The Press Gangbang the Press Secretary

[DudeAsInCool]

Read the Prosecutors Indictment at The Smoking Gun:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1028051plame1.html

Fitzpatrick's News Conference

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?...=D8DH8RQ07.html

[DudeAsInCool]

JOE WILSON, HUSBAND OF THE UNMASKED CIA AGENT VALERIE PLAME, SAYS THERE HAVE BEEN THREATS AGAINST HER – “60 MINUTES” SUNDAY

Fri Oct 28 2005 20:56:07 ET

Former CIA Colleagues say the Unmasking of Plame Could Cause Harm to Other Agents

Joe Wilson, whose wife’s unmasking as a CIA agent is at the center of the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, said today that that his wife, Valerie Plame, has been threatened. Wilson talks to Ed Bradley in his first interview since Fitzgerald announced the indictment of I. Lewis Libby. It will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday Oct. 30 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

“There have been specific threats [against Plame]. Beyond that I just can’t go,” Wilson tells Bradley. Wilson says he and his wife have discussed security for her with “several agencies.”

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash4.htm

[KiwiCoromandel]

Top Cheney aide indicted IN CIA leak probe

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was indicted for obstructing justice, perjury and lying after a two-year CIA leak investigation, dealing a damaging blow to the beleaguered White House.

Libby, who could face up to 30 years in prison, resigned minutes after the indictment was filed in a case that has put a spotlight on how the administration sold the nation on the war in Iraq and countered its critics. In a statement, Cheney said Libby would "fight the charges brought against him".

President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was not indicted along with Libby, but special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has made clear to Rove he remains under investigation and in legal jeopardy, lawyers said.

"It's not over," Fitzgerald told a news conference.

more here........

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cf...jectID=10352618

[KiwiCoromandel]

Top aide to Cheney indicted.......

In a damaging blow to a beleaguered White House, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was indicted on Friday for obstructing justice, perjury and lying after a two-year investigation into the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity.

Libby resigned his White House post and faces up to 30 years in prison in a case that has put a spotlight on how the administration sold the nation on the war in Iraq and countered its critics.

Cheney said Libby would "fight the charges brought against him." Libby predicted: "At the end of this process I will be completely and totally exonerated."

President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was not indicted along with Libby, but special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has made clear to Rove he remains under investigation and in legal jeopardy, lawyers said.

"It's not over," Fitzgerald told a news conference.

Bush said the investigation and legal proceedings were "serious and now the process moves into a new phase."

Reggie Walton, the federal judge chosen to handle Libby's case, was appointed by Bush to the court. An arraignment for Libby to enter a plea has yet to be scheduled.

Libby's indictment raises the specter of a politically damaging criminal trial. Lawyers involved in the leak case said Cheney himself and other top White House officials can expect to be called as witnesses.

The White House is already reeling over the slow response to Hurricane Katrina, growing opposition to the Iraq war and the withdrawal of Bush's nominee for the US Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, under fire from Bush's conservative base.

Despite initial denials, both Rove and Libby spoke to reporters in June and July 2003 about the CIA operative, Valerie Plame.

Libby, who played a major behind-the-scenes role in building the case for the Iraq war, was accused in the five-count indictment of making false statements about how and when he learned and disclosed to reporters classified information about Plame.

Payback for opposition to war?

Plame's cover was blown after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting pre-war intelligence to support military action against Iraq. Wilson said it was done deliberately to erode his credibility.

"Today is a sad day for America," Wilson said in a statement. "When an indictment is delivered at the front door of the White House, the Office of the President is defiled."

Some Republicans have accused Fitzgerald of being overzealous by pursuing "legal technicalities" instead of the underlying crime. Libby was not charged with illegally disclosing the name of a covert CIA operative.

"I'll be blunt," Fitzgerald said in response. "That talking point won't fly."

He also sought to distance the charges from the growing national debate over the Iraq war, saying the issue was whether "Libby lied or not" and not whether "the war was justified or unjustified."

If convicted, Libby, 55, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $US1.25 million fine.

The charges accuse Libby of lying to FBI agents who interviewed him on October 14, 2003, and November 26, 2003, committing perjury while testifying under oath to the grand jury twice in March 2004, and engaging in obstruction of justice by impeding the grand jury's investigation.

Fitzgerald dismissed as "false" Libby's story that he learned about Wilson's wife from reporters. "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," Fitzgerald said.

Wilson based his criticism of the administration in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check out an intelligence report that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.

Bush cited intelligence that Iraq sought uranium from Africa in his 2003 State of the Union address, but Wilson later said the claim was unsubstantiated.

Cheney's office sought to discredit Wilson and his findings by suggesting the trip had been arranged by his wife.

The indictment showed that Libby began seeking information about Wilson and his wife in late May 2003, some six weeks before Plame's identity was publicly disclosed in a July 14, 2003, newspaper column by Robert Novak.

