MICHAEL CARMICHAEL, AAPC, EAPC, IAPC

archived: 10 - 23 Jul, 2005         Back                 Next

                        SOME DARE CALL IT TREASON 

U.S. Constitution
Article III 

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. . . . 

Karl Rove is a very nice man.   

He is kind to his children and the children of his friends and family members.  He attends church religiously.  In fact, he attends the same church as Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Wilson.   

Karl Rove is a fine upstanding sort of man.  In spite of all of the kerfuffle about his mastery of political strategy, his major innovation in American politics was his merger of the Republican Party with the deeply religious right, the evangelicals and the fundamentalists and those of even more reactionary political persuasions, the theocrats.  

Perhaps, Mr. Rove’s greatest political achievement has been his uncanny ability to maneuver the post-election strategy in 2000 so that his candidate, George Walker Bush, could assume an office after the majority of voters ticked the box for his opponent.  This relatively inauspicious feat has only been achieved twice in US history, 1876 and 2000. 

In 2004, Mr. Rove took another case of his candidate’s weak performance at both the exit polls and the polls themselves and made it seem as if Bush had received a huge mandate.  If you believe the results that Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush would want us to accept, then they won the smallest plurality of any second term president since 1828.  Of course, Bush’s weak “mandate” has recently shriveled into the minus column as the majority of Americans have now abandoned his leadership, his political agenda and all of his core policies. 

As I have already said, Karl Rove is a really nice man.  I met him fleetingly in January 2001, when he received the Campaign Manager of the Year Award at the annual convention of the American Association of Political Consultants at a glittering banquet held at the Washington Hilton.  In my judgment, Mr. Rove clearly deserved to win that award for he had guided the Bush campaign with far greater intelligence and aplomb than his counterpart in the Gore campaign.  Gore’s campaign was headed by one extremely curious individual, a Mr. Robert Shrum, and the Gore campaign had been an unmitigated disaster.  Mr. Rove and Mr. Shrum had a rematch in 2004, when, in his infinite wisdom, John Kerry determined to repeat the mistakes of his predecessor as well as a few new ones.  On that occasion, Mr. Shrum went down in defeat with an even more ludicrous performance than his 2000 mega-debacle for Gore.   

But that is ancient history.  Today, Mr. Rove is consumed by a swirling fiasco that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to manage political campaigns or to convert election losses at the polls into tainted victories for his candidates.  Mr. Rove is now drowning in a vortex of scandal involving espionage, journalism, the rationale for the war against Iraq and the leak of the identity of a high-ranking CIA agent.  One of our nation’s most strident critics of the Bush-Rove White House, Paul Krugman, has dared to equate this case with, “treason.” 

In American law, treason is strictly defined to mean aiding and comforting an enemy during wartime.  Since the leakage of the name of Valerie Plame took place in mid-year 2003, neither Bush nor Rove can argue that we were not at war.  The two men enthusiastically launched the War on Terror in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.  The invasion of Iraq had taken place when Ambassador Wilson published his denunciation of the Bush White House’s reference to Saddam’s nuclear weapons project as a basis for the invasion of Iraq.  But, does this leakage of a covert operative’s identity during wartime constitute an act of treason?  Did it aid or comfort the enemy? 

Let us imagine what was in the mind of Mr. Rove.  For starters, it is totally and absolutely inconceivable that he intended to injure either Ambassador Wilson or his wife through the mere act of publication of her covert identity in the US media, because their association with the CIA could do nothing to damage them in and of itself.  Therefore, he must have had another motive.   

Some commentators have written that Mr. Rove and others in the Bush White House intended to send a message to the entire CIA to threaten them against criticizing neoconservative policies especially those arguments used for the basis of their dubious war against Iraq.  But, how would the leakage of their identities threaten covert agents of the CIA?  The answer has been provided by former president, George H. W. Bush - by making their identities public, enemies of America could then target them for assassination.  Others have described the leak as an act of revenge.  Clearly the only revenge possible in this case was assassination by enemy agents of Al Qa’ida or Saddam Hussein. 

In fact, there could have been no other motive.  It is indubitable that public exposure of a covert agent’s identity immediately places them in jeopardy of assassination by the enemies of America.  But, the important question is whether this form of exposure would constitute aiding or comforting the enemy?  To the layman, it would seem an open and shut case that informing our enemies of the identities of our covert agents during wartime would be both an aid and a comfort to them.   

