Valerie Plame Wilson & Joseph Wilson v. Scooter Libby, Karl Rove & Dick Cheney:
Here's the complaint in the just-filed case. I'm swamped, and can't get into the details, but I think it's a pretty weak argument; but I thought I'd post it so you folks can see for yourselves.
Other than Prof. Erwin C., the Wilsons have a well known Proskauer partner as their attorney.
Presumably, burning a CIA operative is not part of any of these fellows' job descriptions?
Plame's suit seems pretty weak to me, too.
The lawsuit is a vehicle for keeping this idiocy alive.
I hope the defendants do not claim immunity. At the most they should move for dismissal on the grounds that a case for the complaint cannot be made.
They should take it to trial, and until then treat it with the contempt it deserves.
I'm not sure what Libby might find out in a civil suit relevant to the perjury charge against him. But the answer is yes, of course, evidence will not be inadmissible just because he found out about it in a civil case. If he finds something out that would otherwise be admissible, it will be ok for him to use it.
But Libby will not want discovery to proceed in this case, because if he seeks discovery from the plaintiffs, they will have the right to depose him and demand that he answer interrogatories. That is something a criminal defendant will not want to happen.
Really? How do you know that? Why was her status classified, then?
The NSA revelations related to activities that required the highest degree of secrecy.
Tell me if you objected to their publication.
It also seems to me that it will be pretty hard to knock out the state law claims on a 12(b)(6) motion.
I couldn't agree more. Of course, it would be silly to apply the same sort of thinking to the New York Times; every time they publish classified information, an editor should be hanged.
Yes, but how did they retaliate (if that's what they did)? By exercising their own 1st Amendment rights. Hard to see what remedy the courts could craft for that sittuation: Once party A says something, party B loses any right to reply?
They didn't retaliate by exercising their own first amendment rights. There's no first amendment right to leak classified information.
Similarly, if I tell you a privileged secret that I learn from my client, and you publish it in your newspaper, you're not publishing privileged information. As soon as I told YOU the information, the privilege was waived.
Irony.
That's not the right question. The question is was she operating in a cover status. That is what a secret agent is. Simply working for the company is not protection against being in the news.
donaldk: I'll answer your question just as soon as you deign to answer mine.
They should take it to trial, and until then treat it with the contempt it deserves.
Two reasons not to take it to trial:
First, sometimes people lose trials they think they will win.
Second, even if they successfully defend against the suet, they still have to pay thier legal bills. Would you say >>$1,000,000 for each of them oit this goes to trial?
And they will force the defendants into financial ruin even if their suit goes nowhere.
Could the Wilson lawsuit afford her (or him) any sort of protection in the upcoming (?) Libby trial? Could it limit in anyway the scope of Mr. Libby's interrogation or subpoena of either of the Wilsons?
no.
Sic.
Every one knows that secret agent ladies drive to Langley on a daily basis and park in the employee parking lot. For really deep cover secret agent lady would recommend that her husband go on the road for the agency and then publish an op-ed in the NYT. Works every time.
I have never understood the alleged reason for revealing Plame's connection to Wilson. Supposedly, inside the Beltway, being married to someone in the CIA makes you unworthy of something. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me, but I guess that's why I'm not a leader of the free world.
Maybe we need a statute to make childishness in the performance of public duties an offense.
The important part of the married story is that he claimed that the VP's office sent him, and in reality his wife put him up for the job from the agency. It is a perfectly good reason to bring this relationship up.
BCN
What makes you assume Libby's 5th Amendment protection against incriminating himself goes away just because he asks questions of Wilson and Plame? My understanding is he can allow discovery to go forward for them, but still refuse to answer questions. Of course, they can get extensions to keep discovery open until after his criminal trial is resolved. If you have cases (or even a theory) to the contrary, I'd love to see it, because I've had this issue come up a time or two.
(emphasis supplied)
Yes, Nobody. I'll give it a shot. The alleged conspiracy never existed outside Joe Wilson's mind. The Special Prosecutor has spent two years and determined that Libby spoke about Plame with two reporters, Miller and Cooper. In both cases, the reporters brought up the subject of Plame and the CIA, not Libby. (Libby claims another reporter, Russert, also brought up the subject of Plame. Russert denies this.) Fitzgerald also determined that Rove discussed Plame with two reporters, Novak and Cooper. Again, it was the reporters who raised the topic of Plame. In addition, Novak claims that his original source, not Rove, Libby, nor any other "political gunslinger" at the White House, inadvertently disclosed Plame's CIA employment. Again, this disclosure was made in response to a question asked by Novak.
