"Espionage Act now front and center in Novak-Plame-gate"

G_j

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Sun Oct-09-05 09:35 AM
Original message

"Espionage Act now front and center in Novak-Plame-gate"

Edited on Sun Oct-09-05 09:39 AM by G_j

http://bluemassgroup.typepad.com/blue_mass_group/2005/10/espionage_act_n.html

October 08, 2005

Espionage Act now front and center in Novak-Plame-gate

For the longest time, almost everyone, including people who know a whole lot about Novak-Plame-gate, were assuming that the only criminal statute that might have been violated by outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent was the very-narrow-and-hard-to-prove Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The only people talking about the much broader Espionage Act in relation to Novak-Plame-gate were bloggers (most notably Mark Kleiman). Then, earlier this week, the Act snuck into the NY Times, though it was buried deep in an article focusing on other aspects of the case.

Today, though, the Espionage Act has made it to the headlines. "Prosecutor in Leak Case Is Exploring Range of Crimes," http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/08/politics/08leak.html?pagewanted=print the NY Times proclaims this morning (though not on the front page), and goes on to explain (1) that the Espionage Act is being explored by the special prosecutor and might well apply to this case, and (2) that the Act is alive and well, having been used recently to bring indictments in the AIPAC case among others, as we noted months ago.

Well, it's about time the media picked up on this. Karl Rove and the rest of his merry band are in real legal peril - as has been previously noted here and elsewhere, the Espionage Act applies with remarkable precision to what Rove is reliably reported to have done in this matter, and it appears that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is well aware of that fact. Fitzgerald is holding additional interviews with Rove, Judith Miller, and maybe others next week, after which he will have to move quickly to bring any indictments he's going to bring before his grand jury expires on October 28. All will be revealed soon.

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previous post:

http://bluemassgroup.typepad.com/blue_mass_group/2005/10/the_espionage_a.html

October 06, 2005
The Espionage Act - at last!

This story in the NY Times is, for the most part, similar to a number of other reports indicating that Karl Rove has been summoned back to the Novak-Plame-gate grand jury, and that it's possible that Judith Miller, Scooter Libby, and heaven knows who else may also be making return trips. Speculation is running rampant that indictments are in the offing, though no one knows who or when.

But buried pretty far down in the story is this remarkable passage:

Recently lawyers said that they believed the prosecutor may be applying new legal theories to bring charges in the case. One new approach appears to involve the possible use of Chapter 37 of the federal espionage and censorship law, which makes it a crime for anyone who "willfully communicates, delivers, transfers or causes to be communicated" to someone "not entitled to receive it" classified information relating the national defense matters. Under this broad statute, a government official or a private citizen who passed classified information to anyone else in or outside the government could potentially be charged with a felony, if they transferred the information to someone without a security clearance to receive it.

AHA!! Finally, someone in the mainstream media has picked up on the possibility that the impossibly narrow Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 might not be the only statute in play here. As has been widely noted, it's very difficult to convict anyone under the IIPA - so difficult, in fact, that it's only happened once. The Espionage Act, in contrast, is written in much broader language, and lacks the IIPA's very demanding requirements with respect to what the defendant had to know in order to be found guilty. As I and others have noted before, it seems pretty straightforward to conclude that Karl Rove's actions (as described by Time reporter Matt Cooper) fit comfortably within the Espionage Act.

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If the sources in the NYT report are right (there is, of course, no indication who these unnamed "lawyers" are or how close they are to the case), it's a huge development. It has long seemed unlikely that an IIPA indictment would be possible, so for a while it seemed that the best Fitzgerald could do would be an ancillary charge like perjury, or possibly conspiracy. But the Espionage Act is the real thing: it would mean charging Rove (or whoever) with the crime of illegally disclosing Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA operative. Think about it: Karl Rove charged with espionage. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.