If the Bush White House is anything like the Nixon White House -- and there is increasing evidence of the similarities -- it will respond to such a lawsuit like a stuck pig. Leaking the name of a CIA official can under no circumstances be considered a part of any potential defendants' official duties, so they will not be given representation by the Department of Justice. But how about Wilson and Plame: Should they have to bear the expense of a lawsuit to deal with the harm they have suffered and get to the bottom of what happened? I don't think so, and after talking with several lawyers in Washington, I find I am not alone. I have good reason to believe that one or more law professors in the area might handle the case pro bono, or one or more of the public interest groups might underwrite the lawsuit. Needless to say, that will only cause more squealing by those who want this to go away. They will cry that it's all politics. This is an empty contention -- it was the attack on the Wilsons that was pure politics. But the Bush folks appear to have messed with the wrong man (and woman).

Time after time, Nixon tried to stem Watergate by declaring it was pure politics. But what were his people doing in the Democratic headquarters? Was that not merely dirty politics? To fight the investigations of Watergate, the White House and the Republican National Committee, the Nixon reelection committee kept their surrogates working full time. Democrats who criticized Nixon for not getting to the bottom of who was involved in the DNC break-in were endlessly accused of playing politics with nothing but "a third-rate attempted burglary." This sort of defense, of course, has already commenced from the Bush White House, with the president's surrogates similarly downplaying this vile act of political revenge against the Wilsons. Apparently, they don't realize how Nixonian this behavior is, and Nixon and his aides did not exactly set the gold standard for conduct for any presidency.

Bush's Justice Department, not unlike Nixon's, faces insidious conflicts of interest when investigating the White House. Given the close ties of those on the White House staff with the political appointees at Justice, the conflict is real, not merely an appearance, and actually more serious for the Bush administration's people than Nixon's because there are many more longstanding ties. Equally troubling, the Justice Department has a poor record in this area. For decades, it has been notorious for its inability to uncover leaks, and it has only prosecuted cases handed to it by other agencies that have taken on the work of flushing out leakers. The CIA, for example, refers leaks regularly to Justice, but nothing ever happens. As those familiar with this dismal performance can tell you, one reporter at the Washington Times has printed over 200 classified national security secrets. How the Justice Department has failed to uncover even one is stunning.

But when it is important, the source of a leak can be found. A good example is that of former chief judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who during the Clinton administration's Whitewater/Lewinsky investigations became exasperated with grand jury leaks (since grand jury information is equal to highly classified national security information). The leaks were coming from the office of independent counsel Kenneth Starr, so rather than have Justice probe the leak, Judge Johnson appointed a special master, who found the leaker -- Starr's deputy, Charles Bakaly. The judge tried Bakaly, in a non-jury trial for contempt, and then let him off the hook. She'd made her point. Her inquiry also makes the point that when there is a will to find a leaker, there is a way.

As for claims by the Bush administration that it can avoid conflict-of-interest problems by turning the investigation of leaks about Plame over to career professionals rather than to Bush political appointees, that's nonsense. That would merely turn the clock back to the initial Watergate investigation, which was conducted by career professionals. Years ago, I testified about how helpful those career attorneys were, and as the White House tapes later proved, these professionals (men with impeccable credentials) kept the Nixon White House fully informed of their investigation, as did the FBI, thereby facilitating the coverup.

Of course, Attorney General Ashcroft should appoint an independent prosecutor, or even two, as Calvin Coolidge did (a Republican and a Democrat) to investigate Teapot Dome. That would be the smart move, with a staggering 70 percent of Americans saying he should appoint a special prosecutor, and 83 percent of those polled saying this is a serious matter, according to the Washington Post.

But most importantly, I believe that Wilson and Plame hold the keys to resolving this matter: with a civil lawsuit. This was one of the hidden keys to Watergate, though it was never fully turned. But had Joe Califano's lawsuit not been slowed down by a Nixon-friendly judge, Watergate would have ended much earlier. So can this scandal -- if the Wilsons choose to take that route.

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