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ABC News' Tom Shine Reports: Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has announced that Valerie Plame Wilson will testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Friday, March 16th. Other witnesses are also expected to appear but their names have not yet been released.

If some people imagined a verdict in the criminal trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. would calm the political passions surrounding his fate, they may have forgotten two words with a combustible history: presidential pardon. The 11 jurors had barely pronounced Mr. Libby guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury on Tuesday when a new donnybrook broke out. “Now President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct,” declared Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority Leader, a stance echoed by other Congressional Democrats, editorial writers and bloggers on the left. On the right, The Wall Street Journal...

In his prosecution of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald contended that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff was actively involved in a smear campaign against anti-war diplomat Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame and that he lied about what he said to whom during the early summer of 2003, thus obstructing the investigation to determine who “outed” Plame as a CIA agent by leaking her identity to the media. Libby’s lawyers countered that he was too busy with pressing national security matters to be involved up to his eyeballs in a conspiracy to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer leaked the identity of a CIA operative to Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus during a 2003 phone call, Pincus testified Monday as the first defense witness in the CIA leak trial. Pincus was one of the first reporters to learn the identity of Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and prominent Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson. Pincus said he learned her identity July 12, 2003 but did not immediately write about it. Plame was outed by syndicated columnist Robert Novak two days later. Pincus testified on behalf of Vice...

With all the journalists testifying about how and when they learned Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent and anti-war diplomat Joe Wilson’s wife in the perjury and obstruction trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., The Stiletto thought that this handy dandy chart would help keep the story straight: Libby Told Me Libby Did Not Tell Me Matt Cooper (formerly with Time Magazine) Walter Pincus (Washington Post): Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told me Judith Miller (formerly with The New York Times) Glenn Kessler (Washington Post): Topic never came...

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson demands that Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee set the record straight. July 16, 2004 | Editor's note: Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the U.S. intelligence community's prewar assessments on Iraq. An appendix discusses the role taken by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson in determining whether Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger. The following is Wilson's letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee pointing to errors in the Republican senators' additional comments to the report and demanding corrections. The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence The Hon. Jay...

Plamegate: 25 Lingering QuestionsBy Fedora (The first four questions and answers below were previously posted as Was Plame Covert? A Review of Isikoff and Corn's Hubris.) I recently finished reviewing Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s Hubris (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006) to see what it adds to the current state of knowledge in the Plamegate investigation. Here I will present my findings in the form of a list of questions and answers focusing on loose ends and other points of interest in the case. I will list the questions first so that individual readers may more easily scroll down to...

Is Everything We Know About Joe Wilson’s Trip to Niger Wrong? New evidence from the Libby trial — evidence Senate investigators never saw — could change the storyline. By Byron York For the last two weeks, a number of Republicans in Washington — in the administration, on Capitol Hill, and in the intelligence community — have been watching closely as the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Lewis Libby unfolds in federal court. In particular, those Republicans have been poring over dozens of documents released as evidence in the case. Much of what they’ve seen is old stuff, things...

A pattern is emerging at the Lewis Libby trial, now in the middle of its third week in the federal courthouse in Washington. The pattern is this: A witness called by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delivers testimony that seems clearly damaging to Libby, strongly suggesting that Libby lied when he testified before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the CIA-leak affair. And then Libby’s lawyers take over, suggesting that the witness’s memory is so selective, or so flawed, or so sketchy as to render his or her testimony useless. Each day, most news reports from the trial focus on the damage...

President Bush's ex-spokesman invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked in front of a grand jury about the illegal outing of spy Valerie Plame, prosecutors revealed this week. Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought and received immunity from prosecution for unmasking the secret agent. Armed with this immunity, Fleischer is now expected to testify Monday in the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Fleischer is expected to tell the court that Libby, formerly Vice President Cheney's top adviser, told him on July 7, 2003, that "he had some information that was hush-hush," said special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. What was hush-hush...

A jury that includes four critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies was seated Monday to try former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of lying about what he told reporters about the wife of a prominent war opponent. The jury of nine women and three men was seated after a nearly hourlong court session that was as silent as a professional chess match. Prosecutors and defense attorneys consulted in whispers, then handled papers to the clerk to exercise their 20 unexplained strikes of potential jurors. The only sound was the clerk reading the numbers of each...

