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Banned
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What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA
Quote:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn
article | posted September 5, 2006 (web only)
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA
David Corn
...........the officers of the agency's Joint Task Force on Iraq--part of the Counterproliferation Division of the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations--were frantically toiling away... mounting espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have.....Its chief of operations was a career undercover officer named Valerie Wilson.
Her specific position at the CIA is revealed for the first time in a new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, by the author of this article and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. The book chronicles the inside battles within the CIA, the White House, the State Department and Congress during the run-up to the war. Its account of Wilson's CIA career is mainly based on interviews with confidential CIA sources......
.........In July 2003--four months after the invasion of Iraq--Wilson would be outed as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction" in a column by conservative journalist Robert Novak, who would cite two "senior administration officials" as his sources. (As Hubris discloses, one was Richard Armitage, the number-two at the State Department; Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, was the other. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, also talked to two reporters about her.) Novak revealed her CIA identity--using her maiden name, Valerie Plame--in the midst of the controversy ignited by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, her husband, who had written a New York Times op-ed accusing the Bush Administration of having "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
The Novak column triggered a scandal and a criminal investigation. At issue was whether Novak's sources had violated a little-known law that makes it a federal crime for a government official to disclose identifying information about a covert US officer (if that official knew the officer was undercover). A key question was, what did Valerie Wilson do at the CIA? Was she truly undercover? In a subsequent column, Novak reported that she was "an analyst, not in covert operations." White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested that her employment at the CIA was no secret. Jonah Goldberg of National Review claimed, "Wilson's wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already."
Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration. Armitage, Rove and Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the President's case. In doing so, they harmed her career and put at risk operations she had worked on and foreign agents and sources she had handled.
Another issue was whether Valerie Wilson had sent her husband to Niger to check out an intelligence report that Iraq had sought uranium there. Hubris contains new information undermining the charge that she arranged this trip..
...Plame was recruited into the CIA in 1985, straight out of Pennsylvania State University. After two years of training to be a covert case officer, she served a stint on the Greece desk, according to Fred Rustmann, a former CIA official who supervised her then. Next she was posted to Athens and posed as a State Department employee. Her job was to spot and recruit agents for the agency. In the early 1990s, she became what's known as a nonofficial cover officer. NOCs are the most clandestine of the CIA's frontline officers. They do not pretend to work for the US government; they do not have the protection of diplomatic immunity. They might claim to be a businessperson. She told people she was with an energy firm. Her main mission remained the same: to gather agents for the CIA.
In 1997 she returned to CIA headquarters and joined the Counterproliferation Division. (About this time, she moved in with Joseph Wilson; they later married.) She was eventually given a choice: North Korea or Iraq. She selected the latter. Come the spring of 2001, she was in the CPD's modest Iraq branch. But that summer--before 9/11--word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq. Her unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, the JTFI grew to fifty or so employees. Valerie Wilson was placed in charge of its operations group.....
....When the Novak column ran, Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator--to rise up a notch or two--and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again. Moreover, she would now be pulled into the partisan warfare of Washington. As a CIA employee still sworn to secrecy, she wasn't able to explain publicly that she had spent nearly two years searching for evidence to support the Administration's justification for war and had come up empty.
Valerie.. left the CIA at the end of 2005. In July she and her husband filed a civil lawsuit against Cheney, Rove and Libby, alleging they had conspired to "discredit, punish and seek revenge against" the Wilsons. She is also writing her memoirs. Her next battle may be with the agency--over how much of her story the CIA will allow the outed spy to tell.
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<B>A special presentation for those who argued that the WaPo editorial that proclaimed that the scandal of this "outting" is over and the White House is somehow vindicated:</B>
Quote:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/do...conference.pdf
or http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102801340.html
Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference
Friday, October 28, 2005
.........Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, <B>the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.
Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.</B>
FITZGERALD: The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security.
Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.
But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson's wife Valerie, worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told.
In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.
Now, something needs to be borne in mind about a criminal investigation.
FITZGERALD: I recognize that there's been very little information about this criminal investigation, but for a very good reason.
It may be frustrating when investigations are conducted in secret. When investigations use grand juries, it's important that the information be closely held.
So let me tell you a little bit about how an investigation works.
