Washington, DC - Former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, filed suit in federal court today against Vice President Dick Cheney, his former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, top Presidential advisor Karl Rove and other unnamed senior White House officials, for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status.
A copy of the Complaint as filed in court is attached, as is a page with excerpts from the Complaint.
The suit accuses the defendants of violating the Wilsons' constitutional and other legal rights as a result of "a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House" to "discredit, punish and seek revenge against" Mr. Wilson for publicly disputing statements made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address justifying the war in Iraq.
Bill Harlow, the former spokesman for the CIA who syndicated columnist Robert Novak claimed Tuesday was a source who confirmed the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson for Novak's July 14, 2003, column, had broken ranks with Bush administration early on for telling reporters there was no "smoking gun" that proved Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"Well-placed officials in the administration were skeptical about the WMD intelligence on Iraq - among them [Richard] Armitage, some senior military officers, and even the CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, who repeatedly warned reporters that the intelligence agencies were convinced that Saddam had WMD but that they lacked a "smoking gun," Woodward wrote.
Fingering Harlow as one of the sources he relied upon for his column that identified Plame Wilson parallels the White House's long-standing tactic of shifting responsibility for all intelligence failures related to pre-war Iraq intelligence onto the CIA.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.
During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.
Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.
Hundreds of pages of emails and memos "discovered" by the White House in February and turned over to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald show that Karl Rove played a much larger role in the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case than he had previously disclosed to a grand jury and FBI investigators.
In February, TruthOut was the first to report the existence of the 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Office of the President that were written in mid-2003.
Despite vehement denials by his attorney, who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon.
Karl Rove's appearance before a grand jury in the CIA leak case Wednesday comes on the heels of a "target letter" sent to his attorney recently by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, signaling that the Deputy White House Chief of Staff may face imminent indictment, sources that are knowledgeable about the probe said Wednesday.
It's unclear when Fitzgerald sent the target letter to Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin. Sources close to the two-year-old leak investigation said when Rove's attorney received the letter Rove volunteered to appear before the grand jury for an unprecedented fifth time to explain why he did not previously disclose conversations he had with the media about covert CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who criticized the Bush administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence.
Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.
Sixteen days before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he said that the US learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa - an explosive claim that helped pave the way to war - the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the uranium claims were based upon were forgeries, according to a newly declassified State Department memo.
The revelation of the warning from the closely guarded State Department memo is the first piece of hard evidence and the strongest to date that the Bush administration manipulated and ignored intelligence information in their zeal to win public support for invading Iraq.
The memo says: "On January 12, 2003," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries."
Defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said in a court filing late Wednesday that the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't remember a conversation he had with a State Department official in June 2003 in which the official told Libby that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA.
But the conversation did take place, according to current and former administration officials and attorneys who have remained close to the two-year-old CIA leak probe. At least a half-dozen witnesses who testified before a grand jury over the past two years said that they were at the meeting when Marc Grossman, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, told Libby that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, according to attorneys and US officials close to the two-year-old CIA leak probe. Grossman also told Libby that Plame Wilson got the CIA to send her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, on a fact-finding trip to Niger in February 2002 to check out reports that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from the African country. Wilson took the trip and reported back to the CIA in March that he found no evidence that Iraq tried to acquire uranium.
"It's not just Mr. Grossman's word against Mr. Libby's," said one former State Department official knowledgeable about the substance of the conversation between Grossman and Libby. "There were other people present at the meeting at the time when Mr. Grossman provided Mr. Libby with details about Ms. Plame's employment with the agency. There is an abundance of evidence Mr. Fitzgerald has that will prove this."
He complained that the parties to the case did not heed an earlier warning that he would not tolerate "this case being tried in the media," and he said such disclosures could impair the court's ability "to ensure that both sides receive a fair trial." Walton gave both sides eight days to state any objections before he imposes the gag order.
The federal judge presiding over the pending trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby threatened yesterday to impose a gag order barring statements or disclosures to the news media by Libby's defense team or by the special prosecutor investigating alleged wrongdoing by the former White House official.
US District Judge Reggie B. Walston did not explain exactly what provoked his pique, but he wrote in his order that "on several occasions information has been distributed to the press by counsel, which has included not only public statements, but also the dissemination of material that had not been filed on the public docket."
He complained that the parties to the case did not heed an earlier warning that he would not tolerate "this case being tried in the media," and he said such disclosures could impair the court's ability "to ensure that both sides receive a fair trial." Walton gave both sides eight days to state any objections before he imposes the gag order.
Washington - From the early days of the CIA leak investigation in 2003, the Bush White House has insisted there was no effort to discredit Joseph C. Wilson IV, the man who emerged as the most damaging critic of the administration's case that Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons.
But now White House officials, and specifically President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, have been pitched back into the center of the nearly three-year controversy, this time because of a prosecutor's court filing in the case that asserts there was "a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House," to undermine Mr. Wilson.
The new assertions by the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, have put administration officials on the spot in a way they have not been for months, as attention in the leak case seems to be shifting away from the White House to the pretrial procedural skirmishing in the perjury and obstruction charges against Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr.
In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media.
Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
This information was provided to this reporter by attorneys and US officials who have remained close to the case. Investigators working with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald compiled the information after interviewing 36 Bush administration officials over the past two and a half years.
Washington, D.C. - Yesterday in a letter to President Bush, Rep. Waxman asks for a full accounting of the President's and Vice President's actions in authorizing leaks of classified intelligence about Iraq, while at the same time concealing the President's knowledge of serious doubts about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The text of the letter follows:
Dear Mr. President:
Two recent revelations raise grave new questions about whether you, the Vice President, and your top advisors have engaged in a systematic abuse of the national security classification process for political purposes. News accounts suggest that the White House both (1) leaked classified intelligence information to further its faulty case for war and (2) improperly concealed information regarding your personal knowledge of serious doubts about this intelligence. These actions appear to violate your own executive order on handling classified information and - according to a new memorandum by the Congressional Research Service - represent an unprecedented expansion of the Vice President's role in this process. I request a full accounting of White House actions and full declassification and disclosure of all documents bearing on these critical questions.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald stated in a court filing late Wednesday in the CIA leak case that his investigators have obtained evidence during the course of the two-year-old probe that proves several White House officials conspired to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.
This is the first time the special counsel has acknowledged that White House officials are alleged to have engaged in a coordinated effort to undercut the former ambassador's credibility by disseminating classified intelligence information that would have contradicted Wilson's public statements.
Fitzgerald's court filing was made in response to attorneys representing I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators related to his role in the leak, who are desperately trying to obtain evidence from the government to prove Libby did not intentionally lie to the grand jury when he was asked how he found out about Plame Wilson and whether he shared that information with the media.
Attorneys and current and former White House officials close to the investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson said Thursday that President Bush gave Vice President Dick Cheney the authorization in mid-June 2003 to disclose a portion of the highly sensitive National Intelligence Estimate to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and former New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
These current and former White House officials are among the 36 witnesses who have testified before a grand jury and have been cooperating with the special counsel's probe since its inception.
