Fitz: There's a Cloud Over the Vice Presidency

As noted today on FDL, Patrick Fitzgerald in is rebutal summation for the Scooter Libby Trial finally revealed exactly who his target in this investigation has been.

The Veep.

There is a cloud over the VP. He wrote those columns, he had those meetings, He sent Libby off to the meeting with Judy. Where Plame was discussed. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice. That cloud was there. That cloud is something that we just can't pretend isn't there.

As he said when he announced his indictedment Libby "kicked dust into the umpire's eye" - but why? To protect his boss who had orchestrated the entire outing of CIA Operative Valerie Plame from behind the scenes. To protect Cheney from charges of Treason.

Fitz summation clearly indicates that the prosecution of Libby for his lies to the FBI and Grand Jury is merely an attempt to gain leverage and flip him into finally telling the truth and dropping a dime on Cheney.

First Prosecutor Zeideberg's laid out the case:

On behalf of defense, Wells elected to give opening. He painted different picture, told you about WH conspiracy to scapegoat Libby. Effort to make LIbby into sacrificial lamb so that Karl Rove would go free. You've heard witnesses testify, you've heard witness after witness, you've heard them testify about one or another conversation with Libby about Valerie Wilson during the time period that Libby claimed he had no memory of Wilson's wife. You heard Russert testify, take an oath and say he never spoke to Libby about Wilson's wife. In direct contrast to what Libby claimed. Now did you hear any evidence about a conspiracy to scapegoat Libby? If you draw a blank, it's not because of a problem with your evidence. I bring that to your attention to remind you that evidence is what happened on witness stand and introduced as evidence. Unfulfilled promises from counsel do no constitute evidence. Fitz told you this is case about lying, and I submit that is right. Not a case about bad memory or forgetting. Libby does claim he forgot 9 separate conversations over a 4 week period, but he also invents out of whole cloth, two conversations that never happened. His conversation with Cooper and his conversation with Russert. That's not a matter of forgetting or misremembering, it's lying.

...

When you consider Libby's testimony, there's a pattern of always forgetting about Wilson's wife. He remembers Ari conversation, talk about future, Miami Dolphins, Remembers the Dolphins, doesn't remember talking about Wilson's wife. Remembers talking about NIE with Judy. Not about wife. Remembers talking about declassification with Addinton, but not the wife. Convenient pattern.

Yes, it's highly convenient and highly purposeful. As I stated regarding the Addington Question, Libby was trying to distance himself as being the source of the Plame leak and deliberately avoid legal jeopardy. We don't currently know if had proof, but he strongly suspected that Wilson's Wife could have been covert, and that he might be liable to the IIPA, which Addington had provided him a copy of and his CIA briefer Schmall had advised both Libby and Cheney of the danger of outing a CIA agent.

"I thought there was a very grave danger to leaking the name of a CIA officer," the briefer from Langley, Craig Schmall, said he told Messrs. Cheney and Libby during a morning session at the vice president's residence. "Foreign intelligence services where she served now have the opportunity to investigate everyone whom she had come in contact with. They could be arrested, tortured, or killed."

Following the initial prosecution closing, defense had it's chance - and apparently Ted Wells came off mostly like a used car saleman who knew he was peddeling a grade C lemon.

He claimed Libby was totally innocent.

A person who makes a statement based on a belief or opinion that is inaccurate, making an honest statement that turns out to be inaccurate. An honest belief is one of the most complete defenses because such an honest belief is inconsistent with the intent to commit the alleged offenses.

In this case, it is a deliberate, purposeful, intent to lie.

I'm just going to review chart I used in opening statement. Walk through quickly.

* Gave best good faith recollection
* Innocent mistakes
* No knowledge that Plame was classified [whether or not she was classified is out of bounds]
* Did not push reporters to write about Valerie Wilson
* Did not leak to Robert Novak, Armitage did [brings up Ari, leaking to Pincus], when Judy says, he worked at WINPAC Libby's not a nut, he wouldn't go out and leak false info
* Libby is innocent and had no motive to lie

No motive to lie? Yeah, that's rich. Well's attempted to make the case an issue of Libby's credibility vs Russert's.

Evidence shows Russert could have known about Wilson's wife, you know Gregory was told by Fleischer.

Correct, it is theoretically possible - even though no one in the trial confirmed this theory. But even if it's true, it's only because Libby had previously TOLD FLIESCHER about Wilson's Wife and claimed it was "hush hush" in the first place. Richard Armitage wouldn't have known (or been able to leak to Novak) if Libby hadn't started making inquiries with Marc Grossman. It's Circular Neo-Con Logic. Libby told Fleischer, who told Gregory who might have told somebody at NBC who also might have told managing editor Tim Russert - and then Russert told Libby - except that he didn't. Either way, all oars on this leaky boat point right back to Libby - and Cheney.