Investigators do not set out to investigate the statute, they set out to gather the facts.
It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged.
Agent Eckenrode doesn't send people out when $1 million is missing from a bank and tell them, "Just come back if you find wire fraud." If the agent finds embezzlement, they follow through on that.
FITZGERALD: That's the way this investigation was conducted. <B>It was known that a CIA officer's identity was blown, it was known that there was a leak. We needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it.
And given that national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts.</B>
There's another thing about a grand jury investigation. One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public.
And as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they're not charged with a crime, we don't hold up that information for the public to look at. We either charge them with a crime or we don't.
FITZGERALD: And that's why we've safeguarded information here to date.
But as important as it is for the grand jury to follow the rules and follow the safeguards to make sure information doesn't get out, it's equally important that the witnesses who come before a grand jury, especially the witnesses who come before a grand jury who may be under investigation, tell the complete truth.
It's especially important in the national security area. The laws involving disclosure of classified information in some places are very clear, in some places they're not so clear.
And grand jurors and prosecutors making decisions about who should be charged, whether anyone should be charged, what should be charged, need to make fine distinctions about what people knew, why they knew it, what they exactly said, why they said it, what they were trying to do, what appreciation they had for the information and whether it was classified at the time.
FITZGERALD: Those fine distinctions are important in determining what to do. That's why it's essential when a witness comes forward and gives their account of how they came across classified information and what they did with it that it be accurate.
That brings us to the fall of 2003. When it was clear that Valerie Wilson's cover had been blown, investigation began. And in October 2003, the FBI interviewed Mr. Libby. Mr. Libby is the vice president's chief of staff. <B>He's also an assistant to the president and an assistant to the vice president for national security affairs.</B>
FITZGERALD: The focus of the interview was what it that he had known about Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, <B>what he knew about Ms. Wilson, what he said to people, why he said it, and how he learned it.
And to be frank, Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story.</B>
What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson's wife works at the CIA?"
And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr. Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of the NYTimes.
FITZGERALD: And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter; that he didn't even know if it was true.
And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it.
Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He took and oath and he testified. And he essentially said the same thing.
He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson's wife, but he had forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr. Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new.
FITZGERALD: When he passed the information on to reporters Cooper and Miller late in the week, he passed it on thinking it was just information he received from reporters; that he told reporters that, in fact, he didn't even know if it were true. He was just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone calls.
It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go away if only it were true. It is not true, according to the indictment.
In fact, Mr. Libby discussed the information about Valerie Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with Mr. Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to Mr. Russert, Mr. Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or Wilson's wife.
He didn't learn it from Mr. Russert. But if he had, it would not have been new at the time.
FITZGERALD: Let me talk you through what the indictment alleges.
The indictment alleges that Mr. Libby learned the information about Valerie Wilson at least three times in June of 2003 from government officials.
Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr. Wilson or his wife and imparting the information to Mr. Libby.
But in early June, Mr. Libby learned about Valerie Wilson and the role she was believed to play in having sent Mr. Wilson on a trip overseas from a senior CIA officer on or around June 11th, from an undersecretary of state on or around June 11th, and from the vice president on or about June 12th.
FITZGERALD: It's also clear, as set forth in the indictment, that some time prior to July 8th he also learned it from somebody else working in the Vice President's Office.
So at least four people within the government told Mr. Libby about Valerie Wilson, often referred to as "Wilson's wife," working at the CIA and believed to be responsible for helping organize a trip that Mr. Wilson took overseas.
In addition to hearing it from government officials, it's also alleged in the indictment that at least three times Mr. Libby discussed this information with other government officials.
It's alleged in the indictment that on June 14th of 2003, a full month before Mr. Novak's column, Mr. Libby discussed it in a conversation with a CIA briefer in which he was complaining to the CIA briefer his belief that the CIA was leaking information about something or making critical comments, and he brought up Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson.
FITZGERALD: It's also alleged in the indictment that Mr. Libby discussed it with the White House press secretary on July 7th, 2003, over lunch. <H3>What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.</H3>
In addition to discussing it with the press secretary on July 7th, there was also a discussion on or about July 8th in which counsel for the vice president was asked a question by Mr. Libby as to what paperwork the Central Intelligence Agency would have if an employee had a spouse go on a trip.