The officials, some of whom are attorneys close to the case, added that more than two dozen emails that the vice president's office said it recently discovered and handed over to leak investigators in February show that President Bush was kept up to date about the circumstances surrounding the effort to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
The special counsel appointed in late December 2003 to investigate the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson found out the identity of the Bush administration official who disclosed her undercover status to syndicated columnist Robert Novak just two months after the probe began.
But in early February 2004, a month after he started the investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald shifted gears and started to build a perjury and obstruction of justice case against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby according to several attorneys close to the investigation.
That month, Justice Department investigators working on the leak case approached a senior official in the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney who had been identified by witnesses as having played a major role in the Plame Wilson leak.
He is referred to as "official one" and he is the mysterious senior Bush administration official who unmasked the identity of an undercover CIA operative to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 and conservative columnist Robert Novak a month later.
The identity of this official is shrouded in secrecy. In fact, his name, government status, and the substance of his conversation with Woodward about the undercover officer are under a protective seal in US District Court for the District of Columbia.
But Woodward tape-recorded the interview he had with "official one." Woodward gave a copy of the tape and a transcript to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
The criminal trial against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, may still be nearly a year away, but the special counsel prosecuting the case has already provided a preview into the government's criminal case against the ex-White House official, who is accused of lying to the FBI and a grand jury about his role in the leak of a covert CIA operative.
During a recent federal court hearing, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he plans to focus on the week of July 7 to 14, 2003, in which Libby allegedly told several reporters that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and was responsible for convincing the agency to send her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq sought 500 tons of uranium from the African country.
"I'm not going to argue it was the most important issue consuming the Bush administration," Fitzgerald told US District Court Judge Reggie Walton during a February 24 federal court hearing, a transcript of which was obtained by this reporter.
"I will argue during that week Mr. Libby was consumed with [Wilson] to an extent more than he should have been but he was and you can look at the time he spent with people," Fitzgerald added. "When talking about Mr. Wilson for the first time, he described himself as a former Hill staffer. He meets with people off premises. There were some unusual things I won't get into about that week. At the end of the day we're talking about someone who spent a lot of time during the week of July 7 to July 14 focused on the issue of Wilson and Wilson's wife."
The identity of intelligence officials who are thought to have passed information about covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, surfaced in a federal court document filed Friday evening.
Separately, Libby's defense team has once again attempted to engage in a high-stakes gambit to devalue the nature of Plame Wilson's status and work with the CIA. The attorneys claim that Plame Wilson was not a very important figure at the CIA and that therefore no damage was done to national security by unmasking her identity.
"The prosecution has an interest in continuing to overstate the significance of Ms. Wilson's affiliation with the CIA," the court filing states.
Attorneys representing Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak case believe they have a rock solid defense to present in their client's pe€rjury and obstruction of justice trial expected to begin next year.
In numerous court filings over the past few months, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby have maintained that their client did not intentionally lie to federal investigators and a grand jury regarding the role he played in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson during the summer of 2003.
Instead, Libby's attorneys have said that their client was dealing with other, more crucial matters, such as the Iraq war, terrorism, and national security and simply forgot about how he first learned that Plame was employed by the CIA when he told the grand jury - untruthfully - that a reporter told him that she worked for the spy agency.
The White House confirmed Tuesday that it recently turned over to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald 250 pages of emails from the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney related to covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. The emails were not submitted three years ago when then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered White House staffers to turn over all documents that contained any reference to Valerie and Joseph Wilson.
Gonzales's directive in October 2003 came 12 hours after he was told by the Justice Department that it was launching an investigation to find out who leaked Plame Wilson's undercover CIA status to reporters in what appeared to be an attempt to discredit and silence her husband from speaking out against the administration's rationale for war. Gonzales spent two weeks with other White House attorneys screening emails and other documents his office received before turning them over to Justice Department investigators.
News of the 250 pages of emails was revealed to Libby's attorneys during a court hearing Friday.
The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.
The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.
Sources close to the probe said the White House "discovered" the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife's undercover status to reporters.
Two top Bush administration officials who played an active role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, have been removing from their jobs, career State Deptartment weapons experts who have spoken to investigators during the past two years about the officials role in the leak, according to a half-dozen State Department officials.
The State Department officials requested anonymity for fear of further retribution. They said they believe they are being sidelined because they have been cooperating with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and have disagreed with the Bush administration's intelligence that claimed Iraq sought 500 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from Niger - an explosive piece of intelligence that was included in President Bush's January 2003, State of the Union address that was found to be based on crude forgeries, but helped pave the way to war.
The reshuffling, which has been conducted in secret since late last year, has led to a mini-revolt inside the State Department, numerous officials who work there said.
Washington - A federal prosecutor has said I. Lewis Libby Jr., former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is trying to sabotage the criminal case against him by insisting through his lawyers that he be given sensitive government documents for his defense.
In a court filing on Thursday night, the prosecutor said requests by Mr. Libby's lawyers for documents, including the daily intelligence briefs given to the president for nearly a year, were "a transparent effort at 'graymail.' "
The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said the requests for a large amount of sensitive information beyond what they had been given was unjustified. Mr. Fitzgerald told the federal judge hearing the case that defendants like Mr. Libby had an incentive to derail their trials by asking for sensitive documents that the government might not want discussed openly.
Vice President Dick Cheney says he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters.
Cheney coupled his statement in a TV interview Wednesday with an endorsement of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his ex-aide. Libby is under indictment on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
"Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence," Cheney told Fox News Channel. "He is a great guy. I worked with him for a long time. I have tremendous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case, and it is therefore inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case."
Sources close to the investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have revealed this week that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not turned over emails to the special prosecutor's office that may incriminate Vice President Dick Cheney, his aides, and other White House officials who allegedly played an active role in unmasking Plame Wilson's identity to reporters.
Moreover, these sources said that, in early 2004, Cheney was interviewed by federal prosecutors investigating the Plame Wilson leak and testified that neither he nor any of his senior aides were involved in unmasking her undercover CIA status to reporters and that no one in the vice president's office had attempted to discredit her husband, a vocal critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. Cheney did not testify under oath or under penalty of perjury when he was interviewed by federal prosecutors.
The emails Gonzales is said to be withholding contained references to Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status and developments related to the inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Moreover, according to sources, the emails contained suggestions by the officials on how the White House should respond to what it believed were increasingly destructive comments Joseph Wilson had been making about the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
According to sources with firsthand knowledge, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.
Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
Valerie Plame was a covert intelligence officer covered by the Intelligence Officer's Identity Protection Act, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to the grand jury. These two truths emerge from the opinion written by Judge Tatel, of the US Court of Appeals, and released in February 2005. Thanks to a FOIA request by the Wall Street Journal we now have a more complete record, although key parts of his decision are still blacked out. Perhaps most of the media will now realize that they have been fed a pack of lies by the likes of Ken Mehlman, Victoria Toensing, Cliff May and others.
Tatel's opinion also is relevant to the current furor over "domestic spying" and whether reporters will have any ability to protect their sources. It certainly appears that Tatel would uphold the right of the reporters to protect sources who told them about illegal spying. Tatel's concludes his opinion that Judy Miller and Matt Cooper had to testify before the grand jury with the following:
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 ... 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 ...
