the rounds claiming that neither he nor his sources knew she was covert. But, particularly with the alleged spate of phone calls between Novak and his White House sources, the relevant question would be, What was he saying before the story caught fire?
As we noted in that earlier post, there's a way we can get at this question.
The first newspaper report on the Plame outing was written by Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce in Newsday on July 22nd, 2003, about a week after Novak's column first ran.
The story's lede read: "The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing 'two senior administration officials.'"
As you'd expect from that introduction, the whole focus of the article was Novak's exposure of an 'undercover' or covert agent. And the article, as you might also suspect, had a number of quotes from Wilson and others arguing for how damaging it was to have revealed the identity of a covert agent.
They interviewed Novak too. And this was his response: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
Plame's covert status was a centerpiece of the article. Phelps and Royce must have raised the point when they talked to Novak. Yet, at this point, before the controversy became a big media story and prior to the beginning of a DOJ investigation, Novak made no attempt to claim that his article said anything other than what it appeared to say. He made no effort to claim he didn't know Plame was covert, that his sources didn't know; or that they were the source of his knowledge.
All he said is that he thought it was newsworthy and so he used it.
Given what we know now, I think that speaks volumes. Novak's claims that he didn't mean 'operative' when he wrote 'operative' don't hold up against his history of intelligence reportage. And he only started making this claim after federal investigators got involved -- and after, it would seem, a series of phone conversations with Rove and other White House officials.
--Josh Marshall
Slim Pickins?
I'm told the RNC is telling reporters that Sen. Cornyn, Sen. Coleman and Rep. Peter King are the designated point-men on Rove.
For all his occasional zaniness and bad positions on various issues, I've got a certain respect for King.
But these three are the water-carriers?
This is the best they can do?
--Josh Marshall
A TPM Reader checks in ...
Josh,Let's not forget that the reason the <$NoAd$> Republicans were angry with Wilson is that he told the truth. And their preferred method of retaliation was to attack his wife. This is generally seen as the mark of a true coward.
The remark by Rove that to me hints at the depths of his depravity is the comment that Valerie Plame was now "fair game." There is something in the offhand quality of that remark, even if Rove was not the one who revealed her identity, that is chilling. This was an agent of the CIA, a woman sufficiently patriotic to have dedicated her career to serving her country. This, supposedly, is what Republicans believe in. Yet once her husband angered the President, she was quickly made into "fair game." And fair game for what, exactly?
'Nuff said.
--Josh Marshall
Murray Waas reports that Novak spilled the beans, told Fitzgerald's guys everything.
--Josh Marshall
Late Alert for Red Herring <$NoAd$> Egregious Mumbojumbo Watch!
Ken Mehlman is now pushing the same argument as Rove attorney Robert Luskin.
This from the AP ...
Rove "was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise," said Mehlman. Cooper's e-mail says that Rove warned him away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney.
The argument, as elaborated by others, is that Rove was warning Cooper off Wilson's phoney story because it was about to be debunked by a soon-to-be-released statement by George Tenet.
A great argument. Only Wilson never said that. He said that the CIA, following up on a query from the vice president, sent him on a fact-finding mission to Niger.
Here's his account from his New York Times column ...
In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.
Whatever else you can say about Wilson, no one has ever disputed these points. He never said that Cheney or Tenet authorized his trip. A vice-president would never 'authorize' such a trip. Nor would there be any need for the DCI to 'authorize' it. The whole thing is a dodge and a distraction. It's irrelevant to the question that was under discussion.
It's just yet another attempt to whip up a phoney cover story after the fact. Or, in other words, more scofflaw Republicanism.
Late Update: RawStory has just published a copy of RNC anti-Wilson talking points. Item three says that "The False Premise [which Rove was trying to knock down] Was Joe Wilson's Allegation That The Vice President Sent Him To Niger." This is such a ridiculous up-is-down lie you'll want to keep an eye out for gullible reporters who parrot it. Clear as day it's a lie. But if they think if they repeat it often enough people won't check.
--Josh Marshall
A point that hasn't been made yet.
Everyone I hear from today says that the White House is going after Joe Wilson hard in their background conversations with reporters. Apparently Karl Rove himself.
Their main hit apparently is that it was Valerie Plame who authorized Wilson's trip to Niger or was the one who sent him -- which is as false today as it was two years ago.