FITZGERALD: So that at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this information as if it were new from Mr. Russert. And, in fact, when he spoke to Mr. Russert, they never discussed it.
But in addition to focusing on how it is that Mr. Libby learned this information and what he thought about it, it's important to focus on what it is that Mr. Libby said to the reporters.
In the account he gave to the FBI and to the grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller at the end of the week, on July 12th. And that what he told them was he gave them information that he got from other reporters; other reporters were saying this, and Mr. Libby did not know if it were true. And in fact, Mr. Libby testified that he told the reporters he did not even know if Mr. Wilson had a wife.
And, in fact, we now know that Mr. Libby discussed this information about Valerie Wilson at least four times prior to July 14th, 2003: on three occasions with Judith Miller of the New York Times and on one occasion with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.
FITZGERALD: The first occasion in which Mr. Libby discussed it with Judith Miller was back in June 23rd of 2003, just days after an article appeared online in the New Republic which quoted some critical commentary from Mr. Wilson.
After that discussion with Judith Miller on June 23rd, 2003, Mr. Libby also discussed Valerie Wilson on July 8th of 2003.
During that discussion, Mr. Libby talked about Mr. Wilson in a conversation that was on background as a senior administration official. And when Mr. Libby talked about Wilson, he changed the attribution to a former Hill staffer.
During that discussion, which was to be attributed to a former Hill staffer, Mr. Libby also discussed Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, working at the CIA -- and then, finally, again, on July 12th.
In short -- and in those conversations, Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that other reporters are saying;" Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that I don't know if it's true;" Mr. Libby never said, "I don't even know if he had a wife."
FITZGERALD: ...what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.
It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.
Now, as I said before, this grand jury investigation has been conducted in secret. I believe it should have been conducted in secret, not only because it's required by those rules, but because the rules are wise. Those rules protect all of us.
FITZGERALD: We are now going from a grand jury investigation to an indictment, a public charge and a public trial. The rules will be different.
But I think what we see here today, when a vice president's chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.
But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.
So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.
Let's let the process take place. Let's take a deep breath and let justice process the system.
I ....thank the team of investigators and prosecutors who worked on it, led by Agent Eckenrode, or particularly the staff under John Dial (ph) from the Counterespionage Section in the Department of Justice; Mr. Zidenberg (ph) from Public Integrity, as well as the agents from the Washington field office and my close friends in the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office, all of whom contributed to a joint effort.
And with that, I'll take questions.......
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/wa...on/02leak.html
September 2, 2006
New Questions About Inquiry in C.I.A. Leak
By DAVID JOHNSTON
.......Mr. Fitzgerald, who has spoken infrequently in public, came close to providing a defense for his actions at a news conference in October 2005, when Mr. Libby was indicted. Mr. Fitzgerald said that apart from the issue of whether any crime had been committed, the justice system depended on the ability of prosecutors to obtain truthful information from witnesses during any investigation.
The information about Mr. Armitage’s role may help Mr. Libby convince a jury that his actions were relatively inconsequential, because even Mr. Armitage, not regarded as an ally of Mr. Cheney, was talking to journalists about Ms. Wilson’s role.
But the trial, scheduled for early next year, may be focused on the narrow questions of whether Mr. Libby’s accounts to the grand jury and the F.B.I. were true. Judge Reggie M. Walton of Federal District Court, who is presiding, has resisted efforts by Mr. Libby’s lawyers to give the case a wider political scope.
<B>Mr. Fitzgerald may also point out that Mr. Armitage knew about Ms. Wilson’s C.I.A. role only because of a memorandum that Mr. Libby had commissioned as part of an effort to rebut criticism of the White House by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.</B>
Mr. Fitzgerald was named as a special counsel to investigate whether the leaking of Ms. Wilson’s identity as a C.I.A. officer was part of an administration effort to violate the law prohibiting the willful disclosure of undercover employees.
Some administration critics asserted that her identity had been disclosed in the Novak column as part of a campaign to undermine her husband. Mr. Wilson was sent by the C.I.A. in 2002 to Africa to investigate whether the Iraqi government had obtained uranium ore for its nuclear weapons program. ...........
