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Banned
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Originally Posted by stevo
How many people need to come forward and testify they new Plame was a CIA agent before its deemed "common knowledge?" is 5 enough?
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stevo, I posted the following here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...rt#post1923255
last October 27.....
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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......
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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):
"An alleged covert agent, Plame evidently traveled overseas on clandestine missions beginning nearly two decades ago. See, e.g., Richard Leiby & Dana Priest, The Spy Next Door; Valerie Wilson, Ideal Mom, Was Also the Ideal Cover, Wash. Post, Oct. 8, 2003, at A1. Her exposure, therefore, not only may have jeopardized any covert activities of her own, but also may have endangered friends and associates from whom she might have gathered information in the past...
The leak of Plame’s apparent employment, moreover, had marginal news value. To be sure, insofar as Plame’s CIA relationship may have helped explain her husband’s selection for the Niger trip, that information could bear on her husband’s credibility and thus contribute to public debate over the president’s “sixteen words.” <b>Compared to the damage of undermining covert intelligence-gathering, however, this slight news value cannot, in my view, justify privileging the leaker’s identity...</b>
Just as due process poses no barrier to forcing an attorney to testify based on the court’s examination of evidence, unseen by the lawyer, that the client sought legal advice in pursuit of a crime, neither does it preclude compulsion of a reporter’s testimony based on a comparable review of evidence, likewise unseen by the reporter, that a source engaged in a harmful leak. In fact, appellants’ protests notwithstanding, ex parte review protects their interests, as it allows the government to present—and the court to demand—a far more extensive showing than would otherwise be possible given the need for grand jury secrecy discussed in the court’s opinion, see majority op. at 17-18. <b>That said, without benefit of the adversarial process, we must take care to ensure that the special counsel has met his burden of demonstrating that the information is both critical and unobtainable from any other source. Having carefully scrutinized his voluminous classified filings, I believe that he has.</b>
Judge Tatel (from page 81):
<b> "In sum, based on an exhaustive investigation, the special counsel has established the need for Miller’s and Cooper’s testimony. Thus, considering the gravity of the suspected crime and the low value of the leaked information, no privilege bars the subpoenas. "</b>
Judge Tatel concluded (from pages 82-83):
"I conclude, as I began, with the tensions at work in this case. Here, two reporters and a news magazine, informants to the public, seek to keep a grand jury uninformed. Representing two equally fundamental principles—rule of law and free speech—the special counsel and the reporters both aim to facilitate fully informed and accurate decision-making by those they serve: the grand jury and the electorate. To this court falls the task of balancing the two sides’ concerns.
As James Madison explained, “[A] people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” See In re Lindsey, 148 F.3d 1100, 1109 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (quoting Letter from James Madison to W.T. Barry (Aug. 4, 1822), in 9 The Writings of James Madison 103 (Gaillard Hunt ed., 1910)). Consistent with that maxim, “[a] free press is indispensable to the workings of our democratic society,” Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 28 (1945) (Frankfurter, J., concurring), and because confidential sources are essential to the workings of the press—a practical reality that virtually all states and the federal government now acknowledge—I believe that “reason and experience” compel recognition of a privilege for reporters’ sources. That said, because “[l]iberty can only be exercised in a system of law which safeguards order,” Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559, 574 (1965), the privilege must give way to imperatives of law enforcement in exceptional cases.
<b>Were the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security or more vital to public debate, or had the special counsel failed to demonstrate the grand jury’s need for the reporters’ evidence, I might have supported the motion to quash. Because identifying appellants’ sources instead appears essential to remedying a serious breach of public trust, I join in affirming the district court’s orders compelling their testimony. "</b>
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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.
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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. 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."
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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I've provided evidence that Patrick Fitzgerald had to satisfy a Federal Appeals Court Judge...that indeed....a crime had been committed in the leaking of Plames's CIA employment to the press. If you notice, Judge Tatel determined:
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Judge Tatel (from page 81):
<b> "In sum, based on an exhaustive investigation, the special counsel has established the need for Miller’s and Cooper’s testimony. Thus, considering the gravity of the suspected crime and the low value of the leaked information, no privilege bars the subpoenas. "</b>
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The judge was ruling on a first amendments rights appeal by reporters for Time and the NY Times. He needed to be satisfied that the crime of leaking Plame's name was genuine and of serious enough nature to rule agains the reporters' claimed constituional right to keep their sources secret.
....and the CIA's Bill Harlow says that he:
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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.
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stevo, if Libby's attorneys present five witnesses who claim that Wilson told them that his wife worked for the CIA, Fitzgerald will probably question the relevance of their testimony. Libby was not indicted for leaking Plame's identity.
The CIA asked the DOJ to investigate the leak of Plame's name and CIA status to reporters. Fitzgerald was required to prove that this leak was a crime, to the appeals court, in order to satisfy the judges that his subpoena request for reporters' sources was in connection with investigation of a serious crime. Fitzgerald succeeded, his subpoena requests were granted by the appeals court...the reporters testified, and the result was that the grand jury indicted Libby for obstructing Fitzgerald's investigation.....not for leaking Plame's identity.
AS I described in my Oct. 27, post, Libby is trying to defend himself with the same distraction that Victoria Toensing has ceaselessly used to draw attention away from the actual news. The CIA told the DOJ that Plame was an employee in a classified position at the agency. That was enough for the DOJ to launch a criminal investigation, enough for the DOJ to appoint special counsel Fitzgerald to head the investigation, and to follow it wherever the evidence led.
Fitzgerald was able to convince an appeals court panel that a criminal leak of a CIA employee's classified identity had been committed. Libby, however, won't be tried for leaking. How are witnesses in his defense. who testify the Joe Wilson talked to them about his wife's CIA job, relevant to Libby's defense, or to Fitzgerald's investigation ? |