Novak Says His Plame-Case Legal Fees Were About $150,000

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK Columnist Robert Novak said he personally paid for most of the $150,000 or so in legal fees required to defend himself in the Valerie Plame case, according to a Wednesday article in The Providence (R.I.) Journal.

Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times/Creators Syndicate writer who was visiting Providence yesterday to give a speech to financial-service professionals, outed CIA operative Plame in a 2003 column. Many have said Plame's name was leaked in retaliation for a New York Times Op-Ed piece -- by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- questioning the Bush administration's Iraq War policies.

The Journal quoted Novak as saying he wished the Plame incident hadn't happened, but the conservative columnist defended his actions in testifying before a grand jury investigating the Plame leak. "I didn't feel I gave up anybody," he said, referring to his testimony about his sources -- who turned out to be former State Department official Richard Armitage and George W. Bush's political adviser, noted the Rhode Island newspaper.

Novak also discussed the current state of politics in Washington. He called Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "dysfunctional" and the White House staff "comatose," and said "the White House is in the bunker."


Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003589272

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:nopity: Cry me a river! Some of Clinton's staff with a whole lot less $$$$'s than you ended up paying out for lawyers cause of Wingnuts like you Bob!

On edit link to Providence, RI article: http://www.projo.com/news/content/novak23_05-23-07_U35O4MA.34cff4b.html

[Dora]

1. That's the price you pay for playing -- you thoughtless craven bag. n/t

[BOSSHOG]

2. Maybe free republic can do a fund raiser

Poor bob novak needs our help. give as generously as you can, remember our record is 12 bucks in 8 months, we can top that, huh team?

[sinkingfeeling]

3. So sorry, but I keep wondering why he's still drawing a pay check and has the money for his legal

fees.

[benld74]

4. tough shit-my gas bill this month is over 200 bucks

[stellanoir]

5. poor long suffering slime bucket

He only cost two of the most patriotic Americans, their careers, their home, their reputations, the entire Brewster Jennings ops, and all their global contacts who were looking into WMD's. . . who may or may not have been about to bust the * admin for planting WMD's in Iraq through Turkey, and "hogwash's connection with the nuclear WalMart in Pakistan.

Cry me a river indeed.

It should have cost him his freedom if not his questionably present testicles.

diagnosis: wanker

[madrchsod]

6. i`d say he paid the going rate

may he should start a fund raising drive...

[KT2000]

7. Assignment for Novak

Tally up the legal costs for ALL the people who were dragged into the bogus attempt to take down Clinton.
Careers and families were destroyed over the financial mess people were left with.

Boo - Hoo for Novak.

[MissMillie]

8. 5 speeches on the lecture circuit

so booo fucking hooo

[Tekla West]

9. Wow

If this is not the saddest thing I've read all day. I was hoping for it to be at least five times that much.

[davhill]

10. And well worth it

The legal advice he received did keep him out of jail.

[Catherine Vincent]

11. If he like, he could bill every registered Republican. n/t

[Straight Shooter]

12. What did it cost Valerie Plame's connections when she was outed?

You're still alive and walking around, you "douchebag of liberty."

:nopity:

[MGKrebs]

13. He got ripped off. He ratted everybody out right away, supposedly.

he didn't need no stinkin' legal representation. Besides, he had FREE representation from The President Of The United States Of America and many top officials too.

[kskiska]

14. Novak is a notorious cheapskate - That must have hurt

even though it was a drop in the bucket when you consider what it cost everyone else. It cost Plame her job. I was perusing Tenet's book in Barnes & Noble and he plainly states that Plame was covert. There is no distinction as to levels of covertness regarding the outing of an agent. Novak was told by the CIA NOT to name this agent in his column. They were speaking on an open phone line, so the person he spoke to couldn't get into details.

[demo dutch]

15. So?

[MasonJar]

16. Should have been double! AND YOU should be in jail, next door to

W and the cabal.

[Toots]

17. He says it as if it is past tense

There is a Civil Suit in the works and I am quite sure he is a defendant, along with Rove, Armetege, and I believe even Cheney..

[TankLV]

18. So his lawyers only spent about 300 or less hours on it?

1 lawyer for 7 1/2 week at 40 hours per week at $500 per hour?

And you can bet his lawyers don't charge anything less than 500...

hmmm....

SOMEBODY's not tellin the truth...

[UTUSN]

19. AND???????? Is there a problem????????? n/t

[Orsino]

20. "Defend" against what?

Novak was never charged. He paid for legal advice.

[CBHagman]

21. Offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory, Bob.

It's a small price to pay for your many sins, fella.

[Mz Pip]

22. He got off cheap

IMHO. He should be in jail or at least awaiting trial.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[goclark]

23. I am so thrilled to not see him on my TV anymore

Does he still come on?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

24. The price of treason.

That doesn't include the public pillory and the drawing and quartering of his body, does it? It shouldn't- that part should be on the house.

[Honeycombe8]

25. That would be about $500 cost to me, then? Comparing net worth....

$150K isn't that much for a wealthy man, which is what he no doubt is.

Hardly enough to make him think twice the next time he wants to out a CIA operative identity.

[Missy Vixen]

26. Didn't Novak insist that he'd "never seen an attorney" in this matter?

I know that Armitage has.

What. A. Tool.

Julie