tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-142231422024-03-07T17:38:08.140-05:00PlameGameNews and events revolving around the ousting of CIA agent Valerie Plame.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.comBlogger630125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144939852878284552006-04-13T10:50:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:50:54.133-04:00Libby Wasn't Ordered to Leak Name, Papers SayIn grand jury testimony two years ago, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby did not assert that President Bush or Vice President Cheney instructed him to disclose the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters as part of an effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war, Libby's lawyers said in a court filing late yesterday.<br /><br />A court filing last week by the special federal prosecutor investigating the disclosure of Plame's identity had highlighted the fact that Bush and Cheney ordered Libby to disclose details of a previously classified intelligence report as part of an effort to rebut criticism by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. This disclosure provoked speculation that Bush or Cheney had instructed Libby to disclose Plame's identity.<br /><br />But the lawyers asserted that White House documents outlining what Libby was to say in conversations with reporters did not mention Plame's name. They said this supports Libby's contention that he did not participate in a campaign to damage Wilson by disclosing Plame's CIA employment or in a coverup of the episode.<br /><br />The statement that Libby did not link Bush and Cheney to the disclosure of Plame's name during his 2004 grand jury testimony is meant to bolster Libby's contention that no conspiracy existed to make selective disclosures to undermine a key administration critic, as some in Washington have charged.<br /><br />Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last year for allegedly lying to the FBI and a grand jury when he said he had not known, that the CIA employed Plame and had not told reporters that. Wilson had traveled to Niger at the CIA's behest to look into allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons materials there.<br /><br />After Wilson's return, he wrote a newspaper article in July 2003 disputing those claims and accusing the administration of twisting intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."<br /><br />The article set off an intense effort by the Bush administration to rebut the criticism by documenting its anxieties about Iraqi intentions, partly by leaking -- at the instruction of Bush and Cheney -- details from a classified, October 2002 intelligence estimate about Iraq.<br /><br />Libby was a key player in the effort, and met privately with a few reporters who later were subpoenaed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who was assigned in December 2003 with finding out who leaked Plame's name. Several of the reporters told Fitzgerald that Libby not only discussed the intelligence estimate but also mentioned Plame's employment.<br /><br />According to the indictment, Libby told several reporters that Wilson's trip was requested by Plame. Fitzgerald, in his court filing last week, said the motive for leaking this information was to undermine Wilson's credibility by making it seem as if he "received the assignment [to visit Niger] on account of nepotism."<br /><br />Libby's court filing yesterday was the latest salvo in his battle to gain access to a wide range of information held by the administration and by government investigators about Wilson's trip to Niger, and about other officials' statements to reporters regarding Wilson and Plame.<br /><br />Libby has said he needs these documents partly to prepare for expected testimony at his trial by current and former senior administration officials, who Libby says were also aware of Plame's employment. Yesterday's filing also noted Libby's suspicion that one of those, former CIA director George J. Tenet -- who directed the agency when it lodged a formal complaint to the Justice Department over the leak of Plame's name -- had a "bias against Mr. Libby." The suspicion appears to stem in part from past disagreements between the CIA and Cheney's office over the credibility of the White House's alarm about Iraq.<br /><br />Libby has said the documents will show that Plame's employment was a peripheral matter in his conversations with others, and that thus he had good reason to forget precisely what he said to reporters about it. "He testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson's employment by the CIA to be classified information," the new court filing states.<br /><br />Libby's legal team complained that he had received less than 10 percent of Fitzgerald's investigative file, a document production it called "exceptionally meager." It also said the case is complex and described as "a fairy tale" the government's assertion that it involves only false statements by Libby.<br /><br />In his April 5 filing, Fitzgerald urged the court to dismiss Libby's demand for information about leaks to reporters by other government officials, on the grounds that what really counts in the case against Libby are the actions taken by him and "the discrete number of persons with and for whom he worked." Anything occurring outside those White House offices, Fitzgerald said, is "a irrelevant distraction from the issues of the case."<br /><br />Although he pointedly said he was not accusing Libby of involvement in a White House conspiracy against Wilson and Plame, Fitzgerald said the evidence he had accumulated demonstrated that "multiple people" there wanted to repudiate Wilson's criticisms.<br /><br />In light of the grand jury testimony, Fitzgerald said, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144816363139578302006-04-12T00:32:00.000-04:002006-04-12T00:32:43.276-04:00Prosecutor in CIA Leak Case Corrects Part of Court FilingThe federal prosecutor overseeing the indictment of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, yesterday corrected an assertion in an earlier court filing that Libby had misrepresented the significance placed by the CIA on allegations that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger.<br /><br />Last week, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald wrote that, in conversation with former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Libby described the uranium story as a "key judgment" of the CIA's 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, a term of art indicating there was consensus within the intelligence community on that issue. In fact, the alleged effort to buy uranium was not among the estimate's key judgments and was listed further back in the 96-page, classified document.<br /><br />In a letter to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, Fitzgerald wrote yesterday that he wanted to "correct" the sentence that dealt with the issue in a filing he submitted last Wednesday. That sentence said Libby "was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."<br /><br />Instead, the sentence should have conveyed that Libby was to tell Miller some of the key judgments of the NIE "and that the NIE stated that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."<br /><br />Libby is not charged with misportraying or leaking classified information. He was indicted last year for allegedly lying to the FBI and a grand jury about what he said to reporters. The indictment came as part of Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked to the media the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose husband became a public critic of the Bush administration's case for the Iraq warJamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144770366909899502006-04-11T11:46:00.000-04:002006-04-11T11:46:07.030-04:00With One Filing, Prosecutor Puts Bush in Spotlight - New York TimesBy DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID JOHNSTON<br />WASHINGTON, April 10 — From the early days of the C.I.A. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Mr. Fitzgerald's filing talks not of an effort to level with Americans but of "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson." It concludes, "It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish Wilson.' "<br /><br />With more filings expected from Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor's work has the potential to keep the focus on Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney at a time when the president is struggling with his lowest approval ratings since he took office. <br /><br />Even on Monday, Mr. Bush found himself in an uncomfortable spot during an appearance at a Johns Hopkins University campus in Washington, when a student asked him to address Mr. Fitzgerald's assertion that the White House was seeking to retaliate against Mr. Wilson.<br /><br />Mr. Bush stumbled as he began his response before settling on an answer that sidestepped the question. He said he had ordered the formal declassification of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in July 2003 because "it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches" about Iraq's efforts to reconstitute its weapons program.<br /><br />Mr. Bush said nothing about the earlier, informal authorization that Mr. Fitzgerald's court filing revealed. The prosecutor described testimony from Mr. Libby, who said Mr. Bush had told Mr. Cheney that it was permissible to reveal some information from the intelligence estimate, which described Mr. Hussein's efforts to acquire uranium.<br /><br />But on Monday, Mr. Bush was not talking about that. "You're just going to have to let Mr. Fitzgerald complete his case, and I hope you understand that," Mr. Bush said. "It's a serious legal matter that we've got to be careful in making public statements about it."<br /><br />Every prosecutor strives not just to prove a case, but also to tell a compelling story. It is now clear that Mr. Fitzgerald's account of what was happening in the White House in the summer of 2003 is very different from the Bush administration's narrative, which suggested that Mr. Wilson was seen as a minor figure whose criticisms could be answered by disclosing the underlying intelligence upon which Mr. Bush relied. <br /><br />It turned out that much of the information about Mr. Hussein's search for uranium was questionable at best, and that it became the subject of dispute almost as soon as it was included in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. <br /><br />The answer to the question of whose recounting of events is correct — Mr. Bush's or Mr. Fitzgerald's — may not be known for months or years, if ever. But it seems there will be more clues, including some about the conversations between Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney.<br /><br />Mr. Fitzgerald said he was preparing to turn over to Mr. Libby 1,400 pages of handwritten notes — some presumably in Mr. Libby's own hand — that could shed light on two very different efforts at getting out the White House story.<br /><br />One effort — the July 18 declassification of the major conclusions of the intelligence estimate — was taking place in public, while another, Mr. Fitzgerald argues, was happening in secret, with only Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby involved. <br /><br />Last week's court filing has already led the White House to acknowledge, over the weekend, that Mr. Bush ordered the selective disclosure of parts of the intelligence estimate sometime in late June or early July. But administration officials insist that Mr. Bush played a somewhat passive role and did so without selecting Mr. Libby, or anyone else, to tell the story piecemeal to a small number of reporters.<br /><br />But in one of those odd twists in the unpredictable world of news leaks, neither of the reporters Mr. Libby met, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post or Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, reported a word of it under their own bylines. In fact, other reporters working on the story were talking to senior officials who were warning that the uranium information in the intelligence estimate was dubious at best.<br /><br />Mr. Fitzgerald did not identify who took part in the White House effort to argue otherwise, but the evidence he has cited so far shows that Mr. Cheney's office was the epicenter of concern about Mr. Wilson, the former ambassador sent to Niger by the C.I.A. to determine what deal, if any, Mr. Hussein had struck there.<br /><br />Throughout the spring and early summer of 2003, Mr. Fitzgerald concluded, the former ambassador had become an irritant to the administration, raising doubts about the truthfulness of assertions — made publicly by Mr. Bush in his State of the Union address in January of that year — that Iraq might have sought uranium in Africa to further its nuclear ambitions.<br /><br />Mr. Wilson's criticisms culminated in a July 6, 2003, Op-Ed article in The Times in which he voiced the same doubts for the first time on the record. He cited as his evidence his 2002 trip to Niger, instigated, he said, because of questions raised by Mr. Cheney's office. <br /><br />Mr. Wilson's article, Mr. Fitzgerald said in the filing, "was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president (and the president) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq." <br /><br />Mr. Fitzgerald suggested that the White House effort was a "plan" to undermine Mr. Wilson.<br /><br />"Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson's credibility if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism," Mr. Fitzgerald's filing said.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144675841796006212006-04-10T09:30:00.000-04:002006-04-10T09:30:41.993-04:00Libby case damages Bush administrationBy Caroline Danielin Washington <br />Published: April 10 2006 03:00 | Last updated: April 10 2006 03:00<br /><br />Usually historians wait decades to get the inside accounts of what happens at the heart of the US government, but the legal skirmishes between lawyers representing Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice-president's former chief-of-staff, and Patrick Fitzgerald, special prosecutor, are proving unusually revealing and damaging to the administration.<br /><br /> <br />Last week, attention focused on a claim in one of the legal filings that President George W. Bush had authorised Mr Libby to leak parts of the national intelligence estimates (NIE), to build the case for war in Iraq. Although Mr Bush has the legal power to declassify documents, the revelation made his own assault on leaks look like hypocrisy.<br /><br />The issue shows no sign of going away, with one prominent Republican, Senator Arlen Specter, yesterday calling on Mr Bush and Dick Cheney, vice-president, to "tell the American people exactly what happened".<br /><br />Mr Fitzgerald's legal response on Thursday to Mr Libby's effort to obtain thousands of government documents also provided further evidence of the internecine battles within the administration and confirmed there was a wider White House effort to discredit Joe Wilson, the diplomat who investigated whether Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger.<br /><br />Mr Libby has been charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to federal investigators in connection with the inquiry into the leaking of information about Valerie Plame, a CIA agent and Mr Wilson's wife. Mr Libby's lawyers have sought to broaden the case to suggest that the leaking of Ms Plame's name was a "peripheral issue" in the context of the broader debate about the Iraq war.<br /><br />On several occasions the filing confirms that other administration officials remain under scrutiny. Although Mr Fitzgerald said he did not intend to call Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief political strategist, to give testimony in Mr Libby's trial, he remains under investigation alongside other aides.<br /><br />Combating Mr Libby's demand for documents that he claimed prove he was not part of a wider White House effort, Mr Fitzgerald notes: "As a practical matter, there are no documents showing the absence of a plot, and it is unclear how any document custodian would set out to find documents showing an 'absence of a plot'."<br /><br />The filing also exposes the secretive world inside the administration, with the vice-president's office keeping secrets from Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser.<br /><br />One surreal appendix refers to Mr Libby's leaking of the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. "[The] defendant fails to mention that he consciously decided not to make Mr Hadley aware of the fact that the defendant himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr Hadley sought to get it formally declassified."<br /><br />Disagreements between the vice-president's office and the State Department are also echoed in the filing. Mr Libby's lawyers suggest that testimony from Marc Grossman, former undersecretary, may be biased by "his concern for the institutional interests of the State Department".Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144596926527536352006-04-09T11:35:00.000-04:002006-04-09T11:35:26.660-04:00Senator Asks Bush, Cheney for Explanation - Forbes.comPresident Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should speak publicly about their involvement in the CIA leak case so people can understand what happened, a leading Republican senator said Sunday. <br /><br />"We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated by the American people," said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. <br /><br />In a federal court filing last week, the prosecutor in the case said Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, testified before a grand jury that he was authorized by Bush, through Cheney, to leak information from a classified document that detailed intelligence agencies' conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. <br /><br />A lawyer knowledgeable about the case said Saturday that Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Libby be the one to disseminate the information. <br /><br />"I think it is necessary for the president and vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened," Specter told "Fox News Sunday." <br /><br />"There's been enough of a showing that the president of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people ... about exactly what he did," Specter said. <br /><br />Libby faces trial, likely in January, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury and investigators about what he told reporters about CIA officer Valerie Plame. <br /><br />Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald did not say in the filing that Cheney authorized Libby to leak Plame's identity, and Bush is not accused of doing anything illegal. <br /><br />The investigation is looking into whether Plame's identify was disclosed to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an Iraq war critic. Wilson had accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. <br /><br />Wilson said Sunday that Bush and Cheney should release transcripts of their interviews with Fitzgerald. <br /><br />"It seems to me that first and foremost, the White House needs to come clean on this matter," Wilson said on ABC's "This Week." "My own view of this is that the White House owes the American people and particularly our service people who have been sent into war, an apology for having misrepresented the facts." <br /><br />The lawyer knowledgeable about the case said Bush instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details about disseminating the intelligence to him. The lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House, said Cheney chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide. <br /><br />It is not known when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place. The White House has declined to provide the date when the president used his authority to declassify the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. <br /><br />"There has to be a detailed explanation as to precisely what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him and an explanation by the president as to what he said," Specter said.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144502322619225672006-04-08T09:18:00.000-04:002006-04-08T09:18:42.786-04:00Disclosures Are Called Unrelated To Plame CaseThe revelation of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's involvement in authorized disclosures of sensitive intelligence information does not undermine Libby's contention that he innocently forgot about conversations he may have had with reporters regarding covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, Libby's attorney said yesterday.<br /><br />The lawyer, William Jeffress, was responding to allegations by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in a court filing Wednesday that President Bush authorized Libby to disclose classified intelligence information on Iraq to a reporter. That was done, Fitzgerald alleged, because an angry White House was seeking to discredit Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who claimed in a July 2003 newspaper article that the administration had deliberately distorted intelligence about Iraq.<br /><br />Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last October on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to a grand jury and investigators about his conversations with reporters that mentioned Plame's name. Jeffress argued that the information in Fitzgerald's filing is irrelevant to Libby's defense: that he forgot about those conversations as he dealt with crucial national security issues.<br /><br />Jeffress said Fitzgerald's revelation about Libby's disclosure of information from a CIA National Intelligence Estimate "is a complete sidelight" to his accusation that Libby deliberately lied. "It's got nothing to do with Wilson's wife," Jeffress said in a brief interview, adding that Libby continues to expect to be exonerated at trial.<br /><br />Fitzgerald said in Wednesday's court papers that Libby secretly divulged sensitive information to reporters drawn from the previously classified NIE about Iraq -- and that Cheney told him Bush had declassified the information and authorized the effort.<br /><br />Fitzgerald's filing was meant specifically to undermine Libby's claim that the issue of the CIA's employment of Plame was of "peripheral" interest to Libby at the time. He said in the filing that leaks regarding Plame were meant to embarrass Wilson by suggesting his wife had organized a CIA-sponsored trip by Wilson to probe Iraq's alleged purchase of nuclear material -- in short, to suggest his trip resulted from nepotism.<br /><br />Fitzgerald argued, in essence, that the White House effort to rebut Wilson's criticism was so intense, and so preoccupying, that Libby could not have forgotten what he said about Plame. Fitzgerald also noted that Plame's employment was specifically raised as a relevant matter by Cheney, who had directed Libby to disclose information from the NIE.<br /><br />Lawyers who have been closely following the case offered contrasting views of the impact Fitzgerald's allegations would have on Libby's defense.<br /><br />Republican lawyer and former federal prosecutor Joseph E. diGenova said "it is not material in any way to what he charged, which is perjury." But Richard A. Sauber, a lawyer who represents Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, one of the reporters who wrote about Plame after talking to Libby, said "the whole thing undercuts Libby's defense that he was too busy on other things" to recall the Plame matter.<br /><br />"You cannot say that it is unimportant and something you forgot" when the president and vice president were directly involved in a related issue, Sauber said.<br /><br />The filing also posed challenges yesterday for White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who struggled to reconcile conflicting statements he made about whether and when the government had declassified the sensitive intelligence information at issue.<br /><br />According to Fitzgerald, Libby testified before a grand jury that President Bush and Cheney authorized the release of that information shortly before Libby's meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003. The information was drawn from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the CIA about Iraq's interest in weapons of mass destruction.<br /><br />But 10 days later, McClellan told reporters at the White House that the estimate had been "officially declassified today" -- July 18, 2003 -- making no mention of the earlier declassification that Libby described in his sworn testimony. If that statement was correct, reporters pointed out, then the material was still classified at the time Libby disclosed it.<br /><br />McClellan yesterday declined to give a detailed explanation for the contradiction, explaining that the White House never comments on pending investigations. But he also tried to clarify his 2003 remarks to reporters, stating that what he meant on July 18 of that year when he said the material had been declassified that day was that it was "officially released" that day.<br /><br />"I think that's what I was referring to at the time," he said.<br /><br />McClellan said he would not comment directly on the report that Bush declassified intelligence data to rebut a war critic, but he insisted the president has the constitutional right to do so. He also said the White House draws a distinction between leaking classified information that jeopardizes U.S. sources, methods and lives and disclosing sensitive information "when it is in the public interest."<br /><br />One former administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing political strategy, said rebutting Wilson and other critics was an obsession of Cheney, Libby and many others then inside the Bush White House. Other officials said there were frequent discussions about declassifying information to buttress the Bush argument for war. In several cases, this resulted in release of such information, but only after it went through the usual declassification process.<br /><br />The declassification divulged by Fitzgerald was unusual, the prosecutor said. Libby testified that he understood that only three officials -- Bush, Cheney and Libby -- knew about it. No one outside the White House was consulted.<br /><br />Libby also leaked information from the National Intelligence Estimate to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post prior to the date that the White House said it was officially declassified. In sworn testimony, Woodward told Fitzgerald that on June 27, 2003 -- 11 days before the Libby-Miller conversation -- Libby told him about the CIA estimate and an Iraqi effort to obtain "yellowcake" uranium in Africa, according to a statement Woodward released on Nov. 14, 2005.<br /><br />In an interview, Woodward said his notes, which were not released publicly but were shown to Fitzgerald, included Libby using the word "vigorous" to describe the Iraqi effort. Libby used similar language when he provided the NIE information Bush declassified to Miller at their July 8, 2003, meeting, according to Fitzgerald's filing.<br /><br />The precise status of the information at the time Libby provided it to Woodward is unclear because of conflicting accounts of the declassification process provided by Libby and McClellan. Fitzgerald's court filing does not provide the date when Bush and Cheney -- who have both been interviewed by the special prosecutor -- said they authorized Libby's disclosures.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144434147764653842006-04-07T14:22:00.000-04:002006-04-07T14:22:28.026-04:00Experts: Tactic Would Be Legal but UnusualBy Michael A. Fletcher<br />Washington Post Staff Writer<br />Friday, April 7, 2006; A08<br /><br /><br /><br />Legal experts say that President Bush had the unquestionable authority to approve the disclosure of secret CIA information to reporters, but they add that the leak was highly unusual and amounted to using sensitive intelligence data for political gain.<br /><br />"It is a question of whether the classified National Intelligence Estimate was used for domestic political purposes," said Jeffrey H. Smith, a Washington lawyer who formerly served as general counsel for the CIA.<br /><br />In court papers filed Wednesday, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald said I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, has testified that Cheney told him that Bush had authorized the leak of secret information from the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in the summer of 2003. Fitzgerald's court filing portrays the leak as part of an effort to discredit former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who contended in a newspaper column that intelligence about Iraq's nuclear weapons program was distorted in the run-up to the U.S. invasion.<br /><br />The court filing says that Libby, who is fighting perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges in connection with the leak investigation, was concerned about the legality of sharing classified information with reporters. But he was assured by David S. Addington, who then served as counsel to Cheney, that presidential authorization to disclose the information amounted to declassification.<br /><br />Experts said the power to classify and declassify documents in the federal government flows from the president and is often delegated down the chain of command. In March 2003, Bush signed an executive order delegating declassification authority to Cheney.<br /><br />Libby understood that only he, Bush and Cheney knew of the declassification when Libby held his first conversation with a reporter in July 2003, the court papers show.<br /><br />In one telling footnote in the filing, Fitzgerald notes that even after Bush authorized the dissemination of the intelligence data, then-White House deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley was "active in discussions about the need to declassify and disseminate" the information.