New Questions Arise in CIA Leak Probe

[Eugene]

New Questions Arise in CIA Leak Probe

Sunday October 16, 2005 7:46 PM

AP Photo WX109

By PETE YOST

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - New details about Judith Miller's decision to
cooperate in the CIA leak probe are raising questions about whether
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and his defense lawyer
tried to steer the New York Times reporter's testimony.

The dispute arose as the newspaper on Sunday detailed three
conversations that Miller had with the Cheney aide, I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, in the summer of 2003 about Bush administration
critic Joseph Wilson and Wilson's wife, covert CIA officer Valerie
Plame.

<snip>

In urging her to cooperate with prosecutors, Libby wrote Miller while
she was still in jail in September, "I believed a year ago, as now,
that testimony by all will benefit all. ... The public report of
every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not
discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me."

One of Miller's lawyers, Robert Bennett, said on ABC that Libby's
letter was "a very stupid thing to do."

<snip>

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5348042,00.html

Can you say "obstruction of justice?" :popcorn:

[Zynx]

1. Witness tampering, nice.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Judy Miller is also a liar

and she may still be lying in order to put herself in a better light as she writes a book about her "ordeal."

[Why Syzygy]

2. Maybe there

should be a license to be "journalist".

It appears more and more as though she is just another puppet.

[damntexdem]

6. Licensing journalists would violate the Constitution.

What's needed is an actual news media. Too bad: the NY Times used to be an actual NEWSpaper.

[Mechatanketra]

31. Yes and no.

Licensing journalists the way we license driving would be a violation, yeah. But I've long thought what this country could really use is a journalistic bar association. Compare: everyone has the right to "free speech" expressing a medical opinion ("Damn, dude, I think you've got a cold"); but it's still illegal to do so in a way that presents yourself as a trained physician. By the same token, instead of slapping down a hard "You can't write in a newspaper without a license" restriction, you just create an organizational structure that readily distinguishes capital-J Journalists (who have agreed to adhere to a professional standard and submit to critical or even punitive review in exchange for that capital J) from mere soapboxers under no obligation to report the factual truth, retract errors, and/or refrain from outright lying let alone distortion.

This becomes extra useful if combined with public funding for media (whether a full nationalized media like BBC or piecemeal efforts like PBS and the broadcast spectrum fee waiver for public service), which could be made dependent on employing barworthy Journalists; this, again, shouldn't be a violation of the First Amendment: you have the right to print (or broadcast) what you want, but not the right to get cut a taxpayer check reimbursing you for the cost.

[robbedvoter]

3. You want to read the Pundit Pap on This Weak from apj

in case you missed it (like me):
http://apj.us/20051016punditpap.html

[longship]

5. This deserves its own thread.

nt

[ugarte]

4. Who says she's really cooperating?

It appears she has a very selective memory and only agreed to testify to get out of jail.

[EuroObserver]

16. And then only on condition

...that she wouldn't have to face GJ questions about all the other things she undoubtedly knows about the wider WHIG stovepiping illegal invasion conspiracy...

[EVDebs]

28. War Powers Act cited in the Iraq War Resolution requires truthful

situations and circumstances submitted to Congress in order to go to war. D'Oh !

"SEC. 3.
The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations."

from War Powers Act of 1973
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/warpow.html

"Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated..."

from Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

Some 'discovery'. According to Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/17/1615235

the Reagan and GHW Bush administrations would have been responsible for the WMD war materiel. The current war is more about covering up for those mistakes ...

Which may be what is really behind the current 'Plamegate' scandal.

[EuroObserver]

36. As Sidney Blumenthal pointed out last Wednesday:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101305M.shtml (warning: offensive grafics)

"Miller was the stovepipe for disinformation from the administration and Ahmad Chalabi (self-proclaimed "hero in error") directly onto the front page of the Times in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. When former ambassador Joseph Wilson, in his Times Op-Ed of July 6, 2003, "What I Didn't Find in Niger," disclosed his CIA mission before the war that debunked the tale that Saddam Hussein had sought enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, he exposed more than the falsity of the president's claim; his account was also a blow to the credibility of Miller's stories. Ten months later, the Times published an extraordinary editors note saying that some of its coverage was "not as rigorous as it should have been." Miller's identity went unmentioned."

(Stovepiping is a term coined by Sy Hersh, it seems: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact )

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. Cheney aide a key focus in CIA leak probe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff could face obstruction and other charges over exchanges with a New York Times reporter as prosecutors wind up an investigation of who leaked a covert CIA operative's identity, people close to the case said on Sunday.


President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, were among the possible targets of the probe. Legal sources said special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was likely to decide this week whether or not to bring indictments.

While Fitzgerald could try to charge administration officials with knowingly revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, several lawyers in the case said he was more likely to seek charges for conspiracy and easier-to-prove crimes such as disclosing classified information, making false statements, obstruction and perjury.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051016/pl_nm/bush_leak_dc

[louis-t]

8. I'm getting goose bumps.

[cassiepriam]

12. yes, I do too. The more I read the spookier it gets.

What the hell is going on here? We still do not have the whole story.
I wonder if Fitz even has it all at this point. I think not.

