For Something Completely Different: "The Plame Game: Was This a Crime?"

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2305-2005Jan11.html?referrer=email

Washington Post
"By Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford
Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A21

Why have so many people rushed to assume that a crime was committed when someone "in the administration" gave columnist Robert D. Novak the name of CIA "operative" Valerie Plame? Novak published her name while suggesting that nepotism might have lurked behind the CIA assignment of her husband, Joseph Wilson, to a job for which he was credentially challenged: The agency sent him to Niger to determine whether Iraq was interested in acquiring uranium from that country, although he was an expert neither on nuclear weapons nor on Niger.

Journalists are being threatened with jail for not testifying who gave them information about Plame -- even journalists who did not write about Plame but only talked with sources about her. Ironically, the special prosecutor has pursued this case with characteristic zeal after major publications editorialized that a full investigation and prosecution of the government source was necessary. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution even claimed that the allegations came "perilously close to treason."

It's time for a timeout on a misguided and mechanical investigation in which there is serious doubt that a crime was even committed. Federal courts have stated that a reporter should not be subpoenaed when the testimony sought is remote from criminal conduct or when there is no compelling "government interest," i.e., no crime. As two people who drafted and negotiated the scope of the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, we can tell you: The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct.

When the act was passed, Congress had no intention of prosecuting a reporter who wanted to expose wrongdoing and, in the process, once or twice published the name of a covert agent. Novak is safe from indictment. But Congress also did not intend for government employees to be vulnerable to prosecution for an unintentional or careless spilling of the beans about an undercover identity. A dauntingly high standard was therefore required for the prosecutor to charge the leaker."

When is a crime not a crime? When the Right person does it. If this is not a crime, why are Judith Miller and others at risk of jail?

[BlueEyedSon]

1. WTF are they talking about, this was an illegal act of retribution

toward career diplomat & patriot Joseph Wilson. It put Plame and her contacts/operatives at risk.

[zbdent]

2. Uh, maybe because it is a treasonous act

as defined by the law?

[Old and In the Way]

3. Exactly.

What a POS statement:
"But Congress also did not intend for government employees to be vulnerable to prosecution for an unintentional or careless spilling of the beans about an undercover identity."

No, Congress wrote this to protect people who were trying to keep our government honest. What this administration did, through their press mouthpiece, Novak, was intimidate someone who was speaking out against the lie that there WMD in Iraq.

Plame was a NOC, fo gawd's sake. She was involved with tracking terrorists who were trying to procure WMD. And they blew her cover. Why? Isn't that what we should be concerned about?

If this isn't treason, nothing is. Ask GHW Bush....he said it first.

[MasonJar]

4. There was a suggestion at one time that Cheney had some

sales (drugs? or arms? or the like) and that the Plame group was getting too close. i am very disappointed in Fitzgerald; he turned out to be just another under-the-rug sweeping pug. As for Plame, a network that had been established for years had to be dismantled; allegedly some operatives were killed. Does anyone have a clue why a despise these freaks?