by antiaristo » Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:28 pm
Citizen Spook,<br>I hope you still drop by Rigorous Intuition.<br>I'd like to express my admiration for what you have done.<br>You were one hundred percent correct. And you have influenced the course of history.<br><br>My favourite was when you nailed Wilson for comparing this case with Aldrich Ames. You got him.<br>Well done Sir!<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>October 06, 2005<br> <!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="font-size:small;">The New York Times says "espionage"</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--><br><br>The news that Karl Rove is going back in front of the Plame grand jury seems to have shaken the inside-the-Beltway/mass-media conventional wisdom that, in the end, no one would be indicted for revealing Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity. <br><br>Or so reports David Johnston of the New York Times:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Mr. Fitzgerald's conversations with lawyers in recent days have cast a cloud over the inquiry, sweeping away the confidence once expressed by a number of officials and their lawyers who have said that he was unlikely to find any illegality.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>(Note the no doubt unconsciously self-revealing phrasing; the confidence that the bad guys would get away with it is implied to be a sunny prospect, over which the threat of indictments is said to "cast a cloud." File it under "What liberal media?"<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>Having broken with the previous consensus as to the likelihood of indictments, Johnston then goes on to break what has seemed to be a taboo against mentioning what has long looked to me like the most plausible substantive charge. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>It's buried deep in the 21st graf</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> (and it took the sharp eyes of the Blue Mass. Group to find it) but there it is:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Recently lawyers said that they believed the prosecutor may be applying <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>new legal theories</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> to bring charges in the case.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>One new approach appears to involve the possible use of Chapter 37 of the federal espionage and censorship law,</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> 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.<br><br>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.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Chapter 37 turns out to include our old friend 18 U.S.C. 793, the Espionage Act. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The media focus (until now) on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, which, as has been pointed out ad nauseum, was deliberately written to be hard to violate, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>made the members of the White House Iraq Group seem much safer</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, in legal terms, than they were in fact. That, in turn, put Fitzgerald in a position where any indictment on a substantive charge (as opposed to perjury, false statements, or obstruction of justice) could be made to seem far-fetched, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>thus opening him to the treatment Ronnie Earle has been getting.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>So if you're rooting for the bad guys to get what they have coming to them, the Johnston story doesn't report good news: it is part of the good news. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/10/the_new_york_times_says_espionage.php">www.markarkleiman.com/arc...ionage.php</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
