Judith Miller jailed
There's quite the debate going on within the journalism community as to whether New York Times reporter Judith Miller should have been jailed for refusing to testify to a grand jury. I say yes on substantive grounds, no on procedural grounds. Let me explain what I mean below the jump, for those who care.
UPDATE: See the update at the bottom of the jump.
Miller was subpoenaed by the special prosecutor investigating the "outing" of Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent by someone in the administration. Plame, operating as the head of a dummy company, actually was working in the area of nuclear nonproliferation, obviously a key subject, particularly in the post-9/11 world. There's no telling how much work was lost, or how many other agents in other countries were endangered, by her exposure -- maybe none, maybe quite a lot. Only the CIA knows. Irrespective of that, exposing an undercover CIA agent has been a felony since the early 1980s.
That outing appeared to have been retaliation for an op-ed article her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written in the New York Times, disputing the administration's claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium ore from Niger; that claim was key to developing Congressional support for the invasion of Iraq.
Columnist and TV commentator Robert Novak actually was the one who made public Plame's status in July 2003. It's not clear whether he has testified before the grand jury. But since Novak has not been threatened with jail, we're left with two possibilities: Either he has testified or, for whatever reason, he has not been asked to.
Speculation has centered around the possibility that senior White House advisor Karl Rove was the source of the leak; Lawrence O'Donnell claimed as much on TV last weekend. Rove's lawyer says Rove has testified to the grand jury that he was not the source of the leak.
Miller, who never wrote a story about Wilson and Plame, and Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter who did, were subpoeaned. Cooper's employer said it would turn over his notes, which indicate that Rove and Cooper talked. But at this point it is not publicly known whether the notes identify Rove as the leaker. Cooper also has said that his source has released him from his pledge of confidentiality and that he therefore will testify.
Now, for reasons too complicated to go into here, there's some speculation that the special prosecutor may have moved on, as special prosecutors often do, from determining the source of the leak to determining whether any other crime (e.g., perjury) was committed in an attempt to keep the source of the leak hidden. (One possible scenario is that Rove "laundered" his tip through Miller to Cooper and perhaps Novak and others.) And it is apparently in that context that the prosecutor would like Miller to answer questions before the grand jury. She has refused, with her employer's backing, and she sits in a Northern Virginia jail as a result.
My take? She's where she belongs, based on the substantive issues.
Given how distrustful anonymous sources tend to make readers, journalists need to grant sources anonymity only with the utmost care for the needs of the reader/viewer, who is supposed to be the ultimate beneficiary of all this.
Some courts have held that grants of anonymity are binding oral contracts. I don't have a problem with that, but it puts further pressure on the reporter to negotiate that contract with the reader's interests foremost. Here at the N&R, such sources require approval of the editor or managing editor and can be used only when there's no other way to get available information we think the public really needs to know.
But I think reporters have to go further than that. They need to make sure the source knows that if, in the reporter's judgment, the information provided is incorrect, the deal is null and void. If the information is provided, in the reporter's judgment, not for the public's benefit but to pursue some private agenda such as political retaliation, the deal is null and void. (Reporters who wish could even get the source to stipulate that anonymity stops at the courthouse door, particularly on stories in which the stakes are important but less than earthshaking.) Contracts are only contracts if both sides agree, and if a source is unwilling to offer that level of confidence in the accuracy and public benefit of his information, then maybe anonymity isn't such a hot idea.
Miller either didn't agree with her source on conditions such as these or, for whatever reason she's choosing not to invoke the condition. Absent some extenuating circumstances of which I'm not aware, then, in my humble opinion she has committed journalistic malpractice. Her silence is allowing someone in government who may have committed a serious felony -- a felony that could have endangered lives here and abroad -- to escape prosecution. If she isn't willing to serve the public by testifying, then she needs to take the heat. And so she is. She has no more "right" to refuse to testify in this case than I would if I had witnessed a murder.
There's a larger context here: Miller was the Times reporter whose reporting on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction helped provide a basis for believing Iraq actually had some. Her sources were primarily administration officials as well as some friends of the administration in the Iraqi exile community, notably Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted swindler now suspected of having actually been a spy for Iran. The issue of WMDs, in turn, helped provide a basis for the administration to seek, and win, Congressional approval of the Iraq invasion.
