White House Outs CIA Agent

Here's what I love.

During depositions, the plaintiff's lawyers ask the defendant, "Did you have sex with Monica Lewinski?" Being smart enough to pour sand out of a boot with instructions on the heel, the defendant says, "What do you mean by 'sex?'"

So the plaintiff's lawyers go off and they come up with this convoluted definition of "sex." Hey, there's ten-fifteen lawyer jokes right there, man. Then they run it by the judge, and she approves it. So right there, you've got the court telling the defendant a precise definition of what they are asking, no questions, no doubts, no horses&&t.

So the defendant takes this definition with rubber gloves, steel gauntlets, and a ten-foot pair of tongs, and drags it off to his lawyers, and says, "Hey, what do I say to this?" So they look it over, and go, "Well, what did you do?" So he tells them, and they go off and think about it, and there's another dozen lawyer jokes, and they come back and go, "Well, according to this definition, the correct answer is, 'no.'"

So he goes back and tells them, "No."

And gets accused of perjury.

Nice.

Nobody with even a nodding acquaintance with the truth and the basic intelligence of the average sessile underwater life form believes that crap, man. He was asked a question, he asked that the terms the question used be defined, they were, he evaluated his actions against those terms, and he answered truthfully.

Now, colloquially speaking, did he have sex with her? Of course he did. Does his wife think so? Bet your ass she does. Was it wrong? Hell yes, on several levels.

But that's not the question. The question is, did he answer the question he was asked, a question that has nothing to do with the colloquial definition of sex, because it was asked by lawyers (and there's several more lawyer jokes for the afficianados among us) in the setting of depositions for a lawsuit, truthfully?

That's the only objective evaluation you'll ever see of what happened to Bill Clinton, and it's all a matter of public record. Anything else relies either on confusion in the minds of people who after watching a hell of a lot of Perry Mason really oughta know better, or on partisan hatred. Hey, if I can compliment one of Bush's daughters on her good deeds, what's the matter with y'all?
 
Schneibster said:
That's the only objective evaluation you'll ever see of what happened to Bill Clinton, and it's all a matter of public record. Anything else relies either on confusion in the minds of people who after watching a hell of a lot of Perry Mason really oughta know better, or on partisan hatred. Hey, if I can compliment one of Bush's daughters on her good deeds, what's the matter with y'all?
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You see, I think the whole process against Clinton was dumb, stupid and ridiculous.

Just like I think the process against Libby is dumb, stupid and ridiculous.
 
Azure said:
You see, I think the whole process against Clinton was dumb, stupid and ridiculous.

Just like I think the process against Libby is dumb, stupid and ridiculous.
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Scooter is going down for the same reason Martha Stewart did: bearing false witness during a formal federal investigation. His problem is that he's not going to be able to decorate his cell as well as she did.

DR
 
Azure said:
Evidence?

My God you people are pulling out all the stops to blame this administration.
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I don't have to pull out any stops to blame this administration.
See post 160. Read the linked article. Then do some research on your own.
Google and about 5 minutes will find you more than you can read in one night.

After you do this, then please reconsider your claim that you are "not defending a liar". Maybe even consider that my opinion has considerable basis in fact, that the lead guys in this administration are a bunch of power-grubbing twits of limited competence, unworthy of the positions they hold.
 
It is interesting that Libby was not charged with any crime for leaking Plame's occupation.
 
Luke T. said:
It is interesting that Libby was not charged with any crime for leaking Plame's occupation.
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What is more interesting is the apparent lack of discipline on Armitage. I'll dig around, but I don't think he's been held accountable.

ETA:

Here is what was reported in the Chicago Sun Times:

==snip==
Confirming that he was the source of a leak that triggered a federal investigation, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he never intended to reveal Plame's identity.

He apologized for his conversations with Chicago Sun-Times syndicated columnist Robert Novak and Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

For almost three years, an investigation led by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has tried to determine whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as covert operative as a way to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing the Bush administration's march to war with Iraq.

"I made a terrible mistake, not maliciously, but I made a terrible mistake," Armitage said.
== snip ==
Armitage said he was not a part of a conspiracy to reveal Plame's identity and did not know whether one existed.
== snip ==
He described a more direct conversation with Novak, who was the first to report on the issue: "He said to me, 'Why did the CIA send Ambassador Wilson to Niger?' I said, as I remember, 'I don't know, but his wife works out there.' "

He was never a target of the investigation and did not hire a lawyer.
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So, let me get this straight. Richard Armitage was never a target of the investigation, and the President stated that he'd find whoever outed Mrs Plame. The Number 2 Guy at State might or might not be someone you have people question if the wife of one of his ambassadors, all of whom work for State, has been outed.

Ya think Clouseau might have done a better job?

Armitage resigns. Is there a statute of limitations on the regulation he broke in outing a CIA officer? Has he been pardoned? Is his apology sufficient? This loose end is troubling, though it appears that the Wilson's have forgiven him.
============= digs around a bit ============
ETA #2: to frame this matter more clearly:

Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982

United States Code, TITLE 50 - WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE CHAPTER 15 - NATIONAL SECURITY SUBCHAPTER IV - PROTECTION OF CERTAIN NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION, Section 421-426.

Congress enacted this law thanks to former CIA officer Philip Agee repeatedly blowing the covers of CIA officers. Agee, a malcontent and self described Marxist, published field officers' names in the mid '70s with the intent of compromising ongoing covert operations. People died thanks to that jackanape.

The IIPA makes it a criminal offense punishable by 10 years in prison and up to a $50,000 fine for:

1) a government official with access to classified information to (Armitage was one such)
2) knowingly reveal to an unauthorized person a covert agent's identity while (Yes, though the "error" bit may be a successful defense)
3) the United States is "taking affirmative measures" to conceal the agent's identity. (Apparently that was the case) (Covert agent must have been working outside the United States in the past five years for the law to apply.) I forget how this applies to Plame.
Section 426 said:
4) The term "covert agent" means -
  • a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
    • whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
    • who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
  • a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and -
    • who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
    • who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
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And it goes on to list non Citizen agents and their status.

I didn't figure out the statute of limitations, nor if Armitage is still liable for a charge under this statute.

PPS: Subgenius, it appears that your title for post number 1 was incorrect. Foggy Bottom, not the White House, appears to have been the outing agent. Armitage's silence hardly helped you there. FWIW, in 20/20 hindsight.

DR
 
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