In terms of Russert's credibility, we know he filed misleading affadavit with Hogan when he said he was protecting first amendment. He filed misleading affadavit. Ask yourselves, does that comport with what happened in November.

Russert gave misleading account to public. He never tells the public I had been called by FBI and discussed whole conversation freely.

Finally, Russert has memory problems. He forgot a very important telephone call that involved himself involving the Buffalo news. He had to write public letter of apology, where he had to regret for not recollecting something. He was candid at the time, the only thing that shook that confidence was that he had a note. There's no note in this case, you can't have reasonable doubt. You can't decide that's firm and convincing evidence of guilt.

Yeah, it's all that NBC scumbag Russert's fault. He had an axe to grind with Libby and the Bush Administration - cuz he's from - from - NBC! Yeah, that's the ticket - oh and NBC shot JFK too.

At the end of his closing Well's apparently broke down into tears and cried "Give Libby Back to ME!"

So this is all just one sad mistake. Libby simply forgot about 9 different conversations he had about Wilson's Wife working at CIA, and Russert can't be trusted since he's from the evil NBC. It's all so unfair. Oh Pharoah have mercy - Let my Libby go!

Don't sacrifice Scooter LIbby for how you may feel about the war in Iraq or Bush Administration. Treat him the way he deserves to be treated. He worked every day to be NSA for this country. Analyze it fairly. Fight any temptation for your views if you're a Democrat or whatever party. This is a man who has a wife kid. He's been under my protection for the last month. Just give him back. Give him back to me, give him back.

[Wells gets all choked up, crying.]

Comments from the Press Room as reported by FDL:

He did a much better job of the crying thing in the tobacco trial... This time he really didn't sell it

Atter this Well's retreated to the defense table with his hand over his head, never looking up or apparently paying attention while Fitz went into his rebuttal, which he started out on fire, and woke the jury up fully.

Madness. Madness. Outrageous. The govt brought a case about 2 phone calls? And they just want you to speculate? The defense wishes that were so. Saying it, Saying it loudly, pounding the table, doesn't change the facts.

Is this case about 2 reporters, that's it? Is this about a one on one he said she said?

It's a he said he said he said he said she said she said she said he said (shows the graphic of nine people)

Is this the greatest coincidence in the world. That the only person he said he talked to forgot it. It's not one on one, it's all the evidence taken together.

...

No one wished this, but if Tim Russert were run over by a bus and went to that great newsroom in the sky, you could still find plenty of evidence that Libby was not surprised when [claims] he heard this from Russert.

Fitz then goes on to lay out all the other evidence and witnesses who specifically discussed "Wilson's Wife" with Libby, including notes made by the VP on a copy of Wilson's op-ed.

Have they done this sort of thing?

Send an Amb to answer a question?

Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?

Or did his wife send him on a junket?

Yes, they - the CIA - often do this sort of thing. During the Presidency of George Bush Sr. Dick Cheney himself went on a "junket" with then State Dept official Richard Clark (As documented in his book "Against All Enemies") to convice the Saudi's to allow the U.S. to store equipment and supplies on thier soil as a method to help deter the Soviet Union from invading as they had with Afghanistan. That trip helped put in place the infrastructure that was later fully utilized during the first Gulf War. These weren't questions that Cheney wrote, they were marching orders, they were talking points.

Fitz knows this too.

First bullet–It is not clear who sent Wilson. "Or did his wife write him on a junket" A day or two after [Cheney] writes this, he makes it the number one talking point. The question of who sent Wilson is important, it's the number one bullet. There's something funny. They don't want to talk about the wife.

Or rather, they don't want to be caught talking about Wilson's wife since they know damn well that she could be covert. She is specifically left out of the talking points that Cheney provide Cathie Martin, but when she balks at revealing information from the then still classified NIE -- Libby gets the ball and starts making the contacts Ari Fliescher, whom he's never had lunch with before, and with reporters such as Miller and Cooper.

Conincidence? Hmm, I think not.

At a certain point Fitz starts to get dangerously close to the NOC question.

Importance Remember the others things going on. He had ten conversation with nine people. He's asking Schmall about. He's monitoring Hardball. He's not watching other things. He's remembering Rove telling him. Why is that important? It goes into his brain, bc that's important. VP cuts out column, he makes note on Dowd column. One thing that's really important, Schmall told him, this is a big deal, every intell service, whether innocent or not, they could arrest, torture, kill them. If you're sitting on the beach as a 21 year old, and you say, what you did, that can get people killed. If someone brought to your attention, you could get some people killed, that better be important, certainly NSA to VP in time of war.

At this point Well's was still doing his "oh woah is my defendant" act with his hand over his face. His co-council Jeffries realizes that Fitz is dangerously close to making statements that Valerie Wilson was an undercover agent, which has been ruled inadmissable by the court previously. Sheepishly he requests a sidebar, but not an outright objection since Well's has to do that - and he's still in crying jag-land. The question of whether this would be an appealable issue, which would require a timely objection be made during trial, seems somewhat open to me.