But, as even the Times has acknowledged, Miller's reporting was deeply flawed. (Oddly, however, she has continued to insist on its accuracy, even going so far as to claim, "I was proved f***ing right!" (subscription or free day pass required), and the Times, despite promises to "continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight," still, to its shame, has not done so.) Alexander Cockburn -- hardly the most unbiased source, I'll grant -- provides a handy summary here of just how wrong she was, and Philly Daily News blogger Will Bunch puts it this way:
But the Times' Judy Miller has not been afflicting the comfortable. She has been protecting them, advancing their objectives, and helping them to mislead a now very afflicted American public. In fact, thinking again about Watergate and Deep Throat is a good way to understand why Judy Miller should not be protected today. Because in Watergate, a reporter acting like Miller would not be meeting the FBI's Mark Felt in an underground parking garage. She would be obsessively on the phone with H.R. Haldeman or John Dean, listening to malicious gossip about Carl Bernstein or their plans to make Judge Sirica look bad.
Worse, as U.S. forces were trying to secure Iraq just after the invasion, Miller took on a controversial role in influencing the efforts of an Army unit, apparently threatening to get senior White House or Pentagon officials involved, and to write negative stories, if the unit didn't do as she asked. From a journalistic standpoint, that's beyond the pale. For any civilian, that's so incredible that one commenter to the Bunch post linked above suggested that Miller has to be a CIA agent.
So there are a lot of journalists (and bloggers) who think that because Miller was essentially flacking an illegal war on behalf of the administration and its friends, she deserves to be in jail, and if she's not in jail for that, well, a contempt citation will have to do. It wasn't murder or rumrunning that tripped up Al Capone, after all, it was tax evasion, but prison is still prison, the thinking goes. I don't buy that thinking (now; I should point out that I have felt otherwise in the past), even if I agree with the outcome based on her behavior.
And if it the background ended there, so would I. But it doesn't. A friend of Miller's, Pat Clawson, posted an e-mail yesterday to the IREPLUS listserv, subscribers to which are Investigative Reporters and Editors members. An excerpt:
The special prosecutor has filed briefs with the courts containing secret evidence to convince the judges of the need to have Judy testify before a grand jury. The Court of Appeals order directing her to testify contains several pages that are completely redacted. Neither Judy or her attorneys have seen the complete Court of Appeals decision, so it is impossible to know exactly what their reasons are for ordering her to testify. They have not seen or had an opportunity to contest the secret evidence.Basically, Judy is going to jail for a story she never wrote because of secret evidence and a secret court decision that she is not allowed to see and is not allowed to defend against.
This should be repugnant to every American.
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I have any way of knowing right now whether Clawson has his facts straight. However, if he does, then even if Miller's behavior makes her a deserving jailbird, the way in which her jailing happened was illegal. Secret documents that the defense isn't even allowed to see are straight out of Kafka, and we all ought to be scared. Because if they can lock up a Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times on the basis of accusations and briefs that the defendant and her counsel haven't even been able to read, in clear violation of the Constitutional right to confront one's accusers and challenge any evidence, they can lock up you and me the same way.
UPDATE: Some time ago, I signed an online petition being circulated by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, expressing concern about the number of reporters being threatened with jail for refusing to disclose sources. I don't remember exactly when this was, but because there's an out-of-date title after my name, it had to have been several months ago. I mention this because there's a new, similar online petition up now specifically supporting Miller, and people who signed the old petition are being asked to sign the new one, as well. I haven't signed the new one, nor will I, for the reasons stated above.
Comments (22)
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Great post, Lex. This is a complex issue about which I have mixed feelings. While I despise Miller for her "flaking" in her pre-war reporting, that's not a reason to see her in jail. It's also hard to say that she should be in jail because the sources she's protecting are those in power.
The suspected crime was in revealing the identity of a CIA agent. Miller didn't do that, but she may have been a witness to it. A reporter should no be compelled to reveal an anonymous source lacking a crime. Should a reporter be compelled to reveal a source in the investigation of a crime? Maybe. I have mixed feelings.
One thing is inescapable though (even though it's not talked about much), if the White House gave a crap, it could get to the bottom of this. Sure, Bush gives lip-service to the matter, but with no action. Where is the White House leaderhsip on this one?
Posted on July 8, 2005 12:01 PM
A contract between a reporter or journalist to hide a source has no basis in law or in court. There is a husband/wife exclusion, a lawyer/client exclusion, a priest/confessor exclusion, and a doctor/patient exclusion.