Read the full article
Fitzgerald Focuses on Missing White House Emails
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 03 February 2006
More than two dozen emails sent to various senior Bush administration officials between May 2003 and early July 2003 related to covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, are missing, and the special prosecutor investigating the case suspects that the communications may have been destroyed, according to high level sources close to the two-year old probe.
The sources, who are knowledgeable about Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation and have read hundreds of pages of grand jury testimony, said the emails in question were sent between May and July 2003 by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, former CIA official Frederick Fleitz, former Cheney aide John Hannah, former Cheney National Security assistant David Wurmser, former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
Fitzgerald also suspects that some emails sent to Vice President Cheney by Libby and senior officials at the CIA as well as Libby and Cheney's email replies during this time were not turned over to Fitzgerald's staff.
Read the full article
The Case against Karl Rove
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report
Saturday 17 December 2005
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the second grand jury investigating the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson for several hours Friday. Unless Rove's attorney intervenes at the 11th hour yet again, Fitzgerald is expected to ask the grand jury to indict Rove - at the very least - for making false statements to the FBI and Justice Department investigators in October 2003, lawyers close to the case say.
People close to Fitzgerald say the special prosecutor has long believed that Rove's story concerning his role in the Plame case, as well as what he knew and when he knew it, is filled with holes. One thing Fitzgerald has been struggling with for months now, these people say, is whether to believe Rove hid or destroyed evidence that would have incriminated him and proven that he was a source for at least two reporters who unmasked Plame Wilson's identity and covert status, lawyers close to the case said.
Read the full article
Bob Novak Says President Knows Leak Source
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press
Wednesday 14 December 2005
Washington - Columnist Bob Novak, who first published the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, says he is confident that President Bush knows who leaked Plame's name.
Novak said that "I'd be amazed" if the president didn't know the source's identity and that the public should "bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is."
Read the full article
What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald
By Viveca Novak
TIME
Sunday 11 December 2005
It was in the midst of another Washington scandal, almost a decade ago, that I got to know Bob Luskin. He represented Mark Middleton, a minor figure in the Democratic campaign-finance scandals of 1996. Luskin kept Middleton out of the spotlight and never told me much. Still, there is the occasional source with whom one becomes friendly, and eventually Luskin was in that group.
We'd occasionally meet for a drink - he didn't like having lunch - Cafe Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. "Well," he said, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer." I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin's liberal sympathies were no secret, and here he was representing the man known to many Democrats as the other side's Evil Genius.
Read the full article
For Rove, New Testimony, New Problems
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 09 December 2005
There are unanswered questions about whether Karl Rove was truthful when he was first interviewed by FBI and Justice Department investigators in early October 2003 regarding whether he played a role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. According to sources close to the probe, he was not.
In that very first interview, which took place just three months after Plame Wilson's name was published in a July 14, 2003, story by conservative columnist Robert Novak in an attempt to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence, Rove testified that he did speak with a handful of journalists and told them about Plame Wilson and that she worked at the CIA - but only after her identity had already been made public. In fact, Rove had been one of the two "senior administration officials" cited in Novak's column confirming Plame Wilson's identity. Additionally, Rove had also been a source for Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, who also published Plame Wilson's name in a story three days after Novak's column - another fact President Bush's deputy chief of staff allegedly withheld from prosecutors.
Read the full article
CIA Leak Grand Jury Hears New Evidence
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press
Wednesday 07 December 2005
Washington - Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was back before a federal grand jury on Wednesday in the CIA leak case, with deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove still under investigation.
Since the Oct. 28 indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, two more reporters have been pulled into the investigation - The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Time magazine's Viveca Novak.
Woodward has given a deposition about a conversation he had in mid-June 2003 in which a senior Bush administration official disclosed the CIA status of undercover officer Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald is seeking Novak's testimony about her conversations with Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, in 2004.
Read the full article
Fitzgerald Presents New Information to Grand Jury
By Carol Leonnig
The Washington Post
Wednesday 07 December 2005
First appearance in probe since Libby indictment.
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald appeared this morning to present information to a new grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.
Fitzgerald has been probing for two years what role senior Bush administration officials have played in leaking a CIA operative name to the media in 2003.
Read the full article
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report
Sunday 04 December 2005
The attorney representing Karl Rove in the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson has made a desperate attempt to ensure President Bush's deputy chief of staff does not become the subject of a criminal indictment.
In doing so, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has turned the tables on the media, who ultimately fought a losing battle to protect Rove - their source - who revealed to some reporters Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status.
Now Luskin has fired back, revealing to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame case - inadvertently tipped him off last year that her colleague at the magazine would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status, several people close to the case said this week.
Read the full article
In CIA Leak, More Talks with Journalists
By Richard W. Stevenson and Douglas Jehl
The New York Times
Friday 02 December 2005
Washington - A conversation between Karl Rove's lawyer and a journalist for Time magazine led Mr. Rove to change his testimony last year to the grand jury in the CIA leak case, people knowledgeable about the sequence of events said Thursday.
Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, spoke in the summer or early fall of 2004 with Viveca Novak, a reporter for Time magazine. In that conversation, Mr. Luskin heard from Ms. Novak that a colleague at Time, Matthew Cooper, might have interviewed Mr. Rove about the undercover CIA officer at the heart of the case, the people said.
Time reported this week that the prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has summoned Ms. Novak to testify about a conversation she had with Mr. Luskin, but provided no explanation of what Mr. Fitzgerald might be looking for. The account provided Thursday by people with knowledge of the discussions between Ms. Novak and Mr. Luskin suggests that Mr. Fitzgerald is still trying to determine whether Mr. Rove was fully forthcoming with investigators and whether he altered his grand jury testimony about his dealings with reporters only after learning that one, Mr. Cooper, might identify him as a source.
Read the full article
Woodward Provides Clues about His Source
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 22 November 2005
Embattled Washington Post editor Bob Woodward provided an important clue that may help shed light on the identity of the person who told him in June 2003 that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent.
In an interview with "Larry King Live" Monday night, Woodward said he realized that he was the first journalist to learn of Plame Wilson's covert CIA status when Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment last month of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, contradicting evidence that said former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify to a grand jury about her source, was the first reporter who was told about Plame Wilson.
At that news conference, Fitzgerald said that Libby was the first government official to disclose Plame Wilson's identity to a member of the media - Judith Miller - on June 23, 2003.
Read the full article
The "Some Other Dude Did It" Defense of I. Lewis Libby
By Elizabeth de la Vega
TomDispatch.com
Is Woodward's revelation a bombshell or a smokescreen?
Shortly after Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, was indicted for obstructing justice and making false statements to a government agent and a grand jury, Libby's attorneys suggested that they would use the standard he's-a-busy-man-who-can't-remember-everything defense. But now, with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's revelation that a senior administration official other than Libby told him, in mid-June 2003, that Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger had been arranged by Wilson's CIA operative wife Valerie Wilson, it appears the Libby team has added another favorite, the SODDI Defense - as in, "Some Other Dude Did It." Unfortunately for Libby, that turkey won't fly. Here's why.
