My jaw dropped when I read that Judge John Bates dismissed ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame's and her husband Joe Wilson's suit against White House officials involved in blowing Plame's cover.
In 2003, after going to Iraq on a CIA intelligence-gathering mission, Wilson publicly accused Bush of twisting the intelligence to make the case for war. Purportedly to rebut Wilson, White House officials told the press that Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA agent and that Wilson had been sent to Iraq based on nepotism. Given that the cover-blowing ruined Plame's career and endangered her family, she and Wilson sued Cheney and other loose-lipped officials.
Judge Bates' opinion included the following:
"There can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials" (Washington Post).
Rebutting public criticism may be within the scope of a White House official's job, but how did blowing Wilson's wife's cover rebut Wilson's criticisms of Bush? How was Plame's covert status relevant to Bush's apparent twisting of pre-war intelligence? Where's the logical connection?
After reading Truthout's take on Judge Bates' apparently hypocrisy-laden history, I realized that logic might have had little to do with Bates' opinion. Here's what Truthout disclosed about Bates:
"Since his tenure on the federal bench began six years ago, Bates's legal opinions and rulings supporting the administration's executive powers stand in stark contrast to his legal work as an assistant US attorney. He worked for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr prosecuting President Clinton's Whitewater investment deals.
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"In 1997, Bates successfully argued for the release of thousands of pages of White House documents related to Hillary Clinton's conversations about Whitewater.
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"In January 2003, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that the judge was a hypocrite by pursuing access to White House documents when Clinton was in office while supporting Cheney's claims of executive privilege in refusing to turn over his energy task force documents to Congress....
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"Since 2001, Judge Bates has been a staunch supporter of the White House's assertion of executive privilege on a wide range of controversial legal challenges by third parties.
Bates, who was appointed by President Bush in 2001, first came to the public's attention in December 2002 when he dismissed a lawsuit filed against Cheney by the Government Accountability Office that sought access to the vice president's energy task force documents.
"In that case, Bates threw out the GAO's lawsuit, stating that the GAO lacked the authority to sue the vice president, a ruling that was criticized by the legal community. On Thursday, Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit for similar reasons. (Truthout)
Does Bates' signal that government officials can bully anyone who dares to criticize them? If White House officials can divulge classified information to "rebut" criticism, can any citizen safely disagree with the President?
Plame and Wilson plan to appeal the ruling. It'll be interesting to see which judge(s) hear their case.
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