An all-Rove weekend – The Carpetbagger Report

Away from your computer over the weekend and wondering if you missed anything important in the Plame Game scandal? Let’s see…

* Time’s Matt Cooper wrote his cover story for Time in which he explains — surprise, surprise — his two sources about Plame were Karl Rove and Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. This confirms what most people have believed for nearly two years. It also contradicts two years of White House denials about Rove’s and Libby’s involvement in the leaks.

* A State Department memo that discussed Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger and Plame’s role at the CIA, written before the leak occurred, may have been circulated among top WH aides during a July presidential trip to Africa. Because it could explain how Rove, Libby, Fleischer, and others learned about Plame’s identity, the memo has become a subject of “intense interest” to prosecutors.

* Newsweek reported that Fleischer and WH Communications guru Dan Bartlett, on that same trip to Africa, “prompted clusters of reporters to look into the bureaucratic origins of the Wilson trip.”

* The Washington Post’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen had a solid overview of what we’ve learned over the last week or so, for those who are trying to catch up on the details.

* Frank Rich wants us to keep our eye on the ball and insists this entire scandal is but a part of the broader fraudulent campaign Bush waged to launch his invasion of Iraq.

* Jonathan Alter dismisses the “no big deal” argument; David Broder more or less calls Rove a lying hack; and CBS’s Bob Schieffer had some unusually strong criticism of the White House’s approach to the entire fiasco since its inception.

* And, finally, this was my very favorite quote about the scandal from the weekend.

“There are other shoes to drop here,” warned an advisor to the GOP leadership in Congress, who insisted on anonymity in order to speak freely. “There are people who haven’t come out yet. There could be indictments. And that would cast an entirely different shadow on the matter.”

Finally, a remark from a Republican about this scandal with which I can completely agree.

“Unless there was more to gain, or to lose, through silence.”

Eadie nails it with respect to Judy Miller; she was a “player/participant” rather than a “journalist” or even a “reporter.” Her perch was so lofty — both within the Bush Admininistration as well as at the New York Times — that the lack of oxygen, I guess, deprived her of any rational ability to maintain her arms-length judgment that all professionals MUST exercise to retain any credibility. Clearly, Miller lost her credibility, as has the NYT by its refusal to sanction her irresponsible reporting. The NYT says it blew it with its failure to exercise scepticism during the run-up to the war, but fails to jettison or even criticize Miller — the biggest and most damaging loudspeaker — is like a child who says “I’m sorry” with their fingers crossed behind his back: not credible at all.

In the law, there are no “absolute privileges”; neither the attorney-client, the priest-penitent, nor the doctor-patient privilege is absolute. They all are limited by a societal need for publication of information deemed critical to maintain order and safety. For example, the law requires, when in the course of his/her legal representation of a client, an attorney learns that the client has a present intent to commit a specific crime in the future, that not only is the attorney permitted to abrogate the attorney-client privilege, the attorney in fact IS REQUIRED in most (if not all) states to report that information to law enforcement officials.

So, too, are there times when the attorney becomes so involved with the client’s activities that the distinction between (A) his/her activities as an attorney on the client’s behalf ,and (B) his activites as a partner or joint actor with the client, that then (C) the attorney-client privilege no longer applies since the attorney IS A PARTICIPANT in the criminal or other client enterprise and NOT AN INDEPENDENT LEGAL COUNSEL.

Both of these cases can be said to apply in the case of Judy Miller, and I think at least the former would be agreed upon by most independent, professional media and legal experts. In other words, Patrick Fitzgerald as the Special Counsel is going after Miller as the interests of the public to know who used the media to commit the crime — to be completely distinguished from where a true whistleblower, like Watergate’s Deep Throat, uses to media to cast daylight on governmental wrongdoing — outweighs her sources’ confidentiality PRIVILEGE. It is a privilege and not a right, which in the law creates what is called a rebuttal presumption — that evidence of a greater need for the public to know will overcome the source’s presumed right of confidentiality.

It can also be deduced that Fitzgerald is going after Miller AS A PLAYER/PARTICIPANT rather than merely as a reluctant journalist. In other words, she gave up her role as journalist — for which her activities MIGHT have a confidentiality privilege attached — and became a participant as an active agent of the government officials who outed Plame. If this is what Fitzgerald is up to — and I think a serious case can be made for this, based on all of Miller’s actions, her reporting, and her complicit conduct as an administration shill — then she is in serious trouble.

Finally, regarding the fact that all of Miller’s known (to Fitzgerald) sources have released her from her grant of confidentiality, the “privilege” is “owned” by her sources and NOT by Miller. IF those sources give an effective waiver of the privilege, then Miller has NO LEGALLY COGNIZABLE REASON for refusing to disclose to the Special Counsel the substance of what was learned from and discussed with those sources. Is this the reason why the Supreme Court refused to intervene and that Miller is now in prison? Since most of the substance of Fitzgerald’s court pleadings have been redacted, we can’t tell. But it is not too much of a stretch of an educated guess to say “yes,” and that is also why the rumors are swirling that Fitzgerald is likely to pursue (at least) CRIMINAL contempt charges against Miller. If I were to speculate further, I would not at all be surprised if Miller is also indicted for obstruction of justice and maybe even conspiracy in addition to criminal contempt.

Okay, everyone, hit me with your best shots… 🙂