Inside the Beltway "Very odd," says our source. "They sat at a table in the back." Referring to the intriguing trio of Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and his wife, Valerie Plame, of CIA-leak fame,

A former diplomat, a past president, some actors and some rockers convene to raise money and awareness. Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong mingled with former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comedian George Lopez tried to rouse support for gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. (Not an easy task these days among some members of the celebrity set.) And former president Bill Clinton came to town to raise money for the Democrats. There's been so much going on in Hollywood this week, you needed that cloning doctor from "Multiplicity" to keep up with it all...

"Or maybe the case has no merit." So suggests the latest issue of the American Lawyer, citing one theory as to why Valerie Plame of CIA-leak fame suddenly parted ways with her attorney, Proskauer Rose partner Christopher Wolf -- her next-door neighbor, no less -- shortly after her civil action was filed against senior Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and White House aide Karl Rove. "The breakup was a shock," writes the magazine's Elizabeth Goldberg, given that Mr. Wolf had filed the suit only "a month earlier." Headlined "File and run," the article quotes lawyer Victoria Toensing,...

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House. The prosecutor in the criminal case against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff said in a Jan. 23 letter that not all e-mail was archived in 2003, (((GET THIS: ***the year the Bush administration exposed the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.***)))) (They aren't even faking journalistic integrity in leaving out the word "allegedly.") Lawyers for defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby this week accused prosecutors of withholding evidence...

The publication of Hubris is filled with irony for David Corn, Washington editor of the left-wing Nation magazine. He was present at the creation of the Valerie Plame "scandal," which the enemies of George W. Bush hoped could bring down a president. Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode. Yet Corn is coauthor of a book that has had the effect of killing the story. Thanks to Corn's intrepid coauthor, Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, Hubris definitively revealed then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as my source that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA and suggested her...

Was Plame Covert? A Review of Isikoff and Corn's HubrisBy Fedora I recently finished reviewing Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s Hubris (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006) to see what it adds to the current state of knowledge in the Plamegate investigation. Here I will present my findings in the form of a list of questions and answers: 1. What did Valerie Wilson aka Valerie Plame do at CIA?According to Isikoff and Corn (12-13, 283-286), after Plame graduated from the CIA’s training program, she began working with the CIA Directorate of Operations’ European Division in the Cyrus/Greece/Turkey area in the late...

Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they have spent $1.44 million so far investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity. Since Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and other attorneys in the case already were on the government payroll, most of the costs were covered as a "paper transfer" from one government account to another, Fitzgerald's office said. The only additional cost to taxpayers was $333,000, most of which went to travel and contractual services such as research and court recorders. Investigators did not rent office space in Washington, eliminating an expense that drove up costs for previous investigations involving top government...

WASHINGTON - The judge in the CIA leak case ruled Thursday that if Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald feels that admitting certain classified documents at the upcoming trial of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby can jeopardize national security, Fitzgerald can then move to dismiss the perjury charges against Libby. Judge Reggie Walton cannot automatically allow classified materials to be admitted at trial. He first must go through a series of closed hearings under CIPA regulations. CIPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act, protects and restricts the discovery of classified information in a way that does not impair the defendant's right to a fair...

The Fitzpatrick Plame investigation has spurred the New York Times into examining how their reporters conduct themselves. Apparently, the Gray Lady wants her staff to act more like terrorists and drug dealers. Reporters are being told to delete emails, destroy notes, and use disposable cell phones in order to stymie future investigations.

Christine M. Flowers | A SCANDAL GOES DOWN IN PLAMES SCANDALS, like wool sweaters, tend to shrink when mishandled. An item that looked so sharp at first glance can lose its zing when thrown into the wrong spin cycle. And it's only when we pull it out, misshapen and ruined, that we realize last season's trendy purchase is this year's damaged goods.Take Plamegate, where the beautiful blond wife of an ambitious diplomat was unmasked as a CIA operative. Never mind the fact that Valerie Plame, Mrs. Ambassador Joe Wilson, wasn't exactly the spy who came in from the cold since...

One-time covert CIA officer Valerie Plame on Wednesday sued the former No. 2 official at the State Department for violating her privacy rights. The suit does not accuse Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration, of participating in an administration conspiracy to blow her cover. Plame added Armitage's name to a civil suit in U.S. District Court against Vice President Dick Cheney, his former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and White House adviser Karl Rove. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, say the White House leaked Plame's identity as retribution for...

Most conservatives who have taken a look at what is being taught about American history and values in our high schools and colleges are well aware of the horrendous brainwashing that is going on to teach our kids to hate America. I first encountered this as a college professor myself, amazingly at a Catholic college you would think would be espousing traditional American values. This was not the fault of that particular college, however, it was just that the professors they hired were products of Vietnam era education where something went so terribly wrong in our entire educational system, and...