[diplomats]

14. I'm pretty certain he knows more than anbody

:)

[cassiepriam]

17. Yes most likely. I wish I was with Fitz as a fly on the wall.

[bluestateguy]

9. I want Rove, but we may have to settle for Libby

Bush couldn't crap in his pants without Karl Rove being there to wipe his ass. Libby is disposable, Rove is Bush's babysitter and is off the table for them.

[liberal N proud]

10. I believe the part about KKKarl being bu$h's babysitter

But I hope they nail the SOB, that is the only chance this country has.
KKKarl is the terror behind the regime.

[diplomats]

13. I think we'll get both

Rove would not have testified before the GJ on Friday unless he was desperate to avoid indictment. Fitz is not going to settle for indicting just Libby, I'm sure.

[POAS]

15. Rove is singing to save his ass,

But the more he sings the greater the chance to slip himself up.

I'm ordering my popcorn by the case!

[Olney Blue]

18. LOL- I'll join you-

:popcorn:

[peacetalksforall]

27. Everyone who is hanging their hat on Libby and Rove is cheating

themselves. Employees cannot act independently of direction even at their level and especially in light of the ramifications. Not just for getting caught - for killing so many people. I wish people would get off the Libby and Rove stuck position - unless it is to point to those responsible for Libby and ROve.

Why let Cheney and PNAC off the hook by only talking about Libby and Rove. Don't follow the media - they want it to be at a lower level to save the Republican Party and their connections to it.

Think about authority levels. Think how a corporation works - ultimately it is the Board of Directors and if only the press would talk about the Board of Directors for PNAC - they're the ones who will get off, sadly. In the meantime, push that Cheney and Bush don't get off because it is important for our country.

If you're wondering about the B of D for PNAC 0 check out the Tri-Lateral Commission.

[Carolab]

34. Absolutely correct. Why would Libby out Plame? What's in it for him?

He did it under direction of his boss--aka CHENEY.

[tavalon]

29. Well that makes the assumption

that Bush is more important than Cheney. A not completely defendable position. If Cheney is more important, Rove goes. If Bush, Libby is gone. Heck, Cheney might sacrifice all three.

And the thing that must be exceptionally maddening to them all is Fitz and his magical grand jury actually gets to decide all of that, not them. Must be making them apeshit mad.

[peacetalksforall]

37. I assume you believe that Rove, Libby, or both acted on their own

authority and determined that they had authority independent of having bosses? Why would you think that they are at the top of the heirarchial authority? Why let Cheney and Bush and PNAC off the hook?

[highplainsdem]

19. Cheney aide a key focus in CIA leak probe-lawyers (Reuters)

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2005-10-16T213709Z_01_EIC446318_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-LEAK.xml


Cheney aide a key focus in CIA leak probe-lawyers
Sun Oct 16, 2005 5:38 PM ET

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide could face obstruction charges over whether he tried to shape a New York Times reporter's testimony about the outing of a covert CIA operative, people close to the case said on Sunday.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was likely to decide within days whether to bring charges over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, with announcements possible later this week. Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, and President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, were among the possible targets, legal sources said.

<snip>

Sources said Libby could be in legal jeopardy over one sentence in a September 15 letter he sent to Miller while she was still in jail. In that letter, Libby urged Miller to testify about their conversations and noted that other reporters had made clear to the grand jury that "they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me."

<snip>

Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, has not returned calls seeking comment.

[truthisfreedom]

20. this is so f*cking ridiculous. what kind of mindset makes her believe that

simply not discussing her name keeps her identity secret?

Miller said she told the special counsel that Libby's letter could be perceived as an effort by Libby ``to suggest that I, too, would say that we had not discussed Ms. Plame's identity.'' But she added that her notes of the conversations ``suggested that we had discussed her job'' at the CIA and not her name.

discussing her job and presumably discussing that she is married to Joe.

[janx]

23. That has been a right-wing talking point for some time now.

It's a very pathetic defense.

[EVDebs]

21. Watergate was the conservatives coup d'etat to oust Nixon

over blowing the SALT treaty with the Soviets

"Kissinger had made a glaring mistake during arms negotiations that treatened to leave the Soviets with a dangerous lead in submarine-based balistic missiles. In secret talks away from his military advisers, he had agreed, offhandedly, not to ask for limits on the Soviet's massive effort to build the Deltas, a new class of submarines that would far surpass the Yankees and carry ballistic missiles with ranges of 4,000 miles. Zumwalt was furious, convinced that Kissinger and Nixon had given away the barn in their zeal to get SALT completed before the year's elections." from pages 246-247 Chapter 8, Blind Man's Bluff - The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew and Annette Lawrence Drew

In light of the Moorer-Radford affair and with the intelligence connections of the entire Watergate media effort by the Washington Post (Woodward's naval intell background, Bradlee's intell background in France plus friendship with CIA's Richard Helms), the Watergate episode is oddly more of a conservative effort to oust Nixon more than a liberal 'political hit'.

With that in mind and with the ongoing debacle in the Middle East with no end in sight...sounds just like 1967 and 1972 all over again. History may be repeating itself here. You just don't see it...yet.