Now, that's as much an attack on Plame as it is on Wilson. Actually, even more of one on her since the subtext is that she was either engaging in nepotism or advancing some private political agenda.
So now we know that Karl Rove started attacking Valerie Plame to get his boss out of the soup. And now two years later he continues to attack her.
True to form to the last. And every reporter in town knows it.
--Josh Marshall
Did Byron bury the lede?
In Byron York's piece I linked below, he interviews Karl Rove's lawyer Robert 'Gold Bars' Luskin. The main substance of the article is Luskin's discussion of just what his client told Matt Cooper and the context in which he told it.
But down at the end of the article, as TPM Reader HS pointed out to me, is this graf ...
Luskin also addressed the question of whether Rove is a "subject" of the investigation. Luskin says Fitzgerald has told Rove he is not a "target" of the investigation, but, according to Luskin, Fitzgerald has also made it clear that virtually anyone whose conduct falls within the scope of the investigation, including Rove, is considered a "subject" of the probe. "'Target' is something we all understand, a very alarming term," Luskin says. On the other hand, Fitzgerald "has indicated to us that he takes a very broad view of what a subject is."
Now, Luskin has made a number of <$NoAd$> statements over the last few days meant to suggest that Fitzgerald has assured him that Rove is not the one he's after. I don't remember, though, precisely what language he used.
Cut through the mumbojumbo in the excerpted graf above and you can see that Fitzgerald has told Luskin that Rove is a 'subject' of the investigation.
What does that mean? The next level up is being a 'target' of the investigation, in which case you get a 'target letter'. Now, I'll defer to the members of the defense bar in the audience. But my understanding is that when you get the target letter you're in deep trouble, at least in terms of getting indicted. And being a 'subject' means just that: you're one of the people they're investigating.
So Rove is one of the people the grand jury is investigating.
Has Luskin said anything in the last few days that contradicts what he's saying now? Mind you, that's not a rhetorical question. It may be that he's carefully used the 'target' language in all cases. But I'm curious. And if anyone has any examples, drop me a line.
--Josh Marshall
No, apparently the comedy will never end.
CNN's Kyra Phillips says there's "definitely a major smear campaign going on" against Karl Rove.
If only Karl would come forward and knock down all the slanders, she says.
Will the world ever stop victimizing this man?
Oh, the never ending decline of CNN.
And she's not even the one who dates Rush Limbaugh!
--Josh Marshall
Will the comedy never end?
Rove attorney Robert Luskin -- he of the stack of gold bars -- says Matt Cooper "burned" his client.
Bad Matt Cooper! Bad Matt Cooper!
--Josh Marshall
Just another bit of kindling for the fire. When Karl Rove et al. revealed that Valerie Plame was a covert agent at the CIA, they also compromised the front company -- Brewster-Jennings & Associates -- where she and other agents involved in counter-proliferation 'worked'. See this old Post article for more.
--Josh Marshall
A reader over at TPMCafe suggests that the Plame case may end up being tied to John Bolton, because of some evidence that strongly suggests the particular piece of information about Plame came out of a classified memo from State.
I suspect that's likely true. But it's only a part of the story.
If you go back and trace out just what happened as the phoney Niger papers, and the reports based on them, made their circuitous way through the executive branch -- and this using both public information and stuff from reporting -- an odd and at first hard to explain pattern emerges.
Confidence in the documents kept getting knocked down. But someone or some group kept giving them fresh life. And, improbably, those someones seemed to be at the State Department.
That's odd because, institutionally, State was the least hawkish in the lead up to the war and their in-house intelligence shop, INR, turned out to be the only outfit in the intelligence community that got most things right about Iraqi WMD.
And yet it was at State that the docs kept seeming to gain new life.
The evidence is circumstantial. But all of it points to Bolton's as, shall we say, the invisible hands.
There was actually, if memory serves, an internal investigation at State into whether Bolton had played some nefarious role in the drama. But apparently the investigators didn't come up with anything, or at least not enough. Bolton's proxies in turn chatted this point up widely around Washington to reporters and others, arguing he'd been cleared in every way.
But the State Department link still bears a lot of investigating. And I suspect if the scrutiny was thorough, Rove wouldn't be the only Bush appointee with trouble on his hands.