Expressing regret for his actions and apologies to his administration colleagues, Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, confirmed today that he was the source who first told a columnist about the intelligence officer at the center of the C.I.A. leak case. “It was a terrible error on my part,” Mr. Armitage said in an interview. He added, “ There wasn’t a day when I didn’t feel like I had let down the President, the Secretary of State, my colleagues, my family and the Wilsons. I value my ability to keep state secrets. This was bad and I...

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged Thursday that he was a columnist’s primary source in the disclosure that retired U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. The revelation touched off a wide-ranging special counsel’s investigation and led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Armitage said in an interview that the disclosure was inadvertent and that he’d cooperated fully with Justice Department special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the months since. Fitzgerald, he said, had requested that he not talk about his role in the case, a restriction that was lifted only Tuesday....

To help Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson pay for the substantial legal costs associated with the illegal leaking of Mrs. Wilson’s classified CIA status. This includes: Counseling them for their potential witness testimony during the upcoming trial of Scooter Libby; and Helping them to prepare for a civil suit that would uncover the truth surrounding the leak, ensure all relevant public officials are held accountable for actions depriving the Wilsons of their privacy and constitutional rights, and serve as a deterrent to similar crimes being committed in the future. Should the civil action result in a payment to...

In the spring of 2002 Dick Cheney made one of his periodic trips to CIA headquarters. Officers and analysts were summoned to brief him on Iraq. Paramilitary specialists updated the Vice President on an extensive covert action program in motion that was designed to pave the way to a US invasion. Cheney questioned analysts about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. How could they be used against US troops? Which Iraqi units had chemical and biological weapons? He was not seeking information on whether Saddam posed a threat because he possessed such weapons. His queries, according to a CIA officer...

Where do you put a one-time undercover CIA agent when she's no longer under the covers with anyone important? If you're Valerie Plame, you'll soon be relegated to the back pages of the newspapers, and then out. The next time she can count on making the papers will be a nice obituary in the Washington and New York newspapers and a few lines of a telegraph dispatch on a page with the truss ads in Topeka.

Welcome to the personal Hell of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. They are about to permanently suffer the fate they fear most---nonentity. For Joe and Valerie, there will be no more invitations to trendy Georgetown parties as part of Washington's A-List. In fact they won't even be on the Z-List. People who until recently hailed them as heroes in the battle against the EVIL Republicans will now treat them as if they don't exist. No more smug smirks as you enter White House Correspondents dinners as special guests because those same liberal correspondents are now wishing you never existed....

This does get a little complicated. First, a holdover, liberal CIA employee, Valerie Plame, decided to undermine President Bush’s policies by pulling strings to get her like-minded husband, Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to discredit the report from British intelligence that Saddam Hussein tried to purchase yellowcake for nuclear weapons development. (This British report was mentioned by Pres. Bush as one piece of intelligence we relied on in concluding that there was a significant risk of WMD in Iraq. The report turned out to be factual.)

It’s been three years since I started trying to combat left-wing lies and anti-Americanism – first with an e-mail group and, now for one year, with my own weblog. I’d always been a news and political junkie, but with the blog I substantially increased my own exposure to world and national issues by putting in 3-5 hours a day of research and writing. My problem is simple: every day I find myself growing angrier and angrier as I more and more discover just how extensive the web of lies and the hate-America fifth column has penetrated areas of government, public...

The left and its media and Hollywood accomplices are using this Katrina anniversary once again to smear President Bush. The lies told by the Associated Press about the levees have been well documented (See “Oops, Bush Didn’t Lie, Sorry About That” on my website, in March, 2006), and as ‘Popular Mechanics’ pointed out, “In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.

fighting wordsPlame OutThe ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.By Christopher HitchensPosted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, at 1:02 PM ET I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer...

Calendars show Armitage met reporter By MATT APUZZO and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers 11 minutes ago Then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame. Armitage's official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has investigated whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as a one-time CIA covert operative...

The DUmmies are about to experience a really bad case of Freudenschade. Specifically, this case of Freudenschade has to do with the lawsuit that Joe and Valerie Wilson brought against Cheney, Rove, and Scooter Libby. What happened is that their REAL lawyers have given up on their lawsuit as hopeless as you can see in this Newswire STORY. As a result the Wilsons are now forced to rely on free volunteer lawyers and, believe me, you get what you pay for which in this case is nothing. Had there been some realistic chance that the Wilsons could have won...