<br /><br />"There is an institutional interest and ultimately a public interest in having these decisions documented," said Ronald D. Lee, a Washington lawyer and former general counsel to the super-secret National Security Agency. "You can't have a government where everything is sort of done in people's heads."Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144419077208068882006-04-07T10:11:00.000-04:002006-04-07T10:11:17.416-04:00Wave of Criticism Engulfs Bush Over Leak Case - April 7, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY NewsBY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun<br />April 7, 2006<br />URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/30575<br /><br />The claim that President Bush authorized the release to a reporter of portions of a highly sensitive intelligence summary on Iraq triggered a wave of criticism yesterday from Democrats, who accused Mr. Bush of hypocrisy for publicly denouncing leaks of classified information despite his own alleged involvement in selectively disclosing pre-war intelligence.<br /><br />In a court filing first reported yesterday on the Web site of The New York Sun, a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, said the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, told a grand jury that in July 2003 Mr. Cheney advised that Mr. Bush had given permission for the disclosure to a New York Times reporter of findings from a national intelligence estimate about Iraq.<br /><br />Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry focused, at least initially, on allegations that White House officials retaliated against a former ambassador critical of the administration, Joseph Wilson, by telling reporters that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked at the CIA and played a role in sending him on an official Iraq-related fact-finding trip to Africa.<br /><br />According to prosecutors, Ms. Plame's status at the CIA was classified and her exposure could have violated the law.<br /><br />The new prosecution brief does not suggest that Messrs. Bush or Cheney instructed anyone to disclose Ms. Plame's name, and no one has been charged criminally for that leak. However, the filing made clear that the actions of the president and vice president are likely to be key issues at the trial of Mr. Libby, who resigned last year after being indicted on charges he obstructed Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation.<br /><br />Prosecutors contend Mr. Libby disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to Judith Miller of the New York Times at the same July 8, 2003, meeting that Mr. Libby said he passed on the Iraq-related intelligence Mr. Bush is said to have approved releasing.<br /><br />Mr. Cheney told Fox News earlier this year that he "may well be called as a witness" at the trial of Mr. Libby, set for January 2007.<br /><br />Legal analysts said yesterday that the new information makes it more likely that either the defense or the prosecution could seek Mr. Bush's testimony for the trial.<br /><br />Such a request could lead to a high profile legal showdown between the judiciary and the executive branch at about the same time as the midterm election this fall.<br /><br />Even if Mr. Bush is not called, one defense strategy for Mr. Libby could be to argue that any inaccurate statements he made to investigators were the result of faulty memory brought on by the exhaustive efforts he was making at the time to carry out a presidentially directed campaign to rebut Mr. Wilson's criticism. That approach could also draw Mr. Bush further into the case.<br /><br />As he returned to Washington from an appearance in Charlotte, N.C., yesterday, the president did not respond to a reporter's shouted question about the new reports of his role in Mr. Libby's contacts with the press.<br /><br />White House officials also turned aside questions about the matter, declining to comment due to the ongoing investigation.<br /><br />At a previously scheduled oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, two Democratic congressmen from New York, Jerrold Nadler and Anthony Weiner, interrogated Attorney General Gonzales about Mr. Bush's authority to order the release of classified information.<br /><br />"Is the president covered under the same law that you and I are?" Mr.Weiner asked.<br /><br />"No, he's not," Mr. Gonzales replied. "I think the president has the inherent authority to decide who, in fact, should have classified information. And if the president decided that a person needed the information, that he could have that information shared."<br /><br />"Can he do it for political reasons?" Mr. Nadler asked.<br /><br />"The president has the constitutional authority to make the decision as to what is in the national interest of the country," Mr. Gonzales answered.<br /><br />Mr. Weiner said the defense reminded him of President Nixon's explanations of his conduct during Watergate. "Your answer seems to be when the president does it, that means it is not illegal. That is exactly what President Richard Nixon said," the congressman said.<br /><br />A Republican lawmaker from California, Darrell Issa, said the comparison was unfair because Mr. Bush and his staff have cooperated with Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation. "That sort of leadership is very non-Nixonian," Mr. Issa said.<br /><br />Senator Schumer told reporters he was directing a series of pointed questions about the episode to the White House, although he acknowledged he has no way of compelling Mr. Bush to answer them.<br /><br />"This administration has been very, very strong against leaks. Now, if the president leaked, for whatever purpose, we ought to know that and then we ought to know what distinguishes his leaking information from all the others who leaked information and were condemned by the president," Mr. Schumer said at a press conference on Capitol Hill.<br /><br />Mr. Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Senator Kerry, also entered the fray, scheduling a series of interviews to denounce Mr. Bush's alleged involvement in the intelligence disclosure to Ms. Miller.<br /><br />"He said he'd fire whoever leaked classified information, and now we know the President himself authorized it," Mr. Kerry said in a written statement.<br /><br />"Now we know that the president's search for the leaker needs to go no further than a mirror," he said.<br /><br />A Republican attorney and former prosecutor, Joseph DiGenova, blasted Democrats and the press for describing Mr. Bush's alleged actions as an instruction to "leak."<br /><br />"This was not a leak. This was an authorized disclosure," the ex-prosecutor said.<br /><br />Mr. DiGenova said the fact that Mr. Fitzgerald has not brought any charge in connection with the release of the intelligence estimate shows Mr. Bush and his subordinates acted legally.<br /><br />"If Pat Fitzgerald, a guy who gloms onto every illegal and unethical thing he can, thought he could sink his teeth into this, he would have," Mr. DiGenova said.<br /><br />Still, the former prosecutor said the White House made a "tactical error" by providing the information to Ms. Miller at a hotel.<br /><br />"I never understood why they didn't bring the best possible person to the podium at the White House and just rip Joe Wilson to shreds," Mr. DiGenova said.<br /><br />An attorney for Mr. Wilson, Christopher Wolf, said his client was "quite distressed" to hear of Mr. Bush's alleged role.<br /><br />"It certainly sounds like there was collaboration within the White House on the leaking of Valerie Wilson's identity," Mr. Wolf said.<br /><br />Whatever the ethics or the legality of the alleged intervention by Messrs. Bush, Cheney, and Libby to rebut Mr. Wilson by planting intelligence findings in the press, the effort seems to have been wildly unsuccessful.<br /><br />Ms. Miller, the hand-picked recipient of the intelligence data, did not write a story about the information Mr. Libby provided. Nor did she ever write about Mr. Libby's alleged disclosure that Ms. Plame worked at the CIA, a fact that emerged six days later in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.<br /><br />Ms. Miller did not return a call seeking comment on the episode.<br /><br />Ten days after Mr. Libby relayed the intelligence conclusions to Ms. Plame, similar information was officially released publicly by the White House, which also conducted a background press briefing on the subject.<br /><br />Mr. Libby told the grand jury that the intelligence officials involved in the formal declassification of the estimate were entirely unaware that Mr. Bush had already authorized disclosure of parts of the document to Ms. Miller.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144351766365361672006-04-06T15:29:00.000-04:002006-04-06T15:29:26.376-04:00NATIONAL JOURNAL: Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks (04/06/2006)By Murray Waas, National Journal<br />© National Journal Group Inc.<br />Thursday, April 6, 2006 <br /><br />Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case. <br /><br />I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said. <br /><br />Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own. <br /><br />The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing. <br /><br />Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war. <br /><br />In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war. <br /><br />Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax. <br /><br />According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife." <br /><br />Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger. <br /><br />Two days after Wilson's op-ed, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and not only disclosed portions of the NIE, but also Plame's CIA employment and potential role in her husband's trip. <br /><br />Regarding that meeting, Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized in advance... to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because Vice President Cheney believed it to be "very important" to do so, the court papers filed Wednesday said. The New York Sun reported the court filing on its Web site early Thursday. <br /><br />Libby "further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE," the court papers said. Libby "testified that the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE." <br /><br />Additionally, Libby "testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the Vice President, whom [Libby] considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document." <br /><br />Addington succeeded Libby as Cheney's chief of staff after Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 28, 2005 on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his role in outing Plame as an undercover CIA operative. <br /><br />Four days after the meeting with Miller, on July 12, 2003, Libby spoke again to Miller, and also for the first time with Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper, during which Libby spoke to both journalists about Plame's CIA employment and her possible role in sending her husband to Niger. <br /><br />Regarding those conversations, Libby understood that the Vice President specifically selected him to "speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson," the court papers said. Libby also testified, Fitzgerald asserted in the court papers, that "at the time of his conversations with Miller and Cooper, he understood that only three people -- the President, the Vice President and [Libby] -- knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified. <br /><br />"[Libby] testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials-including Cabinet level officials-were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson's trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003." It is unclear from the court papers what the January 24, 2003 document might be. <br /><br />During those very same conversations with the press that day Libby "discussed Ms. Wilson's CIA employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time)," the court papers further said. <br /><br />Although the special prosecutor's grand jury investigation has not uncovered any evidence that the Vice President encouraged Libby to release information about Plame's covert CIA status, the court papers said that Cheney had "expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife." <br /><br />Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor. <br /><br />Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators. <br /><br />Two senior government officials said that Tenet did recall, however, that he made inquiries regarding the veracity of the Niger intelligence information as a result of inquires from both Cheney and Libby. As a result of those inquiries, Tenet then had the CIA conduct a new review of its Niger intelligence, and concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had in fact attempted to purchase uranium from Niger or other African nations. Tenet and other CIA officials then informed Cheney, other administration officials, and the congressional intelligence committees of the new findings, the sources said. <br /><br />Six days after Libby's conversation with Cooper and Miller regarding Plame, on July 18, 2003, the Bush administration formally declassified portions of the NIE on Iraqi weapons programs in an effort to further blunt the damage of Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration misused the faulty Niger intelligence information to make the case to go to war. It is unclear whether the information that Bush and Cheney were said to authorize Libby to disclose was the same information that was formally declassified. <br /><br />One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons. <br /><br />The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified. <br /><br />As National Journal recently disclosed, the one-page summary of the NIE told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that an Iraqi procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort", the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons." <br /><br />Despite receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." <br /><br />The former senior official said in an interview that he believed that the attempt to conceal the contents of the one-page summary were intertwined with the efforts to declassify portions of the NIE and to leak information to the media regarding Plame: "It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don't see it in that context yet." <br /><br />Although the court papers filed Wednesday revealed that Libby had testified that Bush and Cheney had authorized him to disclose details of the NIE, two other senior government officials said in interviews that Libby had asserted that Cheney had more broadly authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq as part of an administration effort to make the case to go to war. <br /><br />In another instance, Libby had claimed that Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack." <br /><br />Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book's preparation: "There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate," said one former government official. <br /><br />It is unclear whether Libby will argue during his upcoming trial that these other authorizations by both the President and Vice President show that he did not engage in misconduct by disclosing Plame's CIA status to reporters, or that he considered these other authorizations giving him broad authority to make other disclosures. <br /><br />Fitzgerald has apparently avoided questioning Libby, other government officials, and journalists about other potential leaks of classified information to the media, according to attorneys who have represented witnesses to the special prosecutor's probe. Outside legal experts said this might be due to the fact that other authorized leaks might aid Libby's defense, and because Fitzgerald did not want to question reporters about other contacts with Libby because of First Amendment concerns. <br /><br />In a Feb. 17, 2006 letter to John D. Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote that he believed that disclosures in Woodward's book damaged national security. "According to [Woodward's} account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison services." <br /><br />Woodward's book contains, for example, a detailed account of a January 25, 2003 briefing that Libby provided to senior White House staff to make the case that Saddam Hussein had aggressive programs underway to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. <br /><br />Two former government officials said in interviews that the account provided sensitive intelligence information that had not been cleared for release. The book referred to intercepts by the National Security Agency of Iraqi officials that purportedly showed that Iraq was engaging in weapons of mass destruction program. <br /><br />Much of the information presented by Libby at the senior White House staff meeting was later discarded by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and then-CIA Director George Tenet as unreliable, and would not have either otherwise been made public. <br /><br />One former senior official said: "They [the leakers] might have tipped people to our eavesdropping capacities, and other serious sources and methods issues. But to what end? The information was never presented to the public because it was bunk in the first place." <br /><br />In the letter to Negroponte, Sen. Rockefeller complained: "I [previously] wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures in [Woodward's book]. The only response that I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration."Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144351704400607002006-04-06T15:28:00.000-04:002006-04-06T15:28:24.640-04:00Bush Authorized Leak to Times, Libby Told Grand Jury - April 6, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY NewsNew York Sun Web Exclusive<br /><br />By JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun<br />April 6, 2006 updated 9:02 am EDT<br /><br />A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.<br /><br />The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.<br /><br />Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry initially focused on the alleged leak, which occurred after a former ambassador who is Ms. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times questioning the accuracy of statements Mr. Bush made about Iraq's nuclear procurement efforts in Africa.<br /><br />No criminal charges have been brought for the leak itself, but Mr. Libby, a former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was indicted in October on charges that he obstructed the investigation, perjured himself in front of the grand jury, and lied to FBI agents who interviewed him. Mr. Libby, who resigned from the White House and pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to go on trial in January 2007.<br /><br />In a court filing late Wednesday responding to requests from Mr. Libby's attorneys for government records that might aid his defense, Mr. Fitzgerald shed new light on Mr. Libby's claims that he was authorized to provide sensitive information to the Times reporter, Judith Miller, at a meeting on July 8, 2003.<br /><br />"Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was Ôpretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was Ôvery important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote.<br /><br />Mr. Libby is said to have testified that "at first" he rebuffed Mr. Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the prosecution filing said.<br /><br />Mr. Libby told the grand jury that he also sought the advice of the legal counsel to the vice president, David Addington, who indicated that Mr. Bush's permission to disclose the estimate "amounted to a declassification of the document," according to the new court papers.<br /><br />One of the facts Mr. Libby said he planned to disclose to Ms. Miller was that the estimate, produced in October 2002, concluded that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium." This contention was sharply at odds with Mr. Wilson's op-ed piece which argued there was no evidence of such a procurement effort, at least on a trip he took to Africa at the CIA's request.<br /><br />Mr. Bush's alleged instruction to release the conclusions of the intelligence estimate appears to have been squarely within his authority and Mr. Fitzgerald makes no argument that it was illegal. While Mr. Libby said he gave that information "exclusively" to the Times reporter at their breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, many of the findings of the estimate were formally declassified and discussed at a White House press briefing ten days later, on July 18, 2003.<br /><br />The court papers filed by Mr. Fitzgerald do not make clear whether Mr. Bush knew the disclosure was destined for Ms. Miller, though they indicate Mr. Cheney knew that fact. Mr. Libby is also said to have testified that five days late Mr. Cheney authorized the release to the press of information about a cable about Mr. Wilson's strip.<br /><br />Messrs. Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald and his staff, but it is not known how their accounts of the events compared to that of Mr. Libby.<br /><br />In an interview with Fox News in February, Mr. Cheney, who has a reputation for secrecy, acknowledged that he has sometimes pressed for the official release of classified records.<br /><br />"I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions," he said.<br /><br />Asked if he had ever "unilaterally" declassified material, Mr. Cheney replied, "I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."<br /><br />While prosecutors initially said Mr. Libby was the first government official to disclose Ms. Plame's identity, it subsequently emerged that a Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward, learned earlier about her CIA employment from another government official. Neither Mr. Woodward nor Ms. Miller wrote about Ms. Plame at the time. Another journalist, Robert Novak, first disclosed the employment of Mr. Wilson's wife in a syndicated column released on July 14, 2003. The columnist based his story on interviews with Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and another official who has not been officially identified.<br /><br />Prosecutors argued that Mr. Libby covered up his role in the disclosures because "he knew the White House had publicly staked its credibility on there being no White House involvement in the leaking of information about Ms. Wilson." They also noted that Mr. Bush publicly declared he would fire anyone found to have leaked classified information.<br /><br />The new court filing quotes from handwritten suggestions Mr. Libby gave to the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, urging the spokesman to proclaim the vice presidential aide's innocence with the same vigor that the press secretary previously denounced as "ridiculous" suggestions that Mr. Rove might have had a hand in leaking Ms. Plame's identity.<br /><br />Mr. Libby's note, as typed up by the prosecution, reads like a stanza of verse:<br /><br />"People have made too much of the difference in<br />How I described Karl and Libby<br />I've talked to Libby.<br />I said it was ridiculous about Karl<br />And it is ridiculous about Libby.<br />Libby was not the source of the Novak story.<br />And he did not leak classified information."<br /><br />Mr. McClellan did not adopt the talking points verbatim, but did tell reporters later that Messrs. Rove and Libby "assured me that they were not involved in this."<br /><br />Mr. Rove has not been charged with a crime, but remains under investigation by Mr. Fitzgerald's office.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1144088945910075402006-04-03T14:29:00.000-04:002006-04-03T14:29:06.060-04:00Fitzgerald Knew Identity of Leaker From StartThe 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The Bush administration official was given an ultimatum: either cooperate with the special counsel's probe or face criminal charges for his involvement in the leak, attorneys close to the case said.<br /><br />The senior official decided to cooperate with the investigation and told Fitzgerald that Libby and Rove spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson, the attorneys said.<br /><br />The official has been identified by attorneys and four current and former White House officials as John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton.<br /><br />Hannah worked with Libby on the issue of weapons of mass destruction as part of an informal team known as the "White House Iraq Group." Hannah told friends last year that he was worried he might be implicated by the investigation, according to a report in the Washington Post.<br /><br />Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators related to his role in the leak. Hannah was named Cheney's national security adviser the day Libby was indicted.<br /><br />Hannah's cooperation early on in the leak investigation ultimately helped Fitzgerald and his staff discover the identity of the Bush administration official who leaked information about Plame Wilson's work with the CIA to Novak, these sources said.<br /><br />The identity of the individual is still unknown. No one in the White House was aware that Hannah was cooperating with the special counsel, the sources said, adding that information Hannah provided to Fitzgerald was instrumental in securing a perjury indictment against Libby. Hannah's attorney did not return numerous calls for comment.<br /><br />The disclosure of Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status was an attempt by White House officials to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the administration's pr-war Iraq intelligence.<br /><br />Wilson wrote an editorial in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, accusing President Bush of knowingly "twisting" Iraq intelligence by citing bogus claims in his January 2003 State of the Union address about Iraq's attempt to acquire yellow-cake uranium from Niger. Wilson revealed that he had personally traveled to Niger a year earlier on behalf of the CIA to check out the uranium allegations and had reported back that it was untrue.<br /><br />A week after Wilson's editorial was published, Novak printed the identity of Wilson's wife and said she worked at the CIA. He said two White House officials told him the trip was a boondoggle because Plame Wilson had recommended her husband to check out the Niger claims.<br /><br />Fitzgerald was tapped by the Department of Justice in December 2003 to investigate whether White House officials violated a 1982 federal law making it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of an undercover CIA officer.<br /><br />A month or so after obtaining testimony from Hannah and more than a dozen other senior White House officials who may have been involved in the leak, Fitzgerald sent a letter to his boss, then-acting Attorney General James Comey, seeking confirmation that he had the authority to investigate and prosecute individuals for additional crimes that may have been committed during the probe.<br /><br />Comey responded to Fitzgerald in writing on February 6, 2004, confirming that the special prosecutor had the authority to prosecute "perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."<br /><br />It was the conflicting testimony Fitzgerald obtained from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove that prompted Fitzgerald to send a letter to Comey, attorneys and current and former administration officials close to the probe said.<br /><br />From the moment Fitzgerald received Comey's response, the investigation changed course and moved to an obstruction of justice and perjury probe against Rove and Libby, the sources close to the investigation said.<br /><br />Rove was questioned by FBI investigators at least five times between October 2003 and February 2004. Libby was questioned by investigators at least twice during that time, according to attorneys familiar with Rove and Libby's interviews with investigators.<br /><br />Libby and Rove said in interviews with FBI investigators that they found out about Plame Wilson's identity from reporters. Rove testified that he couldn't recall who in the media told him that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and was married to the former ambassador.<br /><br />Rove told FBI investigators on five occasions and testified twice before a grand jury that he distributed damaging information about Plame to the Republican National Committee, outside political consultants and the media after Novak had disclosed her identity, according to the attorneys who are familiar with Rove's testimony.<br /><br />However, Rove was actually a source for Novak and another reporter who wrote about Plame Wilson but failed to disclose that fact in nearly a dozen times he was questioned about his role in the leak.<br /><br />Sources said that Fitzgerald is now preparing the paperwork to present to a grand jury outlining the charges against Rove in hopes of securing an indictment.<br /><br />The attorneys close to the case said that in order to build a rock-solid perjury and obstruction case against Libby, Fitzgerald needed to secure the testimony of the journalists Libby spoke to about Plame Wilson.<br /><br />The investigation surely would have ended in 2004, the attorneys said, but journalists Fitzgerald subpoenaed went to court to fight the subpoena and the legal challenge delayed the case for nearly a year.<br /><br />In the end, the testimony of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller - both of whom identified Libby as their source of information on Plame Wilson - convinced the grand jury that Libby lied about his role in the leak.<br /><br />In the interest of fairness, any person identified in this story who believes he has been portrayed unfairly or that the information about him is untrue will have the opportunity to respond in this space.