Quote:

PaulWellr said:...wasn't the fact that the CIA asked for an investigation in the 1st place enough to tell you they thought a crime had been committed?



No.

First off, speaking from experience, an investigation, especially in the context of government operations, often means no more than "let's find out what happened," not "we want someone charged."

However, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the CIA as a group did want someone charged.

Does that mean they legitimately believed a crime was committed? Possibly.

However, it could also mean that the CIA, still smarting from having given us substandard intelligence in the first place (both pre-9/11 and pre-Iraq war) might, just might, want to draw some heat from themselves and turn it to someone in the White House. They might also want to "get even" with the White House for firing George Tenet, their director.

Furthermore, Tenet was, you might recall, a holdover from the Clinton administration. Can you say for a fact his loyaties might not have lie with a faction that would like to see Rove and/or Bush embarrased, especially after the intelligences failures of his agency mentioned above?

As noted previously, there is simply not enough evidence at this point to determine what happened. And what evidence there is, as noted before, sometimes comes from already discredited sources (such as Wilson).

So why do you insist, when everyone from the Wall St. Journal to USA Today, is now quoting legal experts who say the same thing I've been telling you for months now? That even if Rove was the leaker, it may not have been a crime at all?