Where do we Stand? Rove and the Remaining Questions

To begin this story, I need to apologize. In the course of my fact-finding, I've made several blunders that could charitably be called overstatements, and less charitably called mistakes. I'm especially concerned about this because I've leaned so heavily on the legwork previously done by the inestimable Tom Maguire, and I don't want to give the impression that he's feeding me bad information. So, to set the record straight, all mistakes in previous columns are the sole property of Leon H, and may not be transferred to Tom Maguire or any other blogger.

The genesis for these mistakes is partially due to the nature of the story itself. This is a story that has been brewing for a long time, but one about which normal people (and even hyper-political people like me) were unable to grasp the importance of until Karl Rove's name entered the picture. Being the galvanizing personality that Rove is, the story suddenly took on a life of its own, both for the left and the right. Thus, bloggers like me had a whole new incentive to come to grasp with the particulars of this story in a rather large hurry.

The problem with this approach is that the story has been brewing for so long, and there are so many points of dispute that have happened along the way, that attempting to assimilate that much history in the span of two days is bound to cause some growing pains. In fact, I'd wager to say that Maguire, who is one of the few bloggers who has followed this story diligently and consistently from day one, may be the only blogger innocent of making significant factual mistakes - and even he admits to frank confusion at times.

With that said, now that the hysteria has calmed a bit and the facts have been sorted out, the question remains, where do we stand? What are the issues left to be resolved? I humbly submit that this story boils down to 13 essential questions of fact, which I have enumerated below the fold. I also have attempted to answer these questions with the best information that I can find.

Items marked SETTLED are those on which moonbats and wingnuts agree in happy harmony. Items marked SOLID are those items for which significant evidence exists to dismiss the shrieking dissent of a few. Items marked SHAKY are those which are still up in the air, despite evidence on both sides. Items marked BURNING QUESTION are those about which virtually no evidence yet exists.

1. What was the genesis of the trip? (SHAKY). It is a matter of generally accepted fact that the trip originated when Dick Cheney asked during the course of an intelligence briefing, "What do we know about this?" in reference to the claim that Iraq attempted to purchase Yellowcake from Niger. After this general acceptance, the facts become murkier. Did Cheney specifically request that someone make a fact-finding trip to Africa? Cheney says no. Was it reasonable for the CIA to send someone to Africa on the basis of Cheney's question? Yes. When the VP asks questions, you do what you can to find answers. However, the exact mechanism that led from Cheney's question to Wilson being sent to Niger is still pretty much a matter of pure conjecture, with the exception of a few facts that shall be enumerated below.

2. Did Iraq seek to purchase yellowcake from Niger? (SHAKY). Much of the left-leaning fury over this is that Wilson is supposedly being punished for debunking the Administration's claim in the infamous "16 words" in the President's SOTU speech. As we have already discussed, the 16 words were undoubtedly factually true, insofar as they made a claim on British intelligence that the British stand by to this day. What is more in dispute is whether the British intelligence was factually correct. The White House, in what I believe was a political blunder, admitted that they did not have adequate factual evidence to support the claim, primarily in the initial furor caused by Wilson's press gambit. However, the more evidence that comes in, the better the claim looks, as even the NYT admits. We're unable to say at this point that the matter is settled, and that Iraq DID attempt to purchase the yellowcake in question, but the general consensus among all but the biggest True Believers is that the claim itself is a matter that is absolutely up in the air.

3. Did Wilson violate the law by leaking to Pincus and Kristof? (SHAKY) This is actually a question that is very seldom asked, because it is not seen as relevant to the investigation at hand. However, Matthew Continetti takes a long, hard look at the dubious activity of the "truth telling" Mr. Wilson, in leaking information that he had no truthful access to to Pincus and Kristof.

4. Were Wilson's claims about his trip to Niger truthful? (SOLID). No. When the Washington Post flays a darling of the liberal cause as a pathological liar, they're a pathological liar. Most telling is that the article conludes that Wilson lied about the conclusions of his own report, thus leading this tinfoil-hat wearer to conclude that he went press with false information (that he knew the press would love) to deflect possible attention away from his own leaking to Pincus and Kristof.

