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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
......I agree that this is one post that illuminates the gulf, but its relevance eludes me.
Quote:
That thread I linked above was sidetracked by your posts that advocated Victoria Toensing and her husband, Jospeph DiGenova as reliable sources on the subject of whether any law was broken in the "outing" of Valerie Plame.
Toensing and DiGenova, both former federal prosecutors of conservative political sympathies, if this link is any indication, have polluted the internet with their unceasing propagandist self-promotion, masked as authoritative comment. It might even seem convincing as a "public service" message, if not for it's frequency and repetitiveness.
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Here is one of the reasons I have stopped responding. “That thread I linked was sidetracked by your posts”.
I find your claim that I “sidetracked” the thread to be outrageous. I posted something that directly related to the case, but because it did not follow the original poster’s assumption that a crime was committed, you call it “sidetrack(ing)”. I am very aware of the power of words and I strongly suspect you are doing exactly what you bemoan, i.e., putting your own spin on stories and words for the benefit of your own arguments. Do I blame you? No. We all do it. But when I call into question the basic assumption, you act hurt and attacked, or you call it “sidetracking” or call sources into question, blah blah blah.
The fact is that what I posted was VERY relevant, you just didn’t like it. It called into question the basic assumption of that a crime was committed, which contrary to what you may think, I still haven’t seen you post strong evidence that it has, nor that my basic article was faulty. All you did post was that the writers were conservative and somewhat attention whorish. If it helps, I will concede that point. But IMO, no one ever did adequately disprove the points they raised. And last time I checked, being an attention whore was not a crime.
Your assumptions about me and others amaze me at times. Do you wonder that I find it insulting that a) because I don’t agree with your voluminous postings that I don’t’ “inventory” my political opinions or that b) you are any less influenced by the venom they post at moveon.org?
Again, I think the truth is that you are amazed that after all the “evidence” you produce, all from “msm”, that not everyone is on your bandwagon. That we are not, can only be ascribed to some mental deficiency, “sheeple” tendencies, or propaganda brain washing. The other possibility, that the truth is probably somewhere in between and that you yourself may be suffering from a case of leftist propaganda doesn’t even occur to you.
Again, if it helps, I’ll concede that these days I tend to give more weight to conservative talking points than liberal ones. Can you admit the opposite?.............. |
<b>Lebell, I took time to consider your denial that you "sidetracked" that <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=96647">thread</a> and after reading every post in it again, I will stand by my description of what you did there, even more firmly in view of your defense of your posting that Jan. 2005 WaPo/Toensing Op-Ed column, (linked and quoted below).
Here is the first post in that thread:</b>
Quote:
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Originally Posted by rofgilead
Today there was an article in the New York Times about documents showing that Vice President Cheney told his
aide Lewis Libby about Valerie Plume (the CIA agent who was married to a war critic and who's name got leaked to the press).
Lewis Libby had claimed under oath that he found out about her from journalists first. This shows that statement to have
been a lie.
If it can be traced as far up as VP Cheney, do you think that VP Cheney is going to be found to have been involved in the
leaking of her name?
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=96647 |
<b>Before you posted the following, stevo was the only poster, in more than 15 other replies, who raised the question as to whether Plame had undercover status when Novak wrote his column in July, 2003. stevo initiated the "sidetracking" effort,
IMO, and you drove it home with this assertion. There were no "ifs" in your point that "no crime was committed", and
you cited "an article written by the authors of the law", with no disclaimer that it was an op-ed piece from a highly
partisan source:</b>
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
Undercover being the key point.
Plame hasn't been undercover for several years.
I posted an article written by the authors of the law that the current adminstration is accused of breaking and this was the
point they made.
No crime was committed because she wasn't undercover.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=22 |
<b>Again here, you posted the link to the same WaPo "article", with an air of confidence concerning it's reliability that, I found troubling, knowing what I knew of it's author, Victoria Toensing. My research led me to the opposite conclusion; that Toensing was the point woman for a Rove inspired, Novak centric, talking point "Op" designed to discredit Fitzgerald and his investigation, and to "sidetrack", discussions such as the core one in that thread. Novak could have written that "article" himself...maybe he did!</b>
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan11.html
The Plame Game: Was This a Crime?
By Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford
Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A21
<b>Why have so many people rushed to assume that a crime was committed when someone "in the administration" gave columnist
Robert D. Novak,</b> the name of CIA "operative" Valerie Plame? Novak published her name while suggesting that nepotism might have
lurked behind the CIA assignment of her husband, Joseph Wilson, to a job for which he was credentially challenged: The agency
sent him to Niger to determine whether Iraq was interested in acquiring uranium from that country, although he was an expert
neither on nuclear weapons nor on Niger.
Journalists are being threatened with jail for not testifying who gave them information about Plame -- even journalists who
did not write about Plame but only talked with sources about her. Ironically, the special prosecutor has pursued this case
with characteristic zeal after major publications editorialized that a full investigation and prosecution of the government
source was necessary. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution even claimed that the allegations came "perilously close to treason."
It's time for a timeout on a misguided and mechanical investigation in which there is serious doubt that a crime was even
committed. Federal courts have stated that a reporter should not be subpoenaed when the testimony sought is remote from
criminal conduct or when there is no compelling "government interest," i.e., no crime. As two people who drafted and
negotiated the scope of the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, <b>we can tell you: The Novak column and the
surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct.</b>
When the act was passed, Congress had no intention of prosecuting a reporter who wanted to expose wrongdoing and, in the
process, once or twice published the name of a covert agent. <b>Novak is safe from indictment.</b> But Congress also did not intend for government employees to be vulnerable to prosecution for an unintentional or careless spilling of the beans about an undercover identity. A dauntingly high standard was therefore required for the prosecutor to charge the leaker.
At the threshold, the agent must truly be covert. Her status as undercover must be classified, and she must have been
assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years. This requirement does not mean jetting to
Berlin or Taipei for a week's work. It means permanent assignment in a foreign country. Since Plame had been living in
Washington for some time when the July 2003 column was published, and was working at a desk job in Langley (a no-no for a
person with a need for cover), there is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as "covert."
The law also requires that the disclosure be made intentionally, with the knowledge that the government is taking
"affirmative measures to conceal [the agent's] relationship" to the United States. Merely knowing that Plame works for the
CIA does not provide the knowledge that the government is keeping her relationship secret. In fact, just the opposite is the
case. If it were known on the Washington cocktail circuit, as has been alleged, that Wilson's wife is with the agency, a
possessor of that gossip would have no reason to believe that information is classified -- or that "affirmative measures"
were being taken to protect her cover.
There are ways of perceiving whether the government was actually taking the required necessary affirmative measures to
conceal its relationship with Plame. <b>We can look, for example, at how the CIA reacted when Novak informed the press office
that he was going to publish her name. Did the general counsel call to threaten prosecution, as we know has been done to
other reporters under similar circumstances? No.,</b> Did then-Director George Tenet or his deputy pick up the phone to tell Novak
that the publication of her name would threaten national security and her safety, as we know is done when the CIA is serious
about prohibiting publication? No. <b>Did some high-ranking government official ask to visit Novak or the president of his
newspaper syndicate to talk him out of publishing -- another common strategy to prevent a story? No.</b>
Novak has written that the CIA person designated to talk with him replied that although Plame was probably not getting
another foreign assignment, exposure "might cause difficulties if she were to travel abroad." <b>He certainly never told Novak that Plame would be endangered.</b> Such a meager response falls far legally shy of "affirmative measures."
There is even more telling CIA conduct about Plame's status. According to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's
"Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq," when the agency asked Plame's husband
to take on the Niger assignment, he did not have to sign a confidentiality agreement, a requirement for just about anybody
else doing work for an intelligence agency. This omission opened the door for Wilson to write an op-ed piece for the New York
Times describing his Niger trip. Did it not occur to our super sleuths of spycraft that a nationally distributed piece about
the incendiary topic of weapons of mass destruction -- which happens to be Wilson's wife's expertise -- could result in her
involvement being raised?
The special prosecutor and reporters should ask Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, who is overseeing the grand jury, to
conduct a hearing to require the CIA to identify all affirmative measures it was taking to shield Plame's identity. Before we
even think about sending reporters to prison for doing their jobs, the court should determine that all the elements of a
crime are present.
<b>Victoria Toensing was chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee from 1981 to 1984 and served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.</b> Bruce Sanford is a Washington lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues. The authors will take questions today at 2 p.m. on www.washingtonpost.com.