--Josh Marshall
Along the lines of Karl Rove's high standards of conduct, noted today by Scott McClellan, do remember Josh Green's Atlantic Monthly article from last year in which he chronicled Rove's role in an Alabama Supreme Court election back in the 1990s in which the president's chief political advisor won the race for his client by spreading false rumors that his opponent -- a one-time juvenile and family-court judge -- was a pedophile.
Oh, Karl ...
--Josh Marshall
Good Rove catch by the folks at ThinkProgress.
From today's briefing
MORAN: … Fox News and other surrogates are essentially saying that the conversation lasted for two minutes and that the subject was ostensibly welfare reform. They’re getting that information from here, from Karl Rove.MCCLELLAN: And, again, you’re asking questions that are related to news reports about an ongoing, continuing investigation. And you’ve had my response on that…
Ahh, to hear Karl begging and pleading for an easy ride from Brit Hume. Nice too <$NoAd$> that Moran was frank enough to identify Fox News as a Rove surrogate operation ...
Late Update: Along the lines of this exchange, I would be remiss if I didn't note Rove's apparent attempt to invoke the well-known 'short conversation' exception to the relevant law.
--Josh Marshall
Austin American-Statesman: "State District Judge Bob Perkins today said he believes two officials with Texans for a Republican Majority should stand trial on felony charges of money laundering."
--Josh Marshall
AP: "President Bush, at an Oval Office photo opportunity Tuesday, was asked directly whether he would fire Rove — in keeping with a pledge in June, 2004, to dismiss any leakers in the case. The president did not respond."
--Josh Marshall
Scofflaw Republican Ken Mehlman knows who pays the bills.
In this new RNC press release Mehlman goes to war on Karl Rove's behalf, regurgitating just about every lie that's been told about Niger, Wilson, Plame and everything else.
Help us catalog the lies. Note 'em down and send 'em in.
Late Update: Actually, we shouldn't be the only ones who have access to what you've found. If you'd like to share the catalog of Ken Mehlman lies with fellow readers, we've set up a discussion thread here.
--Josh Marshall
I don't often read ABC's The Note. But sometimes, when it reaches a point of maximal toxicity, such as today, a friend or a reader will pass it along and then I'll get caught up on its full measure of ridiculousness. It really is a showcase of just how decadent the Washington press corps has become under this president, the revelry in their own frivolity, the credulous aping of the smears, the loins flush for the powerful. Sort of a mix of Dangerous Liaisons and Elmer Fudd.
--Josh Marshall
Marshall Wittman understands internal GOP politics as well as anyone who's willing to talk about them publicly, and much better than most who aren't. He provides his take on Rove's future today at TPMCafe. Short version: short of a frog march, Rove's stays till the end of Bush's term in 2009.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader mail ...
HiI am wondering......
(a) it is reported that Karl Rove referred to Valerie Plame as being "fair game" after her cover was blown by Robert Novak's article. (b) Presumably, Karl Rove would have known by then (as did everyone else) that she was an undercover CIA "operative", and disclosure of her name was illegal/immoral/unethical.
(c) If he referred to her as being "fair game" after her cover was blown, does that not imply that he wasnt stunned (to say the least) by her status, and there is a good chance that he did know about her status beforehand.Doesnt that line of questioning deserve to be raised?
Good point.
--Josh Marshall
Reid on Rove: “I agree with the President when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true this rises above politics and is about our national security.”
--Josh Marshall
With everything coming out today about Karl Rove, it's worth stopping to bring a few things into focus. It's been pretty clear since fall of 2003 that Karl Rove did this. It's been a near certainty since then that if it wasn't Rove than it was someone in a very similar position. After all, Bob Novak said in his now-notorious column that "senior administration officials" had told him about her.
We don't know that the president knew about the decision to use Plame's work at CIA against Wilson in advance, though given the high-level working group assembled at the White House to go to war with Wilson, it's reasonable to suspect that he did. But at a minimum the president has known about this as long as the rest of us -- that is, almost exactly two years.
And he -- unlike anyone else in the country -- had the power to call Rove into his office and ask him whether he did this or knew who did?
Whether he knew before or after, he's known for a very long time. And pretty clearly he didn't want Rove held to any account. Indeed, he's gone to great lengths to prevent this from happening. And of course few reporters in DC have cared to press this essential point.