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Quote:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/do...t_28102005.pdf
(pages 3 thru 22: )
f. Joseph Wilson was married to Valerie Plame Wilson (“Valerie Wilson”). At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. Events Leading up to July 2003 2. On or about January 28, 2003, President George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address which included sixteen words asserting that “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” 3. On May 6, 2003, the New York Times published a column by Nicholas Kristof which disputed the accuracy of the “sixteen words” in the State of the Union address. The column reported that, following a request from the Vice President’s office for an investigation of allegations that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger, an unnamed former ambassador was sent on a trip to Niger in 2002 to investigate the allegations. According to the column, the ambassador reported back to the CIA and State Department in early 2002 that the allegations were unequivocally wrong and based on forged documents.
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4. On or about May 29, 2003, in the White House, LIBBY asked an Under Secretary of State (“Under Secretary”) for information concerning the unnamed ambassador’s travel to Niger to investigate claims about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium yellowcake. The Under Secretary thereafter directed the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research to prepare a report concerning the ambassador and his trip. The Under Secretary provided LIBBY with interim oral reports in late May and earlyJune 2003, and advised LIBBY that Wilson was the former ambassador who took the trip. 5. On or about June 9, 2003, a number of classified documents from the CIA were faxed to the Office of the Vice President to the personal attention of LIBBY and another person in the Office of the Vice President. The faxed documents, which were marked as classified, discussed, among other things, Wilson and his trip to Niger, but did not mention Wilson by name. After receiving these documents, LIBBY and one or more other persons in the Office of the Vice President handwrote the names “Wilson” and “Joe Wilson” on the documents. 6. On or about June 11 or 12, 2003, the Under Secretary of State orally advised LIBBY in the White House that, in sum and substance, Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that State Department personnel were saying that Wilson’s wife was involved in the planning of his trip. 7. On or about June 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask about the origin and circumstances of Wilson’s trip, and was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip. 8. Prior to June 12, 2003, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus contacted the Office of the Vice President in connection with a story he was writing about Wilson’s trip. LIBBY participated in discussions in the Office of the Vice President concerning how to respond to Pincus. 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 Division. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA. 10. On June 12, 2003, the Washington Post published an article by reporter Walter Pincus about Wilson’s trip to Niger, which described Wilson as a retired ambassador but not by name, and reported that the CIA had sent him to Niger afteran aide to the Vice President raised questions about purported Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium. Pincus’s article questioned the accuracy of the “sixteen words,” and stated that the retired ambassador had reported to the CIA that the uranium purchase story was false. 11. On or about June 14, 2003, LIBBY met with a CIA briefer. During their conversation he expressed displeasure that CIA officials were making comments to reporters critical of the Vice President’s office, and discussed with the briefer, among other things, “Joe Wilson” and his wife “Valerie Wilson,” in the context of Wilson’s trip to Niger. 12. On or about June 19, 2003, an article appeared in The New Republic magazine online entitled “The First Casualty: The Selling of the Iraq War.” Among other things, the article questioned the “sixteen words” and stated that following a request for information from the Vice President, the CIA had asked an unnamed ambassador to travel to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. The article included a quotation attributed to the unnamed ambassador alleging that administration officials “knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie.” The article also was critical of how the administration, including the Office of the Vice President, portrayed intelligence concerning Iraqi capabilities with regard to weapons of mass destruction, and accused the administration of suppressing dissent from the intelligence agencies on this topic.
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13. Shortly after publication of the article in The New Republic, LIBBY spoke by telephone with his then Principal Deputy and discussed the article. That official asked LIBBY whether information about Wilson’s trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the Vice President had sent Wilson. LIBBY responded that therewouldbe complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure telephone line. 14. On or about June 23, 2003, LIBBY met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. During this meeting LIBBY was critical of the CIA, and disparaged what he termed “selective leaking” by the CIA concerning intelligence matters. In discussing the CIA’s handling of Wilson’s trip to Niger, LIBBY informed her that Wilson’s wife might work at a bureau of the CIA. The July 6 “Op Ed” Article by Wilson 15. On July 6, 2003, the New York Times published an Op-Ed article by Wilson entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” Also on July 6, 2003, the Washington Post published an article about Wilson’s 2002 trip to Niger, which article was based in part upon an interview of Wilson. Also on July 6, Wilson appeared as a guest on the television interview show “Meet the Press.” In his Op-Ed article and interviews in print and on television, Wilson asserted, among other things, that he had taken a trip to Niger at the request of the CIA in February 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq had sought or obtained uranium yellowcake from Niger, and that he doubted Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger recently, for a number of reasons. Wilson stated that he believed, based on his understanding of government procedures, that the Office of the Vice President was advised of the results of his trip.