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<b>Later in this post, you can review all of the linked references that I've already presented on that thread (did you read any of them?) that are pretty persuasive in demonstrating that, since Victoria Toensing presumably provided her own description of her background at the bottom of her op-ed column above, it is difficult for your defense of the legitimacy of her "article" to "hold up". You presented her op-ed "article" as a legitimate and ethical opinion of a neutral expert....herself a former federal prosecutor and....co-author of the "law" that she claimed or inferred was the core issue in Fitzgerald's investigation. A more accurate description of Toensing is that she exhibited an alarming ethical lapse, for a former federal prosecutor, a practicing attorney, a frequently cited "expert" media commentator, an op-ed columnist, and even as a partisan "operative", by not disclosing that she (and her husband, Joseph DiGenova) was in a close friendship of longstanding with.......Robert Novak! Armed now with that information, and examining the sentences that I highlighted in her "article", do you still stand by your defense of her "article"? Her partisan background, history of self-promotion and opportunism, along with that of her husband, are relevant to consider, but not even necessary to expose the unethical and unreliable taint to her effort displayed in that WaPo column. If all of this is not enough for you to reconsider the stand that you took in the first quote box of this post, would any information be enough?</b>
Quote:
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Originally Posted by cyrnel
Interesting column. I didn't pay attention to the early stages of this thing and was taking too much for
granted. Reading your link and some of the earlier AP stories tonight put the mess in a new light. It's one amazing horse
race.
Sure seems like many people on the inside could have diffused this long ago. They must have been transferred to FEMA.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=34 |
<b>Lebell, read above, how your comments and your citation of the Toensing WaPo piece, influenced "cyrnel's" opinion, for however shortlived the duration of that influence actually lasted. Can you argue that you did not "sidetrack" him? Remember that you did not offer Toensing's "article" with a disclaimer, such as...."this seems to make some sense to me", you prefaced posting the link to that WaPo column, as if it contained fact that would end debate.</b>
<b>The following are excerpts from my posts on that thread. I've edited out most of my citations that do not speak directly to the issue of Toensing's partisanship and publicized ties to Robert Novak.
Quote:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=35
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
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I don't see that you have anything that will withstand an argument, Lebell...
Quote:
(From the last paragraph of Toensing's column, linked above....)
.........The special prosecutor and reporters should ask Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, who is overseeing the grand
jury, to conduct a hearing to require the CIA to identify all affirmative measures it was taking to shield Plame's identity.
Before we even think about sending reporters to prison for doing their jobs, the court should determine that all the elements
of a crime are present.
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A month after Toensing's column appeared in the Wapo, the DC Circuit appeals court issued it's ruling in the following case.
Note that Judge Tatel was initially most reluctant to rule against Judith Miller, but Fitzgerald's evidence submissions (and
"voluminous classified findings")must have convinced Judge Tatel to change his mind......
Quote:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/do...n_02_15_05.pdf
United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued December 8, 2004 Decided February 15, 2005
Reissued April 4, 2005
No. 04-3138
IN RE: GRAND JURY SUBPOENA, JUDITH MILLER
Before: SENTELLE, HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit Judges.
From Judge Tatel (pages 70-72):
Judge Tatel (from page 81):
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In fairness to Toensing, the following was reported six months after she persuaded the WaPo to print her BS opinion piece.
We'll document her track record as a partisan media whore "hack" in a followup post.
I have detailed the following before, <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1839331&postcount=15">here</a> on
this forum. This is the political bomb shell case of your generation, folks. I'm disappointed that so much of what I've read
here lately, has even been posted. Early on....when I sorted out where this was going....and this being a "poltical forum", I
laid it out as best as I could. It's not too late to review my thread. I'd be interested to read opinions of what I've been
wrong about......
There's been so much focus on format and on wording in thread "titles". This post and the one that follows will convince some
of you that more curiousity about the material might have avoided Toensing's WaPo article being offered as substantative. It
clearly isn't.
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...602069_pf.html
Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net
White House Effort To Discredit Critic Examined in Detail
By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; A01
...........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. ,<h3>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.</h3>
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."
Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle over who would be held responsible for Bush using the
disputed charge about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument. Based on the questions they have been asked,
people involved in the case believe that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort to discredit
Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush from the Niger controversy.............