<br /><br />Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1143861482718149472006-03-31T22:18:00.000-05:002006-03-31T22:18:02.850-05:00Libby Says Prosecutor Trying to Keep PostBy PETE YOST<br />The Associated Press<br />Friday, March 31, 2006; 7:47 PM<br /><br /><br /><br />WASHINGTON -- Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is narrowing the description of his powers in an effort to counter calls for dismissal of the criminal case he brought against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, defense lawyers said Friday.<br /><br />In a 24-page filing in federal court, the legal team for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said Fitzgerald and the former Justice Department official who appointed him, James Comey, are changing the broad mandate the prosecutor was handed to probe the leak in the Valerie Plame affair.<br /><br />Libby is under indictment on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of Plame's CIA identity and what he told reporters about her. Plame's CIA status was exposed on July 14, 2003, by conservative columnist Robert Novak, eight days after Plame's husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.<br /><br />The defense attorneys say assignment of unsupervised and undirected power to Fitzgerald requires that he be relieved of his duties in the investigation and that all actions he has taken be voided.<br /><br />Fitzgerald's appointment violates federal law, the defense attorneys say, because his investigation was not supervised by the attorney general. They say only Congress can approve such an arrangement.<br /><br />"The government attempts to salvage the appointment by submitting two affidavits recently prepared by Mr. Comey and Mr. Fitzgerald, claiming that their previously undisclosed, subjective understanding of the appointment was narrower," Libby's lawyers wrote. "Mr. Comey now asserts that `it was my intention that the special counsel would follow substantive department policies' in exercising that authority."<br /><br />"Similarly, despite the fact that as recently as August 2004 Mr. Fitzgerald characterized himself as `the functional equivalent of the attorney general in this matter,' he now insists in response to Mr. Libby's challenge that he always `understood' he had no authority to expand his jurisdiction and that he was required to follow certain substantive department policies," the court papers added.<br /><br />© 2006 The Associated PressJamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1143693502472567902006-03-29T23:38:00.000-05:002006-03-29T23:38:22.606-05:00Frontal Assault on Freedom of the PressThe Bush administration is the first in history to launch a direct assault on journalists for violating the Espionage Act by releasing or publishing leaks of classified information. Although Congress originally passed the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees who divulge classified information to a foreign nation, it is now extended to reporters for doing their job — informing the public of our government wrongdoing, including breaking the law. <br /><br />In times of war or anticipated war, our nation’s leaders supported by much of the populace have been too willing to surrender the First Amendment — our fundamental rights at the heart of democracy — for the illusion of greater security. Our civil liberties have been most endangered precisely when they should have been most protected to prevent our leaders from persecuting ordinary citizens.<br /><br />In 1798, Congress passed the first federal Sedition Act to prosecute members of Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party who challenged President John Adams’ Federalist policies. In World War I, the 1917 Espionage Act and the 1918 Sedition Act were enacted to silence opposing views from political dissenters, pacifists, and labor radicals. Not one single traitor was found in more than 2,000 cases. In World War II, about 112,000 to 120,000 West Coast Japanese-Americans were relocated and confined to internment camps. The U.S. government eventually issued a public apology and doled out financial retribution to survivors and their descendents. In the early 1950s, congressional McCarthyism fueled the “red scare” — myth of communist governmental infiltration — by conducting “witch-hunts” for communist sympathizers. <br /><br />Before 9/11 attacks, immigrants working and residing in America enjoyed the protection of the Bill of Rights as much as American citizens. However, under the 2001 USA Patriot Act, the government arrested and detained Arab and Muslim non-citizens, deporting or incarcerating hundreds of people on immigration violations and arresting more than a dozen “material witnesses” without charge of any crime. According to American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the U.S. government is violating the Constitution and federal law by whisking away 1,000 people as detainees without releasing their names or their locations. Congress has just renewed the Patriot Act in March 2006 to continue the battle of the illusory “war on terror.” <br /><br />The erosion of Bill of Rights has now emboldened the Bush administration to attack press freedom. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, as emphasized in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights: “the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” <br /><br />The media’s sole obligation lies squarely with the public’s right to know. The utmost duty of a journalist should be to pursue the truth. Reporters who use their professional status for self-serving purposes at the expense of those whom they serve violate a trust. As carriers of public information, the media acts as a conduit for the whistleblower to alert the public of government wrongdoing.<br /><br />Such reports as uranium purchase forgery that drove U.S. to Iraq war, prisoner tortures, secret CIA prisons, warrantless surveillance, and other topics have prompted the Bush administration to plug the leaks at the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies. The aggressive efforts to suppress leaks on federal employees include FBI probes, polygraph tests and warning letters from the Justice Department prohibiting discussion of classified issues. For George Bush to claim that leaks have endangered the nation during a time of war doesn’t conceal the fact that he and his minions have consistently violated our constitutional laws in conducting his war. <br /><br />In the New York Times, the CIA director Porter Goss asserts that the “Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) was enacted to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information." However, to submit a petition to Congress requires an approval from an agency’s head that might not want Congress to hear the allegations of wrongdoing. Another obstacle lies in neither the House nor Senate Intelligence Committees are “cleared enough” to hear closed testimony of NSA’s classified information.<br /><br />Worse still, a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on December 30, 2005 concluded that national security whistleblowers are unprotected. Cases in point: Russell Tice, a former intelligence officer at the NSA, charged that “illegalities and unconstitutional activity” operated in the ‘special-access programs’ (domestic eavesdropping without warrants); Mike German, a former FBI agent, reported records were falsified to cover-up mishandling of a major counterterrorism case in 2002; and Richard Levernier, a retired senior Department of Energy nuclear security specialist, testified that America’s nuclear weapons sites showed a 50 percent failure rate to defend against a terrorist attack. Those courageous employees who had spoken out and followed the chain of command for reporting wrongdoing suffered retaliation for disclosing the truth. <br /><br />It’s no wonder that federal employees would rather leak vital government wrongdoing to the media than face ruin careers. More importantly, acting as whistleblowers, they are patriots serving the American people by informing the public of our government malfeasance. <br /><br />The irony of it all, Special Council Patrick Fitzgerald is now investigating the same issue on the Bush administration — leaking sensitive classified information on a former CIA agent, Valerie Plame. In October 2005, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he became aware of Plame's CIA status and what he told the reporters. <br /><br />In his defense for outing a CIA agent, Libby testified to a federal grand jury that Cheney and his "superiors" had authorized him to leak classified information, before and after the start of Iraq war in making the case for the U.S. invasion. Lawyers for Libby have subpoenaed several news reporters to testify again on how much they knew about the Plame’s undercover CIA status before her identity was publicly exposed. Libby’s trial will be held in January 2007. <br /><br />Even if Libby could clear himself from being the first one to leak Plame’s identity, he has, nevertheless, committed a series of criminal offenses — obstruction of justice, lying to a federal grand jury, and more significantly, leaking classified information to drive U.S. to war with Iraq.<br /><br />The Plamegate case was quite clear: a serious crime was committed — the law was broken to expose an undercover CIA agent, jeopardizing our national security. The New York Times former reporter, Judith Miller went to jail for 85 days to protect her sources. Miller’s protection of a government source that was suspected of committing a national security crime is definitely not the same as a journalist's obligation to protect a federal whistleblower revealing government wrongdoing. Like any journalist, Miller is bound to serve the public welfare. Any sound journalist could see that Miller was abetting a national security crime by withholding pertinent information to a criminal investigation. Fitzgerald understood that difference well enough to throw her in jail.<br /><br />The Justice Department now applies the Espionage Act against journalists and their possible government sources, not to silence dissension like in the past — but to hide the criminal activities of the Bush administration. In reality, this administration wants to continue breaking the laws and violate our constitutional rights. By smothering freedom of the press, the Neocons would be one step closer to turning the United States into a dictatorship.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1143583667185701792006-03-28T17:07:00.000-05:002006-03-28T17:07:47.316-05:00Fitzgerald Will Seek New White House Indictments | BaltimoreChronicle.comIt may seem as though it's been moving along at a snail's pace, but the second part of the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is nearly complete, with attorneys and government officials who have remained close to the probe saying that a grand jury will likely return an indictment against one or two senior Bush administration officials.<br /><br />These sources work or worked at the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council. Some of these sources are attorneys close to the case. They requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the details of the investigation.<br /><br />In lengthy interviews over the weekend and on Monday, they said that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has started to prepare the paperwork to present to the grand jury seeking an indictment against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove or National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. <br /><br />Although the situation remains fluid, it's possible, these sources said, that Fitzgerald may seek to indict both Rove and Hadley, charging them with perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy related to their roles in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity and their effort to cover up their involvement following a Justice Department investigation. <br /><br />The sources said late Monday that it may take more than a month before Fitzgerald presents the paperwork outlining the government's case against one or both of the officials and asks the grand jury to return an indictment, because he is currently juggling quite a few high-profile criminal cases and will need to carve out time to write up the indictment and prepare the evidence. <br /><br />In addition to responding to discovery requests from Libby's defense team and appearing in court with his attorneys, who are trying to obtain additional evidence, such as top-secret documents, from Fitzgerald's probe, the special prosecutor is also prosecuting Lord Conrad Black, the newspaper magnate, has recently charged numerous individuals in a child pornography ring, and is wrestling with other lawsuits in his home city of Chicago.<br /><br />Details about the latest stage of the investigation began to take shape a few weeks ago when the lead FBI investigator on the leak case, John C. Eckenrode, retired from the agency and indicated to several colleagues that the investigation is about to wrap up with indictments handed up by the grand jury against Rove or Hadley or both officials, the sources said. <br /><br />The Philadelphia-based Eckenrode is finished with his work on the case; however, he is expected to testify as a witness for the prosecution next year against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in October on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators regarding his role in the leak. <br /><br />Hadley and Rove remain under intense scrutiny, but sources said Fitzgerald has not yet decided whether to seek charges against one or both of them.<br /><br />Libby and other officials in Cheney's office used the information they obtained about Plame Wilson to undermine the credibility of her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. He had alleged that President Bush misspoke when he said, in his January 2003 State of the Union address, that Iraq had tried to acquire yellow-cake uranium, the key component used to build a nuclear bomb, from Niger.<br /><br />The uranium claim was the silver bullet in getting Congress to support military action two months later. To date, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and the country barely had a functional weapons program, according to a report from the Iraq Survey Group.<br /><br />Wilson had traveled to Niger more than a year earlier to investigate the yellow-cake claims and reported back to the CIA that intelligence reports saying Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger were false.