It appears that Libby first learned that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA - and that she was involved in organizing his trip to Niger - on June 11 or June 12, 2003, in conversations with the undersecretary of State and a senior officer at the CIA, who were not identified by name. The undersecretary referred to in the documents is Marc Grossman.

The indictment also highlighted Cheney's role. Libby learned from Cheney himself on June 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked in the counterproliferation division of the CIA.

Legal sources said Rove could still face perjury charges for initially failing to tell the grand jury he talked to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame.

Prosecutors did not identify Rove by name in the indictment, referring to him only as "Official A." Prosecutors said "Official A" told Libby that Novak was writing a column about Plame.

"The special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he has made no decision about whether or not to bring charges," Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said in a statement.

Source: Reuters

[CTC Command]

They better nail that fuck Rove--watch this adminstration go straight down the crapper where it belongs without that evil genius at the helm. :taskmaster:

Wait! that sounded WAY partisan. :yup:

[DudeAsInCool]

Indictment Doesn't Clear Up Mystery at Heart of CIA Leak Probe

      Friday 28 October 2005

    Washington - At the heart of Friday's indictment of a top White House aide remain two unsolved mysteries.

    Who forged the documents that claimed Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear weapons in the African country of Niger?

    How did a version of the tale get into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, even though U.S. intelligence agencies never confirmed it and some intelligence analysts doubted it?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102905C.shtml

[DudeAsInCool]

PROSECUTOR PLANS ON CALLING CHENEY AS WITNESS IN OPEN COURT; EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE FIGHT LOOMS

**Exclusive**

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned.

But the high stakes move could result in an executive privilege showdown between the White House and Fitzgerald, a top government source said Sunday.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash6fi.htm

Go get 'em, Fitz :good job:

[DudeAsInCool]

Time Reporter Says He Learned Agent's Identity From Rove

Matthew Cooper Says I. Lewis Libby Confirmed Information

Oct. 31 2005 — - One of the reporters at the center of the investigation into the leak of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, says he first learned the agent's name from President Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove.

Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper also said today in an interview with "Good Morning America," that the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, confirmed to him that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/print?id=1265736

[DudeAsInCool]

Cheney Names Two to Fill Libby's Positions

October 31,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, moving swiftly to replace an indicted aide, on Monday named attorney David Addington as his chief of staff and John Hannah as his national security adviser.

...Addington has been Cheney's counsel and Hannah has been his deputy national security adviser.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?...=D8DJ5DIO0.html

I read somewhere that Addington is one of the guys who supports torture

of detainees :evil: Anyone else here that?

[Wolfie]

I read somewhere that Addington is one of the guys who supports torture

of detainees icon_evil.gif Anyone else here that?

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3128...ngton_memo.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer

Ask and you shall receive. ;)

[DudeAsInCool]

Rove Indictment Still Very Possible

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101494_pf.html

[DudeAsInCool]

Another Thunderbolt from Wilkerson

Another shocking accusation by former administration insider Lawrence Wilkerson appears to be going under the media radar today.

On NPR yesterday, the former chief of staff to the secretary of state said that he had uncovered a "visible audit trail" tracing the practice of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers directly back to Vice President Cheney's office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5041100879.html

I love it when the press smells blood in the morning

[DudeAsInCool]

Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics...agewanted=print

They were lying through their teeth at the UN and to the American people...

[slum_goddess]

I love it when the press smells blood in the morning

i'm (still) waiting for the huge headlines screaming BUSH LIED--IMPEACH HIM NOW

[DudeAsInCool]

Agreement on Her Departure

The New York Times and Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for the paper, reached an agreement today that ends her 28-year career at the newspaper and caps more than two weeks of negotiations.

Ms. Miller went to jail this summer rather than reveal a confidential source in the C.I.A. leak case. But her release from jail 85 days later after she agreed to testify before a grand jury and persistent questions about her actions roiled long-simmering concerns about her in the newsroom and led to her departure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/business/09cnd-miller.html

[slum_goddess]

The New York Times and Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for the paper, reached an agreement today that ends her 28-year career at the newspaper

GOOD. :)

[DudeAsInCool]

Bob Woodward Now Caught Up In Plamegate…

Woodward Called CIA Leak Investigator “Junkyard Dog Prosecutor,” Said Damage From Leak Of Plame's Name “Quite Minimal" (last summer)....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001480714

He plans on writing a second book on the Bush administration - I think this has

affected his hard reporting on the White House

:reallymad:

[DudeAsInCool]

What did Bob Woodward know and when did he know it?

According to a report out today in the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, the famous reporter who exposed the Watergate scandal and who also serves as the Post's current Assistant Managing Editor, testified under oath on Monday that a "senior administration official" had told him of CIA operative Valerie Plame almost a month before she was outed in a column by pundit Robert Novak.