5. Did Wilson claim that Dick Cheney sent him on the trip to Niger? (SOLID) No. And this is probably the biggest mistake I have made in covering this story. I remember following this story through Maguire and the various talking head shows when it first came up, and to the best of my memory, that's what he was going around saying. Now, in going back and looking at the actual transcripts, I realize that's not exactly what he said. However, I leave it to you to determine whether he deliberately created the impression that Cheney sent him on the trip. Being that, a full week after the July 6th editorial, Wolf Blitzer shared in my confusion, I don't feel so bad about it in retrospect.

6. Did Valerie Plame "authorize" the trip? (SETTLED) No. As Maguire noted, and I have attempted to clarify, Plame did not have the requisite authority to "authorize" the trip. Rove was likewise guilty of making this error in his communication with Cooper. What is clear, however, based on the findings of the SSCI, is that Valerie Plame was instrumental in the selection of her husband to go on the trip. This is in flat contradiction to Wilson's claim that his wife had "nothing to do" with him going on the trip. The exact nature of Plame's prodding, and how far she went in pushing for the actual trip in the first place, and her husband as the specific person to go on the trip, at this point remains unclear.

7. Is Wilson a partisan? (SOLID) Yes. I'll leave out the dispute over the campaign contributions and the position on Gore's foreign policy team, and just note that he's using the Kossacks to carry his water. Sorry, Joe, you shot your own self in the foot on that one.

8. Did Karl Rove intend to out Valerie Plame? (SHAKY) As best as I can tell from the Cooper email, the answer is no. It seems clear that he instructed Cooper to keep this as a "super secret", and the focus of the conversation was clearly not on Plame, but rather to steer Cooper away from a bogus story. I'm leaving this one open-ended, because it may come out in the future, if Rove talked with either Novak or Miller (or both), he may have done something more deliberate. So, from the basis of the evidence we have thus far, I give it a SOLID no, but I'm willing to credit that there may be more evidence out there.

9. Was Valerie Plame's identity a secret? (SHAKY). Much has been made of the fact that Andrea Mitchell says, "No," to this question. I'm waiting to hear more evidence before making a solid conclusion on this one, however. The biggest question for me is, if her identity was a secret, how in the world did Rove come by this information, given the post he held in 2003? We'll address this more thoroughly in a bit.

10. Where did Rove learn of Plame's identity? (BURNING QUESTION) This, of course, is the million dollar question that no one seems to know the answer to, and is one of the central points upon which the question of Rove's criminal guilt rests. One of the provisions of the IIPA specifically states that for a person to be criminally culpable, they must have come by their knowledge of the covert agent's status through their own access to classified information. Given that Rove's position in 2003 was significantly diminished from what it is now, it seems highly unlikely that he had access to Plame's status, if it was truly a secret. My gut feeling is that Rove had some general and vague knowledge of Plame's work with the CIA through the general Washington grapevine (this jibes with Andrea Mitchell's statement), and didn't even know he was outing an undercover agent. However, this is admittedly rank speculation, and something that will come out during the course of the investigation - or perhaps not, if Judith Miller was his source and is content to sit in jail for 18 months.

11. Did Karl Rove break the law? (SOLID) No. The stories are coming out at a faster pace that Rove is almost certainly not guilty of criminal wrongdoing, if for no other reason than that Plame did not qualify as a "covert agent" under the statute, as she had been stateside for over five years when the story was leaked. This is an open and shut case. If Rove is guilty, it will be of perjury or obstruction of justice, if he happened to lie to investigators during the early stages of the investigation. If this is true, I will be greatly amused at watching the Democrats suddenly realize that perjury is a big deal, after all.