Finally, Novak is adamant that he saw no attempt, organized or otherwise, from the White House to punish Wilson or to out Plame. He says that, even while trying to discredit Wilson's claims (which the Senate Select Committee determined were largely false), people at the White House always spoke of Wilson with respect and never attacked him or his character. (This is based on Novak's interview on Fox the other night.)
Some conspiracy. Don't call reporters to get the word out. Wait for them to call you. When they do call, don't bring the subject up. Wait for them to ask. When they do ask, say something like, "I've heard that, too." (This is what Rove is supposed to have said to both Novak and Cooper and what Libby claims he said to Cooper and Russert.) That's going for the throat! Not only did they not try to push the subject, they were polite!
There, how'd I do?
Probably a little late. But you, as an attorney, can't waive the privilege, it belongs to the client. So the information would still be privileged and inadmissible at trial.
Also, just because something is not a total secret i.e. and newpaper editor learns of it, does not mean it is all of a sudden not classified.
The idea was to discount Wilson's report by implying that he only got his assignment because his wife was with the CIA, not because he was a retired senior diplomat with experience in arms control and West African politics. It's nepotism, insider connections, all that. And of course, that's just as silly a proposition as, for axample, claiming that Jeb Bush would never have been elected Governor of Florida unless his father had been President. Patent nonsense, of course, given his tremendous success as a businessman, baseball team part-owner, and record of public service.
You forgot that Novak wrote: "I learned Valerie Plame’s name from Joe Wilson’s entry in ‘Who’s Who in America.’”
You're comparing inside connections and nepotism to winning a state-wide election?
I am willing to bet a considerable amount of money that my view is correct. The failure of the prosecutor even to allege that a crime was committed, is good enough for me.
Here's a history note:
A gentleman, encountering the Duke of Wellington, inquires: "Mr. Smith, I believe?"
Duke: "If you believe that you'll believe anything."
I think you have your facts wrong. Jeb Bush never owned a baseball team (his brother did) and he appears, atleast according to wikipedia, to have been a sucessful banker and real estate salesman early on in his career prior to getting into politics.
Is that a mirror you're looking in?
Me, I'm going to donate the proceeds from next magic show, where my lovely assistant will disappear in the Aztec Tomb.
Jeb Bush was (maybe still is) a minority owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Through the principal owner, Bush was appointed to a position with an annual income of 50TUSD/year as a non-executive board member of the Ideon Corp.. Compensation well in excess of that paid by similar firms. (Bush would have the fortune to leave the board before the firm collapsed).
As a younger man, in banking, he did serve as an employee in a post in Venezuela and was accepted into an executive training program , which he left to work on his father's campaign. His business activities after that campaign included the baseball and Ideon engagements described above, a business selling water pumps in Nigeria (financed by US government loans while Mr. Bush's father was president) and several other modest businesses (shoes in Panama). He re-entered banking for a brief term, as a board member in a Swiss-parented start-up, "The Private Bank and Trust", which was shut down by regulators within five years.
He did manage to aquire significant wealth as an real estate agent and, eventually, partner in the firm, Codina, which he left to enter politics, rejoined after losing his first campaign for Governor, and left at the time of his second campaign. His buy-out at the time of first leaving the firm, and bonus at the time of the second departure, were both substantial. Bush's abilities to connect developers, investors, buyers, and sellers appears to be genuine, as in the deal where the loss-making Deering Bay golf community was sold to developer Al Hoffman. Bush and Codina not only salvaged their investment, but Bush gained the finance director for his successful campaign.
It was Plame's name that Novak claims to have learned from Who's Who. One claim I have seen is that he ran into James Carville, who supposedly had the book open to the Wilson entry.
In any case, this was supposedly how Novak learned of Plame's name, and not that Wilson's wife was involved in getting him the Niger junket. That was supposedly an inadvertant disclosure by his first, and so far unnamed, source. The Who's Who entry just gave a name to Wilson's wife.
Look up the word "sarcasm".
"O.J. Simpson." Does that ring any bells?
How about "preponderance of the evidence"?