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<h4>Note that, even after the above article was published, Toensing is reported to frequently provide her opinion to the
press that "no law was broken". Toensing has persisted with her PR message during WARTIME.</h4>
There has been much repub "spin" about Fitzgerald's investigative "mandate".
Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200510150001
...........With Plame leak investigation looking bad for Rove and others, old misinformation resurfaces
As the investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Plame's status as a CIA operative again receives extensive
media coverage, old misinformation about the investigation has flared up again.
Among the most common distortions is the claim -- advanced by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen and <h3>Victoria
Toensing (a close friend of syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak),</h3> among others -- that the investigation is only about
-- or should only be about -- whether anyone violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it
unlawful for someone to knowingly disclose the identity of an agent whose "intelligence relationship to the United States" is
being actively concealed. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has a much broader mandate, as Media Matters has noted:
Fitzgerald's official delegation as special prosecutor, which was reprinted in a 2004 Government Accountability Office <a
href="http://www.gao.gov/decisions/appro/302582.pdf#page=2">(GAO) decision paper</a>, did not limit his prosecutorial
authority to any particular statute. Rather, it granted him "all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the
Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity." ..............
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In addition to reading the GAO decision paper linked in the preceding quote box, other illuminating pieces that describe
Fitzgerald's mandate as akin to that of the Attorney General of the U.S. Unlike Special proscutor Ken Starr, Fitzgerald has
authority to operate with autonomy. He does not need to get justice department authorization (permission) to serve warrants
or to enlarge the scope of his investiagtion.........
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Quote:
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/d...doj-pconf.html
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE PRESS CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO OVERSEE INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED LEAK OF CIA AGENT IDENTITY AND RECUSAL OF ATTORNEY
GENERAL ASHCROFT FROM THE INVESTIGATION
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL JAMES COMEY
ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL CHRISTOPHER RAY
DECEMBER 30, 2003
MR. COMEY: Good afternoon, folks..........
......I have today delegated to Mr. Fitzgerald all the approval authorities that will be necessary to ensure that he has the
tools to conduct a completely independent investigation........So, in short, I have essentially given him -- not essentially -- I have given him all the approval authorities that rest -- that are inherent in the attorney general; something that does not happen with an outside special counsel......
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[/quote]
<b>In a followup post, I added more linked references concerning the backgrounds of Victoria Toensing and her husband,
Joseph DiGenova.</b>
Quote:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...8&postcount=36
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
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1.)The Victoria Toensing Jan. 2005 "column" that you cite at the WaPo link is an "op ed", i.e., an "opinion" piece. It is not
to be confused with news reporting by that newspaper or by other news or news wire services.
2.)There is nothing credible about Toensing or her husband. They are (if you call 300 TV appearances in a short period,
extreme....) partisan to the extreme, and difficult to imagine as anything other than obsessive, self promoters.
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...uple022798.htm
The Power Couple at Scandal's Vortex
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 27, 1998; Page D1 .................
...........A classic Washington power couple, diGenova, 53, and Toensing, 56, occupy a strange, symbiotic nexus between the
media and the law that boosts their stock in both worlds. They are clearly players, which gives them access to juicy
information, which gets them on television, which generates legal business.
"Dozens of Washington lawyers are trying to get on these shows," diGenova says. "I think it's very healthy. We can destroy
myths and shoot down misunderstandings." Toensing sees televised debate as a good way of sharpening the old legal skills.
"It's something that gets the body juices going," she says.
<b>The two law partners not only talk about the Monica Lewinsky investigation -- they've been quoted or on the tube more than
300 times in the month since the story broke</b> -- but have been drawn into the vortex. Toensing was approached by an
intermediary for a Secret Service agent who had supposedly seen something untoward involving President Clinton and the former
intern. DiGenova was at the heart of a quickly retracted Dallas Morning News account of that matter. What's more, diGenova
took to the airwaves Sunday to charge -- based on nothing more than one reporter's inquiry -- that private investigators
"with links to the White House" were digging up "dirt" on him and his wife.
Never exactly press-shy when he was U.S. attorney, diGenova is a trifle sensitive to the notion that he is a partisan
publicity hound. Ensconced in a burgundy armchair in the living room of his ranch-style home in Bethesda's Kenwood section,
he glances stealthily at a blue card -- the kind TV people use to jot down their sound bites -- before delivering his point.