In the future, a steadily increasing number of Americans will come to believe that Mr. Karl Rove did, in fact, commit a treasonous act when he confirmed the identity of a secret agent working in covert operations during wartime.  But, Mr. Rove may never be convicted under US law because it would require the testimony of two witnesses against him or a public confession in open court.  To wit: 

U.S. Constitution
Article III 

Section 3. . . . No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Rove will be convicted of treason, or whether the Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, will offer a plea bargain for a lesser infraction, or whether he may, perhaps, decide or be persuaded to drop the case. 

It is interesting to note that Mr. Fitzgerald has now been conducting his investigation into this major espionage case for the better part of two years, and he has only recently begun to explore the testimony of some of the key witnesses in the star chamber proceedings of the federal grand jury which are, of course, held in camera, i.e. secret. 

This major espionage investigation has already taken longer than either Watergate or Iran Contra to come to grips with the details.  It has been slower in getting off the mark than Kenneth Starr’s investigation into the stain on Ms. Lewinsky’s blue dress.   Why has the Special Prosecutor been so lethargic?  Time will tell. 

Will Mr. Rove be forced to resign?  At this point, it is far too early to tell, but that certainly seems like an increasingly strong probability. 

If he does resign, what might that mean?  It might mean that he is guarding other, higher office holders.  In America, the crime of misprision of treason – knowing of an act of treason but failing to report it to the President – could ensnare any of several officials now in the Bush White House.   

To wit: 

Common law – Misprision of treason 

In the United States, misprision of treason is a federal offence, committed where someone who has knowledge of the commission of any treason against the United States, does not inform the President, a federal judge or state governor or judge (18 U.S.C. § 2382). It is punishable by a fine of up to 7 years in prison. 

Mr. Rove and the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity have been linked in several reports to Vice President Cheney.  According to those who are reliably informed about the inner workings of the West Wing, Mr. Cheney would have to have known about the leak of a covert operative’s identity, and, moreover, he would have to have approved the leak in advance. 

If Mr. Cheney were to be charged with either misprision of treason or treason itself, as the superior who originally authorized the act that brought aid and comfort to the enemy during wartime, he would be in jeopardy of impeachment.  The same would hold true of the President were he in the chain of culpability for treason. 

Treason or misprision of treason are both impeachable offenses under US law.  Article II of the constitution condemns the President or the Vice President who commits treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors to removal from office via impeachment.  To wit: 

Article II 

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. 

As I have said repeatedly above, Mr. Karl Rove is a very nice man.  He is probably even nice enough to take the fall in this case for either the President or the Vice President.  With a Special Prosecutor as studiously non-aggressive as Patrick Fitzgerald, we may never know the truth in this deeply troubling case that – at the time of this writing – is being openly and freely discussed as an act of treason and the concomitant misprision of treason by the highest officers in America. 

Who wins the wooden spoon award for their response to this case?  In my judgment, this dubious achievement award should certainly not go to the slothful and circumspect Mr. Fitzgerald for there are more worthy candidates.   

That award should go to two lawyers who are now the Senators Clinton and Kerry, both of whom have agreed with themselves to allow the major espionage case of Valerie Plame to be swept swiftly under the precious carpet in the Oval Office with the officious firing of Mr. Rove.   

These two former and future opposition presidential candidates, Senators Kerry and Clinton, would have us believe that the constitutional requirements for treason, misprision of treason and impeachment should be suspended in the case of Valerie Plame.  They should both have a very nice day, and those of us who oppose the increasingly dangerous policies of the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration should be looking around for more credible and more substantial presidential timber then either of them.  

The leak of Valerie Plame’s covert identity was a far greater threat to the national security of the United States than either the Watergate breakin or the Iran Contra scandal.  In the years since Iran Contra, there have been several notorious cases of Americans convicted for treason. Aldrich Ames of the CIA and Robert Hansen of the FBI committed the most serious breaches of national security in the past twenty years.  Ames and Hansen sold secrets to the Soviet Union for many years prior to their separate convictions for treason.  In both cases the convicted traitors were able to escape the death penalty, and the two men are now serving life imprisonment in the federal penitentiary system.   

Future historians will view American justice through the lens provided by the case of Valerie Plame and her persecutors.

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Last Update: 03/23/2006