A reporter has no more protection under the law to refuse to testify in a grand jury proceeding than a regular citizen.
If, in fact, Miller/Cooper are protecting the identity of someone who was bound by law not to disclose something but violated that law, then they are principals in the commission of a crime. They aided and abetted the law violation by the source.
Posted on July 8, 2005 12:29 PM
JayCee: Wrong on the contract. See Cohen v. Cowles Media Co.
But even if you were right, my point still stands: A reporter should negotiate a confidentiality agreement as if it's a legally binding contract. And that means he needs to be sure he gets the source to agree to terms that serve the interests of the reporter's "client," the public.
In general, you and I agree that reporters have the same obligations as other citizens to testify when subpoeaned before a grand jury. No way out of that but to take the Fifth, and even that you have to come in and do officially.
As for Miller and Cooper's legal status, I believe the most serious legal jeopardy would be faced by the person who was authorized to know Plame's status and disclosed it to someone who wasn't. I believe that beyond that point on the information chain, legal consequences are less serious, if in fact there are any. But I am not a lawyer, so I don't know for sure.
Posted on July 8, 2005 12:48 PM
JayCee, I agree with your basic point, but since Miller didn't write about what was revealed to her (unlike Cooper) I wonder, did she aide and abet the violation of the law or was she simply a witness to a possible crime?
Also, my understanding is the 49 states do, in fact, have laws protecting journalists from revealing anonymous sources. These state laws do not apply to federal cases, however.
According to this summary, NC law says that a journalist cannot use the shield law "...to refuse to testify about a crime or tortious conduct to which you have been an eyewitness." That makes sense to me, and that perspective would deny Miller, as a witness to a crime, the opportunity to remain silent.
I think that's where the line should be drawn, if you are witness to a crime by an anomymous source, you should not be able to assert journalistic privledge. Short of that, reporters should be allowed to keep their sources secret.
Posted on July 8, 2005 12:56 PM
Of course, I meant to type "...my understanding is THAT 49 states..." Not "THE 49 states."
Posted on July 8, 2005 1:10 PM
Lex: You're wrong, once again.
You are referring to the legality of a contract between a reporter or newspaper and a source; I'm talking about whether the court recognizes such an exclusion when it comes to the reporter being subpoenaed to give evidence in a criminal matter.
I cite language from the same decision you did:
"Neither does the First Amendment relieve a newspaper reporter of the obligation shared by all citizens to respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a criminal investigation, even though the reporter might be required to reveal a confidential source. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665 (1972)."
You and I can enter into any kind of a legally binding personal agreement to keep something secret, but that has no standing in court when it comes to answering a legally issued subpoena to testify in person or produce documentary evidence in a criminal matter.
Roch, even though Miller did not publish in this matter, it appears she may be a witness to a criminal act. The purpose of a grand jury is to procure evidence in a criminal investigation. Her status as a "journalist" gives her no protection in front of a grand jury.
Posted on July 9, 2005 3:33 PM
I must say, this is one of the better discussions of late in the N&R, very interesting.
The nuts and bolts of newsgathering shares many commonalities with criminal investigation, albeit with fewer protections.
Posted on July 9, 2005 3:36 PM
Lex, you wrote above:
"As for Miller and Cooper's legal status, I believe the most serious legal jeopardy would be faced by the person who was authorized to know Plame's status and disclosed it to someone who wasn't. I believe that beyond that point on the information chain, legal consequences are less serious, if in fact there are any."
You hit the nail on the head. The grand jury is gathering evidence to investigate the person responsible for the disclosure, the "government official" who leaked the info. The grand jury is a legal body that can compel testimony, and Miller and Cooper are witnesses with evidence. At the end of the day, most witnesses who testify truthfully are not prosecuted, but used as witnesses against the grand jury target. If Miller had testified, she would likely be in no legal trouble down the road. If her lawyer had worked out an agreement of her cooperation including full disclosure, she would surely avoid prosecution.
However, I understand that as a professional journalist she felt she had to stand on principle and make the grand jury compel her to testify by jumping through the legal hoops. I think she went a bit farther than necessary, and she's suffering for it.
If I had to fault anybody, I'd fault her lawyer for bad advice.