According to Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, Woodward's disclosure is a "bombshell" that "undermines the prosecution" because it disproves Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's alleged contention that Libby was the first senior administration official to reveal to a reporter that Valerie Wilson worked as a CIA analyst. Not true. For starters, a prosecutor's press conference statements are irrelevant to, and not admissible in, the trial of the case. And Fitzgerald never said Libby was the first official to have disclosed information about Valerie Wilson; he said Libby was the first official known to have disclosed such information.
Read the full article
Dubya-Cheney Ties Frayed by Scandal
By Thomas M. DeFrank
The New York Daily News
Tuesday 08 November 2005
'There has been some distance for some time.'
Washington - The CIA leak scandal has peeled back the veil on the most closely held White House secret of all: the subtle but unmistakable erosion in the bond between President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Multiple sources close to Bush told the Daily News that while the vice president remains his boss' valued political partner and counselor, his clout has lessened - primarily as a result of issues arising from the Iraq war.
"The relationship is not what it was," a presidential counselor said. "There has been some distance for some time."
Read the full article
Vice President Lied as White House Sought to Defuse Leak Inquiry
By Jason Leopold
ZNet.com
Monday 07 November 2005
Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?
That's one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It's unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned - not under oath - about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.
The five-count criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury last month against Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame's identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.
Read the full article
Rove's Security Clearance Widely Questioned
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger
The Los Angeles Times
Sunday 06 November 2005
Federal workers under suspicion of smaller lapses have had access to classified data yanked.
Washington - An intelligence analyst temporarily lost his top-secret security clearance because he faxed his resume using a commercial machine.
An employee of the Defense Department had her clearance suspended for months because a jilted boyfriend called to say she might not be reliable.
Read the full article
Democratic Congressmen Ask Cheney to Talk
The Associated Press
Friday 04 November 2005
Washington - Three Democratic congressmen Thursday asked Vice President Dick Cheney to testify on Capitol Hill about the disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity, saying "there are many wide-ranging questions about your involvement."
The congressmen asked why Cheney's office was gathering information about Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson in 2003; whether the vice president directed his top aide, the now-indicted I. Lewis Libby, to speak to the news media about Plame; and whether Cheney was aware Libby was doing so.
The indictment against Libby says he was told by Cheney on June 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA's counterproliferation division. That was a month before Plame's identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak.
Read the full article
Prosecutor Narrows Focus on Rove Role in CIA Leak
By David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson
The New York Times
Friday 04 November 2005
Washington - The prosecutor in the CIA leak case has narrowed his investigation of Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to whether he tried to conceal from the grand jury a conversation with a Time magazine reporter in the week before an intelligence officer's identity was made public more than two years ago, lawyers in the case said Thursday.
The special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has centered on what are believed to be his final inquiries in the matter as to whether Mr. Rove was fully forthcoming about the belated discovery of an internal e-mail message that confirmed his conversation with the Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, to whom Mr. Rove had mentioned the CIA officer.
Mr. Fitzgerald no longer seems to be actively examining some of the more incendiary questions involving Mr. Rove. At one point, he explored whether Mr. Rove misrepresented his role in the leak case to President Bush - an issue that led to discussions between Mr. Fitzgerald and James E. Sharp, a lawyer for Mr. Bush, an associate of Mr. Rove said.
Read the full article
Libby Pleads Not Guilty in CIA Leak Case
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press
Thursday 03 November 2005
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff pleaded not guilty Thursday in the CIA leak scandal, marking the start of what could be a long road to a trial in which Cheney and other top Bush administration officials could be summoned to testify.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby entered the plea in front of US District Judge Reggie Walton, a former prosecutor who has spent two decades as a judge in the nation's capital.
"With respect, your honor, I plead not guilty," Libby told the judge.
Read the full article
In the Company of Friends
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Wednesday 02 November 2005
Bush may be besieged by charges of cronyism, but they don't seem to have affected his picks for a panel assessing intelligence matters. Plus, Alito, the talkie.
Controversy continues to rage over spying failures and the mishandling of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Last week it was the indictments in the CIA leak case. This week, it was the extraordinary secret session of the Senate, when Democrats pushed for a new round of inquiries into the misuse of intelligence on Saddam's regime. So it's all the more remarkable to see how the White House has just filled a committee overseeing intelligence issues.
President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of US intelligence efforts. After watching the fate of Michael Brown as head of FEMA and Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee, you might think the president would be wary about the appearance of cronyism - especially with a critical national-security issue such as intelligence. Instead, Bush reappointed William DeWitt, an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president's campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel. Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush's 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Read the full article
White House Ducks Prewar Intel Questions
The Associated Press
Wednesday 02 November 2005
Washington - The White House sought to deflect politically charged questions Wednesday about President Bush's use of prewar intelligence in Iraq, saying Democrats, too, had concluded Saddam Hussein was a threat.
"If Democrats want to talk about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed and the intelligence, they might want to start with looking at the previous administration and their own statements that they've made," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
He said the Clinton administration and fellow Democrats "used the intelligence to come to the same conclusion that Saddam Hussein and his regime were a threat."
Read the full article
Rove's Future Role Is Debated
By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post
Thursday 03 November 2005
White House may seek fresh start in wake of leak.
Top White House aides are privately discussing the future of Karl Rove, with some expressing doubt that President Bush can move beyond the damaging CIA leak case as long as his closest political strategist remains in the administration.
If Rove stays, which colleagues say remains his intention, he may at a minimum have to issue a formal apology for misleading colleagues and the public about his role in conversations that led to the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to senior Republican sources familiar with White House deliberations.
Read the full article
Inside the Bunker
By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian UK
Thursday 03 November 2005
His administration has become its own republic of fear, and Bush is a prisoner to the right.
One year after his re-election President Bush governs from a bunker. "We go forward with complete confidence," he proclaimed in his second inaugural address. He urged "our youngest citizens" to see the future "in the determined faces of our soldiers", to choose between "evil" and "courage". But as he listened that day, Vice-President Dick Cheney knew the election had been secured by a cover-up.
"I would have wished nothing better," declared Patrick Fitzgerald in his press conference of October 28 announcing the indictment of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice-president's chief of staff, "that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail."
Read the full article
Is Rove a Security Risk?
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Wednesday 02 November 2005
Because he disclosed Plame's CIA identity to reporters, the Bush aide could lose his clearance.
The conventional wisdom in Washington this week is that Karl Rove is out of the woods. But while an indictment against him in the Valerie Plame leak case is now unlikely, he may be in danger of losing his security clearance.
According to last week's indictment of Scooter Libby, a person identified as "Official A" held conversations with reporters about Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative, information that was classified. News accounts subsequently confirmed that that official was Rove. Under Executive Order 12958, signed by President Clinton in 1995, such a disclosure is grounds for, at a minimum, losing access to classified information.
Read the full article
Some Conservatives Question Rove's Future
Reuters
Tuesday 01 November 2005
Washington - Breaking with the White House and fellow conservatives, Republican Sen. Trent Lott and the head of the Cato Institute questioned on Tuesday whether top White House adviser Karl Rove, who remains in legal jeopardy in a CIA-leak probe, should keep his policy-making job.
