MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove As Source In Plame Case

MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/..._id=1000972839

Published: July 01, 2005 11:30 PM ET

NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3130139/

A 1982 law makes it illegal for any person with “authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent” to intentionally disclose any information identifying that agent to anyone who is not authorized to get such information.

The law seems to set a high bar for conviction — it requires that person leaking the identity of the agent must know that “the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States.”

I want to see them get out of this one...

I keep meaning to post my info, but suddenly got very busy with a couple of deadlines. It's still coming.

Couldn't resist this latest development, though, had to drop in. Seems legit, being posted at E&P, which is, of course, watching this whole Plame business play out inning by inning. Well, actually the whole naval-gazing media is, and that is the irony to me. The neo-cons (the "love to label people to divide them up" group) call the media "liberal," and yet these journalists were "protecting" neo-con scum. This proves what we already knew, it's become virtually state-run media.

Nor is the Rove connection any surprise. Although you'd think he'd know better since Bush 41 signed off on the law that made it treason to reveal the identity of an undercover intelligence operative.

I must admit to being happy to finally seeing some cracks in the Neo-con/Media Wall of Silence and Secrecy. Couldn't help but have John Mellencamp's song go through my head:

Saw my picture in the paper
Read the news around my face
And now some peopkle
Don't want to treat me the same

When the walls come tumblin' down
When the walls come crumblin' crumblin'
When the walls come tumblin' tumblin' down

Now, if only they could really pin this on him. Add in the Downing Street documents, and the growing discord between the actual conservatives in DC and the neo-cons, and we might FINALLY get the Watergate we've been waiting for for four+ years. Which would, of course, open the door to allow people to see the truth behind 9/11.

a giggling,
elizabeth

P.S. In case you didn't catch it, Democracy Now did a good interview yesterday with former member of Congress Liz Holtzman, who was among those on the committee to get the Nixon impeachment ball rolling (prompting his resignation). She has an article coming out in The Nation, July 18th issue, "Torture and Accountability."

She is the first person I've heard speak in the media (other than a brief and quickly buried mention of KUBARK in the NY Times) about the history of systemic torture and rendition in this country. It was so refreshing to finally hear someone willing to put some history on the issue. Even the independent media only focus on the current torture, but you can't understand just how deep the torture system runs unless you understand the history. (Kinda like how everyone wants to forget about NORTHWOODS and is blinded by denial from seeing its connection to 9/11.)

It's like AI. So many of us have been complaining to them for years about the School of the Americas, MK-ULTRA, etc., etc. but they couldn't bring themselves to include America, paragon of human rights, on their list of countries that torture until this year. Except that the U.S. is one of the few countries that hasn't ratified virtually every human rights treaty ever written. For example, it took William Proxmire lambasting the Senate every single day for some 15-odd years before we signed the treaty against genocide. Imagine how many days that is, going down to the floor while the Senate is in session and speaking about genocide for all those years, and still we didn't sign. (And we still tend to look the other way, considering what is happening in Darfur.) Trafficking in children has been denounced and a treaty has been signed by every major nation except the U.S. and SOMALIA. Get that. Thailand and India, for example, who only recently stopped looking the other way when children were being sold into slavery, signed the treaty - but the U.S. hasn't. Pakistan, which is among the countries that only slaps honor killers on the wrist and considers rape a crime of adultery - by the woman, no less - signed the treaty. But not the U.S. AI gets on us about the death penalty, but it's about damn time they started looking at our track record on human rights in general. Stop with the blind eye to the black-budgeted CIA operations directorate with it's illegal comingled funding. (Which should, IMO, be shut down immediately.)

Add all this issue to the huge laundry list of crimes by this administration, and a real democracy would have had these people (if you can even call them that) in jail four years ago from the time Cheney convened that secret energy meeting right before Enron tanked.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. (And in a postscript!) The Holtzman interview it was pretty cool. The article is linked above. The transcript of the interview is here:

http://www.democracynow.org/article..../06/30/1333214

If you're not already familiar with DN, you might want to investigate. It's the only news I watch anymore. (I get Free Speech TV on my DISH, which shows DN several times a day. And has lots of other good programming too.) I do still read the papers, and sort out the garbage there, but I never watch any of the "Dirty Laundry" on the corporate media anymore thanks to being able to trust DN. (For example, DN was one of the first outlets to report about the human remains of 9/11 that were being stored at Fishkills. And still are, last I heard. They also devoted a show to an interview with David Ray Griffin about a year ago.) If I watch any other news, it's either INN or Mosaic. But most of what I hear there, I've already heard on DN! Okay plug over.