"I have never made a single telephone call to get on a television show, and neither has Victoria," he says. "We've never had
an agent. . . . I've never been paid a dime for any of it."................
............A Wide Net
Name a high-profile investigation in this city and chances are the prosecutorial pair is involved.
Charges that Republican Rep. Dan Burton improperly demanded campaign contributions from a lobbyist for Pakistan? DiGenova and
Toensing are the Indiana congressman's personal attorneys.
Newt Gingrich's ethics problems? Toensing represents the speaker's wife, Marianne, to ensure her compliance with House ethics
rules.
A House committee investigation of the Teamsters and the union's links to improper Democratic fund-raising? DiGenova and
Toensing are leading the probe as outside counsel.
(And don't shortchange Toensing's role. When the newspaper Roll Call ran an unflattering piece about conflict-of-interest
charges related to the couple's hiring, Toensing denounced the reporter as a sexist for leaving her out of the first few
paragraphs. "I'm just as big as he is!" she shouted at an editor. Toensing says now that "they pretended I didn't quite
exist. They attributed my client to Joe. I've had to deal with this all my life as a woman.")
The couple's Teamsters probe for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has made them a lightning rod for
Democratic criticism. First there was grumbling that their official role would conflict with their work for other clients,
such as the American Hospital Association, for whom they are registered lobbyists. Then the Democrats charged that diGenova
and Toensing couldn't be doing much on their $300,000-a-year contract -- which requires each lawyer to put in 80 hours a
month -- since they spent so much time in television studios trashing President Clinton in the Lewinsky case.
Their television advocacy is hardly a state secret. <h4>As former prosecutors, both diGenova and Toensing have largely
defended the aggressive tactics of independent counsel Kenneth Starr and repeatedly challenged the president's veracity.</h4>
"They've become a public spectacle, which means they can't be impartial" in the Teamsters probe, says Missouri Rep. William
Clay, the committee's ranking Democrat. "It's a payoff from Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party to both Victoria Toensing
and Joe diGenova. . . . They have been on television over 200 times and not once have they been talking about an issue we're
paying them $25,000 a month to handle for the Congress. It's a hell of a part-time job."............
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3.) Heavens, no !!! The following portrays Toensing, when compared to the bold quote above.....as a...."flip-flopper" !
Quote:
http://www.slate.com/id/2304
.....Though both diGenova and Toensing are Republicans who are hostile to Clinton and supportive of Kenneth Starr, they
usually argue against the independent-counsel law in general......
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4.)Victoria Toensing is on record as having a curious contempt for the law. What else could explain authorship of a "law",
intended to safeguard national security, that is described by said "author" as:
Quote:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Corrupti...veCIALeak.html
"We made it exceedingly difficult to violate," Victoria Toensing, who was chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee
when the law was enacted, said of the law........
.............Based on the e-mail message, Mr. Rove's disclosures are not criminal, said Bruce S. Sanford, a Washington lawyer
who helped write the law and submitted a brief on behalf of several news organizations concerning it to the appeals court
hearing the case of Mr. Cooper and Judith Miller, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.
"It is clear that Karl Rove's conversation with Matt Cooper does not fall into that category" of criminal conduct, Mr.
Sanford said. "That's not 'knowing.' It doesn't even come close."
There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was.
"She had a desk job in Langley," said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to
the C.I.A.'s headquarters. "When you want someone in deep cover, they don't go back and forth to Langley."
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But....what would one expect a close friend of Robert Novak, and an openly partisan republican like Toensing, to say, if not
the quotes above? She is not in the habit of disclosing her friendship with Novak as she interjects her "opinion" in this
matter, everywhere that she is able to.....
4.)Toensing did not disclose in the Jan. 2005 WaPo op-ed column, where she makes a point of defending her friend, Robert
Novak, that she is his friend. Toensing has appeared on TV frequently since, and is documented as failing to disclose her
relationship with Novak. This seems misleading and unethical.
Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200501140005
<h3>Press sightings of social interactions between Toensing, her husband, Joseph E. diGenova, and Novak abound:</h3>
* An October 1, 2004, <a href="http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/01/novak/index_np.html">article on
Salon.com</a> reported that Novak was a guest along with Toensing and diGenova at a September 21, 2004, party in Washington
to celebrate the success of the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery, 2004).
