Rove, Novak, the WHIGers and others -- reality sucks, doesn't it.

[understandinglife]

In a previous thread, Rove, Novak, the WHIGers and others got some really bad news today, I posted a bit of bad news for our little gang of White House traitors and their ever more freaked-out co-conspirator, Novak.

That thread focused on...

... the indictment of Paul McNulty, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced that Lawrence Anthony Franklin, age 58, of Kearneysville, WV; Steven J. Rosen, age 63, of Silver Spring, MD; and Keith Weissman, age 53, of Bethesda, MD.

They were indicted by a federal grand jury sitting in Alexandria with Conspiracy to Communicate National Defense Information to Persons Not Entitled to Receive It.

Counts 1 - 4, as filed against defendant Lawrence Allen Franklin, on May 26, 2005, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia include:

Conspiracy to communicate national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, 18 U.S.C. § 793(d) & (g);

and,

Communication of national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, 18 U.S.C. § 793(d).

Franklin, as would be the case for Rove, all the other members of the WHIG (White House Iraq Group), and anyone accessing the Top Secret document on AF1 during Bush's Africa trip (July 6 - 13, 2003), either had signed SF-312 - Classified Information Non-Disclosure Agreement or would be in violation of the law by virtue of having unauthorized access to it and any of the information it contained.

Congressman Waxman has focused on SF-312 and rightly so.

Ms Plame's identity was marked explicitly Top Secret and carried the additional caveat that it not be shared with other governments irrespective of their status as allies.

Novak, Miller, Cooper and any other person in receipt of the classified information from Rove or/and anyone else who signed an SF-312 are candidates for co-conspiracy status, just as Rosen and Weissman have now been indicted as co-conspirators in the Franklin case.

Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4263356

Well, today, Tom Engelhardt publishes an analysis of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, you know the one that so many astute pundits and traitor-apologists have been claiming is almost impossible to prove intent.

Psst, hey Karl, hey Condi, yo Bob, ..... you might want to get your legal eagles to read what Elizabeth de la Vega, former federal prosecutor and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, has to say about the application of the IIPA.

Plame in the Courtroom: Is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act really impossible to prove?

By Elizabeth de la Vega

August 11, 2005

Pundits right, left, and center have reached a rare unanimous verdict about one aspect of the grand jury investigation into the Valerie Plame leak: They've decided that no charges can be brought under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, because it imposes an impossibly high standard for proof of intent. Typically, writing for Slate on July 19th, Christopher Hitchens described the 1982 Act as a "silly law" that requires that "you knowingly wish to expose the cover of a CIA officer who you understand may be harmed as a result." Similarly, columnist Richard Cohen, in the July 14 Washington Post, said he thought Rove was a "political opportunist, not a traitor" and that he didn't think Rove "specifically intended to blow the cover of a CIA agent." Such examples could be multiplied many times over.

Shocking as it may seem, however, the pundits are wrong; and their casual summaries of the requirements of the 1982 statute betray a fundamental misunderstanding regarding proof of criminal intent.

Do you have to intend to harm a CIA agent or jeopardize national security in order to violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act? The answer is no.

<clip>

Whether charges will be brought under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or, if they were, what a jury would decide, we cannot possibly know. But we do know that it is not a law under which guilt is nearly impossible to prove -- as the pundits, citing each other, have led us to believe. It also bears mentioning that experienced prosecutors never underestimate juries. Most juries are like the special grand jury described by Matt Cooper: thorough, highly-engaged people who are absolutely committed to applying the law only to the evidence they have heard in court as they are instructed to do. They are not easily fooled. They have common sense. And they are firmly rooted in the reality-based community.

The full, exquisite analysis is available at the link:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=11747

Oh, WHIGers, and you also, Georgie and Dickie, and all your favorite co-conspirators and embedded propagandists -- that sound you hear, perhaps faintly, but it's real -- jail time, jail time, jail time .... -- is going to just keep getting louder. And, you better hope it doesn't morph into death penalty, death penalty, death penalty....


Peace.