ABC News reports that about-to-be-released emails show that the "idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the White House previously acknowledged." Notice how, within a single sentence, an "idea" that apparently never got off the ground becomes a "plan."
Whatever its source, we know that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was rejected, and that only eight were let go. Thus, assuming that Rove did raise the idea of a mass firing, it's not clear why this would (in ABC's breathless phrase) "put Rove at the epicenter of the imbroglio." Presumably, "the imbroglio" pertains to what the administration did, not to a course of action it rejected.
UPDATE: You can read the Rove-related emails (none of which was writen by Rove) by following a link from the ABC News story. To summarize briefly, they show that Rove asked an aide how the Justice Department planned to proceed with the U.S. attorneys. He mentioned various possibilities, including replacing them all, without making a recommendation or commenting on their merits. The aide raised the matter with Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales' aide. Sampson said that he would like to replace 15 to 20 percent of them -- "the underperforming ones." In the end, they replaced fewer than 10 percent.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 4)
31. Ms. Wilson wasn't covert, and she wasn't covered by statue. Had she been, there would have been a crime no?? One where at least charges would have been brought no??
If they prosecuted Libby for lying, don't you think if they had the actual crime for which the prosecutor was charged with pursuing that at least someone would have been charged with leaking Ms. Wilson's name??
And we know who that was, the person who "leaked" her name, it was Richard L. Armitage. Has he been charged with anything??
Wilson was know, Mr. Wilson put in his "Who's Who bio that his wife worked for the CIA." How lame can you people be?
I guess you think because the Wilson's didn't put it on a billboard that she was covert??
I don't know where you work, that make you "covert?" By your standard is seems so.
If you followed the trial, the testimony, the depositions, you would know it was fairly common knowledge for those in DC, many Congressional offices and the press who the Wilson's were -- Both of them.
Was it "public knowledge?" No, but that's not secret. And her position was not covert as evidenced by how nobody was charged with violating a clear statue.
I shouldn't bother with you much as it's clear you may enjoy any GOP pitfalls but I doubt your are happy with the Dems either. It's likely you lose all elections, your people are never in power, as you are tad too far left.
You are likely just as pissed at Democrats, and I have to enjoy the fact that you're fairly miserable all the time.
Ken Whiteside at 2:45PM on Mar 16th 2007
32. The prestigious magazine, cigar Aficionado should do a cover story on former Pres. Clinton and his presidency. No offense intended. Only the most attractive and famous men make the cover.
Phyllis Kunz
Phyllis Kunz at 3:11PM on Mar 16th 2007
33. Ken Stumbles with - "Ms. Wilson wasn't covert, and she wasn't covered by statue."
Mrs Plames testimony today was approved by the current CIA Director Hayden. CIA Director Michael Hayden personally reviewed and okayed Henry Waxman's opening statement for Valerie Plame's testimony today. Furthermore, Hayden took pains to set the record straight: Plame was indeed a covert agent up until the day Robert Novak revealed as much to the public.
Plame said in response to a question by Elijah Cummings:
"I know I'm here under oath. I'm here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency."
Cummings also pointed out that, as the committee chairman said earlier, the CIA director has authorized a statement saying Plame was a covert officer.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/03/cia_leak_hearin.html
Furthermore - the treasonous parties - as identified in the Libby trial included Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the White House political adviser Karl Rove and the former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer who were are all exposed to have discussed Ms. Wilson’s C.I.A. employment with reporters in the summer of 2003.
Last I heard, back in 2004 - we had lost nearly 30 covert operatives and foreign sources lives because of this Rethugly treason.
Think it is way past time to charge, try, and convict these Rethugly treasonous scum...
And hang 'em.
BT at 3:28PM on Mar 16th 2007
34. Oh hi can hear the traitor Rethugly "but" buddies now...
"But...But...But...CLINTON had covert CIA operatives!"
Bushthwak at 3:30PM on Mar 16th 2007
35. Oh I can hear the traitor Rethugly "but" buddies now...
"But...But...But...CLINTON had covert CIA operatives!"
Bushthwak at 3:30PM on Mar 16th 2007
36. Ken Spins - "f you followed the trial, the testimony, the depositions, you would know it was fairly common knowledge for those in DC, many Congressional offices and the press who the Wilson's were -- Both of them."
Ahhh ... How the wingdizzies get thier little pinheads programmed!
From The Nation on how the spin on Plame developed in Rethugly land...
And the truth:
* On September 29, 2003, former Republican Party spokesman Clifford May wrote that the July 14, 2003 Robert Novak column that disclosed Valerie Wilson's CIA connection "wasn't news to me. I had been told that--but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."
* On September 30, 2003, National Review writer Jonah Goldberg huffed, "Wilson's wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already."
* On October 1, 2003, Novak wrote, "How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA....[A]n unofficial source at the agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations."
* On July 17, 2005, Republican Representative Roy Blunt, then the House majority leader, said on Face the Nation, "This was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."
* On February 18, 2007, as the Libby trial was under way, Republican lawyer/operative Victoria Toensing asserted in The Washington Post, "Plame was not covert."
Anyone who has read Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, by Michael Isikoff and me, would know (as we disclosed for the first time) that Valerie Wilson was the undercover operations chief for the Joint Task Force on Iraq of the Counterproliferation Division, a unit of the agency's clandestine operations directorate. (See my piece, "What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA," here.) Both the book and the article reported that she had traveled overseas--undercover--within the five years before her name appeared in the Novak column.
There was other evidence--official evidence--that she had been a covert officer at the CIA. When special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Libby in October 2005, he said that Valerie Wilson's employment at the CIA was classified information. (He repeated that at the trial.) And in a January 2004 letter to Democratic Representative John Conyers, the CIA noted that the Valerie Wilson's CIA employment status was "classified information."