The unnamed official apparently had alerted Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald on November 3rd -- a week after I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted in the CIA leak investigation -- of the mid-June 2003 conversation with Woodward in which the two discussed Valerie Plame and her position at the CIA.

In his statement, Woodward says that he testified about conversations with "three current or former Bush administration officials" he had been interviewing for an upcoming book he's working on. Although Woodward is keeping mum on the details of his conversation with the unnamed official who had notified Fitzgerald about the conversation, Woodward did say that he met with Libby at the end of June where they discussed Iraq policy. In his statement, Woodward said that he talked to Libby on June 23, 2003 with notes about Wilson's wife, but can't recall if the subject was ever discussed, and that it was possible that he told Libby that "Wilson's wife worked for the CIA" – but had no recollection of doing so. So does this clear up or muddle even more so Libby's involvement in the leak case?

The Post notes that Woodward's testimony is significant because the unnamed official would be the first person to have discussed Plame -- not Libby. And it would make Woodward the "first reporter to have learned about Plame from a government source."

So many questions. For starters, who are the three officials Woodward talked to on background for his book and who is the mysterious figure who suddenly, for reasons we can only speculate, decided to notify Fitzgerald about this only recently? Karl Rove's spokesmen says that sure it wasn’t Turd Blossom. Is there still some elusive figure in all this that we don't know about? Is it the same person who was the second yet-to-be named source for that Novak column back in the middle of July in 2003? What more does Woodward, a critic of the investigation, know? And how much, if anything does this have to do with Libby's defense strategy wherein his lawyers apparently are planning to try and compel as many journalists as they can to testify about any notes or records they might have relating to his case.

William Jeffress Jr., one of Libby's lawyers seized on Woodward's testimony, citing it as evidence that the focus on Libby may not be as accurate as once thought, and that there may be other things that Fitzgerald doesn't know about. "Why did Mr. Fitzgerald indict Mr. Libby before fully investigating what other reporters knew about Wilson's wife?" Good question. Anyone think we'll get the answer?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

[DudeAsInCool]

Woodward Says His Source Was Not Libby

The newspaper reported that Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of Plame's identity, that the official talked to him about Plame in mid-June 2003. Woodward and editors at the Post refused to identify the official to reporters other than to say it was not Libby.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Karl Rove's legal team, said Rove was not the official who talked to Woodward. Rove is a top deputy to President Bush and was referred to, but not by name, in Libby's indictment, as having discussed Plame's identity with reporters.

Libby was indicted last month on one charge of obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statement and perjury in connection with Fitzgerald's investigation.

Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had criticized U.S. intelligence efforts before the Iraq war. On June 23, Libby told New York Times reporter Judith Miller that Wilson's wife might work at the CIA. Robert Novak, in a column published July 14, identified Plame, as a CIA operative.

Woodward's testimony in a two-hour deposition Monday would mean that another White House official told a reporter about Plame before Libby revealed her identity to Miller. A spokesman for White House adviser Karl Rove told the Post that Rove did not discuss Plame with Woodward.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?...=D8DTODEO0.html

Could it be...Satan?....Cheney?....Bush?

[Wolfie]

Could it be...Satan?....Cheney?....Bush?

Aren't those three names synonyms? ;)

[DudeAsInCool]

Cheney Fights Back!

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1cf.htm

Repub Sen Hagel Chides Bush Administration for Attacking Critics and Dividing the Country

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/11/16/g...mi_n_10771.html

...more like attempting...they have already lost the rest of us

[DudeAsInCool]

Arianna Huffington:

Bob Woodward. What a career arc. From exposing a presidential cover-up in Watergate to covering up his role in Plamegate. And being forced to apologize to his own paper. And asking a colleague, Walter Pincus, not to mention Woodward’s role in the story. And failing to tell his editor that he had vital information about a major story.

And, to bottom it out, doing the TV and radio rounds, minimizing the scandal as “laughable,” “an accident”, “nothing to it” and denigrating Fitzgerald as “disgraceful” and “a junkyard dog” without ever once divulging that he was not just an observer of the CIA leak case but a recipient -- perhaps the first -- of the leak.

Hear that hissing noise? That’s the sound of the air being let out of Woodward’s reputation...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huff...e-_b_10773.html

[DudeAsInCool]

Fitzgerald sees new grand jury proceedings

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in court filings that the ongoing CIA leak investigation will involve proceedings before a new grand jury, a possible sign he could seek new charges in the case.

In filings obtained by Reuters on Friday, Fitzgerald said "the investigation is continuing" and that "the investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury than the grand jury which returned the indictment" against Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20051118/...SH-LEAK-DC.html

[slum_goddess]

[DudeAsInCool]

THE CURVEBALL SAGA

How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'

The Iraqi informant's German handlers say they had told U.S. officials that his information was 'not proven,' and were shocked when President Bush and Colin L. Powell used it in key prewar speeches.

BERLIN — The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines