Politics/PlameFilter: In opening arguments today in the Plame investigation perjury case against Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, the prosecutor portrayed Libby as an agent of a Cheney-driven media offensive. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day came from Libby's attorney, who portrayed his client as a White House-chosen scapegoat for Karl Rove's misdeeds. A conservative reporter saw in Libby's emerging defense a "dramatic split inside the Bush White House." An MSNBC host asked whether this hullabaloo could lead to Cheney's resignation. Background on the case. Liveblogging of today's arguments from an anti-administration perspective.
posted by ibmcginty on Jan 23, 2007 - 16 comments

Newsfilter: Former CIA officer Valerie Plame sues Cheney, Rove, Libby, close on the heels of columnist Robert Novak kinda-sorta coming clean about his role.
posted by bardic on Jul 13, 2006 - 78 comments

Newsfilter: Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case. More coverage here, here, and here.
posted by Heminator on Jun 13, 2006 - 150 comments

Why outing Plame mattered. If you wonder what's really at stake behind all the media buzz around the Fitzgerald indictments, read this lengthy and cogent analysis by Stratfor's no-nonsense George Friedman. "Rove and Libby had top security clearances and were senior White House officials. It was their sworn duty, undertaken when they accepted their security clearance, to build a 'bodyguard of lies' -- in Churchill's phrase -- around the truth concerning U.S. intelligence capabilities... The minimal story -- that they talked about Plame with a reporter -- is the end of the matter."
posted by digaman on Oct 18, 2005 - 89 comments

Testimony of former CIA case officer James Marcinkowski on the Plame Affair, via David Corn. Now that the US government has exposed a CIA case officer and endangered her contacts, it will be much more difficult for CIA officers to recruit informants in the future. Any undercover officer, whether in the police department or the CIA, will tell you that the major concern of their informant or agent is their personal safety and that of their family. Cover is safety. If you cannot guarantee that safety in some form or other, the person will not work for you and the source of important information will be lost. ... What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us.
posted by russilwvong on Jul 22, 2005 - 79 comments

As much as I would like to see Rove's head on a pike, I still don't understand why outing a CIA agent should be a crime. After all, we managed to get through World War II and most of the Cold War without such a law. Once upon a time liberals opposed the intelligence Identities Protection Act, and for good reasons. Namely, the law is more likely to ensnare journalists making legitimate inquiries than the kind of traitors that spawned the law. It also requires a very high legal standard, as no one has officially confirmed that Valarie Plame, who's cover had been previously compromised and was well-known in Washington circles, still qualifies as a covert agent under the legal definition. After all, only one person has ever been convicted under the intelligence Identities Protection Act.
posted by Heminator on Jul 14, 2005 - 43 comments

"Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week" First mentioned on Friday, Sunday brought confirmation : "E-mails surrendered by Time magazine to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity show that a top White House aide, Karl Rove, was one of the sources, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday." Is Karl Rove in trouble ? Read between the lines.
posted by troutfishing on Jul 4, 2005 - 122 comments

Journalists say off the record "it was Karl Rove that I spoke to..." (RealPlayer)
Julian Borger of the Guardian reveals that several journalists have revealed "off the record" that Karl Rove revealed the identity of the CIA operative, but that the reporters aren't publicly admitting it, in order to protect their source. But aren't they also material witnesses to a federal crime? Does not revealing their source make them accessories to that crime?
posted by insomnia_lj on Sep 30, 2003 - 51 comments

Don't think we're going to let this drop. at the end of the day it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get karl rove frog-marched out of the white house in handcuffs. and trust me, when i use that name, i measure my words. -- Joseph Wilson
posted by alms on Aug 28, 2003 - 45 comments