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host · 09-20-2006, 11:50 PM

Do we believe the opinions that come from a WaPo editorial and Bozell's newsbusters.org "executive editor", Matthew Sheffield, the known "influences" of Ustwo's opinion,

or....do we believe the findings of an independent criminal investigation....only independent when it was transferred by the former #2 at Ashcroft's DOJ, James Comey, after a conflict of interest committed by Ashcroft, himself, in his demand to be briefed on the details of the investigation of white house officials?

Unlike what we experienced during the "leak prone", 6 year investigation of the Clinton white house by special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, James Comey's choice for special counsel, US Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, to investigate the "Plame CIA Leak" and prosecute, if appropriate, has spoken to the press, only once, when the indictment of the VP of the US, COS, Irwin Scooter Libby was handed down.

This, from what I have learned in my research, is an accurate report of "what happened":

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081001918.html
Side Issue in the Plame Case: Who Sent Her Spouse to Africa?

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A08

The origin of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's trip to Niger in 2002 to check out intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase uranium has become a contentious side issue to the inquiry by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is looking into whether a crime was committed with the exposure of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, as a covert CIA employee.

After he went public in 2003 about the trip, senior Bush administration officials, trying to discredit Wilson's findings, told reporters that Wilson's wife, who worked at the CIA, was the one who suggested the Niger mission for her husband. Days later, Plame was named as an "agency operative" by syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who has said he did not realize he was, in effect, exposing a covert officer. A Senate committee report would later say evidence indicated Plame suggested Wilson for the trip.

Over the past months, however, the CIA has maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report.

The 2002 mission grew out of a request by Vice President Cheney on Feb. 12 for more information about a Defense Intelligence Agency report he had received that day, according to a 2004 report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. An aide to Cheney would later say he did not realize at the time that this request would generate such a trip.

Wilson maintains that his wife was asked that day by one of her bosses to write a memo about his credentials for the mission--after they had selected him. That memo apparently was included in a cable to officials in Africa seeking concurrence with the choice of Wilson, the Senate report said.

Valerie Wilson's other role, according to intelligence officials, was to tell Wilson he had been selected, and then to introduce him at a meeting at the CIA on Feb. 19, 2002, in which analysts from different agencies discussed the Niger trip. She told the Senate committee she left the session after her introduction.

Senior Bush administration officials told a different story about the trip's origin in the days between July 8 and July 12, 2003. They said that Wilson's wife was working at the CIA dealing with weapons of mass destruction and that she suggested him for the Niger trip, according to three reporters.

The Bush officials passing on this version were apparently attempting to undercut the credibility of Wilson, who on Sunday, July 6, 2003, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" and in The Washington Post and the New York Times that he had checked out the allegation in Niger and found it to be wrong. He criticized President Bush for misrepresenting the facts in his January 2003 State of the Union address when he said Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.

Time magazine's Matthew Cooper has written that he was told by Karl Rove on July 11 "don't get too far out on Wilson" because information was going to be declassified soon that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and findings. Cooper also wrote that Rove told him that Wilson's wife worked for the agency on weapons of mass destruction and that "she was responsible for sending Wilson."

This Washington Post reporter spoke the next day to an administration official, who talked on the condition of anonymity, and was told in substance "that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction," as reported in an Oct. 14 article......

.....The full Senate committee report says that CPD officials "could not recall how the office decided to contact" Wilson but that "interviews and documents indicate his wife suggested his name for the trip." <h3>The three Republican senators wrote that they were more certain: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."</h3>

Fitzgerald's only other public communications are his opinions filed with an appeals court, during the investigation, and in briefs more recently, in response to Libby's requests for discovery in preparation for his early 2007 criminal trial.

Fitzgerald tells the court that,

Quote:

The defendant overlooks the simple fact that Ms. Wilson’s employment status was either classified or it was not. If the government had any documents stating that Ms. Wilson’s employment status was not classified during the relevant time – and we do not – we would produce them...

Quote:

Nor has defendant established how “[a]ny notes from the September 2003 meeting in the Situation Room at which Colin Powell is reported to have said that (1) everyone knows that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that (b) it was Mr. Wilson’s wife who suggested that the CIA send her husband on a mission to Niger” (see Memo. at 15) would be helpful to defendant in
preparing his defense, <b>even if such documents existed, and it is the understanding of the government that there are no notes indicating that Secretary Powell made the purported statements.</b>

Quote:

In June 2003, when discussing Ambassador Wilson’s trip to Niger, the Vice President advised defendant that Ambassador Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA in the Counterproliferation Division. Indict., Count One, ¶ 9. <h3>The evidence will show that the July 6, 2003, Op Ed by Mr. Wilson was viewed in the Office of Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq.</h3> Defendant undertook vigorous efforts to rebut this attack during the week following July 7, 2003.

At some point after the publication of the July 6, 2003 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, defendant’s immediate superior, expressed concerns to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson’s trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson’s wife. And, in considering “context,” there was press reporting that the Vice President had dispatched Mr. Wilson on the trip (which in fact was not accurate).<b> Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson’s wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the Vice President had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson’s credibility if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism.</b>

Quote:

Defendant’s participation in a critical conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 (discussed further below) occurred only after the
Vice President advised defendant that the President specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE. Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller – getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval – were unique in his recollection. Defendant further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice President to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson. Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare “on the record” statement, and to provide “background” and “deep background” statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson. During the conversations that followed on July 12, defendant discussed Ms. Wilson’s employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time). Even if someone else in some other agency thought that the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife was a trifle, that person’s state of mind would be irrelevant to the importance and focus defendant placed on the matter and the importance he attached to the surrounding conversations he was directed to engage in by the Vice President.