<br /><br />On Monday, though, attorneys close to the leak case confirmed that Fitzgerald had met with the grand jury half a dozen times since January and recently told the jurors that he planned to present them with the government's case against Rove or Hadley, which stems from an email Rove had sent to Hadley in July of 2003 indicating that he had a conversation about Plame Wilson with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper. <br /><br />Neither Hadley nor Rove disclosed the existence of the email when they were questioned by FBI investigators or when they testified before a grand jury, the sources said, adding that Rove testified he found out about Plame Wilson from reporters and Hadley testified that he recalled learning about Plame Wilson when her name was published in a newspaper column. <br /><br />Rove testified before the grand jury four times. He did not disclose the existence of the email during the three previous times he testified, claiming he simply forgot about it because he was enmeshed with the 2004 Presidential election, traveling around the country attending fundraisers and meetings, working more than 15 hours a day on the campaign, and just forgot that he spoke with Cooper three months earlier, sources familiar with his testimony said.<br /><br />But Rove and Libby had been the subject of dozens of news stories about the possibility that they played a role in the leak, and had faced dozens of questions as early as August 2003—one month after Plame Wilson was outed—about whether they were the administration officials responsible for leaking her identity. <br /><br />The story Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, provided to Fitzgerald in order to explain why Rove did not disclose the existence of the email is "less than satisfactory and entirely unconvincing to the special counsel," one of the attorneys close to the case said. <br /><br />Luskin did not return numerous calls for comment. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said she could not comment on an ongoing investigation and has vehemently denied that Hadley was involved in the leak "because Mr. Hadley told us he wasn't involved."<br /><br />In December, Luskin made a desperate attempt to keep his client out of Fitzgerald's crosshairs.<br /><br />Luskin had revealed to Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak—a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame Wilson case—inadvertently tipped him off in early 2004 that her colleague at the magazine, Matt Cooper, would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status.<br /><br />Novak—who bears no relation to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the journalist who first published Plame Wilson's name and CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column —met Luskin in Washington DC in the summer of 2004, and over drinks, the two discussed Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame Wilson leak.<br /><br />Luskin had assured Novak that Rove learned Plame Wilson's name and CIA status after it was published in news accounts and that only then did he phone other journalists to draw their attention to it. But Novak told Luskin that everyone in the Time newsroom knew Rove was Cooper's source and that he would testify to that in an upcoming grand jury appearance, these sources said.<br /><br />According to Luskin's account, after he met with Viveca Novak he contacted Rove and told him about his conversation with her. The two of them then began an exhaustive search through White House phone logs and emails for any evidence that proved that Rove had spoken with Cooper. Luskin said that during this search an email was found that Rove had sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley immediately after Rove's conversation with Cooper, and it was subsequently turned over to Fitzgerald.<br /><br />"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in the email to Hadley immediately following his conversation with Cooper on July 11, 2003. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."<br /><br />Luskin wound up becoming a witness in the case and testified about his conversation with Viveca Novak that Luskin said would prove his client didn't knowingly lie to FBI investigators when he was questioned about the leak in October 2003, just three months after Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. <br /><br />The email Rove sent to Hadley, which Luskin said he found, helped Rove recall his conversation with Cooper a year earlier. Rove then returned to the grand jury to clarify his previous testimonies in which he did not disclose that he spoke with journalists.<br /><br />Still, Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothing like he had described in his email to Hadley, according to an email Cooper sent to his editor at Time magazine following his conversation with Rove in July 2003.<br /><br />"It was, KR said, [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized [Wilson's] trip," Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said. "Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The email characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger... "<br /><br />It is unclear whether Rove was misleading Hadley about his conversation with Cooper, perhaps, because White House officials told their staff not to engage reporters in any questions posed about Wilson's Niger claims. <br /><br />But Fitzgerald's investigation has turned up additional evidence over the past few months that convinced him that Luskin's eleventh-hour revelation about the chain of events that led to the discovery of the email is not credible. Fitzgerald believes that Rove changed his story once it became clear that Cooper would be compelled to testify about the source—Rove—who revealed Plame Wilson's CIA status to him, sources close to the case said. <br /><br />If any of the people named in this story believe they have been unfairly portrayed or that what was written in this story is untrue, they will have an opportunity to respond in this space.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1142724134413038302006-03-18T18:20:00.000-05:002006-03-18T18:22:14.416-05:00Libby Trial May Be Embarrassment for BushBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer<br /><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/photos/N/NYET73203170226.html?SITE=DCUSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT"></a>AP Photo/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE<br />WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide are signaling they may delve deeply at his criminal trial into infighting among the White House, the CIA and the State Department over pre-Iraq war intelligence failures.<br />In a prelude to a possible defense, the lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby also are suggesting that the State Department - not Libby - may be to blame for leaking the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame to the media.<br />Court papers filed late Friday raise the possibility a trial could become politically embarrassing for the Bush administration by focusing on the debate about whether the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.<br />The defense team stated that in June and July 2003, Plame's CIA status was at most a peripheral issue to "the finger-pointing that went on within the executive branch about who was to blame" for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.<br />"If the jury learns this background information" about finger-pointing "and also understands Mr. Libby's additional focus on urgent national security matters, the jury will more easily appreciate how Mr. Libby may have forgotten or misremembered ... snippets of conversation" about Plame's CIA status, the lawyers said.<br />Cheney's former chief of staff was indicted Oct. 28 on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of Plame's CIA employment and what he told reporters about her.<br />Libby's lawyers are asking U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton for access to government documents about a 2002 trip that Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, made to the African nation of Niger at the CIA's behest and about "his wife's involvement" with that mission.<br />The documents relate to what prospective witnesses - including then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove - probably would say at Libby's trial.<br /><br />Noting press reports last week, the court papers say there has been speculation that Armitage told The Washington Post's Bob Woodward that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, and speculation that Woodward's source and the primary source for conservative columnist Robert Novak are the same person.<br />Novak disclosed Plame's identity on July 14, 2003, eight days after Wilson contended in a New York Times op-ed column that the administration twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from a nuclear weapons program.<br />"If the facts ultimately show that Mr. Armitage or someone else from the State Department was also Mr. Novak's primary source, then the State Department and certainly not Mr. Libby bears responsibility for the 'leak' that led to the public disclosure" of Plame's CIA identity, Libby's lawyers said.<br />The court filing also focused on Marc Grossman, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs who allegedly told Libby a month before Plame's identity was disclosed that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.<br />"If Mr. Armitage or another State Department official was in fact the primary source for Mr. Novak's article, Mr. Grossman's testimony may be colored by either his personal relationship with Mr. Armitage or his concern for the institutional concerns of the state Department," Libby's lawyers wrote.<br />Rove - a source for Novak and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper - is under investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the probe of the leak of Plame's CIA identity.<br />Libby's lawyers say that "either the government or the defense may call Mr. Rove as a witness at trial" and note that "the grand jury's investigation may be continuing with respect to Mr. Rove or other witnesses."<br />The defense says the documents it seeks will help demonstrate that the White House did not launch a concerted effort to punish Wilson by leaking his wife's identity, as administration critics have alleged.<br />Libby also is asking for notes from a September 2003 meeting in the White House Situation Room where Colin Powell, who was secretary of state, is reported to have said that everyone knows Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and that it was Wilson's wife who suggested the CIA sent her husband to Niger.<br />"The media conflagration ignited by the failure to find WMD in Iraq and in part by Mr. Wilson's criticism of the administration, led officials within the White House, the State Department and the CIA to blame each other, publicly and in private, for faulty prewar intelligence about Iraq's WMD capabilities," the court papers state.<br />"The government's version of events blows out of proportion the minor role Ms. Wilson actually played and in doing so creates an impression that is highly prejudicial to Mr. Libby," they say.<br />Wilson's accusations stemmed from President Bush's assertion in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003, that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.<br />Based on his 2002 trip, Wilson said he had found it highly doubtful the nation of Niger had agreed to sell uranium yellowcake to Iraq, as alleged in intelligence provided to the CIA.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1142724019155610652006-03-18T18:19:00.000-05:002006-03-18T18:20:19.186-05:00Armitage may come under scrutiny in CIA leak trialBy Andy Sullivan<br />WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former top State Department official suspected of being the first person to discuss the identity of a CIA official with reporters is expected to testify in the perjury trial of ex-vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a court motion says.<br />The filing by Libby's defense team late on Friday asks Judge Reggie Walton to force prosecutors to turn over material they have about likely witnesses including former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.<br />Others who are expected to testify include White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, former CIA director George Tenet and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the document says.<br />It suggests Libby's team may try to pin blame on the State Department for the leak of Valerie Plame's identity to the public after her husband criticized the Bush administration's Iraq policy.<br />Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee told Vanity Fair magazine this week that it is reasonable to assume that Armitage told Post reporter Bob Woodward about Plame's identity before other Bush administration officials mentioned her name to reporters.<br />Knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert CIA agent is against the law. But so far no officials have been charged with leaking Plame's identity to the news media in 2003.<br />Libby, set to go on trial in January 2007, faces charges of lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury during the investigation. Rove remains under investigation for making false statements.<br />Libby's lawyers noted that there has been speculation that Armitage might also have told syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to make Plame's identity public in a July 14, 2003, column.<br />"If the facts ultimately show that Mr. Armitage or someone else from the State Department was also Mr. Novak's primary source, then the State Department (and certainly not Mr. Libby) bears responsibility for the 'leak' that led to the public disclosure of Ms. Wilson's CIA identity," Libby's defense team wrote, referring to Plame by her married name.<br />Libby's lawyers hope to demonstrate that he was too preoccupied with national security matters to accurately remember his conversations with reporters about Plame, and have sought access to reporters' notes and top-secret security briefings to bolster their case.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1142626517940051292006-03-17T15:15:00.001-05:002006-03-17T15:15:17.983-05:00Libby's Lawyers Subpoena Times, Reporters - Yahoo! NewsBy PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer<br />Thu Mar 16, 9:34 PM ET<br /> <br /><br /><br />The CIA leak case of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may be heading for a new battle between the news media and the courts, the second such confrontation triggered by the Valerie Plame affair.<br /><br />Lawyers for Libby are casting a wide net for information from news organizations for his upcoming criminal trial, subpoenaing documents from The New York Times, Time magazine and three reporters, including NBC correspondent Tim Russert.<br /><br />Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff is entitled to find out what the news media knew about the CIA status of undercover officer Plame before her identity was publicly exposed, Libby's lawyers have said in court papers.<br /><br />Conservative columnist Robert Novak named her in a column in July 2003, eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq.<br /><br />Wilson has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed to undermine his credibility.