--Josh Marshall
No longer operative.
From this morning's <$NoAd$> gaggle ...
Question: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove -- Karl Rove was not involved in the Valerie Plame expose? -- involved?McClellan: This is -- no, I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this point. The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.
Question: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was definitely involved.
McClellan: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Question: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?
McClellan: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be commenting on it, nor is --
McClellanN: -- any remorse?
McClellan: -- nor is the White House, because the President wanted us to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that's what we're doing.
Question: That's not an answer.
Question: It's not an answer. And you were perfectly willing to comment from that podium while the investigation was going on, and try to clear Karl Rove. Why the double standard? Why were you willing to say Karl Rove was not involved when -- and talk at length about it, when the investigation was going on, and now that he's been caught red-handed, all of a sudden you've got a new line?
McClellan: No, I don't think it is the way you characterize it, as new, because I have said for quite some time that this is an ongoing investigation, and we're not going to get into discussing it while it's an ongoing investigation. I've really said all I'm going to say on it.
Question: But you did -- you did discuss it while it was an ongoing investigation. You stood there and told the American people Karl Rove wasn't involved.
McClellan: I've said all I'm going to say on it. Go ahead, April.
If you'd like to discuss, join us here.
Late Update: This too ...
Question: Scott, is the President aware of Karl Rove's role in leaking information about Joe Wilson's wife?Mr. McClellan: Again, this is a Question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response.
Question: Scott, without commenting on the investigation, you said in September of '03, if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration. Does that standard still hold?
Mr. McClellan: Again, I appreciate all these questions. They are questions relating to an ongoing investigation, and the President directed us to cooperate fully with that investigation. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than he does and --
Question: -- the standard then still apply?
Mr. McClellan: The investigation is ongoing, Peter, and we're just not going to -- we're not going to --
Question: Did the President set a timetable --
Question: It's not about the investigation, it's about the White House decision --
Mr. McClellan: We're not going to talk about it further from this podium.
More soon ...
(ed.note: There's often a bit of confusion about this. So let me again clarify. The above is not the on-air late-morning early-afternoon press briefing. The 'gaggle' is the early morning briefing. It's on the record. But it's not televised and the official transcript is not released to the public. I hear today's early afternoon press briefing was even worse than this above.)
--Josh Marshall
I'm intrigued by this passage in the piece on Matt Cooper in today's Times ...
Later, Mr. Waldman asked whether Time's disclosures and a blanket waiver form his source had signed were enough to allow him to testify. In an e-mail message on Tuesday night, Mr. Cooper said he believed the forms could have been coerced and thus worthless.The only thing that would do, Mr. Cooper wrote, was a "certain, unambiguous waiver" from his source.
Around 7:30 on Wednesday morning, Mr. Cooper had said goodbye to his son, resigned to his fate. His lawyer, Mr. Sauber, called to alert him to a statement from Mr. Luskin in The Wall Street Journal.
"If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source," Mr. Luskin told The Journal, "it's not Karl he's protecting."
That provided an opening, Mr. Cooper said. "I was not looking for a waiver," he said, "but on Wednesday morning my lawyer called and said, 'Look at The Wall Street Journal. I think we should take a shot.' And I said, 'Yes, it's an invitation.' "
In court shortly after 2, he told Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington that he had received "an express personal release from my source."
That statement surprised Mr. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer. Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald.
"Karl was not afraid of what Cooper is going to say and is clearly trying to be fully candid with the prosecutor," Mr. Luskin said.
Did Luskin blow it for Rove?
If you read the whole article <$Ad$> (which is quite good), it's clear that Cooper really didn't want to go to prison over this and was looking for a way out. But he was willing to serve time if he couldn't find a way to extricate himself that he could square with his understanding of journalistic ethics. Not unreasonably, he thought the blanket waivers of confidentiality that Rove had signed at the request of Patrick Fitzgerald were meaningless because they were coerced.
That sounds right to me since a member of the White House staff probably wouldn't be free to refuse such a request -- particularly since he might legitimately fear that such a refusal would find a way to make itself public.
But as the article makes clear, there really was no sudden personal communication from Rove, at least not as I understood it to have occurred in the initial reports.