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LIBBY’s Actions Following Wilson’s July 6 “Op Ed” Column 16. <B>On or about July 7, 2003, LIBBY had lunch with the then White House Press Secretary and advised the Press Secretary that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and noted that such information was not widely known.</B> 17. 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. 18. Also on or about July 8, 2003, LIBBY met with the Counsel to the Vice President in an anteroom outside the Vice President’s Office. During their brief conversation, LIBBY asked the Counsel to the Vice President, in sum and substance, what paperwork there would be at the CIA if an employee’s spouse undertook an overseas trip. 19. Not earlier than June 2003, but on or before July 8, 2003, the Assistant to the Vice President for Public Affairs learned from another government official that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, and advised LIBBY of this information. 20. On or about July 10, 2003, LIBBY spoke to NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert to complain about press coverage of LIBBY by an MSNBC reporter. LIBBY did not discuss Wilson’s wife with Russert.
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...464417,00.html
World
In Senegal, Bush Speaks Against Slavery
"A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions," said Bush in an emotional speech addressing the institution in America
By <b>JOHN DICKERSON/GOREE ISLAND</b>
Posted Wednesday, Jul. 09, 2003
For George W. Bush, the door to the heart of Africa lies at the end of a low stone hallway opening into the Atlantic Ocean. Visiting a slave quarters on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal Tuesday, the president traced the stutter steps of countless Africans chained and herded down the narrow passage towards the "Door of No Return," the last point of land they touched before the six month sail to America.....
Quote:
http://www.slate.com/id/2129097/
Liar or Fool?What's left of Scooter Libby's reputation.
By <b>John Dickerson</b>
Posted Monday, Oct. 31, 2005, at 11:02 AM ET
When Democratic wise man Clark Clifford was accused of acting as a front for the corrupt Pakistani bank BCCI, he admitted, "I have a choice of either seeming stupid or venal."....
.....Scooter Libby is in the same fix: His reputation is now a witness against him. Libby is known for his precision and intellect. I, like many of the reporters who now must cover his trial, remember the micrometer he used to measure our questions and assumptions. So it's hard to buy his lawyer's suggestion that Libby's misstatements to the FBI and grand jury were due to a shaky memory made shakier by "the hectic rush of issues and events at a busy time for our government." Yes, he worked 14-hour days handling tricky and disparate issues. But this isn't a matter of forgetting what you had for lunch. How Libby learned Plame's identity was a central question of a 22-month investigation. He had time to think this through.
Before Libby gets a chance to defend himself in court, he must suffer through speculation about the seemingly more plausible rationale for his actions: that he knew he should not have spoken about Plame and that to cover up having done so, he fashioned a fictitious narrative. .......
.........More astonishingly, <b>we learn from the Fitzgerald indictment that Ari Fleischer knew about Plame and didn't tell anyone at all. He walked reporters, including me, up to the fact, suggesting they look into who sent Wilson, but never used her name or talked about her position. Why not? It certainly would have been helpful for him at the time.</b> His colleagues were savaging him at the time for bungling the response to Wilson's July 6 New York Times opinion piece. They blamed him for not sufficiently refuting the article. By leaking the Plame information, Fleischer could have discredited Wilson, muddied the story, and won back the affection of his complaining colleagues.
<b>Fleischer and Rove each discussed Plame with Scooter.</b> A tantalizing fact still hidden in Fitzgerald's briefcase is whether Libby in those conversations with Fleischer and Rove discussed disclosing Plame's identity.