Rove was not indicted on Friday along with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby. But lawyers involved in the case said Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser and deputy chief of staff, remains under investigation and may still be charged by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
The identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame was leaked to the media in July 2003 after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Despite initial White House denials, Fitzgerald's investigation shows that both Rove and Libby spoke to reporters about Wilson's wife.
Read the full article
GOP Angered by Closed Senate Session
By Charles Babington and Dafna Linzer
The Washington Post
Wednesday 02 November 2005
Meeting reopened after two hours.
Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session yesterday, infuriating Republicans but extracting from them a promise to speed up an inquiry into the Bush administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the war.
With no warning in the mid-afternoon, the Senate's top Democrat invoked the little-used Rule 21, which forced aides to turn off the chamber's cameras and close its massive doors after evicting all visitors, reporters and most staffers. Plans to bring in electronic-bug-sniffing dogs were dropped when it became clear that senators would trade barbs but discuss no classified information.
Republicans condemned the Democrats' maneuver, which marked the first time in more than 25 years that one party had insisted on a closed session without consulting the other party. But within two hours, Republicans appointed a bipartisan panel to report on the progress of a Senate intelligence committee report on prewar intelligence, which Democrats say has been delayed for nearly a year.
Read the full article
Nothing Shakin' on Shakedown Street?
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 01 November 2005
Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart. You just gotta poke around.
-- The Grateful Dead
Confession time: I missed the whole Libby-indictment thing almost completely. I wasn't writing a book or researching a story, nor was I interviewing people in the know about this or that. Nope. I was in Vegas, splitting my time between a poker table in Mandalay Bay and the Vegoose Music Festival out on the edge of the desert. The trip had been planned months before, and I spent all those days leading up to last Friday hoping Fitz would drop the hammer so I could bug out in good conscience.
Didn't happen. I was on the plane Thursday night, shaking my head at the timing. You just had to wait until the last day, didn't you? Well, it wasn't a total loss. I spent a couple dozen hours out there under the mountains listening to bands like Moe, Phil Lesh & Friends, the North Mississippi All-Stars, Umphrey's McGee (the set of the weekend, by the way), and managed in between to take down a few fat pots off the felt when I was back on the strip.
It was a good weekend, all told, but I just absolutely missed the whole Fitzgerald train. Yes, I caught the press conference on Friday. After that, however, I was in the ozone, away from televisions and computers and newspapers. I got back home on Monday night, and have spent every waking minute since playing catch-up.
Here's what I have so far.
Read the full article
The World Can't Wait
By Russ Baker
TomPaine.com
Tuesday 01 November 2005
Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of Scooter Libby for lying about how he learned of the Valerie Plame affair is an interesting and important development. But the narrowness of that focus, absent further developments, shows again the limitations of "the system" in confronting the sheer magnitude of an entire government subverted, and with it a proud people, from all that we once revered.
For those disturbed by the deceit and the intrigues, the reckless warmongering, the wholesale looting of the common trust to benefit the privileged, the clampdown on rights and liberties, the unconscionable enthusiasm for torture, the embracing of a Know-Nothing attitude toward science, the hastening of environmental collapse, the buying of the legislative process and the neutering of the judicial one, waiting for indictments is no longer sufficient.
One difficulty with opposing the current malefactors of power is that they are so venal, so mean-spirited, so incompetent on so many fronts that it's hard to focus the public's attention on the true magnitude of the threat, which dwarfs any single instance of wrong-doing, as egregious as this or that outrage may be. Essential to any successful anti-Bush campaign is the constant reminder that the president and his cronies are dangerous across the board, from the selection of a science textbook in a small town in Kansas to the mobilization of the "shock and awe" war machine for political purposes.
Read the full article
Bigger than Watergate
By Ted Rall
Yahoo News
Tuesday 01 November 2005
Bush-Cheney traitors deserve prison, impeachment.
Urbana, Illinois - To weigh the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame against historical standards, consider that no leader of the Soviet Union-including that master of ruthlessness, Josef Stalin-ever arranged for the name of a KGB operative to appear in a newspaper. Adolf Hitler had countless millions murdered, yet getting at a political enemy by endangering agents of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi intelligence service, didn't cross his mind. In this respect, not even the worst tyrants have stooped to the level of George W. Bush.
Don't let the Republicans distract you. Treasongate isn't just about deposed vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby, who has been charged with five felony counts and faces 30 years in prison, or even deputy presidential chief of staff Karl Rove, who may soon be charged as well. The Libby charges clearly point to the real culprit: Dick Cheney, who told Libby about Plame's covert status in the first place. Cheney abused his security clearance to find out. "Libby understood that the vice president had learned this information from the CIA," reads page five of the indictment.
Read the full article
What Judy Forgot: Your Right to Know
By Robert Scheer
The Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 01 November 2005
The most intriguing revelation of Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's news conference last week was his assertion that he would have presented his indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby a year ago if not for the intransigence of reporters who refused to testify before the grand jury. He said that without that delay, "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005."
Had that been the case, John Kerry probably would be president of the United States today.
Surely a sufficient number of swing voters in the very tight race would have been outraged to learn weeks before the 2004 election that, according to this indictment, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff - a key member of the White House team that made the fraudulent case for invading Iraq - "did knowingly and corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice."
Read the full article
Forging the Case for War
By Philip Giraldi
The American Conservative
21 November 2005 Issue
Who was behind the Niger uranium documents?
From the beginning, there has been little doubt in the intelligence community that the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame was part of a bigger story. That she was exposed in an attempt to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, is clear, but the drive to demonize Wilson cannot reasonably be attributed only to revenge. Rather, her identification likely grew out of an attempt to cover up the forging of documents alleging that Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger.
What took place and why will not be known with any certainty until the details of the Fitzgerald investigation are revealed. (As we go to press, Fitzgerald has made no public statement.) But recent revelations in the Italian press, most notably in the pages of La Repubblica, along with information already on the public record, suggest a plausible scenario for the evolution of Plamegate.
Read the full article
Democrats Force Senate into Closed Session over Iraq Data
The Associated Press
Tuesday 01 November 2005
Washington - Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday, demanding answers about intelligence that led to the Iraq war.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Harry Reid said the American people and US troops deserved to know the details of how the United States became engaged in the war, particularly in light of the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
Reid demanded the Senate go into closed session. With a second by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed, senators filed to their seats on the floor and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.
Read the full article
Time Reporter Says He Learned Agent's Identity from Rove
ABC News
Monday 31 October 2005
Matthew Cooper says I. Lewis Libby confirmed information.
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.
A grand jury charged Libby on Friday with five felonies alleging obstruction of justice, perjury to a grand jury and making false statements to FBI agents. If convicted, he could face a maximum of 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines. Libby was not charged with the crime that the grand jury was created to investigate - specifically, who leaked the name of Plame to reporters in 2003. Rove has not been charged.
Read the full article
What Did Cheney Know, and When Did He Know It?
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times
Tuesday 01 November 2005
Come on, Mr. Vice President, tell us what happened.