After the sidebar, Fitz continued.

Just so we're perfectly clear, I'm talking about Libby's state of mind. They're saying he's like a 21 year kid not remembering anything after the summer. Schmall did not know about Plame. He's saying that if this happens, you can get people killed. For his state of mind, When you're reading about a front company being exposed. Isn't that important? They want to tell you the wife wasn't important until later. They're saying it was important enough to read on July 14. Important when someone tells you, harm can happen and unimportant when facts prove defendant told a lie.

Go get 'em Fitz. That's when he brought it home.

Is this about a bunch of madmen, two men. Or is about something bigger, Is it about someone to whom Wilson's wife wasn't a person, but an argument. He focused on it June 23, July 8, July 7, focused on it when he talked to Addington. His boss thought it was important. His boss thought it was important. Did his boss forget about the wife/ One of the first thing he wrote, did his wife send him on a junket. They both talked to a briefer about it. You can't believe that 9 witnesses remember 10 conversations the same way. There is no conspiracy. There is no memory problem. He remembers a conversation that did not happen. But forgets all of his. He had a motive to lie, and he lied in a way that exactly matches his motive. You don't forget something on Thursday that you've passed along on Monday and Tueday. You don't forget about important arguments. You know they talked about a cloud over the VP.

DON'T YOU THINK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE ENTITELD TO ANSWERS. If as a result his wife had a job, she worked at CPD, She gets dragged into newspapers. People want to find out was a law broken when people want to know, who did it. What role did Defendant play? What role did VP play? He told you he may have discussed this with VP. Don't you think FBI deserves straight answers?

When you go in that jury room, you common sense will tell you that he made a gamble. He threw sand in the eyes o fthe FBI. He stole the truth of the judicial system. You return guilty You give truth back.

And thus the Prosecution completed it's closing statment. If the jury isn't nullified, it's quite likely IMO that they will return a guilty verdict. Perjury cases can be difficult and usually require at least two persons who can confirm that the defendant made deliberately false statements. This is why President Clitnon could never have been convicted for his statements at the Jones deposition or the Starr Grand Jury because it quite literally was He Said/She Said. But as Fitz pointed out - there are 9 other He's and She's besides Libby and they all agree.

Libby's description of how things occured is simply not possible, it's not a memory lapse - it's a series of lies meant to protect Libby and the VP from criminal liability.

Unfortunately for them that effort has failed. If Libby is convicted he will have to face Fitz on his sentencing. Certainly he will appeal and it's quite possible that he will be pardoned just like Susan McDougal who after enduring years of pressure to LIE from Starr was pardoned by President Clinton

Maybe. Eventually.

In the meanwhile - he'll be in the vice - looking at a possible sentence of 30 years for perjury and obstruction. He'll be in the perfect position to cut a deal. Will he break and give up the Veep or will he hold his ground as Susan did? Some indication in his defense case already indicates he may be ready to bolt, and if he does... All hell's gonna break loose for Cheney.

I've already got the popcorn out, this is going to get good in just a few more days.

Vyan

The CIA's War on Bush

The other day Faux Gnus Commentator Mort Kondracke wrote that Bush Hatred has become a Threat to National Security, arguing that...

ENOUGH already! It's harmful enough that ideological conflict and partisan politics are preventing this country from solving its long-term challenges on health care, fiscal policy and energy. Now it's threatening our national survival.

I do not exaggerate. Bush-hatred has reached such intensity that CIA officers and other bureaucrats are leaking major secrets about anti-terrorism policy and communications intelligence that undermine our ability to fight Islamic extremism.

What Kondracke fails to realize is that it was the Bush Administration that turned on the CIA First, not the other way around. Not only are we at War with insurgents in Iraq -the Bush Administration is at War with insurgents with in the CIA and other agencies.

And in both cases, the insurgents are winning.

Now just why would people at CIA be pissed beyond words at the Bush Administration? What ever could be under their craw? Could it be the fact that high ranking members of the Bush administration outed one of their NOC's (by the name of Valerie Plame-Wilson), and put every agent and asset linked to their WMD tracking operation Brewster-Jennings in grave mortal danger?

The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.

"That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.

Needless to say, rank and file members of the CIA felt this was a Serious Betrayal.

HEMMER: Larry, tell me, what's the damage, though. Be specific, as best you can right now. Have lives been lost? Have people been sacrificed?

JOHNSON: I don't know if lives have been lost yet, but we have to start with the damage to Mrs. Wilson. Her life has been put at risk. The people that she was working with overseas who were spies, they are potentially at risk. You could potentially have people dead because of this. But the odds of finding that out as far as the CIA coming forth and detailing it, we are not likely to hear that because they have to protect the sources and methods.

And then of course you had the attempt by the Administration scapegoat the CIA for the lack of WMD's in Iraq - there has even been an individual CIA agent who has sued the government for covering up the truth about Iraq's lack of WMDs.

