Randy “Duke” Cunningham is a congressman no more — he just resigned.
Published by Waldo Jaquith
Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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29 replies on “Duke resigns.”
Looks like your fearless, heroic blogerism has brought results. If he’s guilty, kudos! Corruption should be shot down on both sides of the aisle.
Ok, so I RTFA and saw that he admitted he’s guilty, so unconditional kudos!
I suppose that GOP moderates have been so thoroughly shoved aside that they no longer have the capbility to organize in any meaningful way. But, if I was a Republican right now, I would start organizing some sort of centrist, anti-corruption grass-roots effort. The goal would be to have a list of corrupt Republicans to target in the ’06 primaries so that they don’t drag the entire party down. Plus there’s the advantage of creating a clear faction with a catchy name of some sort that lapsing Republicans can cling to as a way of remaining within the party. “I’m not like those other guys – I’m a ‘Clean the House’ Republican.”
You guys (Republicans) gutted your moderates over the last few years and this is going to kill you. You haven’t had anyone on board who would question your policies or ethics. So naturally things got out of hand. Imagine what would happen if Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi ran the country without guys like Harry Reid holding the reins to tell them to shut up from time to time. You’ve turned into the right wing version of that. Anybody who didn’t drink the kool-aid is gone. You no longer have the capability to even talk to 60% of Americans. You can’t win elections like this. I dont know that you can even be a successful opposition party like that.
Republican moderates have recently become what you call ‘independants.’ Some number of them will be conservative Democrats in a few years. I think that there’s still a little bit of time left to try to invite moderates back into the fold and let them clean house. Not that I think you’ll do it. It’s going to take a total collapse before you let the center back in, isn’t it?
Wow! What brazeness. How did he ever think he wouldn’t get caught?
The same way that Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and Scooter Libby didn’t think they’d get caught.
Hubris, pure and simple.
Indeed.
The same way that Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and Scooter Libby didn’t think they’d get caught.
Wow… Amazing how quickly Karl Rove disappeared from that list now that the rumor-mongering has proved to be baseless. (Remember, Waldo, how adamant you were?) Amazing also how the SEC charges/investigation was dismissed against Bill Frist. Also quite interesting is Fitzgerald’s lack of knowledge about the actual events and how they transpired as revealed by Bob Woodward.
The investigation of Karl Rove continues. Baseless? There’s no doubt that Rove is the king of behind the scenes smear campaigns against political enemies. Libby was the first to fall, and you serve yourself poorly by attempting to impugn Fitzgerald’s credibility. You’d have less luck searching Washington for a more honest or competent Fitzgerald than Abraham had searching Sodom.
Hans,
You are aware that Fitzgerald has convened another Grand Jury which is continuing to look at Rove, right? Rove is in just as much danger today as he was 2 months ago. Fitzgerald held off on indicting Rove because Rove’s lawyer presented a last-minute piece of information that Fitzgerald didn’t really have time to fully examine before that Grand Jury expired. Fitzgerald didn’t care. His press conference wasn’t the end of things. He just put together another Grand Jury and has continued to march ahead with his cards just as close to his chest as ever.
Also, since when did the SEC drop the charges against Frist? How did I miss that story? Can you give me a link? As far as I can tell from news during the last week, Frist is still in the SEC’s crosshairs.
Oh, another thing, how does the fact that Bush Administration officials lied to Fitzgerald about the Plame Affair (i.e. Cheney or whoever it was not mentioning the prior disclosure to Bob Woodward) help you? If anything, this just says that the Bush White House is even *more* guilty than we thought. It suggests that yet another person is guilty of leaking the name of a clandestine agent and was then guilty of obstruction of justice for failing to disclose the fact to Fitzgerald and is also guilty of purjury if he or she specifically denied it under oath. That’s 3 more criminal acts. Why would you want to call attention to this?
Calling Plame “clandestine” or “undercover” is about as accurate as saying Chad Dotson was undercover when he posted as John Behan.
Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.
Valerie Wilson’s friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.
The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It’s important that a CIA officer’s identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation’s security.
Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.
Patrick Fitzgerald is hardly a disinterested bystander. Those are allegations, not facts.
Patrick Fitzgerald is hardly a disinterested bystander.
Hans, you’ve been reading these radical right-wing blogs and taking them as gospel again, haven’t you? :)
Everybody from the White House to the RNC has had nothing but the highest praise for Fitzgerald, without the slightest whiff of bias. I remember that, on the Today Show, Bush had great things to say about Fitzgerald, calling his investigation “dignified.” The White House has repeatedly said that they have great faith in Fitzgerald, his research, and his conclusions. From Rich Lowry on down, people don’t just find him fair and impartial, but are really impressed by his work.