[EuroObserver]

24. Don't throw the (defensive) babyout with the (offensive) bathtub

you mean?

[EVDebs]

25. I mean that until the conservative koolaid drinkers come to see that

Bush is more of a liability than an asset, you won't see a real investigation that goes anywhere.

Read Bob Harris' article on Woodward and Deep Throat from the 25th anniversary of Watergate
www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/07.03.97/scoop-9727.html

""I have told Woodward everything I know about the Watergate case, except the Mullen Company's tie to the CIA."--Robert F. Bennett, testifying before House Special Committee on Intelligence, July 2, 1974.

Robert Bennett was the head of Robert R. Mullen and Co., a CIA front headquartered in the very same building as the CIA's Domestic Operations Division. The Mullen Co. did legitimate PR work; it also did PR for other CIA fronts and provided cover abroad for CIA operations. Bennett's most notable employee was Howard Hunt, a former chief of covert actions for the Domestic Operations Division of the CIA."

Bennett is now better known as SENATOR Robert F. Bennett (R-UT). Domestic operations are supposed to be illegal from the CIA's charter. Guess that's just with a wink and a nod.

And read about Ben Bradlee of the WashPost:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbradleeB.htm

"Benjamin Bradlee was born in Boston on 26th August, 1921. One of his closest friends as a child was Richard Helms. While at Harvard University Bradlee married Jean Saltonstall, the daughter of Senator Leverett Saltonstall. After graduating in 1943 Bradlee joined naval intelligence and worked as a communications officer. His duties included handling classified and coded cables...

In 1952 Bradlee joined the staff of the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE), the embassy's propaganda unit. USIE produced films, magazines, research, speeches, and news items for use by the the Central Intelligence Agency throughout Europe. USIE (later known as USIA) also controlled the Voice of America, a means of disseminating pro-American "cultural information" worldwide. While at the USIE Bradlee worked with E. Howard Hunt and Alfred Friendly."

What intelligence wanted, intelligence got. In this case the ouster of Nixon, who with the Huston Plan, was going to reorganize the 'intelligence community'. They beat Nixon to the punch.

Now you see what I mean ? Check the www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk link above for Operation Mockingbird , the media manipulation project.

[EuroObserver]

35. Mockingbird. Yes.

See also the research published by Frances Stoner Saunders on Irving Kristol & Co's Congress for Cultural Freedom and similar cold-war initiatives - The CIA and the Cultural Cold War books and papers.

Ref. eg. the sidebar and footnotes here: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0508crusade.php

[peacetalksforall]

38. I highly recommend the link above and here is the url direct to the

article -

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm

about Project Mockingbird.

If the NYT has always assisted in government propaganda, how can they possibly claim they are pure and noble in the Iraq War and why go throught the pretense of laying her off or firing her in an attempt to distace themselves. They should be exposed with all intensity. Because it will expose all the other media.

Those people rule you and me with their pompous jobs and careers that pretend to uphold free speech. The whole show is a pretense.

We are bing crapped on. Wake up. Dig down and read to wake up. Don't flow with the fluff.

[EuroObserver]

22. ... and the answers raise yet more questions:

"Early in my grand jury testimony, Mr. Fitzgerald asked me to describe my history with Mr. Libby and explain how I came to interview him in 2003.

I said I had known Mr. Libby indirectly through my work as a co-author of "Germs," a book on biological weapons published in September 2001. Mr. Libby had assisted one of my co-authors, and the first time I met Mr. Libby he asked for an inscribed copy of "Germs."

In June 2003 I had just returned from Iraq, where I had been embedded with a special military unit charged with finding Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons. Now I was assigned to a team of reporters at The Times examining why no such weapons had been found."

So, did you also arrange 'conversations (aka interviews)' with Hans Blix or Mohammed AlBaradei, for example, Judy?

And what other WHIG work in the intervening period, Judy?

"Equally central to my decision was Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. He had declined to confine his questioning to the subject of Mr. Libby. This meant I would have been unable to protect other confidential sources who had provided information - unrelated to Mr. Wilson or his wife - for articles published in The Times. Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questioning."

...

Also notice how she can't resist referring to "my area of expertise - chemical and biological weapons"

- and expertise in what else, Judy? What light could you shed on much else, BLiar and the Dr David Kelly case, for example, Judy?

ed: I need a new keyboard.

[EVDebs]

26. Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questioning...

So as not to involve CIA's Operation Mockingbird ?

We've been had and shouldn't expect a Republican investigation to really do a decent job. Isn't that Fitzgerald's political affiliation, if I'm not mistaken ?

[tavalon]

30. Fitz seems like a straight shooter

Yes, he's a Republican and yet, I think he may be one of the last straight shooters left on that side.

[Irish Mastiff]

32. No, you are wrong. He is not a Republican.

He has refused to be affiliated with any party.

[NVMojo]

33. it does seem like a good case for witness tampering ...

[yellowcanine]

39. Is that the one where he talked about the Aspen trees all turning color

at the same time because their roots were connected? Might have been a hidden warning that "we are all in this together so keep your trap shut (or say you "don't remember") about the incriminating stuff". I think Scooter is in some deep doo doo.