Quote:

Defendant testified that he thought he brought a brief abstract of the NIE’s key judgments to the meeting with Miller on July 8. Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium. Defendant testified that this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President’s authorization that it be disclosed.

Quote:

Defendant is not charged with knowingly disclosing classified information, nor is he charged with any conspiracy offense. Moreover, as a practical matter, there are no documents showing an absence of a plot, and it is unclear how any document custodian would set out to find documents showing an “absence of a plot.” Indeed, there exist documents, some of which have been provided 9to defendant, and there were conversations in which defendant participated, that reveal a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate Mr. Wilson before and after July 14, 2003.

pages 29 to 30

Defendant also asserts without elaboration that “documents that help establish that no White House-driven plot to punish Mr. Wilson caused the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity also constitute Brady material.” Once again, defendant ignores the fact that he is not charged with participating in any conspiracy, much less one defined as a “White House-driven plot to punish Mr. Wilson.” Thus, putative evidence that such a conspiracy did not exist is not Brady material. <b>Moreover, given that there is evidence that other White House officials with whom defendant spoke
29

prior to July 14, 2003 discussed Wilson’s wife’s employment with the press both prior to, and after, July 14, 2003 – which evidence has been shared with defendant –
it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to “punish” Wilson.</b>

What better man is there to investigate and prosecute the most formidable terrorists in the US? If Fitzgerald is correct, what else can you call these men , occupying high positions in our own executive branch?

Patrick Fitzgerald is the Bush administration's "worst nightmare":

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...005Feb1_2.html

<b>World Class</b>

For years, Fitzgerald has avoided receiving mail at his apartment because of the threat of a letter bomb from one murder-minded defendant or another.

<b>The staff of the 9/11 commission called him one of the world's best terrorism prosecutors.</b> He convicted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and all four defendants in the embassy bombings, which had left 224 people dead. He extracted a guilty plea from Mafia capo John Gambino and became an authority on bin Laden, whom he indicted in 1998 for a global terrorist conspiracy that included the African bombings.

"His thoroughness, his relentlessness, his work ethic are legendary," says terrorism expert Daniel Benjamin, a former member of the National Security Council.

Seeing Fitzgerald in action, says Los Angeles lawyer Anthony Bouza, a college classmate, is "like watching a sophisticated machine." Colleagues speak in head-shaking tones of Fitzgerald's skills in taking a case to trial. A Phi Beta Kappa math and economics student at Amherst before earning a Harvard law degree in 1985, he has a gift for solving puzzles and simplifying complexity for a jury.......

In a more "normal world", we could discuss the implications of Patrick Fitzgerald's comments to the press, last October, and in his filings to Libby's trail court. That is not possible, however, because of the "sway" of the white house "Nepotism Op". From the record of special counsel Fitzgerald's statments to the court, he has investigated the "Plame CIA Leak", taken the testimony of numerous Bush administration officials, and reviewed documents subpoenaed from the white house, from Cheney's OVP, from the Dept. of State, and from the CIA, and he has told the court that <b>"it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to “punish” Wilson".</b>

Ustwo will not discuss Fitzgerald's findings, and he offers no evidence to suggest that Fitzgerald has conducted a flawed, or biased investigation, or that Fitzgerald himself has a conflict of interest that would impact the investigation.

There can only be two choices left to us, either Fitzgerald is lying, and Plame was not a CIA "NOC" employee, and therefore the investigation is wholly without merit and should be dropped, with only the matter of Libby's perjury and obstruction....unlawful behavior by Libby, a lawyer himself, for unknown and irrelevant reasons.....<b>or, it is as Fitzgerald described to the court, Joe Wilson exposed a falsehood of the Bush administration's justification for the invasion of Iraq, and the administration conspired to commit, and did commit, an "Op" that included a co-ordinated effort to persuade reporters, around the time of Bush's early July, 2003 "trip to Africa", to "ask who sent Wilson to Niger", so that they could answer reporters with the line that "Wilson's CIA wife sent him on a "junket" to Niger.</b>

If Ustwo, et al, and the entire republican noise apparatus are correct, Fitzgerald, prominent prosecutor of the 1993 WTC bombers, has become a rogue prosecutor, "out to get the white house" by pursuing a "nothing" investigation of a "non-classified" CIA employee's "outing", or....the officials of the Bush administration, in addition to knowingly broadcasting reasons for invading Iraq that were phony or misleading, lashed back at a former US Ambassador who revealed one component of this campaign of falsehoods, by "outing" his CIA NOC wife, and discrediting him and his trip to Niger, by claiming in every venue...to reporters, on talks shows, on the GOP noise machine, and even via an republican senators only, "addendum" to the 2004 "Phase I" Senate Select Intelligence Committee report.

Reporters testified that Karl Rove took part in that "Op", and Rove testified at least five times, himself, before Fitzgerald's grand jury.

I don't think Fitzgerald is lying.....why would he? That leaves me agreeing with Fitzgerald....that the administration outed a CIA NOC as political payback, and that from the POTUS, on down to numerous administration staffers, inclduing Ari Fleischer, Cheney, Rove, Libby, and three republican members of the Senate Select Committee, it became more important to discredit Wilson via his wife "sending him on a junket", becasue he exposed a lie that helped justify an illegal invasion and occupation, than it was to expose and condemn the official and deliberate outing of a CIA employee, in wartime, by the principles of the Executive Branch, to make an example out of the Wilson's to send a message to others in government that a similar fate awaited anyone else who attempted to expose the conspirarcy to concoct a "rationale"....for war....even if it included a treaonous act and a refusal to cooperate with an FBI investigation, of that act.

There is nothing partisan to see here. Either Fitzgerald has committed crimes, or Mr. Cheney and Bush's legacy are at stake, because they either committed or abbetted treason, in wartime. If you believe what Patrick Fitzgerald has told the court, then what else could this now be about?