Potential Bush Impeachment?

[iaafan]

I just had a co-worker (die-hard Republican) theorize that Bush would be impeached in October. He seems to think that this deal with uranium in Niger is going to have some meat to it.

http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq ... wilson.htm

This article (2 years old) and its author (former ambassador) give some background.

Interestingly, Bush’s approval rating is now just 2 points higher than Nixon’s before he resigned. Bush’s speech last week didn’t provide a bump. What hasn’t drawn much media attention here, but has elsewhere, is the lack of applause he received while giving his speech. Only once did the military members present applaud. Foreign media is noting that in previous speeches Bush was typically given applause on several occasions.

[mslacat]

I just had a co-worker (die-hard Republican) theorize that Bush would be impeached in October. He seems to think that this deal with uranium in Niger is going to have some meat to it.

http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq ... wilson.htm

This article (2 years old) and its author (former ambassador) give some background.

Interestingly, Bush’s approval rating is now just 2 points higher than Nixon’s before he resigned. Bush’s speech last week didn’t provide a bump. What hasn’t drawn much media attention here, but has elsewhere, is the lack of applause he received while giving his speech. Only once did the military members present applaud. Foreign media is noting that in previous speeches Bush was typically given applause on several occasions.

An Impeachment is a purly political activity. While the Republican are very orginized the democrats could never muster the the unity to pull it off. Just my opinion.

[iaafan]

I agree. Just thought it was interesting coming from a big R. Kind of like a fan saying his team isn't very good. Has a little more weight than when an opponent says, you suck.

[DCC2MSU]

I didn't watch this particular speech, but if there were fewer interuptions caused by applause, then I hope that is a trend that will continue. I hate watching/listening to political speeches of much importance for that very reason. When you go to sporting events they will often ask you to hold applause until everyone has been announced. Maybe we need to have the same announcement before any Presidental speeches.

[PapaG]

In order to impeach Bush, the House would have to vote for it in majority and the Senate would have to verify it.

Considering that both are controlled by the GOP, your 'friend's' scenario is unlikely.

[Hell's Bells]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/polit ... nd&emc=rss

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050 ... -9887r.htm

A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee

rove learned of the id from novack....


http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/14/sanford/

what happened with the discolsing of her id was legal since she was
a desk driver

Rove told the grand jury that three days later, he had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and -- in an effort to discredit some of Wilson's allegations -- informally told Cooper that he believed Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though he never used her name, the source said

if they were going to impeach bush it would be over that issue...which is a nonissue becasue she *plume* was not in covert operations and therefore it was not a crime to "out" her. Besides it wasnt rove that outed her, he got that information from novack so therefore we are at square one with this little leak issue...

Instead of assigning a trained intelligence officer to the Niger case, though, the C.I.A. sent a former American ambassador, Joseph Wilson, to talk to former Niger officials. His wife, Valerie Plame, was an officer in the counterproliferation division, and she had suggested that he be sent to Niger, according to the Senate report.

nepitism??

Mr. Wilson went to Niger in February 2002 and met with the former prime minister, former minister of mines and other business contacts. In his C.I.A. debriefing, Mr. Wilson reported that the former prime minister said he knew of no contracts with any so-called rogue nations while he was prime minister, from 1997 through 1999. But he did say that in June 1999, a businessman insisted that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanded commercial relations with Baghdad, according to the Senate report. The meeting took place, but the prime minister said he never pursued the idea because of United Nations sanctions on Iraq.

Analysts at the C.I.A. did not believe that Mr. Wilson had provided significant information, so the agency did not brief Mr. Cheney about it, despite his clear interest in the issue, the Senate f

amazingly it was the brits that we got this information from and they stand by their findings...

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2 ... _wils.html

[SonomaCat]

I don't really understand anyone's motivation to defend Rove at this point, outside of being a good team player. When this all first came out, Bush made it clear that whoever leaked this information would be fired. Rove claimed he knew nothing of it. Now his people are putting out these other theories as a smokescreen. This is business as usual in D.C., and I'm sure it happens all of time. The difference this time is that Bush made a bold statement when it first broke, and now he has to stick by it.

