Tom Maguire continues his entertaining commentary on the the Valerie Plame/Ambassador Joe soap opera, which now approaches its second anniversary. Who could have imagined this story would be such a gold mine? You just can't make this stuff up. I'm convinced Hollywood is ignoring a sitcom mother lode. They could call it "Da Weft Wing". But that's another story.
Here we are today with Da Weft (in your mind's ear think Tom Brokaw) up in arms because a crime has not been committed. Or so they say. And since they're now quite certain that a crime has not been committed they demand that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald stop asking reporters any more questions about the outing of Valerie Plame. Just go away, Patrick. Why are you tormenting our reporters?
A federal court should first determine whether a crime has been committed in the disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's name before prosecutors are allowed to continue seeking testimony from journalists about their confidential sources, the nation's largest news organizations and journalism groups asserted in a court filing yesterday.
The 40-page brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argues that there is "ample evidence . . . to doubt that a crime has been committed" in the case, which centers on the question of whether Bush administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame in the summer of 2003. Plame's name was published first by syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak and later by other publications.
About a year and a half ago Da Weft was up in arms because they were quite certain a crime had been committed. Or so they said. OpinionJournal excerpts sentiments of prominent Times columnists at that time:
Maureen Dowd, Oct. 2: "For Bush officials, who have wielded patriotism as a bludgeon on critics, you'd think that doing something as unpatriotic as outing Mr. Wilson's wife and endangering the lives of her C.I.A. contacts would be enough. Nah. The group that fights so ferally to keep everything secret, from the cronies who met with Dick Cheney to the identities of the people it has tossed into the brig at Gitmo, had no problem spilling the beans on its own spy when self-preservation was at stake."
Paul Krugman, Oct. 3: "In any case, Mr. Wilson's views and character are irrelevant. Someone high in the administration committed a felony and, in the view of the elder Mr. Bush, treason. End of story."
Bob Herbert, Oct. 3: "The vicious release to news organizations of the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer could serve as a case study of the character of this administration. The Bush II crowd is arrogant, venal, mean-spirited and contemptuous of law and custom. The problem it faces now is not just the criminal investigation into who outed Valerie Plame, but also the fact that the public understands this story only too well. Deliberately blowing the cover of an intelligence or law enforcement official for no good reason is considered by nearly all Americans, regardless of their political affiliations, to be a despicable act."
Nicholas Kristof, Oct. 11: "We in journalism are also wrong, I think, to extend professional courtesy to Robert Novak, by looking beyond him to the leaker. True, he says he didn't think anyone would be endangered. Working abroad in ugly corners of the world, American journalists often learn the identities of American C.I.A. officers, but we never publish their names. I find Mr. Novak's decision to do so just as inexcusable as the decision of administration officials to leak it."
Here's a bold prediction. Once reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper are beyond Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiries, whether by escaping jail or spending time in it, it'll be a crime again. In fact, crime is making its comeback now. Editor & Publisher think its a crime that reporters might go to jail while the real criminal goes free.
Paradoxically, there is now little expectation that Fitzgerald will succeed in identifying the person or persons in the Executive Office of the President who was first to knowingly and intentionally violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity to journalists.
The shift begins. Da Weft will again conclude that there's a crime in there somewhere and try to bludgeon the administration with it. But I've been wondering for a while what that crime might be. Everybody keeps quoting this Intelligence Identities Protection Act, but what if it's something else. Perhaps somebody could help me here. What happens with a grand jury when it turns out that the original crime under investigation never happened, but a different crime is uncovered? Don't they pursue it? Grand jury procedings are secret, so would we even know if the criminal investigation took such a turn?
Maybe our cockamamy sitcom could have a surprise twist at the end that Ambassador Joe and wife Val, the brilliant mastermind, are revealed as the sources of the leak. Is it a crime to out yourself?
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