Those are allegations, not facts.
Actually, Hans, they’re called “the facts of the case.” There are allegations against Scooter Libby, based on the facts of Plame’s status as a covert agent.
Josh, cluelessness and integrity are not mutually exclusive.
ATA, what crime did Karl Rove commit?
I was mistaken. They apparently haven’t officially dropped it. However, there is this. Whew! I hope I never get investigated by the SEC! Draconian!
They didn’t necessarily lie. Woodward hasn’t said who his source is. It could have been anyone. Cheney, et. al. didn’t necessarily know about the Woodward leak. (Woodward knowing about this before Libby’s casual remark illustrates the ridiculousness of the claim that Plame’s identity was a secret.)
Waldo, I never said that Fitzgerald is being partial, it’s just that he doesn’t know what’s going on. I hardly blame him, with all the characters involved and all the lies being thrown around, etc. It’s incredibly complicated. All I’m saying is that, despite his impartiality and integrity, he has been shown to be directly wrong and I don’t take everything he says as gospel.
Regarding facts vs. allegations, take a look at this that you quoted:
Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.
While I have no doubt that you are correct in that the legal term for that portion of what PF said is “facts of the case”, from a commonsense standpoint there is absolutely no way that that can be objectively measured. It’s opinion. I happen to hold the opposite opinion and I believe the facts would back me up, but it’s still just my opinion.
he has been shown to be directly wrong
He has? When?
While I have no doubt that you are correct in that the legal term for that portion of what PF said is “facts of the case”, from a commonsense standpoint there is absolutely no way that that can be objectively measured.
So, by your estimation, nobody should ever be charged with leaking classified information, because (you say) it can’t be objectively measured whether that particular bit of classified information was widely known outside of the intelligence community?
Hans,
Cluelessless and Comptence ARE mutually exclusive.
Two things are clear, the sources said: either Rove will agree to enter into a plea deal with Fitzgerald or he will be charged with a crime, but he will not be exonerated for the role he played in the leak.
If Rove does agree to a plea, Fitzgerald is not expected to discuss any aspect of his probe into the President’s senior adviser because Rove may be called to testify as a prosecution witness against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was indicted last month on five counts of lying to investigators, perjury and obstruction of justice related to his role in the leak.
Anyway, Frist should have known much much much better than to manage his stocks the way he did. To say he’s “under a cloud” and complain that it’s “Draconian” is bladerdash. Frist is a leader of a party that came into power screaming about bringing an end to corruption and went on to enshrine it as a pillar of its daily operations.
DeLay, Libby, now Cunningham; Republican leadership is falling from the sky like the Morning Star and his angels. , like spears from heaven. These aren’t isolated events. The Mug-shot Republicans have no claim to moral leadership in America.
Meanwhile, back at the Valerie Plame scandal (so many Republican scandals it’s hard to keep track). You said:
It could have been anyone. Cheney, et. al. didn’t necessarily know about the Woodward leak.
Puhleeze… yeah, and Lorena Bobbitt didn’t necessarily know where to find a kitchen knife.
Fitzgerald will do his work, top White House staffers and maybe the Vice President will go to jail.
Woodward’s testimony appears to change key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby three weeks ago. It would make the unnamed official — not Libby — the first government employee to disclose Plame’s CIA employment to a reporter. It would also make Woodward, who has been publicly critical of the investigation, the first reporter known to have learned about Plame from a government source.
Fitzgerald will do his work, top White House staffers and maybe the Vice President will go to jail.
With you around, it looks like I can delete Daily Kos from my feed reader.
bladerdash
Is this the dash to the bathroom when your bladder is in need of relief? *grin*
So, by your estimation, nobody should ever be charged with leaking classified information, because (you say) it can’t be objectively measured whether that particular bit of classified information was widely known outside of the intelligence community?
Nope. Whether a bit of classified information is widely known or not is irrelevant to determining whether someone leaked classified information or not.
What it is relevant to is whether that information was known to be classified in the first place. If a bunch of reporters (for pete’s sake, reporters!) knew about it, it would be the natural assumption to assume that it wasn’t classified. The law in question explicitly specifies that it is a crime only if the leaker of classified information knows that it is classified.
Hans, there are a couple of problems with your assertion.