Happy fourth. I'll be pulling my copy of the Declaration out to read at family dinner again, and substituting the one George for the other. Maybe the combined efforts of so many of us combining our brainpower and our willpower will allow us to finally roust these criminals out of DC. (And they can take the freakin' corporate lobbyists with them too.)

I've watched Democracy Now... but I never know when they're on, etc... they do really good interviews with people from what I can tell.

Reporters Ask Judge for Home Detention
Journalists in Contempt for Not Discussing Sources Also Specify Prisons

By Carol D. Leonnig
Saturday, July 2, 2005; A02

Lawyers for Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper yesterday urged a federal judge not to jail him for refusing to discuss his confidential sources with a prosecutor, arguing in a court filing that there is no need for his testimony now that his employer has turned over his notes, which identify the sources.

Attorneys for New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who, like Cooper, faces four months in jail for defying Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan's order to cooperate with a special prosecutor's investigation, also urged Hogan yesterday not to jail her. In papers filed yesterday, her lawyers said that because she intends to go to jail rather than disclose the name of her source, incarceration would be "merely punitive" and would not cause her to obey the court.

Both reporters said in the documents that if Hogan insists on incarceration, they will propose being detained under restrictive conditions at home. They said the cost of electronic bracelets and other monitoring equipment would be borne by private entities, not taxpayers, and that they would give up much of their contact with the outside world

If jailed, however, Cooper suggested he should be sent to a federal prison camp in Cumberland, in close proximity to Washington, where he lives with his wife, Mandy Grunwald, and their 6-year-old son. Miller proposed a federal women's prison camp in Danbury, Conn., which her lawyers described as "safe" and "near to Ms. Miller's 76-year-old husband," retired book publisher Jason Epstein, in New York City.

Most people found in contempt by a federal court in the District serve their time in the D.C. jail.

Hogan held Miller, Cooper and Time in contempt of court in October for refusing to identify their sources to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is investigating whether senior administration officials knowingly identified covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media.

Plame's name first appeared in a July 2003 syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, shortly after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, published an opinion piece in the Times that accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify going to war with Iraq.

Fitzgerald wants to talk to Miller and Cooper about conversations they had with specific government officials. A spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday on the filings or the reporters' detention proposals. Fitzgerald has until Tuesday to reply to Hogan.

Over Cooper's objections, Time yesterday turned over notes and e-mails of Cooper's that were stored in a computer. The magazine, which faces a $1,000-a-day fine that had reached $270,000, said it hoped that by complying it would keep Cooper out of jail.

Time editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine said Thursday that after the Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear the reporters' appeals of the case, he believed that the magazine had to obey Hogan's order.

In the court papers, the two reporters laid out their final arguments as they prepare for a hearing Wednesday at which Hogan could order them incarcerated.

"Mr. Cooper submits that his testimony would be duplicative and unnecessary, and he respectfully requests the court to inquire of the Special Counsel whether the grand jury still needs Mr. Cooper's testimony," Cooper's attorneys wrote.

In arguing for home confinement, Miller's attorneys said in the filings that Miller would suffer from giving up such tools as her cell phone and Internet access, because "impairing her unrestricted ability to do her job as an investigative journalist . . . would present the strictest form of coercion to her."

They said Miller is not in ill health but contended that home detention is more "suitable" for a 54-year-old woman.

In February 2005, Bush said: "Karl Rove is a long-time advisor and trusted member of my team. His hard work and dedication have been invaluable. I appreciate Karl's willingness to continue to serve my Administration in this new position."

In the meeting that took place after his first inauguration, the one that Paul O'Neill talked about... the transcript reveals Karl was an intricate part of that meeting as well...

“Karl Rove is saying to the president, a kind of mantra. ‘Stick to principle. Stick to principle.’ He says it over and over again,” says Suskind. “Don’t waver.”

The President's "right-hand man" was willing to release the identity of Valerie Plame. Some say that resulted in the deaths of over 70 CIA Operatives overseas... If the President's "right-hand man" is willing to do something as treasonous as that, the idea that the Bush Administration was behind 9/11 doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Right!