Even Libby seems to have been using potholders when he talked about Plame in 2003. He didn't mention her to some of the reporters to whom he talked about Wilson and even in the cases where he did, he was vague. According to Judy Miller's account of her testimony, Libby said he thought Wilson's wife might work at the CIA. He offhandedly half-confirmed it to my former Time colleague Matthew Cooper only when Cooper brought it up. "Yeah, I've heard that too." he said.
Why was this fact important enough for Libby to risk discussing it at all? For the same reason administration critics zeroed in on FEMA Director Michael Brown's friendship with his predecessor Joe Allbaugh. When it was reported (incorrectly) that the two had been roommates in college, critics had a handy explanation of how someone as unqualified as Brown had nevertheless been promoted to head the disaster agency. Nepotism provided a quick way to hollow out Wilson's claims. It also fit with Libby's depiction of the CIA as an agency playing its own games rather than pursuing the facts in a cleareyed way.....
.....To defend himself Libby will have to zero in on the various meetings in which he supposedly discussed Plame's identity with other officials. He'll either have to say he forgot what he was told, or he'll have to challenge his colleague's recollections of what was said. Or he'll have to say that Plame's name did come up but her status as a CIA agent, open or undercover, was unclear—and that only when he talked to reporters did he really learn where she worked for sure. Even if he beats the rap like, in the end, Clark Clifford did, one of those two halves of Libby's reputation is going to have to fall. He can have his meticulousness or his integrity—but he can't keep a reputation for both.
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Quote:
http://www.slate.com/id/2135565/
Where's My Subpoena?Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, and me.
By <b>John Dickerson</b>
Updated Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006
This is the second part of a two-part article. <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2135554/">Click here</a> for Part 1, explaining why John Dickerson's name has popped up in connection with the CIA leak case.
While the president finished his meeting with Museveni, I hung out with a "senior administration official" by an old yellow school bus. This was the first of my two conversations about Wilson. In his letter to Libby, Fitzgerald has the chronology mixed up. When I had these conversations, I hadn't yet talked to my colleague Matt Cooper about Wilson, and Cooper hadn't yet talked to Rove.
The senior administration official spoke to me on background about Wilson and the president's amazing decision to blame the CIA. Other reporters wandered in and out of the conversation, but there were stretches where it was just the two of us (my tedious newsmagazine questions always had a tendency to drive other deadline-oriented reporters away). The official walked me through all the many problems with Wilson's report: His work was sloppy, contradictory, and hadn't been sanctioned by Tenet or any senior person. Some low-level person at the CIA was responsible for the mission. <b>I was told I should go ask the CIA who sent Wilson.</b> An hour later, as Bush spoke at an AIDS treatment center, I chatted with a different senior administration official, also on background. We talked about many different aspects of the story—the fight with the CIA, the political implications for the president, and the administration's shoddy damage control. <b>This official also pointed out a few times that Wilson had been sent by a low-level CIA employee and encouraged me to follow that angle.</b> I thought I got the point: He'd been sent by someone around the rank of deputy assistant undersecretary or janitor.
<b>At the end of the two conversations I wrote down in my notebook: "look who sent."</b> It was about 10:30 a.m. in Washington as the event ended. I called the Washington bureau but couldn't reach anyone (they were all huddled in the morning meeting). What struck me was how hard both officials were working to knock down Wilson. Discrediting your opposition is a standard tactic in Washington, but the Bush team usually played the game differently. At that stage in the first term, Bush aides usually blew off their critics. Or, they continued to assert their set of facts in the hope of overcoming criticism by force of repetition. It had been a long week. I was co-writing a <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,464417,00.html">long story</a> on the trip for the European edition, filing each day to the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,463671,00.html">Web site</a> and also filing for the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,464405,00.html">domestic cover story</a> on the fallout over the 16 words. Oh, and I also had to file a story on violence in Liberia. My inbox was a mess. In the middle of it was an e-mail from Matt Cooper telling me to call him from a land line when I had some privacy. At some time after 1 p.m. his time, I called him. He told me that he had talked to Karl Rove that morning and that Rove had given him the same Wilson takedown I'd been getting in Uganda. But Matt had the one key fact I didn't: Rove had said that Wilson's wife sent him.