(Me, I think this case either gets dismissed as a matter of law, or gets bounced on immunity grounds ....)
Then I read these posts from last year by Anthony Sebok (HT: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7928.html via ThinkProgress):
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/sebok/20050718.html
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/sebok/20050726.html
It appears that the reliance on constitutional as opposed to statutory claims has to do with Harlow, and it also appears that the plaintiffs know it (I'm guessing that it's no accident that Cherminsky is of counsel, for that reason).
A propos of one of the earlier comments, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole point of the case were about discovery rather than damages. But they need to get through immunity challenges first. Hence all the constitution talk.
Jonah
Sebok does talk about immunity, but I would suggest that from his discussion, immunity would most likely be available here. The major avowed purpose of any disclosure of Plame's CIA status was directly tied to her role in getting Wilson the Niger junket (which they somewhat reject in the pleadings, but does have fairly good coroboration at this point from official sources). And this was to rebut Wilson's implication in his NYT article critical of the Administration's justification for the invastion of Iraq that the VP's office sent him. While Wilson's actual statement in the NYT article is not really false, its implication is, and at least the author (Novak) of the article disclosing Plame's CIA connections and her role in getting him the job was newsworthy. Nevertheless, I think that Cheney, et al., can argue that the primary purpose of whatever acts they may have done was to rebut the Wilson article, in order to futher their case for the War in Iraq. And that should most likely fall squarely within the discretionary actions that Sebok discusses.
The fact in Jones was simple - do not settle! Ann Coulter and one of the attorneys convinced Paula Jones to refuse to settle. In fact, they never cared about Jones. That is why Jones is still up to her neck in attorney bills - when she could have settled long before it went up to the Supremes.
You should see what Ann says about Jones today - if you actually think there was any concern.
Paula Jones got a gross settlement of $750K. That's very strong for a sexual harassment case.
Nick
Agree that the Wilson/Plame suit is somewhat analagous in the sense that it's more about getting revenge than getting money. A big difference is that while Jones was a dim bulb cynically manipulated by people who didn't care a bit about her interests, the Wilsons are well educated and know what they're getting in to.
IANAL, but it looks like an uphill battle. I wish them luck.
I disagree. Jones always had a weak case: she couldn't show any adverse impact on her job (thus it wasn't quid pro quo), and courts then and now have been clear that one incident of a boss exposing himself to an employee (the allegation) is not enough to constitute hostile work environment. Jones had a lousy case. Why it eventually settled had nothing to do with the merits.
And while it's true that if a boss has "consensual" relationships with a series of female employees, and they get special treatment, some courts would find sexual harassment claims for other female employees. But the facts were nothing like that in the Jones case. Inquiry into the Lewinsky matter was a perjury trap. Hurray, the right got what they wanted, now they may have to live with that sort of thing as a tactic (I make no claims one way or another about the merits of the Plame/Wilson suit).
That might put a kink in both Dems &Repubs' fantasies of lurid discovery ... particularly Repubs', since nothing about the plaintiffs would seem terribly relevant to whether or not qualified immunity applies.
I'm thinking Paula wasn't going to be one of the under 6% that succeeded.
Valerie Plame recently signed a seven figure book deal with Simon &Schuster.
So, I would imagine that one side affect of the lawsuit will be to publicize the book.
I say this as someone who thinks that leaking her name was despicable.
Anyway, the Wilson-Plame household will be laughing all the way to the bank at Cheney, Libby and Rove.
Oh, and he sold his stake in the Jaguars 9 years ago.
The immunity applies to a President, and I think Vice-President, when acting in their official capacity. Al Gore was not acting in an official capacity (e.g. would not be covered in a suit alleging sexual harassment).
I was not aware of that earlier. TTBOMK, Bates is no left-winger.
Also. Brent Richardson has suggested elsewhere that it may be dismissed through failure to file a timely claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and that the U.S. is likely to move to substitute itself as the defendant, with the DOJ certifying that the defendants were acting within the scope of their positions. Also, he points out that Plame is unlikely to have exhausted her administrative remedies at the CIA.
I would like to point out that Bob Woodward said he found out Plame's CIA connection one + weeks before the Novak column, and, if memory serves, before Scoot talked to the "reporters" in question.
Then again, no one would ever accuse the Democratic Party of coordinating a half-ass lawsuit to smear their political opponents right before an election...they have too much respect for democracy!