Now comes the victim of the leak. Testifying to the committee, Valerie Wilson reported that the CIA still prohibits her from saying much about her CIA career. (The agency has held up the publication of her memoirs, claiming at one point that she cannot acknowledge working for the CIA prior to 2002.) But Plame was able to tell the committee, "I was a covert officer." She said she helped to "manage and run operations." She noted that prior to the Iraq war she had "raced to discover intelligence" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions," she said under oath, "to find vital intelligence." She said these trips had occurred within the past five years. She added that she could "count on one hand" the number of people outside the CIA who knew of her employment at the agency: "It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit." She also explained that a covert officer at the CIA is "just like a general" who may spend time commanding troops in Afghanistan and then return to the Pentagon before heading off to another theater: "Covert operations officers, when they rotate back for temporary assignment in Washington, are still covert."
Before she testified, Representative Henry Waxman, the committee chairman, read an opening statement in which he said that Valerie Wilson had been a "covert" officer" who had "served at various times overseas" and "worked on the prevention of the development and use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States." Waxman noted that the CIA had cleared this statement. And during the questioning period, Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings reported that General Michael Hayden, the CIA director, had told him, "Ms. Wilson was covert."
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=176110
Liar! Liar! Rethugly Pants on Fire!
Bushthwak at 4:05PM on Mar 16th 2007
37. Now that we have proven Rethugly operatives have lied about treasonous activities...
Their lying about the politicially motivated firing of 8 Attorneys General?
Does a bear do his business in the woods?
You betcha they are lying!
Bushthwak at 4:09PM on Mar 16th 2007
38. Big yawn...
Patrick Fitzgerald indicted nobody for "outing" Mrs. Wilson. Yet that's the charge he was after. And he knew Richard Armitage was the guy who "leaked" the name... So he had the guy, a Republican, a "Bush State Department guy" no less, and yet he didn't charge Armitage with anything. Why??
Because she wasn't a covert operative in the sense covered under statue PERIOD. What part of this easy stuff do you guys fail to comprehend???
Mrs. Wilson wasn't covered by the statue, had she been someone would have been at least charged with that crime. Richard Armitage (not Rove, Libby, Cheney, etc.,) was the one who gave Novak Mrs. Wilson... No charge, because no crime was committed by mentioning her name.
You guys think the Clinton impeachment hearings were a farce, of no substance and anything mentioned by anybody about what Clinton did was making it all up for political reasons...
So OK, now you are trying to get us to listen to hearings by Waxman?? Cummings?? To Conyers... All leftwing hacks, we are supposed to take them at their word?? I think not.
And since when have you leftists been CIA fans? Fans of covert operations?? Fans of spying? Of spies??
I noticed no takers yet on which president let all the US Attorneys go at the same time... Besides Clinton that is.
And when faced with the fact that Clinton let go one that was investigating him, that didn't even merit a "well he shouldn't have done that, at the least it looks bad..."
No, you people couldn't give a sh*t about any of the facts, you just care about the outcomes. If this was Clinton IV, and all the rest remained the same, you'd be defending this Administration's actions, the war, the firings, all of it.
Well, actually not, as people on my side wouldn't be making a stink on these issues as you are now... But if someone did, you'd defend it all.
Because it would be "your guy."
You don't think most of us realize that??
Ken Whiteside at 6:06PM on Mar 16th 2007
39. TO BE HONEST I AM SICK OF THE NITPICKING ABOUT WHO DOES WHAT WE WANT A GOVERNMENT THAT REPRESENTS US AND STOP ALL THE BICKERING THERE IS SO MUCH WE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THAT I DETEST READING SOME OF THIS STUFF....BUTT OUT EVERYONE AND GIVE SOME SOLID SOLUTIONS TO OUR POBLEMS.
Marie Elena at 7:01PM on Mar 16th 2007
40. Word on the street is your boy Gonzo is finished Monday. The ONLY reason the dimwit would cut him loose is that he's a scpegoat to save Golum...
"But Clinton..." Hell.
Bushthwak at 9:42PM on Mar 16th 2007
41. You guys think the Clinton impeachment hearings were a farce
Yes we do. The Clintons were exonerated of any wrongdoing in Whitewater by the Pillsbury Report that came out in Dec. 1995. Starr should've closed shop in early 1996.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/gen/resources/infocus/whitewater/rtc.html
Steve J. at 11:02PM on Mar 16th 2007
42. KEN: If this was Clinton IV, and all the rest remained the same, you'd be defending this Administration's actions, the war, the firings, all of it.
------------------------
Yeah, just like we defended LBJ. You are either an ahistorical moron or a cheap hack.
Steve J. at 11:07PM on Mar 16th 2007
43. am I the only one picturing Rove pulling strings and chirping dance puppets dance?
M Reamey at 4:40AM on Mar 17th 2007
44. Clinton fired 92 U.S. attorneys in one day. H.W. Bush did more or less the same thing and I think Jimmy Carter did, too. Presidents fire U.S. attorneys and replace them with their own choices. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. When the pleasure is over, so are they, so to speak. What this is really all about is bashing Bush and Cheney and Rummy and anybody else considered central to this administration. The liberals want to pummel Bush every time they get a chance. It will just further condemn him in the minds of voters, and the Dems and far lefties think it will make voters reluctant to ever vote Republican again. That is what it is about.
Bo at 7:15AM on Mar 17th 2007
45. FOLKS.......IT IS CALLED EMPLOYMENT AT WILL.........
WHETHER YOU ARE DEM OR REP.........
EMPLOYMENT AT WILL............
LINDA at 2:34AM on Mar 22nd 2007