* According to an October 17, 2001, "Reliable Source" column in The Washington Post, Novak was among "70 friends" hosted
by diGenova to celebrate Toensing's 60th birthday at the Palm restaurant.
* A February 27, 1998, profile of Toensing and diGenova in The Washington Post reported that "[t]he couple retreat on
weekends to their Fenwick Island, Del., beach house, hanging with such pals as Robert Novak and Bill Regardie."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...uple022798.htm
Novak has also defended or praised his friends Toensing and diGenova on at least three occasions in his nationally syndicated
column:
* "DiGenova, a conservative Republican, would introduce something new at the IRB [Teamsters union Internal Review Board].
He might recommend that it is time to end the monitoring that has cost the union more than $75 million. [Federal prosecutor
Mary Jo] White did her best to obstruct the 1998 congressional investigation of the Teamsters conducted by diGenova and his
law partner-wife, Victoria Toensing. Nor is diGenova an admirer of Mary Jo White's glacial pursuit of the pre-Hoffa
conspiracy between the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and the Democratic National Committee as the statute of limitations is about to
block further prosecution." <a href="http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2001/08/01/165366.html">[8/1/2001]</a>
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5.)The Toensing op-ed column is riddled with inaccuracies:
Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200501140005
"Despite Toensing and Sanford's claim that Wilson was "credentially challenged" for Niger mission, Wilson had both <a
href="http://www.cpsag.com/our_team/wilson.html">diplomatic credentials</a> as well as past experience investigating sales of
Nigerian uranium. USA Today reported that "Wilson had been an ambassador to Gabon and was posted to Niger earlier in his
career [with the U.S. Diplomatic Service, from 1976-1978]. In 1999, he had gone to Niger to gather information about rumors
of uranium sales to Iraq." Indeed, Wilson has <a href="http://www.leadingauthorities.com/4881/Joseph_Wilson.htm">specialized
in Africa</a> for the majority of his diplomatic career, which includes service in Niger, Togo, Burundi, and South Africa, as
well as ambassadorships to the Gabonese Republic and to the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe. Wilson was also
senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council under former President Clinton and also served as deputy
chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991.
Toensing and Sanford also asserted that Wilson was sent in 2002 "to Niger to determine whether Iraq was interested in
acquiring uranium from that country although he was an expert neither on nuclear weapons nor on Niger." In addition to
ignoring Wilson's previous diplomatic experience in Niger and experience investigating the sale of Niger uranium, their
assertion also misstated his mission: He did not go to Niger to determine "whether Iraq was interested," but rather whether
Iraq actually purchased or attempted to purchase uranium. According to a July 7, 2003, New York Times <a href="http://www.yuricareport.com/Law%20&%20Legal/White%20House%20Admits%20False%20Data.html">article,</a> Wilson "was sent
to Niger, in West Africa, last year to investigate reports of the attempted purchase [of Nigerian uranium by Iraq]."
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The Washington Post identified Toensing as "chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee from 1981 to 1984 and served
as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration." Sanford was identified as "a Washington lawyer
specializing in First Amendment issues."
Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200510240007
USA Today again relied only on Toensing to suggest that outing Plame was not a crime
In an October 21 article, USA Today reporters Judy Keen and Mark Memmott relied exclusively on a reading of the law by
Republican operative Victoria Toensing in presenting the question of whether senior White House officials may have committed
a crime by outing CIA operative Valerie Plame.
The article marked at least the second time that Memmott cited Toensing -- without offering a contrary legal perspective --
in reporting that leaking Plame's identity likely wasn't a crime. Toensing has made frequent media appearances in defense of
the Bush administration and the alleged leakers, but she is not the only voice on this issue. Former Nixon White House
counsel John W. Dean III argued in 2003 that leaking Plame's identity might constitute a violation of the 1917 Espionage Act
and, more recently, that it could also violate Title 18, United States Code, Section 641, which addresses the theft of
information and, Dean wrote, contains "broad language [that] covers leaks" and "has now been used to cover just such
actions."
USA Today did not mention that Toensing is a partisan Republican or that she is a personal friend of syndicated columnist
Robert D. Novak, who originally outed Plame in July 2003.
