Subpoenas for White House [CIA Plame probe]

New York Newsday ^ | 3/5/04 | Tom Brune

[Gothmog]

WASHINGTON -- The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July.

Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets.

Excerpted

[cyncooper]

OK, I'll go ahead and click to read the full excerpt.

[cyncooper]

Wait a minute....Newsday is one of the leakees, are they not?

I will go read this but it just hit me.

I remain convinced the WH had nothing to do with the Wilson/Plame "outing" except to be victims of that duo's schemes.

[Gothmog]

Sorry, it's one of those covered by the LAT/WP law suit -- which I found out when I tried to post the entire thing.

[cyncooper]

Thanks....I figured, but I wanted to bump you.

[Gothmog]

Well, if it's worth one bump, then it's worth 3-4, ha ha ha.

[cyncooper]

From the article:

The third subpoena repeats an informal Justice Department document request to the White House last fall seeking records about staff contacts with Novak and two Newsday reporters, Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps, who reported on July 22 that Plame was a covert agent and Novak had blown her cover.

This refers to the article I remembered. It was Newsday, if I recall, who first reported Plame was undercover. Novak identified Plame as a "CIA operative".

I'll bet Newsday knows exactly who is behind the Wilson/Plame story.

[cyncooper]

Finally, the subpoena requested a list of those in attendance at the White House reception on July 16 for former President Gerald Ford's 90th birthday. The White House at the time announced the reception would honor Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, but said the event was closed to the press.

And what avenue of investigation is this about?

Weird

[shamusotoole]

"In 2002, Wilson went to Niger at the behest of the CIA to check out reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium "yellow cake" to develop nuclear weapons. He reported that Iraq sought commercial ties but that businessmen said the Iraqis didn't try to buy uranium."

This statement is in error. Jos. Wilson instead, said that it is doubtful the Iraqis bought any. We know they tried to buy one of the four main export commodities of Nigeria, and they don't need three of them. Thus the answer to the question of whether Iraq was "seeking to buy Uranium" should have answered in the affirmative.

Perhaps a small point, but it turns the question of Iraqi intentions and our perception of intentions completely around.

Shame on Joseph Wilson! Shame on our scum Press!

[pabianice]

Meanwhile, the Repubs refuse to investigate the blatant lawlessness of the Dems in their judge-packing conspiracy a la the contents of the memos that appeared on a shared website.

Has the world gone nuts?

[mabelkitty]

So does Novak - it Bush or anybody in the Administration was involved, you know they all would have screamed it from the rooftops by now.

I'm thinking it was Mueller or Tenent, or perhaps a Clintonista. Too quiet on the Bush-hater front to be anybody but a friend to the media.

[mabelkitty]

Former Presidents, Congresscritters, and Administrative losers would have been here.
Interesting.
Focus may be moving to the past.....

[cyncooper]

It is not a small point. You are correct, he "reported" that he did not discover any purchases. Tenet himself said they disregarded his report because of who he spoke with and the unlikelyhood they would be forthcoming with him.

[Gothmog]

IMHO, if the FBI had any hard evidence on a WH source, vs. what Novak said was an Admin source, this would be cut and dried.

But, the FBI could not find any hard evidence, because it doesn't exist. So to avoid the predictable screams from Dems and the lib press of 'cover-up', they decided to recuse Ashcroft, bring in someone even Dems had previously said was a tough prosecutor with integrity, have him 'grill' the suspects, and make reports of that 'grilling' public.

Then, when they report they've come up with (predictably) nothing, they will be able to say they did their utmost and somewhat innoculate the fiasco as a Dem election issue.

So, I think the item you mention is just part of that puzzle. They will be able to say, 'Look, we brought in a real tough guy, checked out anything even remotely related to this, but (regretably) we are unable to help the Dems turn this into an election issue.'

Will the Dems and lib media let them get away with actually reporting that the results of the probe don't fit the Dems re-election plans? No, but it will help mute the partisan attacks.

[Gothmog]

I've been feeling the same way lately. If I had more time I would research a number of somewhat linked-unlinked hot topics:

Activist judges, gay weddings.

The popularity of The Passion and the Tolkien movies vs. the usual Hollywood crap.

Bush's popularity with the 'NASCAR' crowd, vs. the Dem unpopularity.

Dems being consistently wrong on all sorts of National Defense issues -- predicting failure in Afghanistan/Iraq, Bush being right about the North Korean-Iran-Libya WMD connections, etc.

MoveOn being so 'popular' with the media as a 'powerful force', despite losing almost every political battle they champion.

The DC GOP letting the Dems and the lib press getting away with treating all these 'investigations' (9/11, Iraq WMD, Plame, the Judicial memos, Haiti, Halliburton, etc.) as serious issues rather than politically staged attacks.

'Stupid' Bush and 'Intellectual' Kerry both graduating from Yale.

Etc.

I don't know, there's something in these random thoughts of mine about Bush being right on the issues the American public cares about while the Dems, with the help of the lib press, are being allowed free rein to spend all this time and money using government resources to politically attack Bush.

And sometime in the future all these Beltway tempests might eventually hurt him.

[Dolphy]

I'll bet Newsday knows exactly who is behind the Wilson/Plame story.

I have thought this all along...they are responsible for taking any mystery out of Novak's reference and actually outing Plame. One of the two Newsday journalists also has a history with Iraq, going back to the first Gulf War and allegations that the US refused to listen to Saddam's offer for last minute negotiations.

[cyncooper]

I was wracking my brain to think of who was the freeper who was "on" to the Newsday reporters and it's you. I'm glad you saw this latest wide-eyed account about the grand jury investigation.

[Shermy]

1. Who linked these items to Newsday? Isn't this itself a violation of law?

2. Notice how the article underplays the Newsday angle. They don't mention that "intelligence officials" leaked to them. Are these people being investigated? What about the CIA official Novak quoted?

3. I assume the reportage is selective, nevertheless there's interesting things there. One, the Gerald Ford party. Did Novak attend? Was this where he had the "long conversation" with a "senior administration official" who told him? Note the Greenspan angle too, remember the rumors about Andrea Mitchell? Was this some boozy table-talk banter?

4. The Ari Fleischman conference. Did he blurt it out?

[Shermy]

He reported that Iraq sought commercial ties but that businessmen said the Iraqis didn't try to buy uranium."

No, he said they didn't actually buy uranium. Two different things.

[cyncooper]

I appreciate your thoughts on why the Greenspan/Ford affair may be pertinant. Interesting and sounds like the most likely reason the grand jury would be probing the event.