First, the testimony from Woodward is just that — testimony. It’s up to Fitzgerald and the grand jury to take the testimony of everybody who has testified and determine what the truth is. The testimony from Libby was also counter to the facts as ascertained by Fitzgerald. That doesn’t mean that Fitzgerald was wrong — on the contrary, it meant that Libby was wrong.
Second, Woodward has admitted that he deliberately withheld that information from Fitzgerald and the Washington Post. It’s more than a little ridiculous to hold that against Fitzgerald. All that Fitzgerald can do is assemble the facts with which he’s provided. The fact that there was an earlier conversation and Fitzgerald didn’t know about it isn’t a sign of fault on the part of Fitzgerlad, it’s a sign of fault (and perhaps crime) on the part of Woodward and his White House source.
Anyway, Frist should have known much much much better than to manage his stocks the way he did.
*rolls eyes*
He was told twice by the Senate Ethics Committee that it was not necessary to set up a trust to avoid a conflict of interest, and that he could still vote on health care legislation. But he put it in a trust anyway, just to go the extra mile.
btw, I’ve noticed that you are noticing the success that the GOP has had with exhibiting genuine Christian values (ok, for the most part; a post about the corruption of a GOPer is hardly an opportune time to bring this up) and are peppering your comments with Biblical references! I love it!
Waldo, see that’s the misconception. I’m not trying to attack Fitzgerald or say that he’s evil or say that he’s biased or anything like that. All that I’m saying is that he’s wrong. Notice what I said above:
Waldo, I never said that Fitzgerald is being partial, it’s just that he doesn’t know what’s going on. I hardly blame him, with all the characters involved and all the lies being thrown around, etc. It’s incredibly complicated. All I’m saying is that, despite his impartiality and integrity, he has been shown to be directly wrong and I don’t take everything he says as gospel.
Hans:
The Republicans came to power by CLAIMING genuine Christian values and proceeded to throw them out the window in the name of political expediency, and greed.
Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I tend to quote the Bible and the Buddah, about as often as I quote Sun Tzu, JFK, Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Usually I misquote them, but that’s just ’cause I’m gettin’ on in years.
Again, your statement that “he has been shown to be directly wrong” is not accurate. Somebody has asserted to have information that he did not have. That neither makes him wrong and incorrectly escalates Woodward’s assertion to a level of fact superior to all other testimony.
The law in question explicitly specifies that it is a crime only if the leaker of classified information knows that it is classified.
We’re not talking about the law here. Fitzgerald said that the fact that she was an agent was not known outside of the intelligence community. You said that he doesn’t know that. I asked if, since that can’t be known, if anybody could ever be charged. You said no, not in the case of this specific law. But, again, given that you say that it’s not possible to prove whether individuals outside of the intelligence community generally know something that is classified, I ask you: Should somebody ever be prosecuted for leaking classified information, given that (you say) it’s not possible to determine how widely that classified information was known by civilians?
This whole idea that valerie plame’s identity as an agent was sufficiently well-known that White House officials could freely talk about it is very wrong. Thet are not in a position to decide when the identities of agents are for-real classified or kind of classified or de facto unclassified or whatever.
Looks like your fearless, heroic blogerism has brought results. If he’s guilty, kudos! Corruption should be shot down on both sides of the aisle.
Ok, so I RTFA and saw that he admitted he’s guilty, so unconditional kudos!
I suppose that GOP moderates have been so thoroughly shoved aside that they no longer have the capbility to organize in any meaningful way. But, if I was a Republican right now, I would start organizing some sort of centrist, anti-corruption grass-roots effort. The goal would be to have a list of corrupt Republicans to target in the ’06 primaries so that they don’t drag the entire party down. Plus there’s the advantage of creating a clear faction with a catchy name of some sort that lapsing Republicans can cling to as a way of remaining within the party. “I’m not like those other guys – I’m a ‘Clean the House’ Republican.”
You guys (Republicans) gutted your moderates over the last few years and this is going to kill you. You haven’t had anyone on board who would question your policies or ethics. So naturally things got out of hand. Imagine what would happen if Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi ran the country without guys like Harry Reid holding the reins to tell them to shut up from time to time. You’ve turned into the right wing version of that. Anybody who didn’t drink the kool-aid is gone. You no longer have the capability to even talk to 60% of Americans. You can’t win elections like this. I dont know that you can even be a successful opposition party like that.
Republican moderates have recently become what you call ‘independants.’ Some number of them will be conservative Democrats in a few years. I think that there’s still a little bit of time left to try to invite moderates back into the fold and let them clean house. Not that I think you’ll do it. It’s going to take a total collapse before you let the center back in, isn’t it?