WASHINGTON, July 31 - The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a former C.I.A. officer has charged.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, the former C.I.A. officer, whose name remains secret, said that the informant told him that Iraq's uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program were available for examination and even purchase.

The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004.

In his lawsuit, he says his dismissal was punishment for his reports questioning the agency's assumptions on a series of weapons-related matters. Among other things, he charged that he had been the target of retaliation for his refusal to go along with the agency's intelligence conclusions.

Similar claims have since been brought forward by 27-year CIA vet Ray McGovern as he directly challenged Sec Def Rumsfeld.

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were.
RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and -
QUESTION: You said you knew whe
re they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.
RUMSFELD: My words -- my words were that -- no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

Also these same points have been made by former CIA European Chief Tyler Drumheller.

"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure. It's an intelligence failure. This was a policy failure," Drumheller tells Bradley.

Josh Marshall on Drumheller.

Drumheller's account is pretty probative evidence on the question of whether the White House politicized and cherry-picked the Iraq intelligence. So why didn't we hear about any of this in the reports of those Iraq intel commissions that have given the White House a clean bill of health on distorting the intel and misleading the country about what we knew about Iraq's alleged WMD programs? Think about it. It's devastating evidence against their credibility on a slew of levels. Did you read in any of those reports -- even in a way that would protect sources and methods -- that the CIA had turned a key member of the Iraqi regime, that that guy had said there weren't any active weapons programs, and that the White House lost interest in what he was saying as soon as they realized it didn't help the case for war?

And then there's CIA Officer Paul Pillar.

The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, acknowledges the U.S. intelligence agencies' mistakes in concluding that Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. But he said those misjudgments did not drive the administration's decision to invade.

"Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

Kondracke is at least partially correct - current and former members of the CIA are in the midst of a veritable Jihad against the Bush Administrations and it's campaign of lies. And can you blame them?

Kondracke Continued...

Would newspapers in the midst of World War II have printed the fact that the United States had broken German and Japanese codes, enabling the enemy to secure its communications? Or revealed how and where Nazi spies were being interrogated? Nowadays, newspapers win Pulitzer Prizes for such disclosures. In Congress and in much of the media, the immediate reaction to news that the National Security Agency was intercepting international terrorist communications was not to say, "Good work - and how can we help?" Rather, it was to scream about a "domestic spying" scandal, as though Richard Nixon were back in the White House and tapping the telephone of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

John Dean's "Worse then Wategate" not withstanding, we don't need Tricky Dicky back from the grave since we now have Gen. Michael Hayden as our brand new just confirmed CIA director for that.

Before him we had Porter Goss, who during his short year and a half stint conducted a veritable witch-hunt for potential leakers (and anyone who disagreed with Bush Admin policy) and came up only with a retiring Inspector General Mary McCarthy who had no direct access to the information for which she was accused of leaking and fired. (I smell yet another wrongful termination suit in the offing...)

But no sooner than we have Goss plug up one potential leak (which apparent isn't a leak at all) just as he's rapidly ushered out the door - a hasty exit caused in all likelyhood due to his connections to "Dusty" Foggo and Fornigate - do we have further leaks springing from the NSA itself in the form of Russell Tice (who was scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committe Last Week and claims what we've heard so far is just the "Tip of the Iceberg") and from AT&T in the form of Mark Klein (whose information indicates that the NSA isn't just tracking phone calls, it's tracking Email and Website access too!)

Not to mention the revelation that President Bush Personally Ordered classified information to be leaked, simply to make political points and perpetuate a lie, which like the claims of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda had been disproven long before the War, but continued to appear in the President's statements and speeches.

If I had a score-card handy I would say that so far it's CIA/Leakers/Whistle-blowers Ten - Bush Admin Zero.

And the leaks are still coming - like a broken water main - while the Bush admin has so far caught no one. With Alberto Gonzales now threatening to prosecute Journalists for revealing classified information, the truth is that if they seriously go down that road they would have to start with ROBERT F-ing NOVAK, who was warned away from publishing the Plame Story by the CIA itself, and did it anyway.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name."

Personal Note to Bob: If he'd told you that "her life would be in danger" he would have been admitting that she was a covert operative -- and that fact was classified! He told you "DON'T PRINT IT" - he shouldn't have had to draw you a freaking map, dumb ass! Couldn't Take a Hint, coudja?

The fact is if Gonzales is going to frog-march James Risen or Dana Priest - they he'd better be sharing a cell with Novak or Bushco will be shredded for making any such prosecutions partisan in the extreme! And if Novak goes down, how's 'ole Turd Blossom gonna hold up? How 'bout the Veep and his little notes in the margins on Plame?

They do this and they'll burn their own house down in the process.

The thing we have to remember is that if CIA and NSA agents and officers are the ones providing this information to the press and congress in order to put the breaks on the lawlessness of the Bush Administration - it's very unlikely that they're ever going to catch any of these people since it's their JOB to keep secrets and be able to share information without it being detected - even by each other.