A federal indictment charges that criminality swirled around your office, and it demeans this administration and the entire country when you hide in your bunker and refuse to say whether you knew of any such activities.
Five lawyers I've consulted all agree that there is no compelling legal reason why you should not discuss the situation. It's urgent that you clear the air by answering these questions in a televised news conference:
Read the full article
In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role
By Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt
The New York Times
Sunday 30 October 2005
Vice President Dick Cheney makes only three brief appearances in the 22-page federal indictment that charges his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., with lying to investigators and misleading a grand jury in the CIA leak case. But in its clear, cold language, it lifts a veil on how aggressively Mr. Cheney's office drove the rationale against Saddam Hussein and then fought to discredit the Iraq war's critics.
The document now raises a central question: how much collateral damage has Mr. Cheney sustained?
Many Republicans say that Mr. Cheney, already politically weakened because of his role in preparing the case for war, could be further damaged if he is forced to testify about the infighting over intelligence that turned out to be false. At the least, they say, his office will be temporarily off balance with the resignation of Mr. Libby, who controlled both foreign and domestic affairs in a vice presidential office that has served as a major policy arm for the West Wing.
Read the full article
Addington's Role in Cheney's Office Draws Fresh Attention
By Murray Waas and Paul Singer
The National Journal
Sunday 30 October 2005
David Addington, counsel to Vice President Cheney, is currently considered the leading candidate to succeed Scooter Libby as Cheney's chief of staff. But Addington's own role in the Plame matter is emerging just as the vice president considers whether to name him to the job.
On the morning of July 8, 2003, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, had a two-hour meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller at which Libby gave information to Miller in an attempt to discredit former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.
When Libby returned to the White House, he immediately sought out David Addington, the vice president's counsel, according to court records and interviews. During their breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel, Libby had promised Miller he would try to find out more about Wilson, and Wilson's wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame. As the former general counsel to the CIA and counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, Addington was the right man for Libby to see.
Read the full article
Mysterious 'Official A' Is Karl Rove
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press
Friday 28 October 2005
Washington - In a sign of the trouble lingering for the Bush administration, the indictment handed up Friday in the CIA leak probe refers to someone at the White House known as "Official A."
The unidentified official could become a courtroom witness against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who left his job as vice presidential aide shortly after his indictment on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.
Several other unnamed officials mentioned in the indictment were identified Friday afternoon by Justice Department officials.
Read the full article
Smoke Gets in Our Eyes
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
Monday 31 October 2005
There's a reason so many top officials of the Bush administration treat the truth as if it were kryptonite.
More than anything else, the simple truth has the potential to destroy the Bush gang.
Scooter Libby was one of the most powerful figures in the administration, Dick Cheney's most highly trusted aide and a champion of the wholesale flim-flammery that led us into the crucible of Iraq. I haven't heard anyone express surprise that he would lie in the service of the administration.
Read the full article
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Is Acquitting Itself
By Norman Solomon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 31 October 2005
A lot of media outlets are now scrutinizing some of the lies told by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq. Yet the same news organizations are bypassing their own key roles in the marketing of those lies. A case in point is the New York Times.
On Saturday, hours after the indictment of Lewis Libby, the lead editorial of the Times ended by declaring that "the big point Americans need to keep in mind is this: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." On Sunday, the Times columnist Frank Rich referred to "Colin Powell's notorious presentation of WMD 'evidence' to the UN on the eve of war."
And so it goes in the opinion section of the New York Times. There's now eagerness to blast the Bush administration for some aspects of false prewar propaganda - while the newspaper continues to dodge its own crucial role in promoting that propaganda.
Read the full article
Democrats Demand Rove's Firing
By Dana Milbank and Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post
Monday 31 October 2005
Further details sought on Cheney's involvement in Plame leak.
Democrats demanded yesterday that President Bush fire Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and that the White House fully account for Vice President Cheney's role in the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame, as Republicans acted to limit the political damage from Friday's indictment of Cheney's chief of staff.
Using the forum of the Sunday television talk shows, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (NV) and other Democrats sought to portray the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Friday as part of a broader pattern of unethical - if not illegal - conduct by the administration. Republicans, while not defending Libby, asserted that the lack of other indictments indicated there was no conspiracy in the White House to punish an administration critic by identifying his wife as a CIA operative.
Reid, speaking on ABC's "This Week," called for apologies from Bush and Cheney, and sought Rove's resignation because of Bush's vow to dismiss anybody involved in the leak. Later, on CNN's "Late Edition," Reid repeated his call for Rove's dismissal four times.
Read the full article
Wilson Says Leak Destroyed Wife's CIA Career
Reuters
Sunday 30 October 2005
Washington - Valerie Plame's nearly two-decade career at the CIA and the secret life she crafted to conceal it were blown when her identity was revealed by a newspaper columnist, her husband, Joe Wilson said in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday.
Wilson, a former career diplomat, said Plame, 42, was in shock when she saw her name and that of her fictitious employer published in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.
"She felt like she'd been hit in the stomach. It took her breath away," Wilson said.
Read the full article
Bush, Cheney Urged to Apologize for Aides
By Douglass K. Daniel
The Associated Press
Sunday 30 October 2005
Washington - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Sunday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should apologize for the actions of their aides in the CIA leak case.
Reid, D-NV, also said Bush should pledge not to pardon any aides convicted as a result of the investigation into the disclosure of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
"There has not been an apology to the American people for this obvious problem in the White House," Reid said. He said Bush and Cheney "should come clean with the American public."
Reid added, "This has gotten way out of hand, and the American people deserve better than this."
Read the full article
Prosecutor Should Dig Deeper
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith
The Baltimore Sun
Sunday 30 October 2005
Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name has reaffirmed the basic American principle that even the highest government officials are subject to the rule of law. His charges represent the start of a revitalization of the institutions designed to maintain government under law. But that revitalization still has a long way to go.
As a prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald rightly brought charges where the law was clearest and the evidence most compelling. But the alleged crimes he is investigating are in essence the apparent cover-up operation for another possible set of crimes against national and international law. Why would I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby commit perjury and lie to FBI agents, as he is accused of doing?
The letters from Acting Attorney General James B. Comey appointing Mr. Fitzgerald delegated to him "all the authority of the attorney general" to investigate and prosecute "violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure."
Read the full article
Who Talked? It Wasn't the Special Prosecutor
By Richard B. Schmitt
The Los Angeles Times
Sunday 30 October 2005
Washington - With US troops unable to find expected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a group of officials met aboard Air Force Two in mid-2003 to discuss how to respond to the growing prominence of one particular critic of President Bush's war policy. Vice President Dick Cheney was on the flight. So was his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
It was a scene that suggested intrigue. And if it had occurred as part of a past Washington scandal, the investigator who revealed it probably would have included a wealth of details, naming everyone present and laying out what they said.
But when Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced Friday that he was wrapping up his two-year investigation of the CIA leak case, he offered the barest sketch of the meeting on Air Force Two - and left many central questions in the case unanswered. Did Cheney help map out strategy with Libby during the flight? Did officials talk about Valerie Plame, the wife of the Bush critic, and that she worked for the CIA - a detail that was soon leaked to the media?
