USA Today again relied only on Toensing to suggest that outing Plame was not a crime
In an October 21 article, USA Today reporters Judy Keen and Mark Memmott relied exclusively on a reading of the law by Republican operative Victoria Toensing in presenting the question of whether senior White House officials may have committed a crime by outing CIA operative Valerie Plame.
The article marked at least the second time that Memmott cited Toensing -- without offering a contrary legal perspective -- in reporting that leaking Plame's identity likely wasn't a crime. Toensing has made frequent media appearances in defense of the Bush administration and the alleged leakers, but she is not the only voice on this issue. Former Nixon White House counsel John W. Dean III argued in 2003 that leaking Plame's identity might constitute a violation of the 1917 Espionage Act and, more recently, that it could also violate Title 18, United States Code, Section 641, which addresses the theft of information and, Dean wrote, contains "broad language [that] covers leaks" and "has now been used to cover just such actions."
USA Today did not mention that Toensing is a partisan Republican or that she is a personal friend of syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who originally outed Plame in July 2003.
The article also misleadingly reported that Novak "hasn't publicly identified his two sources." In fact, White House senior adviser Karl Rove is known to be one of Novak's two sources, according to reports of Rove's own grand jury testimony.
From the October 21 USA Today article, a series of questions and answers regarding "the latest developments and what might happen next" in the Plame leak investigation:
Q: Is it clear that the original leak most likely came from Rove or [Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter"] Libby?
A: Not at all, but Rove made his fourth grand-jury appearance a week ago, and Miller detailed her conversations with Libby last Sunday. The leak could have originated with someone who hasn't been identified. Names of other administration officials have cropped up in recent news reports, but none is as high-ranking. Columnist Robert Novak first revealed Plame's name and hasn't publicly identified his two sources. Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, who did not write about the matter, hasn't publicly named his. Miller wrote that she can't recall who first told her Plame's name.
[...]
Q: What laws would have been broken if someone revealed Plame's identity?
A: The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 bars anyone authorized to handle classified information about a "covert agent" from knowingly revealing the agent's identity. Lawyer Victoria Toensing, who as a Senate staffer helped write that law, says Plame wasn't covert because she hadn't been stationed overseas since 1997 and worked at CIA headquarters. If Fitzgerald instead is investigating possible violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, Toensing argues that that would be inappropriate. The act makes it illegal to divulge national-security information. Toensing says that law was meant to prevent disclosure of ship routes, munitions plants' locations and other secrets during wartime.
Are they still recycling what Wilson said in his book? That he and his wife hadn't been overseas since 1997? Well, might I suggest that Joe Wilson didn't tell the truth because that would have exposed his wife's cover story, that he would've outed his wife and gone to jail for violating the 1982 law.
I find it interesting re Toensing: she claims to have drafted the 1982 law --
But, it now appears that it is virtually impossible to violate the law because of the numerous requirements.
So, why was the law proposed in the first place?
Has Toensing ever explained this?
Was this actually a law intended to make it difficult to prosecute leakers?
"If Fitzgerald instead is investigating possible violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, Toensing argues that that would be inappropriate. The act makes it illegal to divulge national-security information. Toensing says that law was meant to prevent disclosure of ship routes, munitions plants' locations and other secrets during wartime."
And the outing of a CIA agent who specialized in WMD during the war on terrorism...well that clearly has nothing at all to do with national security! Thank you, Victoria, for this brilliantly stupid analysis.
"If Fitzgerald instead is investigating possible violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, Toensing argues that that would be inappropriate. The act makes it illegal to divulge national-security information. Toensing says that law was meant to prevent disclosure of ship routes, munitions plants' locations and other secrets during wartime."
I like your point brabantio. However, if Toensing is saying that it affords no single agent protection but is meant to protect the means and/or resources of "waging war", then perhaps we should not be looking to prosecute the Plame outing as an individual act. Instead we should charge the party with the destruction of a war asset, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, through the disclosure. This would fall well within the range of the 1917 Espionage Act and thereby make the culprits suitable for hanging. Also, it should make Toensing happy or nuts -- whichever -- that it was all done within her interpretation of law. Maybe when Miers is withdrawn from consideration for the Supreme Court, Bush can nominate the legal genius that is Toensing.
"However, if Toensing is saying that it affords no single agent protection but is meant to protect the means and/or resources of "waging war", then perhaps we should not be looking to prosecute the Plame outing as an individual act. Instead we should charge the party with the destruction of a war asset, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, through the disclosure."
Excellent point! I think that would indeed drive her nuts.
I would also like to ask her, "Since 9/11 'changed everything', as we so often hear, why are you using the definition that requires 'disclosure of ship routes' and such? Wouldn't it make more sense to recognize that in the war against terrorism that such specifics are no longer valid, since everything has changed?"
I more than like the TRUTH, I love it; and when it's well (and succinctly) said, I love it more.
To refer to this person (correctly) as a "Republican operative" Victoria Toensing, is every bit as TRUTHFUL (and correct) as your previous references to "Republican Pollster" Frank Luntz.
...and further, as we drag ourselves from the obscure "concervative and liberal" to the specific "republican and democrat", we drag ourselves from blur to focus; a focus We the People require.