Posted on July 9, 2005 5:06 PM
While I'm usually in favor of shielding reporters, the Valerie Plame case isn't a case in which ANYONE should be shielded. The reporters in this particular instance should not be shielded as Novack aided and abetted in the commission of a federal crime (Treason) and the other two, by refusing to testify, are abetting after the fact. If this were a whistle blower case it would be perfectly acceptable to shield reporters but these three reporters are now as dirty as their "sources" and should be punished.
Posted on July 9, 2005 8:30 PM
JayCee, I never claimed, and have never claimed, that the contract status of a confidentiality agreement does, or should, free a reporter from testifying in a criminal matter. I was simply making the point that such agreements do carry some legal weight and therefore have to be entered carefully because violating them could carry legal consequences.
As for Miller, I'm not sure what's motivating her. If we put the CIA hypothesis aside for a moment, I can speculate on a couple of possibilities. One is that she might really believe she's doing the right thing. After all, anyone who actually believes that she was "proved f***ing right" obviously has some serious capacity for delusionality. Another possibility is that for her, going to jail for contempt might simply be a more publicity-garnering, more martyrish way of taking the Fifth.
Which raises the question of why she might feel the need to take the Fifth. But I'm ending my speculation here.
Posted on July 9, 2005 9:40 PM
I think we misunderstood each other, Lex, my original statement should have said "in law in court" not "in law OR in court."
I was referring to the courtroom testimony exclusion situation, not the issue of whether an agreement between 2 parties is legally binding or not.
Generally, people who claim 5th Amendment protection do so because they realize (or have had legal advice to inform them) that they are a party to the crime at issue.
However, it's common, especially in federal prosecutions, for the US Attorney to grant use immunity to co-conspirators who testify and fully cooperate against the target.
Here's my opinion, not supported by any facts yet revealed: I suspect that Miller's attorney and the US Attorney were unable to reach a satisfactory tstimony agreement that would keep Miller out of the hot seat but still let her feel she'd maintained her integrity as a journalist.
Posted on July 10, 2005 12:17 AM
JayCee, we did indeed misunderstand one another, and I apologize for that. I think we're pretty much in agreement as to the ethics of the case.
And your opinion certainly is a plausible explanation for what facts we have at this point.
Posted on July 11, 2005 8:10 AM
I would point out that your restatement of the facts in this episode neglects to mention one significant and seminal event crucial to a fair understanding of how it came this far. I will get to that in due course.
First of all the liberal press, including the NY Times, was in a great hurry for Ashcroft to recuse himself and for a special counsel to be named to investigate the so called leak of CIA Valerie Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak. You repeat the often cited rumor that the disclosure was in retaliation for a NY Times op-ed written by Plame's husband , former Ambassador Joe Wilson, accusing the Bush administration of lying about Iraq attempting to purcase yellow cake uranium from Niger. Subsequent events , including US Senate hearings,( which you failed to mention )established it was Wilson, the self promoting partisan hack, who was lying. This is all on the record. He lied about the contents of his own report. He lied about his wife's role in sending him to Niger on a fact finding mission for the CIA. Not content with the aftermath of their mischief, the NY Times continues to repeat Wilson's lies to this day. The harm done to our national security by Wilson's original false charges is far, far greater than the leaking of his wife's name. Many in fact say that it caused no harm whatsoever because Plame was not a covert operative and had not servd overseas for several years.
Ironically Wilson won the Ron Ridenhour Award for Truth Telling and the $10,000.00 that goes with it. The MSM lapped up his lies , that is untill his cover was blown and the world found out he was a serial liar.
Now we have this runaway special prosecutor jailing one of the NY Times reporters, Well , they invited him to diner. Sorry and I know it may come as a disappointment to many but no crime was committed and Rove will walk.
You took rather a mean swipe at Miller's journalism, and by implication Bush and the war, in suggesting she is deserving of jail. You say that a " lot of journalists and bloggers " think that jail is an appropriate consequence of her flacking " an illegal war" but try to distance yourself from this mob and your previously held position to the contrary, while still agreeing with the outcome. For sure you are not, in this case anyway, an absolutist. Perhaps you have been reading too much Counter Punch.
You try to have it both ways by exquisite equivating. You do take a stand on not signing the petition and for that I say ..shame. At least Miller is consistent and keeps her promises.
Posted on July 12, 2005 5:57 PM
Lex,
Now don't delete my comment and ban me as you have done before.