Read the full article
The White House Criminal Conspiracy
By Elizabeth de la Vega
Tom Dispatch
Legally, there are no significant differences between the investor fraud perpetrated by Enron CEO Ken Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud perpetrated by George W. Bush. Both involved persons in authority who used half-truths and recklessly false statements to manipulate people who trusted them. There is, however, a practical difference: The presidential fraud is wider in scope and far graver in its consequences than the Enron fraud. Yet thus far the public seems paralyzed.
In response to the outcry raised by Enron and other scandals, Congress passed the Corporate Corruption Bill, which President Bush signed on July 30, 2002, amid great fanfare. Bush declared that he was signing the bill because of his strong belief that corporate officers must be straightforward and honest. If they were not, he said, they would be held accountable.
Ironically, the day Bush signed the Corporate Corruption Bill, he and his aides were enmeshed in an orchestrated campaign to trick the country into taking the biggest risk imaginable - a war. Indeed, plans to attack Iraq were already in motion. In June, Bush announced his "new" pre-emptive strike strategy. On July 23, 2002, the head of British intelligence advised Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the then-secret Downing Street Memo, that "military action was now seen as inevitable" and that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Bush had also authorized the transfer of $700 million from Afghanistan war funds to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. Yet all the while, with the sincerity of Marc Antony protesting that "Brutus is an honorable man," Bush insisted he wanted peace.
Read the full article
One Step Closer to the Big Enchilada
By Frank Rich
The New York Times
Sunday 30 October 2005
To believe that the Bush-Cheney scandals will be behind us anytime soon you'd have to believe that the Nixon-Agnew scandals peaked when G. Gordon Liddy and his bumbling band were nailed for the Watergate break-in. But Watergate played out for nearly two years after the gang that burglarized Democratic headquarters was indicted by a federal grand jury; it even dragged on for more than a year after Nixon took "responsibility" for the scandal, sacrificed his two top aides and weathered the indictments of two first-term cabinet members. In those ensuing months, America would come to see that the original petty crime was merely the leading edge of thematically related but wildly disparate abuses of power that Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, would name "the White House horrors."
In our current imperial presidency, as in its antecedent, what may look like a narrow case involving a second banana with a child's name contains the DNA of the White House, and that DNA offers a road map to the duplicitous culture of the whole. The coming prosecution of Lewis (Scooter) Libby in the Wilson affair is hardly the end of the story. That "Cheney's Cheney," as Mr. Libby is known, would allegedly go to such lengths to obscure his role in punishing a man who challenged the administration's W.M.D. propaganda is just one very big window into the genesis of the smoke screen (or, more accurately, mushroom cloud) that the White House used to sell the war in Iraq.
Read the full article
Our 27 Months of Hell
By Joseph C. Wilson IV
The Los Angeles Times
Saturday 29 October 2005
After the two-year smear campaign orchestrated by senior officials in the Bush White House against my wife and me, it is tempting to feel vindicated by Friday's indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Between us, Valerie and I have served the United States for nearly 43 years. I was President George H. W. Bush's acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, and I served as ambassador to two African nations for him and President Clinton. Valerie worked undercover for the CIA in several overseas assignments and in areas related to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
But on July 14, 2003, our lives were irrevocably changed. That was the day columnist Robert Novak identified Valerie as an operative, divulging a secret that had been known only to me, her parents and her brother.
Read the full article
At Least 7 in Cabinet Knew of Plame's ID
The Associated Press
Friday 28 October 2005
Washington - At least seven Bush administration officials outside the CIA knew Valerie Plame was a CIA employee before the disclosure of her name in a column by Robert Novak in July 2003, according to the indictment Friday of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
In no case other than Libby's does the indictment claim that one of the government employees provided the name to reporters. And the indictment does not identify anyone other than Libby.
But some are easy to determine. Of course, the "vice president of the United States" is Dick Cheney, for whom Libby worked as chief of staff. Cheney told Libby that Plame worked at the CIA, information that Libby understood came from the agency, the indictment said.
Read the full article
Libby Lawyer Hints at Defense Strategy
The Associated Press
Saturday 29 October 2005
Former Cheney aide indicted on five charges.
Washington - The lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide has begun to outline a possible criminal defense that is a tradition in Washington scandals: A busy official immersed in important duties cannot reasonably be expected to remember details of long-ago conversations.
Friday's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby involves allegations that as Cheney's chief of staff he lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury.
Libby, who resigned immediately, was operating amid "the hectic rush of issues and events at a busy time for our government," according to a statement released by his attorney, Joseph Tate.
"We are quite distressed the special counsel [Patrick Fitzgerald] has not sought to pursue alleged inconsistencies in Mr. Libby's recollection and those of others and to charge such inconsistencies as false statements," Tate continued.
Read the full article
Go to Original
Indictment Doesn't Clear Up Mystery at Heart of CIA Leak Probe
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers
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 US intelligence agencies never confirmed it and some intelligence analysts doubted it?
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who found no substance to the alleged deal during a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, accused Bush in July 2003 of twisting the intelligence.
Shortly thereafter, the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer, was leaked to journalists, igniting special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's probe.
The FBI has been investigating the clumsy forgeries, which first surfaced in Rome in October 2002, for two years, but has made little progress, four US government officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues. Those officials blame a lack of cooperation from Italy. A spokesman for the Italian Embassy in Washington denied that.
But a weeks-long review by Knight Ridder has established that:
Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, and people close to it, repeatedly tried to shop the bogus Niger uranium story to governments in France, Britain and the United States. That created the illusion that multiple sources were confirming the story.
The CIA had begun receiving intelligence reports based on the same forgeries in October 2001, but they could not be confirmed. Copies of the fake documents suddenly surfaced at a critical point in the White House's fall 2002 campaign to take the country to war in Iraq.
The CIA eventually determined that the earlier reports were "based on the forged documents" and were "thus ... unreliable," a presidential commission on unconventional weapons proliferation said in March.
State Department intelligence analysts and some in the CIA discounted the uranium story. But White House officials, working through a back channel to one CIA unit, seized on the tale, and it was included in Bush's case for war.
The following is a chronology of events that led up to the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. It's based on interviews and on reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the presidentially appointed panel on weapons intelligence.
Oct. 15, 2001 - The CIA received the first of three top-secret reports from a foreign intelligence service - which intelligence officials said was Italy's SISMI - that Niger planned to ship tons of uranium ore, or yellowcake, to Iraq.
SISMI was behind similar reports in Britain and France. Paris never put any stock in the reports, according to two European officials. London has stood behind its statement that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.
February 2002 - Cheney and other officials asked the CIA to find out more.
Some CIA and Pentagon analysts were impressed with the reporting. But the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was skeptical. Its analysts noted that France controls Niger's uranium mines and argued that Iraq wouldn't risk being caught breaking UN sanctions.
The CIA station in Rome was skeptical of the reports from the start.
Feb. 21 - Wilson traveled to Niger at the CIA's request to investigate the purported uranium deal. He said he found nothing to substantiate the allegation. Neither did two other US officials who investigated.
March 8 - The CIA circulated a report on Wilson's trip - without identifying him - to the White House and other agencies.
