Rove, Scooter and the Boys...Don't look like "Summers"

So those orange jumpsuits are going to look just terrible!

The Washington Post speculates on the current risks of there being criminal allegations against them and says regarding Scooter and Rove:

Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.

In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved, "so I could come back to you and say they were not involved." Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said, "That is correct."

What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his two-year investigation that any crime was committed. His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or the conclusion of the probe with no charges. The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.

The article goes on to discuss Fitzgerald bringing a conspiracy claim, because the Intelligence Identities Protection Act is too difficult to prove.

It remains stupifying to me, how reporters are not discussing a quite evident legal violation that has been discussed on the blogosphere for months. Mark Kleiman for example a few days ago:

More bad news for Rove, Libby, et al.: Lawrence Franklin has agreed to plead guilty to leaking classfied information to two AIPAC staff members.

Why do say that's bad news for the folks who outed Valerie Plame Wilson? Because Franklin was indicted under the Espionage Act (specifically 18 U.S.C. 793 (d)) for giving classified information to those not eligible to receive it, including members of the media.

No money involved, no inteligence identities. And yet Franklin is pleading out. Looks to me as if the Espionage Act is still alive, and as if it applies squarely to the facts of the Plame case.

The maximum sentence, by the way, is 10 years, and the guidelines call for 87-108 months.

The text of that Act makes it quite apparent why Rove & Libby are in potential trouble over its terms:

Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it...

Look at this Act and then consider what it says in the article:

By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known Plame's name, the State Department had prepared a memo on the Niger case that contained information on Plame in a section marked "(S)" for secret. Around that time, Libby knew about the trip's origins, though in an interview with The Washington Post at the time, he did not mention any role played by Wilson's wife.

By July 12, however, both Rove and Libby and perhaps other senior White House officials knew about Wilson's wife's position at the CIA and, according to lawyers familiar with testimony in the probe, used that information with reporters to undermine the significance of Wilson's trip.

Fitzgerald is awfully tight-lipped, but I cannot fathom that he and his staff are not considering these facts and the Espionage Act.