Posted on July 12, 2005 6:00 PM
Ralph, even if your allegations are true -- and Wilson's story certainly did change a bit in places -- they're irrelevant at this point.
What's relevant, and a fact undisputed even by Karl Rove's attorney, is that Rove disclosed Plame's status to Time reporter Matthew Cooper three days before Novak's column appeared. None of the other issues you raised changes that fact. On the basis of that fact alone, according to the president's public statements at various times in 2003 and 2004, he should lose his job, irrespective of whether any crime actually was committed.
Whether or not his behavior meets all the elements of the crime of "outing" an agent, I don't know, and I've never claimed otherwise. Whether or not his subsequent denial to the grand jury that he had anything to do with that leak constituted perjury, I don't know, and I've never claimed otherwise. As I've said many times before and likely will say many times in the future, I am not a lawyer.
You accuse me of wanting to "have it both ways." Have what both ways? I said there was a question of substance and a question of process. The arguments on both sides of those two questions needn't necessarily have anything to do with one another.
Finally, I originally approached this issue not as one of politics or criminal law, but as one of journalism, and it is to that approach that I return: To grant a source anonymity for any reason other than to serve the public interest constitutes journalistic malpractice, in my opinion. But that's just my opinion.
As for banning you, you're always welcome as long as you attack my arguments and not me personally, and I promise not to ban any comments that don't violate our Terms of Service.
Posted on July 13, 2005 9:45 AM
Also, this Washington Post article indicates that Plame had indeed worked undercover during the five-year window specified by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. So we have an answer to that question.
Posted on July 13, 2005 10:15 AM
In order for someone to violate the Protection Act, three elements are required:
1) The officers identity must be classified information.
2) The officer must have worked in a covert, classified status in the previous 5 years.
3) That work must have been outside the United States.
See: DEFINITIONS
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/15/subchapters/iv/sections/section_426.html
Further, the disclosure must come from someone who obtained that information from classified sources. In other words, I can't be prosecuted for telling someone that Plame was a covert officer after I heard it from a reporter. I would have to come by that info from classified sources. Karl Rove has indicated that he heard of Plame's position from another reporter.
Even if Plame was working at a "cover" business 6 years ago (outside the time window) I've seen no indication that she was posted or working outside the U.S.
Karl Rove's action do not appear to meet any of this criteria.
The bigger question should be who disclosed Plame's identity to Karl Rove and how did they come by that information?
Posted on July 13, 2005 7:14 PM
Again, I am agnostic on the question of Rove's guilt w/r/t this statute. But the date on Plame's political contribution does, in fact, fall within the 5-year window as measured backward from the 7/14/03 disclosure by Novak. And if her status hadn't been classified, why would the CIA have requested an investigation?
That leaves the issue of whether Plame actually did any work outside the U.S. during the 5-year window. But we're also wandering kind of far afield of the journalistic issues I was most interested in discussing, so I'm not gonna worry about that.
Posted on July 14, 2005 12:24 AM
Lex,
All this hoopla about Karl Rove is an issue which nobody cares about except Bush haters and their friends in the press. That having been said I am going to suggest that you are deliberately fitting distorted facts ( and conveniently omitting others ) in support of your political agenda. It is this kind of stuff that belongs on the editorial page.We are all aware of your frequently cited claim of being a Republican. Yeah and I am a time traveller from another galaxy.
Did you mention that Joe Wilson was a Democratic partisan/consultant and contibutor who had his eye on a top job in a would be Kerry administration? No.
Did you point out the special counsel said Rove is not a " target "? No.
Did you point out that it was Matt Cooper that initiated the call to Rove. No
Did you point out that Rove was, according to Cooper's own emails to his bosses at Time, warning him not to go out on a limb on the basis of Wilson's misinformation which Rove told Cooper was going to be proved false; such as Wilson's lie that the VP had chosen him for the Niger trip;and how Wilson had lied about the results of his own report etc etc ? No. And that when Cooper's story based upon a two minute conversation with Rove was published ( "War on Wilson ") , that it was framed in a misleading cast to appear that the administration was out to get Wilson. ? No
Did you concede that Wilson was a liar. Well yes but so grudgingly that we could hear your molars grinding.
In a Wednesday editorial the NY Times , gasp, admits that it has used leaks ( by Democrats in the CIA and State Department )to embarass Bush. Did you point out that in Washingtgon that that has " leaked " classified material ( a crime ) to the press was removed , there literally would be no one left? No.