Sept. 9 - With the White House's public campaign against Iraq in full swing, Nicolo Pollari, head of SISMI, met with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley at the White House. Hadley later took the blame for including the false Niger allegation in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.
National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said Thursday that the meeting was a 15-minute courtesy call and that no one could recollect talk about yellowcake.
Oct. 1 - US intelligence agencies sent the White House and Congress their key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit weapon programs, which said Iraq was "vigorously" trying to buy uranium ore and had sought deals with Niger, Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The State Department's INR dissented in the report.
Oct. 5 - Then-CIA Director George Tenet advised Hadley to drop a reference to Niger from the draft of a nationally televised speech that Bush was to give on Oct. 7 because the "president should not be a fact witness on this issue" as "the reporting was weak." The sentence was removed.
The CIA then wrote the White House that "the evidence (of a uranium ore deal) is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French."
Oct. 9 - An Italian journalist for the Rome magazine Panorama, owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a supporter of the Iraq war, gave the US Embassy a copy of the purported agreement by Niger to sell yellowcake to Iraq.
The journalist, Elisabetta Burba, reportedly received the documents from Italian businessman Rocco Martino, who has connections to SISMI.
The Italian government has denied any connection to the forged documents.
The embassy forwarded a copy to the State Department. It raised the suspicion of an INR nuclear analyst, who noted in an e-mail that the documents bear a "funky Emb. Of Niger stamp (to make it look official, I guess.)"
Jan. 13, 2003 - The INR nuclear analyst told other analysts that he believed the Niger documents were forgeries.
Jan. 16 - The CIA finally received copies of the forged French-language documents. It sent them back to the State Department to be translated.
Jan. 17 - A CIA analytical unit known as WINPAC (Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control) said in a secret assessment that there was "fragmentary reporting" on Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from "various countries in Africa."
Sometime in late January, Robert Joseph, a senior White House staffer, and Alan Foley, the head of WINPAC, agreed that Bush could refer to the uranium claim in his State of the Union speech, but he should cite a public British report.
Jan. 28 - Bush delivered the State of the Union.
Feb. 5 - Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Council on the threat from Iraq but didn't repeat the yellowcake allegation.
March 3 - The International Atomic Energy Agency told the United States that the documents were forgeries after an expert used the Google search engine to identify false information.
July 6 - In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Wilson wrote that his failure to confirm the alleged uranium deal led him to conclude that the Bush administration "twisted" some of the intelligence it used to justify the war.
July 14 - Syndicated columnist Robert Novak identified Plame in a column.
Go to Original
Leaker! The Man They Call Bush's Brain
BY James Gordon Meek and Richard Sisk
New York Daily News
Saturday 29 October 2005
Rove not out of trouble as new grand jury may convene.
Washington - White House political director Karl Rove was identified yesterday as the shadowy official who blew the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Rove, dubbed "Bush's Brain" for his political genius, was not indicted for his role in the leak and subsequent coverup.
Instead, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby on five counts of lying to federal officials and a grand jury.
The closest Fitzgerald came to identifying the leaker is a press release that says "senior White House official ('Official A')" gave Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, who promptly printed it.
At a news conference, Fitzgerald declined to name "Official A," but several sources close to the case told the Daily News it was Rove.
Both Rove and Libby had previously denied having any tie to the leak.
The 50-year-old Rove escaped charges for now.
Fitzgerald, however, warned that "it's not over." The prosecutor said Rove was still under investigation, and he could file charges with a new grand jury if more evidence emerges.
Rove's allies gauged that his legal liability was low after dodging the first indictment. "They're very pleased with where they are with the prosecutor now," one said.
Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin said, "We are confident that when the special counsel finishes his work, he will conclude that Mr. Rove has done nothing wrong."
The two-year saga began when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly questioned the White House's justification for the Iraq war by challenging the claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been shopping for uranium in Niger for a nuclear weapons program.
Wilson was dispatched by the CIA in 2002 to investigate the tip and reported back that the Niger connection was bogus. In a New York Times Op-Ed, Wilson disputed Cheney's claim that Saddam had been pursuing nuclear weapons, infuriating the White House.
Libby and others in the White House obsessed with finding out what they could about Wilson, quickly learned that he was married to CIA agent Plame and leaked her name to reporters, Fitzgerald said.
When pressed on why Official A wasn't identified, Fitzgerald said that criminal "intent" was difficult to prove under the laws on espionage and the disclosure of covert agents' names. "It would have been tough to know intent," said Fitzgerald, who made a tortured baseball analogy to knowing whether a pitcher's beanball was thrown deliberately.
Libby's indictment and the revelation of Rove's involvement capped what GOP operatives have called a "week from hell" for President Bush as he tried to salvage an administration in political and policy free fall.
Bush and Cheney quickly accepted Libby's resignation with regret, but Rove remained as deputy White House chief of staff to oversee the administration's attempts to move beyond the scandal.
The 2,000th US death in Iraq was announced Tuesday, followed quickly by Bush's embarrassing withdrawal of the Supreme Court nomination of Texas pal Harriet Miers.
Although "saddened" by Libby's fall, Bush said: "I got a job to do, and so do the people who work in the White House. We got a job to protect the American people and pretty soon I'll be naming somebody to the Supreme Court."
Rove projected a what-me-worry confidence, as he has throughout the investigation.
"I'm going to have a great day and a fantastic weekend, and I hope you do, too," a smiling Rove told reporters yesterday.
Here are the highlights of yesterday's events in Washington:
Lewis (Scooter) Libby resigned as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff after being indicted on charges of making false statements, perjury and obstructing a grand jury investigation in the alleged coverup of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political guru, was not indicted, but sources said he was the shadowy "Official A" mentioned in the indictment who leaked Plame's name to the media after her husband criticized the administration's justification for going to war with Iraq.
President Bush praised Libby as someone who "worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people." Cheney called Libby "one of the most capable and talented individuals" he knows.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said there may be more to come in the investigation. "It's not over," he said.
What They Said
The Bush administration on the Valerie Plame leak:
If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.
- White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Sept. 29, 2003
If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.
- President Bush, Sept. 30, 2003
If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.
- President Bush, July 18, 2005
Who's on First?
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Saturday 29 October 2005
It was bracing to see the son of a New York doorman open the door on the mendacious Washington lair of the Lord of the Underground.
But this Irish priest of the law, Patrick Fitzgerald, neither Democrat nor Republican, was very strict, very precise. He wasn't totally gratifying in clearing up the murkiness of the case, yet strangely comforting in his quaint black-and-white notions of truth and honor (except when his wacky baseball metaphor seemed to veer toward a "Who's on first?" tangle).
"This indictment's not about the propriety of the war," he told reporters yesterday in his big Eliot Ness moment at the Justice Department. The indictment was simply about whether the son of an investment banker perjured himself before a grand jury and the FBI
Read the full article
The Case Against Scooter Libby
The New York Times Editorial
Saturday 29 October 2005
The five-count indictment handed up yesterday against Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, may seem anticlimactic to those who were hoping to finally learn who gave the columnist Robert Novak the name of Valerie Wilson, a covert CIA of
E-mail This Story