Right now - my bets are all on the CIA guys (and gals) in this battle.

It's also heartening to note that many of these whistle-blowers, like Tice, are Republicans. They understand that this issue isn't one of partisanship - it's one of law and order.

If we do eventually succeed at winning the War on Terruh using the methods supported by Kondracke - if we succeed in shredding our own Constitution into confetti - doesn't it make our attempts to spread Democracy ultimately futile? If our Democracy can be so thoroughly currupted and flawed by the pressures of terrorism - how can the fledgling Pseudo-Democracy of Iraq or Afghanistan stand a chance?

The only thing that can protect and preserve the integrity of our Democracy, and even the Iraqi and Aghan Democracies - is for brave people to stand up and speak Truth To Power, regardless of the personal risks and consequences.

Such courage is what a Democracy is supposed to protect and nurture, not hunt down and destroy.

And we, here an d elsewhere, can let their efforts be ignored or allow them to be smeared by the likes of Kondracke and his Jackboot-licking ilk.

Vyan

Linking Bush to Plame - Next Steps

Yesterday's dramatic revelation by Jason Leopold put us in a very strange and unique position.

We now know that the President has a direct connection not only the leaking (of allegedly declassified) information to the press, but also that he was aware of the (false) claim Joseph Wilson wife was the person who "sent him to Niger". A claim that eventually led to the disclosure of her identity by Robert Novak.

Not being a mainstream reporter, Leopold's article has so far received little or no notice by other press outlets -- but we know about it, and therefore we are a step or three ahead of the rest of the country on this issue.

The facts appear to be that the President was apparently involved in a conspiracy to perpetuate a series of lies that falsely led us into war -- and resulted in an act that his own father says was treasonous.

I think we have to take a long hard look at these issues, examine them closely and fairly -- then spread the word.

Coming on the heels of the Fitzgerald filing which indicates that Scooter Libby received Presidential authorization to disclose (then classified) NIE information to Judith Miller we now have this from Jason Leopold on Truthout.org.

In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media.

Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

It's been well discussed that the Uranium Niger Claims were based on forgeries, and the that NIE included many doubts about both that claim and the intended uses for the aluminum tubes (Facts which Rove and Hadley attempted to hide during the Election).

It's also been well documented that Cheney and Libby were personally informed by the CIA that these claims had been disproven.

I have another issue to address - the subject of the meeting in question.

The discussion that "Plame sent Wilson to Niger" is yet again the repetition of falsehood that seems to have originated from a June 10th classified State Dept addendum to an CIA document on Wilson's trip. Both the CIA and Wilson himself have already directly responded to, and debunked this allegation:

The original source for this claim seems to be a document produced by the INR which was attached to Wilson's report to the CIA, but the claim made by that document was disputed by the CIA nearly two years ago by Mike Allen and Dana Milbank at the Washington Post.

Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

"It has been circulated around," one official said. CIA and State Department officials have refused to discuss the document.

The Senate Intelligence report has also been referenced on this point, but it appears that their claims that Valerie Plame-Wilson was at least perpherally involved in suggesting her husband be dispatched to Niger really almost entirely on the exact same INR analyst who the CIA claims "wasn't at the meeting" in question.

Wilson responding to the Senate Report's suggestion that his "Wife sent him" to Niger:

First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife sent to her superiors that says "my husband has good relations with the PM (prime minister) and the former Minister of Mines, (not to mention lots of French contacts) both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD reports officer stated the "the former ambassador's wife `offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department Intelligence and Research officer that the "meeting was `apparently convened by wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."

In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD Reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject.

So the first important and independantly verified point about the meeting of the anti-Wilson Cabal is that the key element of their discussion - was a falsehood. Wilson's wife did not send him to Africa. The second point, is what exactly did they decide to do with that information at that point?

Cheney's involvement in this meeting is particularly interesting since he stated while appearing on Meet the Press (Sept 14, 2003)...

I don't know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him and it never came [up]...

Apparently he did (think) he knew who hired him, and it did come up.

I've always been curious as to who exactly the "CPD Reports Officer" and "INR Analyst" were. Was the INR analyst David Wurmser (who appears to be fully cooperating with the Fitzgerald investigation and whom Raw Story indicates was told about the Wilson/Plame connection by someone at CIA) or was it the VP NSA Assistant John Hannah?

Last night on Keith Olbermann, David Shuster pointed out that the one thing that is missing from the Fitzgerald filing is a link between the President and Plame.

SHUSTER: Well, I would think the latter, in fact, in this particular case, the source that is talking to the AP wasn‘t reasonable at all, because it doesn‘t make any sense that somebody the president would not want this information to get in the hands of the public or the media, but would say, Well, go ahead and declassify it. Declassifying it does exactly that, so there‘s a contradiction. But the other thing to focus on, Keith, and that is the next shoe to drop that many people here in this town believe is the whole idea of most of the conversation that Judy Miller remembers of her meeting with Scooter Libby on July 8 that was prompted by the vice president saying, Yes, you‘ve got the authority to talk to Judy Miller from the president, most of the conversation she remembers was not about the National Intelligence Estimate but was about Valerie Plame, about her identity, and where she worked at the CIA.