Wow! What brazeness. How did he ever think he wouldn’t get caught?
The same way that Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and Scooter Libby didn’t think they’d get caught.
Hubris, pure and simple.
Indeed.
Wow… Amazing how quickly Karl Rove disappeared from that list now that the rumor-mongering has proved to be baseless. (Remember, Waldo, how adamant you were?) Amazing also how the SEC charges/investigation was dismissed against Bill Frist. Also quite interesting is Fitzgerald’s lack of knowledge about the actual events and how they transpired as revealed by Bob Woodward.
Ahh, the paper tigers…
Sorry Hans, Time Magazine don’t play that!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801683_pf.html
The investigation of Karl Rove continues. Baseless? There’s no doubt that Rove is the king of behind the scenes smear campaigns against political enemies. Libby was the first to fall, and you serve yourself poorly by attempting to impugn Fitzgerald’s credibility. You’d have less luck searching Washington for a more honest or competent Fitzgerald than Abraham had searching Sodom.
Hans,
You are aware that Fitzgerald has convened another Grand Jury which is continuing to look at Rove, right? Rove is in just as much danger today as he was 2 months ago. Fitzgerald held off on indicting Rove because Rove’s lawyer presented a last-minute piece of information that Fitzgerald didn’t really have time to fully examine before that Grand Jury expired. Fitzgerald didn’t care. His press conference wasn’t the end of things. He just put together another Grand Jury and has continued to march ahead with his cards just as close to his chest as ever.
Also, since when did the SEC drop the charges against Frist? How did I miss that story? Can you give me a link? As far as I can tell from news during the last week, Frist is still in the SEC’s crosshairs.
Oh, another thing, how does the fact that Bush Administration officials lied to Fitzgerald about the Plame Affair (i.e. Cheney or whoever it was not mentioning the prior disclosure to Bob Woodward) help you? If anything, this just says that the Bush White House is even *more* guilty than we thought. It suggests that yet another person is guilty of leaking the name of a clandestine agent and was then guilty of obstruction of justice for failing to disclose the fact to Fitzgerald and is also guilty of purjury if he or she specifically denied it under oath. That’s 3 more criminal acts. Why would you want to call attention to this?
Calling Plame “clandestine” or “undercover” is about as accurate as saying Chad Dotson was undercover when he posted as John Behan.
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong.
Quoth Patrick Fitzgerald:
Patrick Fitzgerald is hardly a disinterested bystander. Those are allegations, not facts.
Patrick Fitzgerald is hardly a disinterested bystander.
Hans, you’ve been reading these radical right-wing blogs and taking them as gospel again, haven’t you? :)
Everybody from the White House to the RNC has had nothing but the highest praise for Fitzgerald, without the slightest whiff of bias. I remember that, on the Today Show, Bush had great things to say about Fitzgerald, calling his investigation “dignified.” The White House has repeatedly said that they have great faith in Fitzgerald, his research, and his conclusions. From Rich Lowry on down, people don’t just find him fair and impartial, but are really impressed by his work.
Those are allegations, not facts.
Actually, Hans, they’re called “the facts of the case.” There are allegations against Scooter Libby, based on the facts of Plame’s status as a covert agent.
Josh, cluelessness and integrity are not mutually exclusive.
ATA, what crime did Karl Rove commit?
I was mistaken. They apparently haven’t officially dropped it. However, there is this. Whew! I hope I never get investigated by the SEC! Draconian!
They didn’t necessarily lie. Woodward hasn’t said who his source is. It could have been anyone. Cheney, et. al. didn’t necessarily know about the Woodward leak. (Woodward knowing about this before Libby’s casual remark illustrates the ridiculousness of the claim that Plame’s identity was a secret.)
Waldo, I never said that Fitzgerald is being partial, it’s just that he doesn’t know what’s going on. I hardly blame him, with all the characters involved and all the lies being thrown around, etc. It’s incredibly complicated. All I’m saying is that, despite his impartiality and integrity, he has been shown to be directly wrong and I don’t take everything he says as gospel.
Regarding facts vs. allegations, take a look at this that you quoted:
While I have no doubt that you are correct in that the legal term for that portion of what PF said is “facts of the case”, from a commonsense standpoint there is absolutely no way that that can be objectively measured. It’s opinion. I happen to hold the opposite opinion and I believe the facts would back me up, but it’s still just my opinion.
he has been shown to be directly wrong
He has? When?
