BREAKING: Judge dismisses Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against White House over CIA leak

[AndyA]

:wtf:

No link yet.

(Headline on http://www.msnbc.msn.com)

[htuttle]

1. Here's a yahoo.com link to AP

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070719/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_lawsuit

WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Thursday dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband's criticism of the administration.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments. Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove and former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Plame's attorneys had said the lawsuit would be an uphill battle. Public officials are normally immune from such lawsuits filed in connection with their jobs.

[rox63]

2. This is such bulls**t! n/t

[C_U_L8R]

16. bullshit

yes it is

[speedoo]

4. "dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds ...."

Sounds like there should be some recourse. But I'm no lawyer.

[shaniqua6392]

3. That comes as no surprise....

Just look at who the Judge was on the case and it will be apparent why the case was thrown out. I am sure the Wilson's knew that this was a long shot after they saw which Judge would be deciding the "merits" of their case. Chalk another one up to "Bushco". :mad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Bates

[Ian David]

6. They couldn't have forced him to recuse himself? n/t

[speedoo]

8. Yeah, he's a bushco robot for sure.

Damn.

[Ian David]

5. Another loyal Bushie hard at work. Fuck all those treasonous bastards. n/t

[grasswire]

7. Judge Bates, Bush appointee

Judge Bates was appointed United States District Judge in December 2001. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1968 and received a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1976. From 1968 to 1971, he served in the United States Army, including a tour in Vietnam. Judge Bates clerked for Judge Roszel C. Thomsen of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland from 1976 to 1977 and was an associate at Steptoe & Johnson from 1977 to 1980. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1980 to 1997, and was Chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office from 1987 to 1997. Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997. In 1998, he joined the Washington law firm of Miller & Chevalier, where he was Chair of the Government Contracts/Litigation Department and a member of the Executive Committee. Judge Bates has served on the Advisory Committee for Procedures of the D.C. Circuit and on the Civil Justice Reform Committee for the District Court, and as Treasurer of the D.C. Bar, Chairman of the Publications Committee of the D.C. Bar, and Chairman of the Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. In 2005, he was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to serve on the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management. In February 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

[displacedtexan]

11. Ken Starr and John Roberts and Rehnquist, oh my!

His resume reads like a demons list.

[MiniMe]

15. Ahhhh, Master Bates. That explains it

[bdamomma]

9. this just totally sucks,

again, this stinks of Rove and Cheney. Can they ask for a judge who is not a Bush appointee? just asking.

[grasswire]

10. John Bates, Federalist Society member

From Buzzflash in 2002

Why is Bush in a rush to have his Federalist Society judges confirmed? The answer is simple: By packing the Federal Courts, the Bush Administration can control two branches of government.

Take the current case of the GAO vs. the White House as an example. Who is legally defending Cheney's untenable position of keeping secret the names of people who participated in the Cheney energy task force? Why it's none other than Ted Olson. Now, Ted is not on the bench, but he's well connected, so to speak, with the Federalist judges currently wearing robes in U.S. Courts. Let's face it, Ted is part of the Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist inner circle -- and was at the heart of efforts to unseat President Clinton. The Democrats committed a grave injustice in allowing him to be confirmed as Solicitor General, even after learning of his role early on in helping to implement a smear campaign against Clinton through the infamous "Arkansas Project."

Olson knows well the power of the Federalist society judges' willingness to abandon Constitutional principles to advance the interests of their fellow true believers. After all, Olson argued the 2000 Florida vote case on behalf of George W. Bush before the Supreme Court. He understands the effectiveness of a wink and a nod among cronies wearing black robes.

Olson, at the current moment, is preparing to make his December, 2000, Supreme Court appearance on behalf of Bush and Cheney just another "deja vu all over again." The GAO case has been assigned to none other than a Ken Starr protege, Federal Judge John Bates. According to columnist Joshua Micah Marshall, "Judge Bates served as Deputy Independent Counsel under Ken Starr from September 1995 until leaving in March 1997. That year Bates argued the case in which an appeals court ruled that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton had to turn over notes of conversations about Whitewater." (See
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/feb0204.html#022202240pm).

When Bates left the Ken Starr entrapment operation, Starr issued a news release in which Bates was quoted as saying: "It has truly been a privilege to serve with Judge Starr and the rest of the outstanding OIC staff, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in this important effort. Judge Starr has led the investigation with integrity, balanced judgment and extreme care, in the best tradition of prosecutors on behalf of the United States. I also look forward to resuming my responsibilities in the United States Attorney's Office, from which I have been absent for far longer than originally anticipated." (See http://www.oicray.com/01.09.97.htm)
According to Marshall, "Bates is a Bush appointee who was confirmed only on December 11th, 2001. He's considered a moderate Republican."