What seems to have happened is that Luskin availed himself of the opportunity to talk tough and categorically to the Journal at his client's apparent expense. The key of course is the second to last graf that I've excerpted, in which the Times author says Luskin was 'surprised' at what Cooper and his attorney read into his statement to the Journal. He had meant it only as a blanket restatement of their position to date.
Presumably, once Cooper and his attorney took this interpretation with the judge, there was no turning back for Luskin. What could he say?
I'm curious whether others read the article this way too. Share your thoughts with us here over at this thread at our politics discussion table.
--Josh Marshall
Hmmm. Maybe some of you DOJ folks or people with long memories can help me out here. Rove attorney Robert Luskin's bio at Patton Boggs says (emphasis added)
Mr. Luskin has extensive experience defending cases involving allegations of official corruption. Formerly Special Counsel to the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Mr. Luskin helped to supervise the ABSCAM investigation, and thereafter represented the Justice Department in hearings before Congress concerning the investigation.
I remember reading that late last <$Ad$> night and being impressed. As Wikipedia explains here, the ABSCAM investigation began in 1978 and the story broke out into the press in February 1980.
But as TPM Reader JS points out, Luskin's bio page says he graduated from Harvard Law in 1979 -- in other words, June 1979.
Is something amiss here?
Remember ABSCAM was a series of FBI sting operations targeting sitting members of Congress -- a touchy and quite delicate proposition.
Was Luskin such a comer that they let him supervise the investigation while he was still in law school? Or did they put him in charge as his first assignment at DOJ?
Presumably some aspects of the investigation continued on through 1980 and 1981. Appeals were still happening in 1982.
But still ...
(ed.note: We're discussing Rove and Luskin over here at the TPMCafe politics discussion table.)
Late Update: And there's more: This from Luskin's Martindale-Hubbell bio. "Law Clerk to Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1979-1980. Special Counsel, Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, U.S. Department of Justice, 1980-1982." So presumably he went to DOJ in late 1980, after most of the ABSCAM indictments were already going to trial. (The convictions all came in in 1981.) And to think they let him take over the investigation on day one ...
--Josh Marshall
Now that it's clear that Karl Rove's defense amounts to some sort of cover-blowing 'I didn't inhale' defense, I thought I'd check in a bit on what his lawyer's deal is. Reason being, as near as I can tell, Rove attorney Robert D. Luskin has made a series of, shall we say, contradictory statements over the last week or so, each necessitated by further revelations about his client's conduct.
So I was curious: Is Robert D. Luskin the sort of lawyer who never gets caught in a fib or a misstatement on his client's behalf? Or is he a bit more fast and loose?
Well, it turns out that Luskin is a rather colorful figure with not a bad sense of humor. In 1999, when the Legal Times asked him why he was shutting down his boutique litigation firm, he quipped: "To paraphrase Hobbes: The life of a boutique is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
One case that jumps out at you is his representation of Stephen A. Saccoccia.
Saccoccia and his wife Donna were eventually convicted of laundering more than a hundred million dollars for various Colombian drug kingpins. Stephen is currently serving a 660 year sentence. Their racket was laundering drug money through companies which traded in precious metals.
Saccoccia was convicted in 1993. And Luskin took up his case on appeal.
Eventually the Feds got the idea that the money Saccoccia had paid Luskin and his other attorneys for their services was itself part of the $137 million in drug money he was ordered to forfeit. Now, on the face of it this seems a bit unfair since under our system everyone is entitled to good representation and how was Luskin to know it was tainted money.
Well, the prosecutors thought he should have gotten some inkling when Saccoccia started paying Luskin's attorney's fees in gold bars.
Yep, you heard that right. Luskin got paid more than $500,000 of his attorney's fees in gold bars from his client who was trying to appeal his conviction on charges that he laundered drug money through precious metals dealers. Who woulda thought that was drug money?
Luskin insisted that he "never have, and never would, knowingly accept a fee that was the proceeds of illegal activities."
But when federal prosecutors finally got a chance to depose Luskin and Saccoccia's other lawyers, they found that their lawyers' fees had come in forms "such as gold bars, cash that was dropped off at hotels and trunks of cars, and money transfers from Swiss bank accounts."
Eventually, in 1998, Luskin came to a settlement with the government in which he agreed to cough up $245,000 of the money he'd gotten from Saccoccia.