If Rove disclosed this information to a reporter, regardless of where he supposedly got it, he should be canned. Otherwise, Bush is a liar. I prefer the former to the latter.

I don't even need to go into detail of how the good team players would have reacted to this story had it happened during the last Democratic administration. Consistency would be great.

People also seem to be forgetting, amidst the GOP bashing of Wilson to distract from one of their own's habitual lack of ethics, is that Wilson's report was right -- the Niger story was BS, and we still went with it. Attack the messenger, attack attack attack. Rove was taking notes when the Clintons were in office, and he is now a Jedi in the craft. This time, he got busted.

I doubt that any impeachment will happen. Falsifying evidence to accelerate/market an effort to go to war isn't nearly as serious as lying about getting blowjobs from fat chicks. At least, that's the position of the House majority party, and it's their call.

I think most of us learned from the last go-round of impeachment hearings that they tend to be a huge waste of time. They were entertaining at the time, but I think many people have a more serious approach to the role of government now and respect the institution enough to not want to create that kind of circus again. We had a chance to vote Bush out of office, and we chose not to do it. We collectively need to live with that decision. I hope no impeachment talk surfaces unless something incredibly substantial arises.

[Hell's Bells]

1) that information was out before rove got ahold of it...what we should really be asking is how novack got that information

2) really...she wasnt a covert officer for approx 5 years by the time this happened, and was spreading the fact that she worked for the cia appearantly so what was the harm? who gives? her boss says that whoever leaked should not be prosicuted under the 1982 law that bans leaks of covert officers, which she wasnt, according to wilson himself.

3) if the niger story was bs then why would the british be standing by their report? the facts are we sent a person (wilson) who had no buisness going to niger because he appearantly had no knowledge needed to get the report concluded or not, even in his origional statement wilson stated that the origional british report was correct.***edit*** his wife recommended him for the niger project = nepotism

4) if this happened during the previous dem. administration i would be posting the same way...buy the way how would you be posting bac?
****edit****

i am sure the man that leaked this info to novack will get fired. all i am saying that is is not rove, that it is sombody else. notice how novack is getting a pass in all of this. anyone dare to ask why? or have an anser other then the republicans are trying to protect one of their own? he was the origionatore of the leak not anyone that has been asked to appear to a grand jury over the matter.

[SonomaCat]

4) if this happened during the previous dem. administration i would be posting the same way...buy the way how would you be posting bac?

That's a pretty easy answer -- I'm not partial to either party, so I'd have no reason to react any differently. I don't like unethical behavior by anyone in office, regardless of party.

[iaafan]

This may not clear Rove of anything. He still igave a reporter this information. If he did so based solely on info he got from another reporter, he should have treated it as hear say and not repeated any of it. It isn't much of an excuse and all it really does is mean that now we have two people leaking information and one, Rove, is leaking information that he got from an unreliable source. That doesn't make it OK, it makes Rove look pretty stupid, which we know he isn't since he got Bush elected twice.

[Hell's Bells]

This may not clear Rove of anything. He still igave a reporter this information. If he did so based solely on info he got from another reporter, he should have treated it as hear say and not repeated any of it. It isn't much of an excuse and all it really does is mean that now we have two people leaking information and one, Rove, is leaking information that he got from an unreliable source. That doesn't make it OK, it makes Rove look pretty stupid, which we know he isn't since he got Bush elected twice.

you must look at it this way: who origionally leaked out the fact that ambassador wilson's wife was a pencil pusher for the cia for the last 7 years? novack got the info somehow and it didnt come from rove. if anything...in the absolute worse case senerio....meaning if she was undercover which she obviously wasnt, all rove is guilty of is spreading knowledge that was already leaked....kinda like a 3rd party. also if u go after rove you also must go after everybody who had reported the id in print media *vanity fair and novack* which, of course, isnt going to happen...wait did i mention vanity fair? they only did a cover shot of her and ambassador wilson. doesnt seem like she is at all interested in keeping her id private if she is willing to do a cover shoot.

