Should Carl Rove Be in Jail Today?

[OneInchGroup]

Couple days ago now, someone brought up the opinion that Carl Rove ought to be in jail for releasing the name of a CIA operative to those two reporters, who subsequently made the name public, which somehow got turned into a suspected conspiracy/revenge action by Dubyah and the gang against the agent's husband for his disagreeing about Iraq's plan to buy plutonium in Niger.

Since the fuss got going inside another thread that had NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS, the last couple comments, including mine which follows, were chopped by the MODS, and sent to the Off-Topic dump. This following response to the "Why isn't he locked up?" question has been salvaged with the kind permission of the MODS......Thanks guys, hope we got the post reworked enough to get to stay on the board this time around....

This is the post we had put up, with an edit here and there to try to stay under the OFF TOPIC radar:

(To the originator of the fuss) Noticed you got warned to drop this, so I'll just drop it too, after this.........

There is no law against identifying a CIA agent to anyone, except under a specific set of circumstances, first of which is that the agent must be a covert operative, which classification the woman had not had for well past the time linit for after-action secrecy requirements, and another of which is that such revelation would or could in the Agency's view endanger current operatives or ongoing covert actions. Rove could have put her name in the Washington Post himself with no criminal consequences. Was it a crappy thing to do to out the gal to the reporters? Sure it was. Was it a criminal act? Nope. The criminal act was 100% on the reporters who refused to reveal their sources to the grand jury. THAT will get you locked up. There is also some feeling that the reporters' actions were purposeful grandstanding plays to try and make a small slip into a major conspiracy scenario. Especially since both reporters had in hand signed documents from Rove and his legal beagles giving them written permission to identify Rove as the source if they felt it necessary to do so, and they both got those waivers before being called to testify. So who's doing what to whom? As usual in politics, hard to tell, and the truth may only come out after nobody cares any longer (and it will STILL probably only be half or 1/4 truth once the historians get hold of it and twist it to suit their agenda of the moment) Ex-History Prof once told me---"None of what we teach is accurate, just a best guess that won't slow down textbook sales or cause us to lose tenure".

 

[TheBluesMan]

Looks okay to me. Thanks for your perseverance.

 

[Capt. Charlie]

Absolutely! Rove was a man entrusted with sensitive information, and knew full well the possible ramifications, up to and including the death of the agent. Rove violated that trust with total disregard for the consequences, not only to the agent's well being, but to national security as well. If nothing else, he should be charged with treason. As to the two reporters, they are equally guilty as I'm sure they also knew the damage that could be done, but (and as usual for the press) took a stance of callous disregard of the consequences in favor of "get the story, no matter who it hurts". They all ignored the consequences; now, let them FACE the consequences!

 

[Silver Bullet]

Has Rove been convicted of something that I didn't read about ?

 

[OneInchGroup]

Carl Rove and The CIA

Ummm, if what Rove did was not illegal, which seems to have been established, but what the reporters did WAS illegal, then I'm wondering why you want ole' Carl in jail too?

We're back to where I came in on this argument in the beginning. I was kinda thinking the folks that broke the law ought to go away for a while, but not Rove, who's "outing" of the agent did not violate any US law concerning treason, espionage, etc.

Stupid, yes, probably spiteful and vengeful and generally nasty too, but if those were "gotojail" type categories of action, then almost all politicians would be inside the crossbar hotel. If stupid mean and nasty got you locked up, the streets would be deserted all over the country. Probably wouldn't be anymore network news, either.

 

[progunner1957]

Enough of this baseless witch-hunt, already!

Ummm, if what Rove did was not illegal, which seems to have been established, but what the reporters did WAS illegal, then I'm wondering why you want ole' Carl in jail too?

Standard liberal/socialist/Democrat dogma, to wit: Leftist/socialist journalists are holy men, anyone who works for the Bush administration is the son of Satan and a child molesting puppy killer besides.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back at the beginning of this "issue," I read a source that said the woman in question was not a CIA operative in any sense of the word. She worked in an office in Langley, NOT in the field as an agent.

As Chairman Mao once said, "If you tell a lie often enough, it will become accepted as the truth," which is...

Standard liberal/socialist/Democrat procedure.

Let the liberal feces-conniptions begin... :barf:

(I am not a Republican, nor do I play one on TV)

 

[OneInchGroup]

Carl Rove and the CIA

Progunner, I remember somebody "unimportant", like one of the investigators in the case, laying out the rules on C-span. Seems the gal had been undercover overseas at some point in her career, but there are specific timelines involved, and a requirement that the "outing" had to have been within a year or so of the last covert activity, which it wasn't, and there had to be a qualifying "significant risk to ongoing actions or the possibility of compromising active agents", which there wasn't either.

If the reporters had jumped up in the first minute and yelled CARL TOLD US! then there would have been NO charges to file against anybody. I've always thought the whole thing was a red herring deal set up on purpose to "Get" Carl for kicking their butts so bad last 2 elections.

 

[23Skidoo]

The thread would have a lot more credibility if someone bothered to find out that he means "Karl" Rove, not Carl Rove.

FWIW, Rove did nothing wrong, a fact admitted by those Bush organs, the NY Times and Washington Post. The whole thing is old news. Maybe someone wants to discuss Bush's service record instead.

 

[progunner1957]

Maybe someone wants to discuss Bush's service record instead.

Another dog that won't hunt...

 

[OneInchGroup]

Karl Rove vs CIA or was it Carl Rove vs KIA?

23Skidoo,

Sorry about the spelling glitch. Evidently one of the 2 fingers I type with is dyslexic.

Or it could be just the residual mind control from sites like this one:

http://www.wiolawapress.com/karl.htm

That have it spelled a number of ways, and the reading of which will make your hair hurt and your spelling fail.
Must have been written by Alien pod people form Kalifornia

Let's drop it and just chat about Kerry's single handed invasion of Cambodia, then, OK?

 

[Rebar]

"Rovegate", like every other made-up "scandal" that the liberal/left has come out with, fizzled when the real facts came out. The law involved is very specific, and was in no way violated.

 

[KSFreeman]

Karl Rove should be in jail for his real crimes: working for George Bush and blowing up the levees around New Orleans with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

 

[23Skidoo]

Karl Rove should be in jail for his real crimes: working for George Bush and blowing up the levees around New Orleans with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

No, Rove's real crime was engineering a strategy that re elected Bush and defeated Tom Daschle.

 

[OneInchGroup]

K-K-K-Karl and the CIA

Can't you just see, in your mind's eye, James Carville in some smoke-filled room full of whirring computers and ninja-suited "covert" Demwit operatives, rubbing his bald head over his tight-knitted brow, and screaming:
"Curses! Foiled Again! We must come up with a better lie the next time!.....What have we got on Texas sending substandard concrete to New Orleans for the levees?" Ya gotta love 'em.