(ed.note: At first I couldn't believe that Saccoccia's Robert Luskin was the same guy Rove had defending him. The Saccoccia articles refer to Luskin as a partner in a firm called Comey Boyd & Luskin. But Luskin's bio page at Patton Boggs, where reporters working the Rove story confirm that Rove's lawyer works, makes no mention of such a firm. But a snippet in the December 20-27, 1999 Legal Times seems to settle the matter: "The D.C. litigation boutique of Comey, Boyd & Luskin is history. Name partner Robert Luskin is leaving the firm to join Patton Boggs Jan. 1.")
Late Update: Also on Luskin, look at this piece today in the Times by Adam Liptak, and see if Luskin didn't screw up and get his client in a lot of trouble by shooting off his mouth to the Journal.
Later Update: If you'd like to share your views on this, we're discussing Rove and Luskin over here at the TPMCafe politics discussion table.
--Josh Marshall
Till the mission's accomplished or the 2006 mid-terms, whichever comes first. Yet another leaked British memo says the administration is making plans for a major troop withdrawal starting early next year.
--Josh Marshall
So we've got Karl Rove's latest story, as recounted by his lawyer, Robert Luskin.
Rove did spill the beans about Plame in an effort to discredit Joe Wilson. Only he didn't mention the name 'Valerie Plame'. He only spilled the beans about 'Joe Wilson's wife'.
I'm no lawyer. But I'd hate to go into court with my case resting on that distinction.
And remember, the president has certainly known all of this from the beginning.
--Josh Marshall
I know that many of you have had a <$NoAd$> more and more difficult time keeping track of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's various shenanigans, sweetheart deals, pay-offs and boat transactions. So TPM Media has put together a new Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R) Shenanigan Program & Worksheet (RRDCSPW). We're entitled v. 1.0 because more bad acts will almost certainly surface which will necessitate further revisions.
On top of that, in classic TPM fashion, we're holding a contest to see who can fill out the worksheet best in terms of explicating all the dimensions of Duke's skullduggery.
Above you'll see the first edition of our RRDCSPW. If you click on the image you can download the printable pdf file. As you can see, the worksheet has Duke along with each fat-cat and/or crony graphically represented along with the respective house and/or boat.
Now, in the second image, you'll see that the proprietor of this little operation has somewhat clumsily tried to fill out the worksheet noting who paid for which boat and which house and how the different shenanigans interlock with each other. But clearly if the sheet is going to be filled out in a way that other TPM Readers and journalists can readily understand it, it's going to have to be done a lot better.
And that's where our contest comes in. If you'd like to enter the contest and have the chance of winning not only the soon-to-be-released TPMCafe t-shirt but also the new TPMCafe mug, download the worksheet. Then fill it out in a way that gets as much information on the page while also making it as clear and as easy to understand as possible.
Entries will be judged on the basis of content, aesthetic excellence and general mockery and schadenfreude. Entries should be returned in a scanned image or pdf format and will be accepted through the 15th. Winners will be announced at TPMCafe.
--Josh Marshall
Now that we know that Karl Rove was involved in leaking Valerie Plame's identity and her role at CIA before the information had appeared in Robert Novak's column, attention will now inevitably turn to whether Rove (and whoever else was leaking) knew Plame was covert.
If they can plausibly claim that they thought she was simply a paper-pusher, then the statute would not apply to them.
But I think any enterprising reporter will be able to see why this is almost certainly not true. A close look at the wording Novak used in his column and a careful review of previous Novak columns over the years shows he only ever uses the word 'operative' to refer to covert agents. And that's the word he used to refer to Plame.
So Novak knew she was covert. And that pretty clearly means his sources knew too. How else would he have found out?
--Josh Marshall
Perhaps someone can help me.
Can someone send me the link to the first story in CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo or any other major news outlet which picks up Mike Isikoff's Newsweek story placing Karl Rove at the center of the Plame leak?
Thanks. 'ppreciate it.
--Josh Marshall
David Corn: "[T]onight I received this as-solid-as-it-gets tip: on Sunday Newsweek is posting a story that nails Rove. The newsmagazine has obtained documentary evidence that Rove was indeed a key source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper and that Rove--prior to the publication of the Bob Novak column that first publicly disclosed Valerie Wilson/Plame as a CIA official--told Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson's now-controversial trip to Niger."
See more here.
--Josh Marshall