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/2002/02/022402_Bushs_Judges.html

[judaspriestess]

12. this is such fucking bullshit

it seems good citizens just can't win against these criminals.

[Clyde_dubyaD40]

13. Also he was the judge that dismissed the GAO's request

into Darth Cheney's Energy Task force
<http://www.answers.com/topic/energy-task-force>

[grasswire]

14. pic

[City Lights]

17. Judicial activism, RW style.

If it could hurt King Hiss-Piss, you must dismiss.

[H2O Man]

29. Right.

You are exactly right.

[Peace Patriot]

18. It's becoming clear to me that we have to go further than impeachment. We need to

nullify the 2004 election as having been held under non-transparent conditions (80% of the votes 'counted' by two rightwing Bushite corporations, Diebold and ES&S, on extremely insecure and insider hackable voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--I mean, come on....), and perhaps the 2000 election as well, and rescind all Bush appointments to the federal bench and the Supreme Court.

The trouble is, Congress was elected pretty much the same way.

They're almost all holding power as the result of this new Stalinist vote counting system.

"Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." --Josef Stalin

And until we restore transparent vote counting, we can expect the treason, the war, the looting of our federal treasury, and the destruction of the United States of America to continue unchecked.

Vote counting that everyone can see and understand.

Vote counting in the PUBLIC VENUE.

The very definition of elections and democracy--transparent vote counting--is gone.

So it should be no surprise that everything else is going, going, gone: reason, truth, fairness, honesty, rule of law, equality before the law, accountability, majority rule, civil rights, human rights, labor rights, taxation with representation, no kings, the sovereignty of the people, regulation of corporations, protection of the environment, the separation of church and state, public education, upward mobility for the poor, no wars of aggression, international law, world peace, and everything that our forebears have struggled to achieve for 200 years, and that progressive and enlightened human beings have struggled for, for ten thousand years.

All of it was contingent on transparent vote counting, which the fascists have taken away.

The place to be, in protest, is at your local country registrar's office, and the sign to be carrying is, "Hand-counted paper ballots." There is still hope that election transparency can be restored by activism at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. A long, hard struggle, to be sure, but well worth it, if we are to pass this democracy on to future generations, as it was passed by others to us.

Until we win that struggle, don't be surprised at any tyrannical action, such as Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence, or the dismissal of Valerie Plame's lawsuit. We really must understand that we have suffered a fascist coup, and that it occurred in October 2002, by Congress, and I don't mean the Iraq War Resolution--I mean the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" (aka, HAVA), which appropriated $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding to fast-track non-transparent, electronic voting systems all over the country before the 2004 election. The two acts--IWR and HAVA--passed in the same month, are closely related: the one for unjust war, the other, the means to shove unjust war down the throats of the American people (56% of whom opposed it at that time--now grown to 70%, as the bad guys knew it would). The Iraq War was the first tyranny of HAVA, but it will not be its last.

[grasswire]

27. excellent post

I suggest that you post this as its own thread.

[GCP]

19. Can they appeal?

It seems they have good grounds.

[in_cog_ni_to]

22. They're considering an appeal, but it will make no difference. IF this ends up at the SCOTUS, either

the SC will NOT accept the case, or if they DO accept the case, Joe and Valerie will lose...it's a stacked RW court.:(

[spooky3]

20. Plame-Wilson attorney's response

Washington, DC -- Earlier today, District of Columbia District Court Judge John D. Bates dismissed Joe and Valerie Wilsons' civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, presidential aide Karl Rove, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Richard Armitage. While Judge Bates recognized that the Wilsons' claims "pose important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials," he dismissed their suit on a threshold legal issue: that there is no constitutional remedy available to them.

While the Wilsons' lawyers are reviewing the decision, they anticipate filing an appeal. Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ("CREW"), one of the Wilsons' lawyers, said today, "While we are obviously very disappointed by today’s decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court." Sloan continued, "We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends."

http://www.wilsonsupport.org/

[in_cog_ni_to]

21. "there is no constitutional remedy available to them." WTF??? So, the government can do whatever it

wants to its citizens? They can legally 'out' a CIA agent, ruin her career with NO REPERCUSSIONS?

We are so screwed.

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. Wash Post link via emailed alert just received:

http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W6RH0288B398BC8DA227031662BBE0

[Cooley Hurd]

24. Motherfucker...

:grr:

Party above country - I hope all these fuckers HANG someday:

[cascadiance]

25. The Judge Master Bates earns his name well today!

[cassiepriam]

26. BushCo holds all the cards.

Might overrules right as usual.

[cascadiance]

28. We need a judge impeachment site...

A site to keep track of all of these nimrods that have been packed into our courts by these criminal thugs, and the actions that they've taken to help us get rid of them. And when the day we get a Democrat into office, we lobby to get all of these bums impeached!

Master Bates certainly deserves to be on that list for starters after today's decision!