<b>So, that explained the wink-wink nudge-nudge I was getting about who sent Wilson.</b> Matt and I agreed to point out in our files to the cover story that White House officials were going so directly after Wilson. We also agreed that I wouldn't go back to my sources about the wife business. The universe of people who knew this information was undoubtedly small. Mentioning it to other officials would potentially out Rove as Time's source to his colleagues. Plus, it was Matt's scoop and his arrangement with Rove. He had a better sense of how to get the information confirmed without violating their agreement.
That Friday night in Washington, CIA Director George Tenet fell on his sword, taking responsibility for not carefully vetting the State of the Union speech. That big news eclipsed the storyline about an effort by White House officials to discredit Wilson.
I missed the final sausage-making process of putting together the weekly magazine. As Time's cover story was being written in Washington, I was flying back from Africa. I saw the final piece only moments before it was closed. By then, Matt had talked to Scooter Libby, who confirmed Rove's tip.
Quote:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../17/rs.01.html
CNN RELIABLE SOURCES
Interview With Matt Cooper; Interview With Bob Woodward
Aired July 17, 2005 - 11:00 ET
.....COOPER: ... about Saddam Hussein trying to get uranium in Africa to make nuclear weapons. The White House that week said it may be true, but it was not checked out well enough to merit it being in the State of the Union address. So there was a big controversy on that. And I called Rove with that on my mind.
And he did indeed give me a warning, saying don't get too far out on Wilson, which I took to mean don't lionize Wilson, don't believe everything you hear about Wilson.
KURTZ: Now, you also say, let's read from the article, put it up on the screen -- "This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife. Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status."
What was his tone? Did you have the impression he was trying to disparage or undermine Joe Wilson, to influence the tone of your article?
COOPER: I thought it was disparaging towards Wilson. I thought it was sort of guiding and spoken with great confidence. And as I said, before the -- in "Time" this week, as I said -- and I told the grand jury -- before that conversation, I had never heard about anything about Joe Wilson's wife. After that conversation, I knew that she worked at the CIA, and worked on WMD issues. But as I made clear to the grand jury, I'm certain Rove never used her exact name and certainly never indicated she had a covert status.
KURTZ: But at the end of that conversation, he said something that was a little bit cryptic. What was that?
COOPER: Well, he said, "I've already said too much."
KURTZ: What do you think he meant?
COOPER: Well, at the time I thought, well, maybe he meant he had been indiscrete and had said something important. Later I thought, well, maybe it was actually more benign, like "I've said too much, I've got to get to a meeting."
So I don't really know what he meant, but I do know the memory of that line has stayed with me for a couple of years now.
KURTZ: A lot of people have picked up on your description in the memos to your bureau chief of that conversation -- "It was on double super secret background." What did that mean?
COOPER: Well, Howie, I can now reveal that it was a joke. Karl Rove, when we had the conversation, wanted it to be on deep background, which I took to mean I could use the material but not quote it directly, and certainly not attribute it, that I had to protect the identity of my source. When I wrote the note to my bureau chief, just moments after the conversation with Rove, in a slightly playful way, I echoed the line in the movie "Animal House," where John Belushi's wild fraternity is put on double secret probation. So it was a little bit of humor, and...
KURTZ: You also testified -- actually, you testified last year about your conversation with Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. You had repeated what you heard from Rove about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, and what did Libby say?
COOPER: He said words to the effect of, yeah, I've heard that, too.
KURTZ: OK. I am told you had a third administration source, a policy person on Africa. Did the grand jury ask you about anyone else you talked to on this?
COOPER: Well, I don't want to get into all the sources for this article. I'll just say that what I told the grand jury is in "Time" this week, and anything I talked about in the grand jury I had a waiver for.
..........
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The attack on Wilson had not been included. The writers focused on his original trip and the damage his op-ed had done to administration credibility. Time's cover showed the president giving the State of the Union address under the headline "Untruth and Consequences."