While I have no doubt that you are correct in that the legal term for that portion of what PF said is “facts of the case”, from a commonsense standpoint there is absolutely no way that that can be objectively measured.
So, by your estimation, nobody should ever be charged with leaking classified information, because (you say) it can’t be objectively measured whether that particular bit of classified information was widely known outside of the intelligence community?
Hans,
Cluelessless and Comptence ARE mutually exclusive.
If you’re gonna throw up links to reactionary right-winger spin sites, I just have to counter with some lefty wild haired speculation: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Testimony_from_Roves_former_assistant_may_1128.html
Anyway, Frist should have known much much much better than to manage his stocks the way he did. To say he’s “under a cloud” and complain that it’s “Draconian” is bladerdash. Frist is a leader of a party that came into power screaming about bringing an end to corruption and went on to enshrine it as a pillar of its daily operations.
DeLay, Libby, now Cunningham; Republican leadership is falling from the sky like the Morning Star and his angels. , like spears from heaven. These aren’t isolated events. The Mug-shot Republicans have no claim to moral leadership in America.
Meanwhile, back at the Valerie Plame scandal (so many Republican scandals it’s hard to keep track). You said:
Puhleeze… yeah, and Lorena Bobbitt didn’t necessarily know where to find a kitchen knife.
Fitzgerald will do his work, top White House staffers and maybe the Vice President will go to jail.
WaPo:
With you around, it looks like I can delete Daily Kos from my feed reader.
Is this the dash to the bathroom when your bladder is in need of relief? *grin*
Nope. Whether a bit of classified information is widely known or not is irrelevant to determining whether someone leaked classified information or not.
What it is relevant to is whether that information was known to be classified in the first place. If a bunch of reporters (for pete’s sake, reporters!) knew about it, it would be the natural assumption to assume that it wasn’t classified. The law in question explicitly specifies that it is a crime only if the leaker of classified information knows that it is classified.
Hans, there are a couple of problems with your assertion.
First, the testimony from Woodward is just that — testimony. It’s up to Fitzgerald and the grand jury to take the testimony of everybody who has testified and determine what the truth is. The testimony from Libby was also counter to the facts as ascertained by Fitzgerald. That doesn’t mean that Fitzgerald was wrong — on the contrary, it meant that Libby was wrong.
Second, Woodward has admitted that he deliberately withheld that information from Fitzgerald and the Washington Post. It’s more than a little ridiculous to hold that against Fitzgerald. All that Fitzgerald can do is assemble the facts with which he’s provided. The fact that there was an earlier conversation and Fitzgerald didn’t know about it isn’t a sign of fault on the part of Fitzgerlad, it’s a sign of fault (and perhaps crime) on the part of Woodward and his White House source.
*rolls eyes*
btw, I’ve noticed that you are noticing the success that the GOP has had with exhibiting genuine Christian values (ok, for the most part; a post about the corruption of a GOPer is hardly an opportune time to bring this up) and are peppering your comments with Biblical references! I love it!
Waldo, see that’s the misconception. I’m not trying to attack Fitzgerald or say that he’s evil or say that he’s biased or anything like that. All that I’m saying is that he’s wrong. Notice what I said above:
Hans:
The Republicans came to power by CLAIMING genuine Christian values and proceeded to throw them out the window in the name of political expediency, and greed.
Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I tend to quote the Bible and the Buddah, about as often as I quote Sun Tzu, JFK, Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Usually I misquote them, but that’s just ’cause I’m gettin’ on in years.
Again, your statement that “he has been shown to be directly wrong” is not accurate. Somebody has asserted to have information that he did not have. That neither makes him wrong and incorrectly escalates Woodward’s assertion to a level of fact superior to all other testimony.
The law in question explicitly specifies that it is a crime only if the leaker of classified information knows that it is classified.
We’re not talking about the law here. Fitzgerald said that the fact that she was an agent was not known outside of the intelligence community. You said that he doesn’t know that. I asked if, since that can’t be known, if anybody could ever be charged. You said no, not in the case of this specific law. But, again, given that you say that it’s not possible to prove whether individuals outside of the intelligence community generally know something that is classified, I ask you: Should somebody ever be prosecuted for leaking classified information, given that (you say) it’s not possible to determine how widely that classified information was known by civilians?
This whole idea that valerie plame’s identity as an agent was sufficiently well-known that White House officials could freely talk about it is very wrong. Thet are not in a position to decide when the identities of agents are for-real classified or kind of classified or de facto unclassified or whatever.