12. Did Karl Rove release Miller and Cooper in Jan/Dec? (SOLID) Both Rove and his lawyer say yes. It further seems, from the article, that Cooper and Miller acknowledged the release, but were only concerned that it was coerced. Given Rove's recent public clarification, it throws a very interesting spotlight on Judith Miller and the NYT on this story - what and who are they hiding? I have a sneaky feeling that the Democrats are not going to like the answer to that question.

13. Did President Bush promise to fire anyone involved in the leak? (SOLID) No. As we have discussed ad nauseam here, the President said no such thing, but only that anyone who was found to have "violated the law" would be taken care of. Captain Ed has further slain the contention that Bush's remarks during the G8 questionaire were even directed to the firing question, and even if they were, his "pledge" to fire anyone involved still specifically was predicated on lawbreaking. Expect Reid and Wilson to studiously ignore this during their press conference this afternoon. It is true, however, that Scott McClellan did promise that the leaker would be fired, but it is also the perogative of the President to overrule or correct the statements of his press secretary, who has one of the most difficult jobs in the world.

Comments

[Mr. P]

You still have a lot of work to do, but it's nice to see you opening your eyes a smidge. I await more retractions for your other "mistakes."

[Blue Neponset]

Thanks for the summary.

We are pretty far apart on this and I don't think anything I say is going to bridge that gap.

I do continue to wonder, however, why you are defending Rove's reasons for leaking Valerie Plame's identity to a reporter.

What has Joe Wilson done that makes leaking his wife's identity to the press OK?

[MachoNachos]

Blue,

I don't think he meant to leak Plame's identity. I think it's pretty clear from his correspondence with Cooper that he had no clue who she actually was (The DO does not have "analysts", the DI does). If he really thought she was an "analyst", then I don't think he realized he was blowing her cover to begin with.

The second thing that makes me pretty much okay with this is that I see Wilson and Plame acting in a coordinated fashion to play "gotcha" with the administration. If the two of them worked in tandem to create a false claim to spear the administration with, it's not really something I care an awful lot about if their spear comes areound and hits them in the backside.

[Blue Neponset]

Leon,

I believe you have heard all of the arguments I would make about your points so I won't bother repeating them here. Thanks for answering my question, though.

[DW West]

It is good that you have corrected some of the less dubious claims. But your conspiracy theory is a long shot - you would need to have facts to prove that the claims were false and that Wilsom knew they were false and you would need to prove that not just Plame but the several people at the CIA more involved with are co-conspirators. And at the end of the day you would only have a case that one or both Wilsons are not good people. That still does not explain why Rove revealed the identity of a CIA employee and then lied about it.

[Jesurgislac]

Questions 1-7 are irrelevant.

Question 8 is solid, surely: one of the things we know is that six reporters were called when the "senior administration official" was calling around trying to set up a story to discredit Joseph Wilson. Since we now know that this senior administration official was Karl Rove, the idea that he "didn't mean to do it" is kinda silly: how can you call six reporters trying to sell the same story accidentally?

Answer to question 9: If Valerie Plame was not covert, no crime was committed, and Fitzgerald has no reason to go on investigating. So, yes, she was. Solid.

Answer to 10: We may or may not find out. I can't see that it matters all that much: however Karl found out, revealing her identity to the media was wrong.

Answer to 11: I don't know, and suspect you don't either. Given Rove's position of responsibility, he ought not to have blown Plame's cover. Wrong-doing is not limited to law-breaking. In any case, this question presumably will be answered eventually: Rove will be prosecuted or not, and found guilty or not.

12 - Can't say this is particularly relevant.

13. If Bush didn't mean "will be sacked" when he said "will be taken care of", what did he mean? Surely not literally "will be taken care of" - will be shielded and protected and if necessary pardoned, but never, never made to pay the price of wrong-doing?

[LamontP]

Great update.

It must be difficult to keep it all straight with all of the misinformation out there. The RNC is really off their game when their top talking points are so easily refuted. It is too bad that their surrogates didn't read your latest posting here or at Red State before making greater fools of themselves on TV today.

In the end it won't matter either way because little of what is being discussed about Wilson has any connection with the criminal investigation.