According to the Fitzgerald Indictment - Libby had already revealed Plame's identity to Judith Miller on June 23rd, at least a week before the President declassified anything - but long after the meeting between the Veep, Prez and underlings was already held discussing Valerie Plame's link to Wilson's trip.

On July 6th Wilson's Op-ed "What I didn't find in Africa" was published by the New York Times.

On July 8th, two days later and still two days before the President declassified portions of the NIE via the Vice President, Libby spoke to Miller again.

On or about the morning of July 8,2003,LIBBY met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller.When the conversation turned to the subject of Joseph Wilson,LIBBY asked that the information LIBBY provided on the topic of Wilson be attributed to a “former Hill staffer ” rather than to a “senior administration official,” as had been the understanding with respect to other information that LIBBY provided to Miller during this meeting.LIBBY thereafter discussed with Miller Wilson ’s trip and criticized the CIA reporting concerning Wilson ’ s trip. During this discussion,LIBBY advised Miller of his belief that Wilson ’s wife worked for the CIA.

That would be "advised Again" actually. Shuster continued...

And furthermore, leading up to that meeting in June, the vice president and Scooter Libby had discussed where Valerie Plame worked at the CIA. So a lot of people in Washington are buzzing about the idea, exactly what was the vice president‘s role? What kind of instructions did he give to Scooter Libby as far as what to focus on in this meeting? And secondly, did the vice president at any point in his conversations with the president make some sort of mention of this other information, not the NIE, but Valerie Plame‘s status at the CIA? Did the president and vice president talk about that?

Well, it's seem that Leopold has found that missing link.

Assuming Leopold's sources are accurate, Fitz already has this information but hasn't yet revealed it. Most likely, this is fodder for his second investigation which is ongoing and may indicate that possible Conspiracy and Obstruction Charges may be on the line for Hadley, Rice, Rove, Card, Cheney and the President.

But what about Treason, espionage and revealing the name of a Covert Agent?

Espionage under USC Title 18 Section 793 requires that the persons intent is to "reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation", and frankly though their efforts were deeply misguided - it would be difficult to directly make the case that anyone in the chain between Plame and the President were deliberately attempting to hurt the United State or help any other nation, even if that is exactly what the end result has been with the loss of Plame's cover and the viability of Brewster/Jennings as a front for non-proliferation efforts.

The Covert Agent charge depends largely on whether there was a willful and knowing violation of Inteligence Identities Protection Act, which requires that the parties involved in disclosing the identity be aware that the person is a covert operative.

Thinkprogress has pointed out that the Libby indictment indicates at least three instances where Libby's behavior shows that he was aware that what he was doing in revealing Plame's identity was highly sensitive and potentially criminal.

Some of the oh-too-careful maneavering by people such as Karl Rove "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name." are clearly ment as a dodge to the fact that he did reveal her identity (as "Wilson's wife") and such an act is a violation of section 421 of the IIPA.

Still direct willfulness and knowing-ness is difficult to prove - particularly when there are so many lies flying back and forth. I know from my time working in a Dod secure environment (12 years) that classified information should only be shared on a "Need to Know" basis, and that it is incumbent on the person providing the information to both ensure that they are only providing it to someone with the appropriate clearance, as well as informing them on the level of sensitivity of that information so that the newly informed person maintains it's protection.

In other words, anyone who was aware of Plame's employment status (which Fitz has well pointed out was classified) would have also had to know that she was an undercover operative, and would have been required to include that fact in sharing that information with any other cleared persons. I find it pretty much inconceivable that the President, Vice President and various support staff could have been in a meeting about Wilson, mention that "his Wife sent him to Niger" and not also know that his wife was a covert operative - but it is in fact, possible that they didn't know.

This is where the identity of that CPD and INR officers who made the initial false claims becomes crucial, because if they disclosed this information in the addendum to the CIA memo and didn't properly mark or identify the level of sensitivity of this information he (or she) were the first domino in the chain and is highly vulnerable to various charges including violation of the IIPA. (And again, if one of these people is Wurmser (who worked Non-proliferation under John Bolton at State, Cheney and the President's goose is already pretty well cooked)

In conclusion, persons downstream from the original breach by the CPD Officer (who shared information about a meeting he didn't even attend) to the INR analyst and eventually to Novak and possibily including the President along the way may not technically be in legal jeopardy (depending on exactly what they did and didn't say to investigators and the grand jury) -- but that doesn't absolve them from their violation of duty and the oath to the American People and the Constitution to "Protect this Nation from all threats".

Including in this case, themselves.

Even without knowing the Leopold story 63% of those polled think the President Acted Illegally and Unethically in Declassfying selected portions of the NIE.

