I find all of this particularly interesting in light of the suggestion by Sherlock Google and his commenters that either Tenet or Pavitt may have been the source for the original leak of the info that two administration officials had contacted at least 6 reporters with the Plamestory.
Remember Tenet and Pavit, if they gave testimony to this grand jury, probably gave them a lot of backstory. Also, they are testifying in a time of War... And intelligence breaches in a time of War, are serious which will not be lost on grand jurors who live in one of the cities targeted for terror. CIA surely knew about the previous leak to Judy, but it was out of their jurisdiction. Nevertheless I'll bet they knew who the leakers were.
So if CIA knew who in the White House was leaking to Judy, and they later find out that person outed one of their own, they know who the chief leak launderers are. Also remember, Tenet/Pavit hate Chalabi and Chalabi is Judy's main source re: chemical weapons in the runup to war. So they are keeping their eyes on who in the White House is is encouraging the Chalabi/Judy relationship.
This all lends credence to the notion that Fitzgerald and Tenet/Pavit are teaming up here in the belief that the country was betrayed in a time of War.
Tell Judy how you feel.
Update [2005-7-7 14:59:18 by courtjester]:
O'DonnellIn February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”
Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”
Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case “which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.” Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters’ shield law -- but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he “might have” let Cooper and Miller off the hook “[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.”
Tatel’s colleagues are at least as impressed with the prosecutor’s secret filings as he is. One simply said “Special Counsel’s showing decides the case.”
All the judges who have seen the prosecutor’s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.
Update [2005-7-8 1:52:39 by courtjester]: Here is a post
from Kant a couple days ago, citing John Dean's analysis of the application of the Espionage Act to this case.
The Espionage Act of 1917
Sec. 1
...
(e) whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blue print, plan, map, model, note, or information, relating to the national defence, through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be list, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000, or by imprisonment for not more than two years, or both.
...
Sec. 5
Whoever harbours or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to commit, an offence under this title shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than two years, or both.
See below...
All of this talk about Rove's misdeeds and the Cooper and Miller testimony focuses on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. But look at the above - much older - statute.
John Dean - of all people - pointed out the following re: that statute...
The Espionage Act of 1917
The Reagan Administration effectively used the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute a leak - to the horror of the news media. It was a case that was instituted to make a point, and establish the law, and it did just that in spades.
In July 1984, Samuel Morrison - the grandson of the eminent naval historian with the same name - leaked three classified photos to Jane's Defense Weekly. The photos were of the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which had been taken by a U.S. spy satellite.
Although the photos compromised no national security secrets, and were not given to enemy agents, the Reagan Administration prosecuted the leak. That raised the question: Must the leaker have an evil purpose to be prosecuted?
The Administration argued that the answer was no. As with Britain's Official Secrets Acts, the leak of classified material alone was enough to trigger imprisonment for up to ten years and fines. And the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed. It held that the such a leak might be prompted by "the most laudable motives, or any motive at all," and it would still be a crime. As a result, Morrison went to jail.
The Espionage Act, though thrice amended since then, continues to criminalize leaks of classified information, regardless of the reason for the leak. Accordingly, the "two senior administration officials" who leaked the classified information of Mrs. Wilson's work at the CIA to Robert Novak (and, it seems, others) have committed a federal crime.
Not only are Rove, Miller and Cooper open to prosecution under this statute, but a number of people on the White House Iraq group as well.
Why is this part of the law getting no play? Are Rove's people trying to frame it that way? Let's air this out.
Also take a look at analysis of
Mark A. Kleiman
the application of the Espionage Act to the known facts in this case...
1. Whatever the drafters wanted, the law says what it says. It says that a non-governmental official can only get nailed for a pattern of revelations: that's the "Agee" provision. But it also says that an official can get nailed for doing it once. There's not a trace of ambiguity in the language. Either Prof. Codevilla's memory and capacity to parse a sentence are defective, or he's letting partisan passion blind him to obvious realities (as I do when I try to handicap elections).
2. The Espionage Act applies. Unless it's a dead letter -- which the Morison case suggests it isn't -- revealing Plame's identity was a crime. I'm puzzled why any prosecutor would bother with IIPA when the Espionage Act is sitting right there.
3. False statements to investigators are criminal, even if the underlying conduct wasn't a crime.
As confident as I was in that line of reasoning, I'm delighted to find my position supported by the one neutral party in the best position to know both the evidence in the case and the law relating to that evidence: the presiding judge.
His language today, as reported by the Washington Post, is nothing short of startling:
[Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F.] Hogan said Miller was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press. He stressed that the government source she "alleges she is protecting" had already waived her promise of confidentiality. He said her source may have been providing information not to shed light on government secrets but to try to discredit an administration critic.
"This is not a case of a whistle-blower" revealing secret information to Miller about "dangers at a nuclear power plant," Hogan said. "It's a case in which the information she was given and her potential use of it was a crime. . . . This is very different than a whistle-blower outing government misconduct."
"The information she was given ... was a crime." So much for the "runaway prosecutor pursuing non-existent crimes" theory. With Cooper talking, it looks to me as if at least one person with White House mess privileges is going down, hard.
Footnote: Note that under IIPA a reporter's use of information, except as part of an Agee-type "pattern," wouldn't be a crime. So for the judge to say that Miller's potential use of the information would have been a crime, the prosecutor must be thinking of Espionage Act prosecution, and the judge must think that's plausible.
Second footnote Hogan's remarks seem hard to square with the theory that's been making the rounds the past couple of days that Miller herself might have been the source of the Plame revelation. I liked that theory because it seemed the best explanation for media lethargy around the subject. I suppose some part of it might still be true, but I'd give longer odds now than I would have yesterday. And Joseph Wilson's calling Miller's jailing "collateral damage" analogous to the damage done to his wife suggests that he doesn't think of Miller as the villain of the piece.
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