<br /><br />Libby, the former White House aide, was indicted Oct. 28 on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he became aware of Plame's CIA status and what he said about her to reporters.<br /><br />Libby told investigators he'd heard about her CIA employment from reporters. The criminal charges say he learned of it from Cheney, the State Department and the CIA.<br /><br />In a court filing in January, Libby's lawyers said prosecutors were refusing to give Libby evidence about what reporters learned from sources other than Libby about where Plame worked.<br /><br />"There can be no information more material to the defense of a perjury case than information tending to show that the alleged false statements are, in fact, true or that they could be the result of mistake or confusion," Libby's legal team argued.<br /><br />They said it is material to Libby's defense to determine the identity of all reporters who knew about Plame's job, when they learned of it and from whom and whether they disclosed it further after learning it.<br /><br />The subpoenaed reporters and news organizations have until April 7 to turn over the material or challenge the subpoenas before U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who will preside at Libby's trial scheduled for next January.<br /><br />Time Inc. lawyer Robin Bierstedt confirmed that the magazine and reporter Matt Cooper were each subpoenaed by Libby's attorneys. The Times confirmed subpoenas to the newspaper and former reporter Judy Miller. NBC confirmed the subpoena to Russert.<br /><br />The subpoena to Miller seeks her notes and other materials, including documents concerning Plame prepared by Miller and Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof.<br /><br />Kristof wrote the first account of the criticism that Plame's husband was leveling at the Bush administration. Referring to Plame's husband, though not by name, a May 6, 2003, Times column by Kristof raised the possibility the Bush administration might have disregarded prewar intelligence suggesting Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.<br /><br />Three weeks after Kristof's column appeared, Libby started making inquiries at the State Department about the unnamed envoy in Kristof's column, according to the indictment.<br /><br />The subpoena to the Times also calls for:<br /><br />_Documents of contacts between any Times employee and any of eight people, including then-CIA Director George Tenet and then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, regarding Joe Wilson.<br /><br />_Documents concerning a recent Vanity Fair article in which Miller said she talked to many people in the government about Plame. <br /><br />_Drafts of a personal account by Miller, published in the Times, about her grand jury testimony. <br /><br />_Documents regarding Miller's interactions with a Times editor in which Miller may have been told to pursue a story about Joe Wilson and a trip he made to Niger on behalf of the CIA. <br /><br />Miller spent 85 days in jail after refusing to tell a grand jury about conversations she had with Libby about Wilson's wife. <br /><br />The Times reporter later testified before the grand jury, saying Libby had given her permission to do so, and provided the panel with edited notes of her interviews with the former chief of staff. <br /><br />She retired from the Times in November.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1142318999110382402006-03-14T01:49:00.000-05:002006-03-14T01:49:59.256-05:00Magazine: Bradlee Knows Woodward's Source on PlameBy Jim VandeHei<br />Washington Post Staff Writer<br />Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A02<br /><br /><br /><br />Vanity Fair is reporting that former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee says it is reasonable to assume former State Department official Richard L. Armitage is likely the source who revealed CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward.<br /><br />In an article to be published in the magazine today, Bradlee is quoted as saying: "That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption." Armitage was deputy secretary of State in President Bush's first term.<br /><br />In an interview yesterday, Bradlee said he does know the identity of Woodward's source but does not recall making that precise statement to a Vanity Fair reporter. He said he has no interest in unmasking the official who first told Woodward about Plame in June 2003.<br /><br />"I don't think I said it," Bradlee said. "I know who his source is, and I don't want to get into it. . . . I have not told a soul who it is."<br /><br />The identity of Woodward's source emerged as one of the big mysteries of the CIA case after he disclosed last year that a government official with no ax to grind had told him about Plame, an undercover operative, a month before her name was revealed by columnist Robert D. Novak. Since then, guessing Woodward's source has been a Washington parlor game.<br /><br />Plame is at the center of an investigation by a special prosecutor into whether White House officials knowingly disclosed her name to the media to discredit allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the administration twisted intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war. The probe has resulted in charges of perjury, making false statements and obstructing justice against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.<br /><br />Beth Kseniak, spokeswoman for Vanity Fair, said the reporter who wrote the story, Marie Brenner, was traveling in India and was unavailable for comment.<br /><br />Bradlee, currently Post vice president at large, said he learned the source's name from someone other than Woodward. Woodward said he did not reveal the source to his friend and former boss.<br /><br />"He is not in the management loop on this," Woodward said. "Maybe he was alerted from somebody else, if he in fact did learn" the source's name.<br /><br />Woodward and Bradlee refused to disclose the source's name. Armitage did not return phone calls requesting comment.<br /><br />Bradlee's brief comments about the source are included in a lengthy article about the Plame case. Bradlee is the longtime Post editor who rose to prominence when his reporting team of Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story. Woodward and Bradlee refused for many years to reveal the identity of Deep Throat, a key source.<br /><br />Bradlee defended Woodward after thejournalist disclosed in November that a senior Bush administration official had told him about Plame and her CIA ties a month before her identity was revealed.<br /><br />At the time, Woodward was criticized by Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, and others for not telling the newspaper about his knowledge of Plame until after Libby was indicted.<br /><br />In the course of writing a book on Bush, Woodward said, he had discovered mention of Plame in his notes just as the grand jury in the leak case was expiring last October. Woodward contacted prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and later testified under oath about his conversations with the source, whom he has refused to name publicly.<br /><br />Woodward's testimony changed key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby. It made Woodward's source -- not Libby -- the first known government official to disclose Plame's CIA employment to a reporter. Woodward has said he does not recall ever discussing Plame with Libby.<br /><br />It also apparently made Woodward the first reporter to learn about Plame from a government source. Libby's legal team has cited Woodward's testimony as evidence that there are holes in Fitzgerald's version of events and hinted it might call the reporter to testify at the trial.<br /><br />The identity of Woodward's source is one of several mysteries that remain in the leak case. Lawyers involved in the case have suggested Woodward's source and Novak's source are the same person. Novak has refused to discuss the sources for his column but suggested in a speech in December that he and Woodward shared the source. Novak and his lawyer declined to comment yesterday.<br /><br />Fitzgerald has not concluded his investigation, but people involved in the case said he has not shown interest in Woodward or his source since Woodward testified last year.<br /><br />Fitzgerald has not closed the investigation of whether White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove provided false statements about his role in the disclosure of Plame's identity, according to lawyers in the case.<br /><br />© 2006 The Washington Post CompanyJamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1142191160462163652006-03-12T14:19:00.000-05:002006-03-12T14:19:20.596-05:00KRT Wire | 03/11/2006 | Plame's identity, if truly a secret, was thinly veiledBY JOHN CREWDSON<br />Chicago Tribune<br /><br />WASHINGTON - The question of whether Valerie Plame's employment by the Central Intelligence Agency was a secret is the key issue in the two-year investigation to determine if someone broke the law by leaking her CIA affiliation to the news media.<br /><br />Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald contends that Plame's friends "had no idea she had another life." But Plame's secret life could be easily penetrated with the right computer sleuthing and an understanding of how the CIA's covert employees work.<br /><br />When the Chicago Tribune searched for Plame on an Internet service that sells public information about private individuals to its subscribers, it got a report of more than 7,600 words. Included was the fact that in the early 1990s her address was "AMERICAN EMBASSY ATHENS ST, APO NEW YORK NY 09255."<br /><br />A former senior American diplomat in Athens, who remembers Plame as "pleasant, very well-read, bright," said he had been aware that Plame, who was posing as a junior consular officer, really worked for the CIA.<br /><br />According to CIA veterans, U.S. intelligence officers working in American embassies under "diplomatic cover" are almost invariably known to friendly and opposition intelligence services alike.<br /><br />"If you were in an embassy," said a former CIA officer who posed as a U.S. diplomat in several countries, "you could count 100 percent on the Soviets knowing."<br /><br />Plame's true function likely would have been known to friendly intelligence agencies as well. The former senior diplomat recalled, for example, that she served as one of the "control officers" coordinating the visit of President George H.W. Bush to Greece and Turkey in July 1991.<br /><br />After the completion of her Athens tour, the CIA reportedly sent Plame to study in Europe. According to her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame was living in Brussels when the couple first met in 1997.<br /><br />Two years later, when Plame made a $1,000 contribution to Vice President Al Gore, she listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a Boston company apparently set up by the CIA to provide "commercial cover" for some of its operatives.<br /><br />Brewster-Jennings was not a terribly convincing cover. According to Dun & Bradstreet, the company, created in 1994, is a "legal services office" grossing $60,000 a year and headed by a chief executive named Victor Brewster. Commercial databases accessible by the Tribune contain no indication that such a person exists.<br /><br />Another sign of Brewster-Jennings' link to the CIA came from the online resume of a Washington attorney, who until last week claimed to have been employed by Brewster-Jennings as an "engineering consultant" from 1985 to 1989 and to have served from 1989 to 1995 as a CIA "case officer," the agency's term for field operatives who collect information from paid informants.<br /><br />On Wednesday the Tribune left a voice mail and two e-mail messages asking about the juxtaposition of the attorney's career with Brewster-Jennings and the CIA. On Thursday, the Brewster-Jennings and CIA entries had disappeared from the online resume. The attorney never returned any of the messages left by the Tribune.<br /><br />After Plame left her diplomatic post and joined Brewster-Jennings, she became what is known in CIA parlance as an "NOC," shorthand for an intelligence officer working under "non-official cover." But several CIA veterans questioned how someone with an embassy background could have successfully passed herself off as a private-sector consultant with no government connections.<br /><br />Genuine NOCs, a CIA veteran said, "never use an official address. If she had (a diplomatic) address, her whole cover's completely phony. I used to run NOCs. I was in an embassy. I'd go out and meet them, clandestine meetings. I'd pay them cash to run assets or take trips. I'd give them a big bundle of cash. But they could never use an embassy address, ever."<br /><br />Another CIA veteran with 20 years of service agreed that "the key is the (embassy) address. That is completely unacceptable for an NOC. She wasn't an NOC, period."<br /><br />After Plame was transferred back to CIA headquarters in the mid-1990s, she continued to pass herself off as a private energy consultant. But the first CIA veteran noted: "You never let a true NOC go into an official facility. You don't drive into headquarters with your car, ever."<br /><br />A senior U.S. intelligence official, who like the others quoted in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that Plame "may not be alone in that category, so I don't want to suggest she was the only one. But it would be a fair assumption that a true-blue NOC is not someone who has a headquarters job at any point or an embassy job at any point."<br /><br />According to Fitzgerald, the chief federal prosecutor in Chicago who was tapped to head the Plame investigation, Plame's "cover was blown" in July 2003, when columnist Robert Novak disclosed that Plame "is an agency (CIA) operative on weapons of mass destruction."<br /><br />Two senior Bush administration officials, Novak said, had told him that Plame suggested sending her husband, former ambassador Wilson, to Africa to look into reports that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium ore from the nation of Niger.<br /><br />Novak's column followed by eight days an op-ed article by Wilson in The New York Times recounting his failure to find any evidence of such a purchase during his visit to Niger.<br /><br />Wilson was responding to President Bush's assertion in his 2003 State of the Union address, on the eve of the war with Iraq, that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."<br /><br />Knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert CIA operative is a violation of the federal Intelligence Identities Protection Act.<br /><br />Although prosecutor Fitzgerald has yet to accuse anyone of violating that law, he won a grand jury indictment charging former vice presidential chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby with perjury and obstructing justice for allegedly making false statements under oath about how and when he learned of Plame's CIA employment, and when he told reporters.