Since the attack on Wilson was not included in the printed magazine that came out Monday, Cooper thought we should put it online. <B>All administrations discredit their critics through whispers to reporters, but we hadn't seen high-level Bush people do anything like this in the past. It suggested desperation and unsteadiness in a national security team that had often been heralded for its smooth competency.</B>
At this point the information about Valerie Plame was not the radioactive material it is today. No one knew she might have been a protected agent—and for whatever reason, the possibility didn't occur to us or anyone else at the time. But it was still newsworthy that the White House was using her to make its case. That Scooter Libby and Karl Rove mentioned Plame to Matt was an example of how they were attempting to undermine Wilson. They were trying to make his trip look like a special family side deal not officially sanctioned by the agency. No one at a high level in the government was worried enough about the veracity of the uranium claim to send a "real" special envoy. And no one at a high level ever saw Wilson's report when he returned. Later we would learn that Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley had been warned by the CIA that the uranium claims were shaky and that Wilson's wife was one of many people involved in the decision to send her husband.
Our editors delayed publication of the Web piece, uncertain there was enough evidence the White House was trying to undermine Wilson's credibility. That was frustrating, since by that time the White House spokesman, Fleischer, was undermining him <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030712-11.html">on the record</a>. Bob Novak's story revealing Plame's name had come out, but those of us working on the story in Washington, which now included Massimo Calabresi, thought we still had a few facts Novak didn't. Our piece finally ran on the Web on July 17, 2003, six days after Cooper had learned about Wilson's wife.
Where did Fitzgerald learn about my activities? Matt told me he briefly mentioned me in front of the grand jury and Viveca Novak said my name came up in passing when she talked to Fitzgerald. He also subpoenaed White House e-mail records that included, White House officials tell me, e-mails I sent to them about the Wilson business in the days and months after that July trip to Africa. Those officials also told Fitzgerald and his grand jury about conversations we had. I came back from the trip harboring a suspicion that only fully made sense when I learned Plame's CIA cover had been blown. <B>It seemed obvious that the people pushing me to look into who sent Wilson knew exactly the answer I'd find. Yet they were really careful not to let the information slip, which suggested that they knew at the time Plame's identity was radioactive.</B>
That's my bit of the story. I don't expect my grandchildren will be asking me to repeat it again in 30 years.... Oh, Grampa, tell us again about the two senior administration officials in Africa. If they want something more exciting, they'll have to ask Uncle Matt.
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Quote:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=3187
10.29.05
ARI FLEISCHER, STAR WITNESS:
.....Remember, Libby told the FBI and the Grand Jury that he learned about Plame's status from journalists. But Fitzgerald meticulously pieced together conversations Libby had about Plame with seven different Bush officials before Libby ever talked to any reporters. The testimony of these seven Bushies will be as crucial to Fitzgerald's case as the testimony of the three reporters.
The Bush Seven can be broken up into two categories. There are the four officials from whom Libby learned Plame's CIA status: Dick Cheney, an un-named senior CIA official, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, and Cheney spokeswoman Catherine Martin. And there are three officials with whom Libby discussed Plame's CIA status: an un-named CIA briefer, Cheney counsel David Addington, and Ari Fleischer.
A lot will hang on the testimony of Fleischer. Libby allegedly told Fleischer about Plame on July 7, 2003, just three days before Libby swears he first heard about Plame from Russert. As Fitzgerald pointed out yesterday, "What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.".....
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21. On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House (“Official A”) who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife. 22. On or about July 12, 2003, LIBBY flew with the Vice President and others to and from Norfolk, Virginia, on Air Force Two. On his return trip, LIBBY discussed with other officials aboard the plane what LIBBY should say in response to certain pending media inquiries, including questions from Time reporter Matthew Cooper. 23. On or about July 12, 2003, in the afternoon, LIBBY spoke by telephone to Cooper, who asked whether LIBBY had heardthat Wilson’s wife was involved in sending Wilson on the trip to Niger. LIBBY confirmed to Cooper, without elaboration or qualification, that he had heard this information too. 24. On or about July 12, 2003, in the late afternoon, LIBBY spoke by telephone with Judith Miller of the New York Times and discussed Wilson’s wife, and that she worked at the CIA. The Criminal Investigation 25. On or about September 26, 2003, the Department of Justice authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) to commence a criminal investigation into the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA to various reporters in the spring of 2003.....
.....A TRUE BILL: FOREPERSON PATRICK J. FITZGERALD Special Counsel
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IMO, Ari Fleischer will be Fitzgerald's star witness in prosecutions "to come"!
Last edited by host; 09-06-2006 at 01:11 AM..
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09-06-2006, 12:11 AM