Impeachable? Oh, yes - I think so.

<> But Indictable? That remains to be seen particularly since a full After-Action Report on the Plame outing remains undisclosed.

Vyan

Waas : Rove and Hadley hid the Truth about Aluminum Tubes

A newly released story by Murray Waas indicates that the pillar of lies which have protected George Bush from knowingly sending us into a War without real justification have begun to come crumbling down just a little bit more.

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 30, 2006

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

Let me repeat and reemphasize - the President was personally advised that claims might not be true!

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

In and of itself, that fact that the INR doubted the veracity of the aluminum tube claim is not surprising. The various issues of doubt expressed in the NIE have been the source of much discussion, as has the fact that these doubts were excised from the Unclassified Version of the NIE that most members of Congress saw in October 2002 before voting on the Iraq Force Resolution. The one new fact in this report is that the White House, and specifically the President KNEW that there were doubts about this information - and they used it anyway.

Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

Now Wilson had already travelled to Africa and provided the CIA with a verbal report that indicated the Niger claim was bogus, and as it turned out based on forged documents. The forgery possibility was also brought up by the INR, independant of Wilson, and included in the very same NIE which originally requested by members of Congress.

Waas's article goes on to describe the long sordid history of the attacks on Wilson and Plame which followed and increased over the next few months as Wilson become more and more vocal about the Niger issue, leading ultimately to Robert Novak's article revealing that Plame was a CIA Operative, and that her company Brewter-Jennings was a CIA front.

We now know that Plame was a NOC, an undercover operative and that Brewster-Jennings was working on limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation. How badly their efforts were damaged by the outing of one of their agents remains unrevealed to the public, but may come to light as the result of the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Plame investigation.

This story clearly shows how the problem here wasn't with the intelligence - there were many varying doubts expressed by the CIA, DIA and other analyst concerning not only Saddam's Nuclear program, but also his willingness to use any WMD's he might have still have (although as it turned out he had none). Most stated that he was unlikely to turn WMD weapons and materials over to terrorists or to use them himself - unless provoked.

So what did we do? We provoked the Shit out of him. Bush went out of his way to provoke him with bombings and even contemplated sending in a disguised U2 for him to shoot at.

At this point, there is no more room to hide under the bushel that "The President just didn't know" that we was dead wrong about Iraq. There is no more room to argue that "the intelligence information was bad". No, it wasn't. The Bush Administration - time and time again- insisted on using the worst of the information they had, and ignored the good information.

"Curveball" says that Iraq still has WMD's - so they believe him, even though the DIA says he can't be trusted. So when Saddam has he doesn't have them - they don't listen. al-Liby in Gitmo says that Saddam has ties to al Qaeda, again the DIA says "this guy is probably a fabricator".

Guess who the President believed?

If you said he believed the wrong guy - you'd be right.

<>Vyan

Cheney/Libby : Timeline to Treason

Crossposted on Dailykos.

Scotter Libby's recent anouncement that he was given authority by the Vice-President to release classified information has created an avalanche of information in the last few days.

During his interview yesterday Vice-President Cheney has essentially confirmed that he was granted the authority to declassify information via Executive Order. What truly interesting is the timing of all this.

On March 2,2003 Joseph Wilson was interviewed by CNN. and criticized the Bush Administration.

WILSON: The problem is, it seems to me, is this is not a disarmament exercise any longer. The president made it very clear in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute and his comments at the White House that this is a regime-change activity. This is a war to go in, invade, conquer and occupy Iraq, and it doesn't make any difference what Saddam Hussein does.

...

WILSON: Well, the underlying objective, as I see it, the more I look at this, is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists.

So you look at what's underpinning this, and you go back and you take a look at who's been influencing the process. And it's been those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East...

...

The question is, can you really bring democracy at the point of a bayonet or at the point of a gun? And is it really America's military's responsibility to go in and occupy a country for 10 years, in the hopes that you're going to create a democracy, which probably will not be any more pro-American than what you've got in the region?

This interview apparently also featured David Albright who argument that the inspectors needed more time angered the Vice-President so much that the very next day he visited the CIA with NSA director Stephen Hadley to "dig up information on Albright".

Wilson went on CNN a second time on March 8, where he discussed assertions made by Dr. El Baradea of the IAEA that claims made by Colin Powell about Iraq's WMD and Nuclear capability were faked.

WILSON: Well, you know what it's like when you go into court. A prosecutor comes up with some evidence that is obviously false, it casts doubt on every other bit of evidence that he produces. And I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.

According to Jason Leopold these comments brought a strong reaction from Cheney.

The CIA and State Department officials said that a day after Wilson's March 8, 2003, CNN appearance, they attended a meeting at the Vice President's office chaired by Cheney, and it was there that a decision was made to discredit Wilson. Those who attended the meeting included I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in October for lying to investigators, perjury and obstruction of justice related to his role in the Plame Wilson leak, Hadley, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and John Hannah, Cheney's deputy national security adviser, the officials said.