<br /><br />Libby's lawyers, who now question whether Plame's CIA employment really was secret at the time Novak's column appeared, have asked a federal judge to provide them with documents that bear on that issue.<br /><br />If Plame's employment was not a legitimate secret, and if the national security was not harmed by its disclosure, Libby's lawyers argue, their client would have had no motive to lie about his conversations with reporters.<br /><br />Fitzgerald has told the court he does not intend to introduce evidence showing that Plame's career, the CIA's operations or the national security were harmed by the disclosure of her CIA affiliation.<br /><br />Plame's lawyer, Christopher Wolf, said his client would have no comment on any aspect of her CIA career. The CIA also declined comment on any aspect of the Plame case.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1142028040156417912006-03-10T17:00:00.000-05:002006-03-10T17:00:40.430-05:00CNN.com - Judge orders CIA to turn over intelligence briefings to Libby - Mar 10, 2006Spy agency fought release of presidential-level documents<br /><br />WASHINGTON(AP) -- A federal judge ordered the CIA on Friday to turn over highly classified intelligence briefings to Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide to use in the aide's defense against perjury charges.<br /><br />U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton rejected CIA warnings that the nation's security would be imperiled if the presidential-level documents were disclosed to lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff.<br /><br />The judge said the CIA can either delete highly classified information from the briefing material and provide copies of what Libby received six days a week, often with Cheney. Or, Walton said, the CIA can produce "topic overviews" of the matters covered in the briefings.<br /><br />The judge also ordered the CIA to give Libby an index of the topics covered in follow-up questions that the former White House aide asked intelligence officers who conducted the briefings.<br /><br />In seeking CIA input late last month, Walton appeared to have been trying to broker a compromise between defense attorneys and prosecutors to avoid a lengthy court battle with the Bush administration over the briefing material.<br /><br />The judge's order indicates he is ready for such a fight. He set a schedule for the Bush administration to file any objections by March 24.<br /><br />The charges against Libby -- perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to FBI agents -- grew out of an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1141754134119288122006-03-07T12:55:00.000-05:002006-03-07T12:55:34.306-05:00Chron.com | CIA Fights Libby's Request for InformationBy TONI LOCY Associated Press Writer <br />© 2006 The Associated Press <br /><br />WASHINGTON — The CIA signaled Tuesday it likely will fight the release of highly classified presidential intelligence briefings that Vice President Cheney's former top aide wants to use in his defense against perjury charges.<br /><br />Gathering the materials sought by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, would take up to nine months, Marilyn Dorn, a CIA information review officer, said in a sworn statement filed in U.S. District Court.<br /><br />Dorn said the CIA believes disclosure of the informaton would damage national security and wants a chance to be heard in court before any material is turned over to Libby, who is charged with lying in the investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.<br /><br />"The defense's requests clearly implicate highly classified, compartmentalized information and potential claims of executive privilege for presidential communications and the deliberative process," Dorn wrote.<br /><br />Dorn's affidavit was filed last Friday but made public Tuesday.<br /><br />Libby, 55, was indicted last year on charges that he lied to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame and when he subsequently told reporters.<br /><br />Lawyers for Libby want access to nearly a year of the President's Daily Brief, a summary of intelligence about threats against the United States. Dorn estimated it would take nine months for the small staff responsible for producing the intelligence briefing to assemble the material.<br /><br />But Dorn estimated it would take about three months to comply with a more streamlined request of about 40 days of the PDB that U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton suggested. That period would cover when Libby allegedly spoke to three reporters, along with two days before and after he was interviewed by FBI agents and testified before the grand jury.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1141483388522887532006-03-04T09:43:00.000-05:002006-03-04T09:43:09.523-05:00Did Woodward tape CIA name leaker? - Politics - MSNBC.com‘Scooter’ Libby’s defense team argues tape will help his defense<br /><br />By Joel Seidman<br />Producer <br />NBC News<br />Updated: 10:12 p.m. ET March 3, 2006<br /><br /><br />WASHINGTON - A snippet of a conversation between Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and an unnamed source in mid-June 2003 appears to be a major focus of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby's defense in the CIA leak case.<br /><br />According to a newly released transcript of last week's motions hearing in U.S. District Court, William Jeffress, one of Libby's attorneys, is focusing on three words — “Everyone knows it.”<br /><br />Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted last year on charges that he lied about how he learned that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA operative and when he told reporters.<br /><br />Woodward revealed in November that a senior administration official — in addition to Libby — told him about Plame and her position at the CIA nearly a month before her identity was disclosed by syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak in July 2003.<br /><br />A transcript and affidavit filed Thursday indicate that Woodward taped his conversation with his unnamed source. <br /><br />Jeffress was given a redacted transcript of the conversation Woodward had with his unnamed source, according to an affidavit filed by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on Thursday. The Libby team wants the full transcript of the conversation in order to argue that the phrase “Everyone knows it,” uttered by Woodward's source in that 2003 conversation, means that Plame's job at the CIA was common knowledge among Washington journalists.<br /><br />“Who did he mean by ‘Everyone knows it'?” Jeffress asked the judge.<br /><br />According to Jeffress, the only inkling of the source's identity in the redacted document “is some person not in the White House.”<br /><br />Fitzgerald writes in his affidavit that Libby is not entitled to know everything that the government investigation has learned about other leaks to reporters regarding Plame's employment at the CIA. He says that granting Libby’s request for more information, “would compromise 'innocent accused' in the investigation” and delve into irrelevant matters.<br /><br /><br />U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton sided with the prosecution and decided to continue to protect the anonymity of the confidential source.<br /><br />In asking for access to the tape, Jeffress said, “We know of two reporters that 'official one' talked to. ... We do know that he did discuss Ms. Wilson with at least two reporters.”<br /><br />The Libby defense said the information would help it investigate which other reporters knew and might have mentioned Plame's name. Jeffress also said he wants “to confront Mr. (Tim) Russert with what other reporters knew."<br /><br />Tim Russert is NBC’s Washington bureau chief and host of "Meet the Press." Libby is said to have testified that Russert told him the name of the CIA agent. Russert has said he did not know Plame or that she worked at the CIA and "he did not provide that information to Libby."<br /><br />(MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)<br /><br />Libby's trial date has been set for January 2007.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1141398649081331882006-03-03T10:10:00.000-05:002006-03-03T10:10:55.900-05:00Did Bob Woodward Record Key Plame Case Conversation?NEW YORK A filing Thursday at U.S. District Court in the Plame/ CIA leak case suggests that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward may have tape recorded his fateful conversaton with the so-called "second source"--besides Lewis "Scooter" Libby-- that is now a key part of the case. <br /><br />Woodward suddenly revealed late last year that he had talked with Libby as well as another unnamed government official about CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Earlier, columnist Robert Novak had also said he had an unnamed second source. <br /><br />One paragraph in Thursday’s filing, NBC reported, indicates that the unnamed official spoke both with Woodward and Novak, and "Libby has been given a redacted transcript of the conversation between Woodward and [redacted] and Novak has published an account briefly describing the conversation with his first confidential source [redacted]."<br /><br />Does "transcript of the conversation" mean that there is an audio recording of the conversation between Woodward, Novak and the unnamed source? Or merely a detailed set of notes? <br /><br />"Last Friday, Judge Reggie Walton decided to continue to protect the anonymity of one administration official, whom Libby's attorneys described as a confidential source about Plame for two reporters, one of them apparently Woodward," NBC said.<br /><br />Libby's lawyers said in court that the "official" is someone "outside the White House." Novak said last year that President Bush knew the identity of his confidential source, and also suggested that the official also was Woodward's source as well.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1141143440161563122006-02-28T11:17:00.000-05:002006-02-28T11:17:20.413-05:00New York Daily News - World & National Report - Scooter notes ID'd CIA spyBY JAMES GORDON MEEK<br />DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU <br /> <br />WASHINGTON - Handwritten notes taken by the CIA show Vice President Cheney's top aide knew the name of CIA spy Valerie Plame a month before her cover was blown.<br />It appears to be the first known document in the hands of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that directly contradicts Lewis (Scooter) Libby's claim he learned from reporters in July 2003 that Valerie Plame was a CIA employee.<br /><br />Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff, has been indicted for perjury in the CIA leak investigation.<br /><br />Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, was a Bush critic dispatched to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to see if Iraq had shopped for uranium. "A CIA employee assigned to provide daily intelligence briefs to the Vice President and Libby has handwritten notes indicating that Libby referred to 'Joe Wilson' and 'Valerie Wilson' by those names in conversation with the briefer on June 14, 2003," Fitzgerald wrote in a recently unsealed brief.<br /><br />The filing suggests Cheney may have been present when Libby griped to his CIA briefer about agency officials slamming the veep in the press.<br /><br />Seven officials have testified that Libby raised the CIA spy with them before columnist Robert Novak outed her. In the filing, Fitzgerald also revealed that his investigators also confiscated computers.<br /><br />Meanwhile, a judge overseeing Libby's perjury trial ruled yesterday that Libby won't get any copies of the secret daily intelligence briefings for Cheney and President Bush.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14223142.post-1141093468362998062006-02-27T21:24:00.000-05:002006-02-27T21:24:28.503-05:00Judge OKs subpoenas in Libby case - Politics - MSNBC.comLibby defense aims to show any false statements were result of confusion <br /><br />NBC News and news services<br />Updated: 3:41 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2006<br /><br /><br />WASHINGTON - The judge in the CIA leak case said Monday that lawyers on both sides in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby will be allowed to subpoena journalists and news organizations.<br /><br />The issue of calling reporters and news organizations to supply information or testify in the trial was raised at a hearing on Friday.<br /><br />At the hearing, Libby, who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney, won the right to review his handwritten notes for a nine-month period surrounding the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name. <br /><br />Judge Reggie Walton seemed skeptical about a second request by the defense that it also be given highly classified documents known as the President's Daily Brief for a similar period. The judge deferred a final ruling on that request, which Libby's defense team says is essential in demonstrating that he was busy with other national security matters at the time of the Plame leak. <br /><br />Libby, 55, was indicted last year on charges that he lied about how he learned Plame’s identity and when he subsequently told reporters. <br /><br />The CIA operative’s identity was published in July 2003 by syndicated columnist Robert Novak after Plame’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq’s efforts to buy uranium in Niger. The year before, the CIA had sent Wilson to Niger to determine the accuracy of the uranium reports. <br /><br />A strategy to 'sabotage' case?<br />Defense lawyers have said that if Libby's statements to investigators were untrue, it was a case of innocent confusion or faulty memory because of his preoccupation with pressing national security matters at the time. <br /><br />Walton said he is concerned that Libby’s request could “sabotage” the case because President Bush probably would invoke executive privilege and refuse to turn over the classified reports. <br /><br />“The vice president — his boss — said these are the family jewels,” the judge said, referring to Cheney’s past description of the daily briefings. “If the executive branch says, 'This is too important to the welfare of the nation and we’re not going to comply,’ the criminal prosecution goes away.” <br /><br />Ted Wells, one of Libby's lawyers, said the judge needs to take time to make sure Libby gets the evidence he needs to defend himself. “If it’s done in a quick and dirty way, he’s going to be convicted,” Wells said. <br /><br />The court set an April 7 deadline for any reporters or news organizations to produce the requested items. Any motions to quash or modify the subpoenas must also be filed by that time. <br /><br />A trial date has been set for January 2007. <br /><br />The Associated Press and NBC News contributed to this report.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08166320658012333106noreply@blogger.com0