Did you incorrectly portray Plame as a covert spy who was placed in danger by Novak's column ? Yes of course you did. ( See Kilgore's comment).
Did you point out that Plame the Vanity Fair model was pulled from her overseas assignment in the mid 90's and placed in a desk job in D.C. because it was believed her idenity had been discloswed to the USSR by Aldrich Ames. ? No.
Did you bother to point out that the NY Times put real covert agents in harms way by outing a secret aircraft charter company being run by the Agency ? ( Naturally the Times relied on leaks from disgruntled former CIA employees )
Do you find anything redeeming about Rove's whistle blowing ? Guess not.( Maybe Nation will take back Wilson's award and give it Rove. The press should be grateful to Rove for his truth telling ).
Did you bother to inform your readers about the findings of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's report which established Wilson as a world class liar.( called to your attention in my initial comment ) No, but it is an important fact in the context of Cooper's two minute conversation with Rove who had a legitimate purpose in trying to expose Wilson's disembling in an election year. Here you equal or surpass the Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz who originally had this info in a column but it was edited out. However the printer friendly version still contains this juicy morsel.
It is difficult , no impossible , to reach any other conclusion except your contempt for Bush is driving this type of flawed commentary. It appears that a leak designed to embarass Bush is just fine with you whereas a true one made in the public interest ,exposing Democratic hypoccrisy should lead to imprisonment.
Finally there is scant evidence that Rove broke the law in his brief talk with Cooper. What's this ? Rove got the rumor he passed on from ...a reporter ! Maybe Plame/Wilson was the leakee and the leaker.
This investigation , over really nothing, has more twists than a Chubby Checker fan club meeting at a pretzel factory and has consumed far too many resources that could have better been spent on fighting terorism.
I guess you think Rove is guilty until proved innocent ?
I trust this comment has not violated the TOSA. You are the one, after all who has questioned Roves motives and the legality of his actions.
Posted on July 14, 2005 5:33 PM
Ralph:
This post focused on the journalism issues raised by what was happening to Matthew Cooper and Judity Miller, not the merits of the case itself. I included background I thought relevant to set up the journalism-ethics questions pertaining to those two, not to make any larger point about the case itself, so naturally my account is incomplete. If you change the subject to the case itself, I'm not obliged to follow you there.
Most of your points, even if true (and some aren't) are irrelevant to the issues of journalism ethics raised by Cooper and Miller's roles in the case. In hindsight, so are some of mine (e.g., the fact that a lot of people thought that Miller's misreporting of the WMD issue itself merited prison).
My comments on a few others:
-- Wilson didn't "lie" about being asked by the VP to look into the Niger issue because he never claimed that. He claimed, correctly, that the *CIA* had been asked to look into it by the VP's office, and that the CIA in turn asked him. His accounts of his wife's involvement in the decision to send him to Niger have changed, and I've acknowledged that with no tooth-grinding whatsoever. Readers can read the Senate Intelligence Report if they wish to assess your characterization of Wilson as a "world-class liar."
-- Not having seen the actual Cooper e-mails, I'm in no position to judge whether Cooper's subsequent story, which I've never read. That's certainly a legitimate journalistic-ethics question, but not one on which I have enough information to take a position.
-- In no way did I portray Plame as in danger.
My exact words, from above: "There's no telling how much work was lost, or how many other agents in other countries were endangered, by her exposure -- maybe none, maybe quite a lot. Only the CIA knows." That means what it says: I. Don't. Know.
-- You say the investigation has taken too much time. I quite agree. The president could and should have gotten to the bottom of this himself long ago.
-- You say I have "questioned the legality" of Rove's actions. That's literally true; I have asked in print whether he broke the law because people who know more about the subject than I do seem to think he did. But that's not the same as saying he broke the law. I haven't said that and indeed have indicated repeatedly that I do not know the answer to that question.
To that, I would only add the rather obvious observation that you don't get to decide who's a Republican and who's not, and I welcome additional comments related to the original subject of the post.
Posted on July 15, 2005 10:32 AM
The liberal Main Stream Media has once again been embarrassed.
Rove is vindicated and shown to be telling the truth.
Wilson lied.
Stick that in your liberal pipe and smoke it!!
Posted on July 15, 2005 3:27 PM
Uh, yeah, H. Whatever.
Posted on July 15, 2005 3:31 PM