[Hell's Bells]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050716/D8BC7F500.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president's No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative's husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence.

The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer.

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, recounting how Cooper tried to question him about whether President Bush had been hurt by the new allegations.

The White House turned the e-mail over to prosecutors, and Rove testified to a grand jury about it last year.

Earlier in the week before the e-mail, Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written a newspaper opinion piece accusing the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence, including a "highly doubtful" report that Iraq bought nuclear materials from Niger.

"Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming," Rove wrote in the e-mail to Hadley.

"When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Hadley, now Bush's national security adviser, said he could not comment due to the continuing criminal investigation. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said his client answered all the questions prosecutors asked during three grand jury appearances, never invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the president's executive privilege guaranteeing confidential advice from aides.

Rove, Bush's closest adviser, turned over the e-mail as soon as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's covert work for the CIA.

He later told a grand jury the e-mail was consistent with his recollection that his intention in talking with Cooper that Friday in July 2003 wasn't to divulge Plame's identity but to caution Cooper against certain allegations Plame's husband was making, according to legal professionals familiar with Rove's testimony.

They spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury investigation.

Rove sent the e-mail shortly before leaving the White House early for a family vacation that weekend, already aware that another journalist he had talked with, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, was planning an article about Plame and Wilson.

Rove also knew that then-CIA Director George Tenet planned later that same day to issue a dramatic statement that took responsibility for some bad Iraq intelligence but that also called into question some of Wilson's assertions, the legal sources said.

The AP reported Thursday that Rove acknowledged to the grand jury that he talked about Plame with both Cooper and Novak before they published their stories but that he originally learned about the operative's identity from the news media, not government sources.

Republicans cheered the latest revelations Friday, saying they showed Rove wasn't trying to hurt Plame but instead was trying to informally warn reporters to be cautious about some of Wilson's claims.

"What it says is, Karl Rove wasn't the leaker, he was actually the recipient of the information not the provider," Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said on Fox News. "So there are probably a lot of folks in Washington who have prejudged this, who have rushed to judgment who are trying to smear Karl Rove."

Democrats, however, said that even if Rove wasn't the leaker, someone still divulged Plame's identity and possibly violated the law.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders asked Speaker Dennis Hastert on Friday to let Congress hold hearings into the controversy regardless of the criminal probe now under way.

"In previous Republican Congresses the fact that a criminal investigation was under way did not prevent extensive hearings from being held on other, much less significant matters," Pelosi wrote.

Federal law prohibits government officials from divulging the identity of an undercover intelligence officer. But in order to bring charges, prosecutors must prove the official knew the officer was covert and nonetheless knowingly outed his or her identity.

Rove's conversations with Novak and Cooper took place just days after Wilson suggested in his opinion piece in The New York Times that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was used to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

Summarizing a trip he made to Africa on behalf of the CIA, Wilson wrote that he'd concluded it was highly doubtful the nation of Niger had sold uranium yellowcake to Iraq. Tenet issued a lengthy statement five days later saying that he never should have allowed Bush to use the Niger information in his State of the Union address but that Wilson's report did not resolve whether Iraq was seeking uranium from abroad

[iaafan]

If that's true, it still doesn't necessarily clear Rove. All it does is point the finger at someone else. While it seems like they are focusing on Rove, it's very early in the game. We may never know what really happened, because the White House has had a lot of time.
I have to believe that Rove learned about Plame in the State Dept. memo, but of course, he's denying that. He could just be digging himself in deeper. Unless a John Dean emerges, this may evaporate. Ari Fleischer may be involved, which may be why he's no longer on staff. Lewis Libby is supposedly being looked into as well.
For those who think this is totally a political thing, you should keep in mind that the prosecutor is Patrick Fitzgerald, who is widely considered a very by the book, relentless attorney and not one to get caught up in the politics of a situation like this.

