[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 94 (Wednesday, July 13, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H5777-H5778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
.
KARL ROVE HAS COOPERATED
(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous
material.)
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with concern and in opposition
to the partisan attacks on Karl Rove. I think we see too many efforts
now where people quickly rush to judgment, rush to call for the most
bizarre solutions to problems that are problems which are often just
created in their own minds.
Karl Rove has fully cooperated in any investigation and, for more
than a year now, has permitted investigators to talk to him. I think
The Wall Street Journal put it best today when, in an editorial that I
will submit as part of my remarks, and to quote directly from that
editorial, the editors summed up this episode by stating: ``In short,
Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he discovered in Africa,
how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he
was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly
abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to
his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone
can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly
discredited, let us know.''
Mr. Speaker, I will submit The Wall Street Journal editorial for the
Record.
[From the Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2005]
Karl Rove, Whistleblower
Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying
for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA
nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On
the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru
deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the ``Truth-
Telling'' award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr.
Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him
as a fraud.
For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real
``whistleblower'' in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's
the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters
to be
[[Page H5778]]
wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the
press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the
CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick
Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short,
Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could
understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a
partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election
campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.
Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke
any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played
a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to
investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in
Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence
Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have
deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that
she was an undercover agent and using information he'd
obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove
didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about
her work at Langley from other journalists.
On the ``no underlying crime'' point, moreover, no less
than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do
the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in
March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's
Judith Miller out of jail.
``While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is
far from clear--at least on the public record--that a crime
took place,'' the Post noted the other day. Granted the media
have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to
protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that
Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.
The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first ``outed''
himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times
op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly
debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that
President Bush had mentioned in his now famous ``16 words''
on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert
Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in
selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as
adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere
in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's ``Meet
the Press'' and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.
But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The
bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July
cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her
husband for the Niger mission. ``Interviews and documents
provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD
[Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name
for the trip,'' said the report.
The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged
documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even
entered intelligence channels until eight months after his
trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he
provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion
that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.
About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's
Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: ``We
conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of
the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that `The British
Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-
founded.''
In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd
discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told
the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The
media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though
the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking
as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can
remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly
discredited, let us know.
If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire
episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and
media attention, not to mention inspire a ``special counsel''
probe. The Bush Administration is also guilty on this count,
since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor
Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the
issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an
unguided missile, holding reporters in contempt for not
disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the
time that no underlying crime was at issue.
As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to
be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the
truth.
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