"The way I remember it," the CIA official said about that first meeting he attended in Cheney's office, "is that the vice president was obsessed with Wilson. He called him an 'asshole,' a son-of-a-bitch. He took his comments very personally. He wanted us to do everything in our power to destroy his reputation and he wanted to be kept up to date about the progress."

It's at this point that the digging operations begins into Wilson's background and in all likelyhood the employment of his wife was discovered.

Cheney knew the State Department had prepared a report saying the Niger claims were false, but he thought the report had no merit, the two State Department officials said. Meanwhile, the CIA was preparing information for the vice president and his senior aides on Wilson should the former ambassador decide to speak out against the administration again.

On March 19th, the Iraq War Began.

On March 25th, the executive order granting the Vice-President nearly co-equal powers to the President to classify and declassify information was signed. This document would allow the Vice-President legal cover to release any information which he may have discovered regarding Wilson or others who opposed their view of Iraq and the War.

Wilson began attempting to contact members of Congress behind the scenes concerning the lack of Iraq Nuclear intentions, meanwhile the weapons of mass destruction remained elusive. In May, Wilson went to the Press and began talking to Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times about his trip to Niger, which resulted in a scathing column criticizing the Vice-President.

What in the previous months had been a request to gather information that could be used to discredit Wilson now turned into a full-scale effort involving the Office of the Vice President, the National Security Council, and the State Department to find out how Wilson came to be chosen to investigate the Niger uranium allegations.

"Cheney and Libby made it clear that Wilson had to be shut down," the CIA official said. "This wasn't just about protecting the credibility of the White House. For the vice president, going after Wilson was purely personal, in my opinion."

Cheney was personally involved in this aspect of the information gathering process as well, visiting CIA headquarters to inquire about Wilson, the CIA official said. Hadley had also raised questions about Wilson during this month with the State Department officials and asked that information regarding Wilson's trip to Niger be sent to his attention at the National Security Council.

That's when Valerie Plame Wilson's name popped up showing that she was a covert CIA operative. The former CIA official who works in the counter-proliferation division said another meeting about Wilson took place in Cheney's office, attended by the same individuals who were there in March. But Cheney didn't take part in it, the officials said.

It was at this point that Cheney himself appeared to take a back seat.

"Libby led the meeting," one of the State Department officials said. "But he was just as upset about Wilson as Cheney was."

The officials said that as of late May 2003 the only correspondence they had had was with Libby and Hadley. They said they were unaware who had made the decision to unmask Plame Wilson's undercover CIA status to a handful of reporters.

On June 10th, a memo was attached to CIA document regarding Wilson's Niger trip which (incorrectly) indicated that his wife, a CIA employee, had sent him. The source of this memo was someone within the State Department. Apparently the plot at this time was to create a "false fact" within the intelligence data, then to let that information leak out in various ways so that it's original source couldn't be traced - and with the Vice-President's Office now having the "cover" of being able to declassify such information at will.

By June 23rd, after two more articles on Wilson's Niger trip had appeared, Libby spoke to Judith Miller of the New York Times and informed her that "Wilson's Wife might work for the CIA." which laid the groundwork for the leak to begin and it's origin to be hidden.

On July 6th Wilson's Op-ed "What I didn't find in Africa" was released by the New York Times, but by that point in time the efforts to undermine Wilson were well underway according to Patrick Fitzgerald.

The next day, July 7th, Libby discussed with the White House Press Secretary that "Wilson's Wife worked for the CIA" creating another potential leak source. He spoke again with Judith Miller on July 8th, and with Tim Russert on July 10th (although Wilson's wife was not discussed with Russert).

By now Robert Novak through other reporters and officials to whom the rumor had been spread (by Libby) learned of the connection between Plame and the CIA and had contacted "Official A" (who is generally known to be Karl Rove) indicating that he intended to write an article on the subject, even though the CIA had warned him not too.

On July 14th, Novak's column on Wilson was published - this was the first public revelation of Plame's status as a CIA employee. This exposed not only her, but the CIA anti-proliferation front organization Brewster Jennings & Associates.

We now know due to Newsweek that Valerie Plame WIson was an undercover CIA operative, a NOC. And that her work with in trying to prevent Iran from creating a Nuclear Weapon. As far as I'm concerned Scooter Libby, at the Vice-President's urging has commited Treason and Sedition.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

The Vice-President, with the tacit aid of the President in giving him declassification authority, attempted to discredit a critic of claims that Iraq was attempting to gain nuclear materials - a claims which was completely correct according to the Dulfer Report - and in the process may have done significant harm to our own efforts to curtail Iran's Nuclear aims.

The President and Vice-President may have maneuvered this situation so that what occurred is technically legal, but as to whether what has occured represents a "High Crime and Misdemeaner" I think the answer is clearly, Yes.

Vyan