[Hell's Bells]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005 ... 1214.shtml

By April 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein had stockpiled 500 tons of yellowcake uranium at his al Tuwaitha nuclear weapons development plant south of Baghdad.

That intriguing little detail is almost never mentioned by the big media, who prefer to chant the mantra "Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction" while echoing Joseph Wilson's claim that "Bush lied" about Iraq seeking more of the nuclear material in Niger.

[Hell's Bells]

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/R ... p?ID=18798

Thus, the defense of Wilson’s credibility boils down to skilled parsing: he didn’t say that Cheney’s office sent him, he only implied it. Sounds an awful lot like the semantic acrobatics of which Wilson’s defenders accuse Rove’s supporters being guilty.



Even if you give Wilson the benefit of the doubt on that count, though, the career diplomat still has not been on speaking terms with the truth.



Just over one year ago, the man married to the retired CIA operative formerly known as Valerie Plame was exposed as an opportunist who lied at almost every turn in an audacious bid to grab his 15 minutes—and a seven-figure book deal.



He was outed not by Rove, the White House, or some right-wing outfit, but by the bipartisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee.



According to the report, Plame “offered up” the services of her husband. She believed that intelligence surrounding Niger and yellowcake was bogus—she called it a “crazy report”—making it highly likely that her husband went there looking to confirm that conclusion. He did.



Or did he? The bipartisan conclusion of the committee was that Wilson's findings, if anything, served to support the belief that Saddam was actively seeking uranium for a nuclear program.



But Wilson revealed himself as the headline whore he is by grabbing the spotlight when the story first emerged about Niger and forged documents purporting to show illicit sales to Saddam. From the July 10, 2004 Washington Post:



He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”



“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,” the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken” to reporters. The documents—purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq—were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

[SonomaCat]

Now for the fine parsing of language:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162834,00.html

It must now rise to the level of a crime for the person to be fired -- mere ethical violations or other non-criminal but negative behavior won't get you fired in the administration.

What is is, redux.

[SonomaCat]

If we want to go direct to the source with the talking points that lead us away from the core issue of whether or not Rove did something wrong, here is the press release direct from the GOP website:

http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=5630

Attack and distract, attack and distract. It is all seeming so very similar to the Clinton adminstration's approach to crisis management. Is that what politics has come to in the short attention span internet age?

[Hell's Bells]

he's always been saying that...plus he is not the origional source of the leak

besides she has been telling just about anyone she knew that she was "flying a desk" for the CIA, which is not undercover work if you ask me. if that is bac i guess u are undercover also lol

also she was outed a long time ago, approx 8 years at least, by a mole, which is why ms. vannity fair has a desk job in the first place

[SonomaCat]

It is a change in the White House position, and it is clearly a carefully worded statement to establish the level of misdeeds that have to occur in order for somebody to be fired for this leak (whoever that might be...). It would be more comforting if the White House wasn't proactively qualifying things to this degree. I would hope that any level of wrong-doing, criminal or otherwise, would warrant dismissal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8605680/

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/

(Under "No Criminals Need Apply" heading)

[PapaG]

Now for the fine parsing of language:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162834,00.html

It must now rise to the level of a crime for the person to be fired -- mere ethical violations or other non-criminal but negative behavior won't get you fired in the administration.

What is is, redux.

BAC

Nothing has been elevated. This is what Bush said in September 2003.

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/30/wilson.cia/

On June 10, 2004, he was asked if he stood by his original stance, which I posted above.

On a side note, I am not a fan of Karl Rove and don't like the fact that a political operative is the role of the administration that he is. He thinks too politically for me and I wouldn't mind if he resigned. That said, the misinformation campaign by the left and the media on this Bush stance change is an outright lie.