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.............
......In this post, http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...8&postcount=52
I provided:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006882.php
(October 28, 2005 -- 03:26 PM EDT // link)
Remember, I. Lewis Libby doesn't just work for the Vice President.
From the beginning of the administration, a key root of Libby's power at the White House is that he works both for the Vice President (as Chief of Staff and National Security Affairs Advisor) and the President (as Assistant to the President).
-- Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006881.php
(October 28, 2005 -- 03:04 PM EDT // link)
Overlooked in the current discussion.
Go to page 5 of the <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf">indictment</a>. Top of the page, item #9.
On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.
This is a crucial piece of information. the <a href="http://www.cia.gov/employment/clandestine.html">Counterproliferation Division</a> (CPD) is part of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, i.e., not Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where 'analysts' come from, but where the spies come from.
Libby's a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It's right there in the indictment.
-- Josh Marshal
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<b>I think that "strong evidence" that an "outing crime" of Plame was committed, was found in some of the language in Libby's
indictment, which was made a day or two after our orignial discussion. I originally provided much detail as to the wide scope of Fitzgerald's investigative authority, because Toensing's "Op" was to convince the public that the investigation was limited to whether a criminal offense had been committed, related to the one act that she had co-authored.
As you can see below, you failed to acknowledge the core issues that compromised Toensing's "article" to the point that it
cannot be defended, when I raised them at the end of October, or even now, if you re-examined them before defending her article again. IMO, the core issues are that Toensing enjoyed a personal friendship with Robert Novak, and did not disclose that fact in an op-ed piece that masquerades as a neutral piece of news reporting that purports to offer expert opinion of points of law as they pertain to an ongoing, highly publicized, criminal investigation. The "neutral piece of news reporting" was exposed by me to be a spirited, partisan defense of Robert Novak that was a vehicle for a Rovian talking point Op.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
.....The fact is that what I posted was VERY relevant, you just didn’t like it. It called into question the basic assumption of that a crime was committed, which contrary to what you may think, I still haven’t seen you post strong evidence that it has, nor that my basic article was faulty. All you did post was that the writers were conservative and somewhat attention whorish. If it helps, I will concede that point. But IMO, no one ever did adequately disprove the points they raised. And last time I checked, being an attention whore was not a crime.........
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<b>Ignoring all that has been reported since Toensing's Jan., 2005 op-ed piece, here she is ten months later, in Nov., 2005, after Fitzgerald's indictment has been made public, and after former CIA press spkesman, Marlow, quoted in the WaPo July 27, 2005 article displayed below....here she is droning on and on....still defending Novak...still not revealing that she is his
close friend....</b>
Quote:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache...+Journal&hl=en
<b>Investigate the CIA</b>
By VICTORIA TOENSING
November 3, 2005; Page A12
• Sixth: CIA incompetence did not end there. When Mr. Novak called the agency to verify Ms. Plame's employment, it not only did so, but failed to go beyond the perfunctory request not to publish. Every experienced Washington journalist knows that when the CIA really does not want something public, there are serious requests from the top, usually the director. Only the press office talked to Mr. Novak.
.........Ms. Toensing, a Washington lawyer, is a former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...602069_pf.html
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; A01
...........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.
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Lebell, I haven't visited the moveon.org site since the "Op" that falsely accused that site of endorsing a political ad that involved a WWII Nazi comparison. I told you already that I form my opinions based on my own research. I demonstrate that in most of my posts.
Finally, Lebell....Iraq is an "effing" mess...a disaster. My comments or opinion won't be a contributing factor to the failed
policy we experience there. Greatly informative ongoing study of the Bush debacle:
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf Most recent is Dec. 8, 2005:
page 28.... Average amount of electricity generated (In Megawatts)
<b>November 2005</b> - 3742 MW
<b>August 2004</b> - 4707 MW
<b>June 2003</b> - 3193 MW
<b>Est Pre War </b> - 3958 MW
<b>Stated Goal </b> - 6000 MW by July 1, 2004
page 36........
<center><img src="http://me.to/svr052.gif"><br>
Non-Partisan International Republican Institute , Board of Directors:
http://www.iri.org/board.asp
<img src="http://me.to/svr051.gif"></center>
Last edited by host; 12-12-2005 at 02:54 AM..
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