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Don't call Rove at the Congressional Hearings

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section Valerie Plame Leak Case
Posted on Mon Jul 11, 2005 at 03:57:57 PM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock

Rep. Henry Waxman called for a Congressional hearing over the Valerie Plame leak as the N.Y. Times this afternoon reported here.

Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said the intentional disclosure of a covert agency's identity amounted to an "act of treason," while Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called for a Congressional hearing.

Congress's institutional memory may be too short. Remember Oliver North? He testified under compulsion at the Iran-Contra hearings and succeeded in excluding that evidence at retrial. United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843 (D.C.Cir. 1990).

As close as outing a CIA agent comes to treason, and it is only one or two steps below treason in the Sentencing Guidelines, one can see the Congressional villagers coming for Frankenstein with torches and pitchforks.

An investigation into how the Deputy President violated his Oath of Office and compromised national security would be interesting to watch. I know that I would. Perhaps the most interesting parts would be the prior White House lies that Rove was not the leak two years ago in response to Former Ambassador Wilson's direct accusation, and today's admissions that he was. We already know that lying is fair game in American politics, which is why politicians are despised, but follow the money (read: oil).

VP Cheney stands to make a few million more as a result of another Halliburton no bid contract with Iraq, Al Jazeera reports today. War profiteers used to be despised, too. Now they are re-elected as saviors of our liberty (read: oil).

Please investigate. Investigate the entire mess, and start with the leak and move to Cheney's profiteering, and then to impeachment.

But, if you expect any one to prosecute, do not call the target as a witness and make him or her testify and compromise any prosecution. Back during Iran-Contra, I couldn't tell whether Congress was handing Oliver North a "get out of jail free" card, trying to get at the truth to embarrass the administration, or both.

Ashcroft talked about putting his new found white collar criminals in the toughest joints in the federal system. Will Gonzales follow suit?

If there is an indictment, presumably any trial would be in D.C. since that's where the grand jury is sitting. Haldeman and Ehrlichman got a fair trial in D.C. in 1974. United States v. Haldeman, 559 F.2d 31 (D.C.Cir. 1976). Presumably these guys can, too.

Bush's memoirs, whomever he gets to write it since his attention span is too short to read two pages, let alone write two pages, will be interesting on how he deals with a Deputy President who admittedly leaks national security information. That may not be a problem for him since the Administration was able to lie and manufacture national security issues to go to war. Those lies cost 1755 American lives.

Come to think of it, investigating Rove is the least of our worries. Investigate lies for war. That violates the Oath of Office.

If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.
--George Orwell, 1984, at 107 (1948).

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