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

TRIPOLI (AFP) - Libya was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb before it decided in 2003 to abandon its programme to produce weapons of mass destruction, its leader Moamer Kadhafi has said, according to the country's official news agency. "Libya was on the point of building a nuclear bomb: that is no longer a secret," Kadhafi was quoted on Monday as telling a group of engineers. "The Americans and the International Atomic Energy Agency were well aware." In a dramatic move that has seen his former pariah state returned to the international fold, Kadhafi announced in December 2003...

Now that Joseph and Valerie Wilson's fantasies of having been persecuted by high officials in the administration have been so thoroughly dispelled by Robert Novak (and now that it seems the prosecutor has determined that there was no breach of the relevant laws to begin with), we may return to the more important original question. Was there good reason to suppose that Iraqi envoys visited Niger in search of "yellowcake" uranium ore?

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whose country abandoned weapons of mass destruction programmes in 2003, said that at one stage Libya had come close to building a nuclear bomb, the Libyan news agency reported on Monday. "It is true that Libya came close to building a nuclear bomb. This is no longer a secret … as everything was laid bare by the International Atomic (Energy) Agency for everyone to see," the agency quoted Gaddafi as saying on Sunday in a speech to Libyan engineers. "The programs and equipment (to build a nuclear bomb) are known," he added. It was the first...

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is Paula Jones -- if with national security credentials and Beltway savoir-faire. Both women filed iffy lawsuits that seemed more designed to discredit a president than to prevail in a court of law. Jones never could prove that then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton hurt her career as a state worker after he allegedly sexually harassed her. Hence, there were no economic damages, as Judge Susan Webber Wright noted when she ruled against Jones. The suit filed last week by Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, against Bush biggies -- Veep Dick Cheney, Cheney's former...

by Mark Finkelstein July 17, 2006 - 21:58 Will the left wing please make up its mind as to the danger posed by conservative talk-show fans? As documented by MRC, in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, liberals like Bryant Gumbel pointed the finger at conservative talk radio: "Right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh . . . and others take to the air every day with basically the same format: detail a problem, blame the government or a group, and invite invective from like-minded people. Never do most of the radio hosts encourage outright violence, but the extent...

Joe Wilson to be interviewed on Keith Olberman's show on MSNBC in a few minutes. This despite saying the other day during his press conference he wouldn't be giving interviews.

NEW YORK Attorney Erwin Chemerinsky, a co-counsel for Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson, said the couple's lawsuit against three top Bush administration officials who leaked her CIA identity in 2003 does not include reporters who received and reported the information because they were not "the appropriate targets." "My sense is that there wasn't a desire to get into freedom of the press issues here," Chemerinsky told E&P today, one day after the lawsuit was filed. "The appropriate targets of the lawsuit are those who abused their power in government." Chemerinsky even acknowledged that the reporters' eventual disclosure of their...

by Mark Finkelstein July 12, 2006 - 20:09 Was it Robert Novak who jolted aficionados of the vendetta-against-Joe-Wilson conspiracy theory, or was the message coming from . . . a Higher Authority? You be the judge, after having a look at the screen capture from this evening's Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC. Yes, that's a lightning bolt. No, it wasn't photo-shopped - it's the real thing. The bolt hit while the panel was discussing the implications of the just-aired interview of Bob Novak by Brit Hume. Hume questioned Novak about his disclosure of Valerie Plame's employment by the...

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after two and one-half years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded. That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret. I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves. I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with...

WASHINGTON - Columnist Robert Novak said for the first time Tuesday that he cooperated with the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Novak's decision to talk publicly came after he was notified a month ago by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald that he would not file criminal charges against one of Novak's sources, White House political aide Karl Rove. Fitzgerald "has informed my attorneys that, after two and one-half years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded," Novak said in a statement. Novak promised to provide details...

<p>FLASH: Bob Novak will break his silence tomorrow night in two separate interviews with FOXNEWS CHANNEL, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. Novak will appear on Brit Hume (6pm/et) and Hannity & Colmes (9pm/et) . . . this marks the first time Novak will discuss the Plame leak investigation in his own words... Developing...</p>

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday he might have to testify in the CIA leak trial of his former chief of staff. Cheney made the comment in a CNN interview, following last month's suggestion by prosecutors that the vice president would be a logical witness in the case of I. Lewis Libby, who is accused of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Libby is "one of the finest men I've ever known," Cheney said, then declined further comment. "I may be called as a witness." Cheney's state of mind is directly relevant to whether Libby lied to...

June Talking Points For Citizen Spooks In yesterday's report I was perhaps guilty of cramming too much information into one essay. After seeing the various arguments floating around discussion forums, I noticed that the trolls are trying to focus attention away from the most important aspects of this report. So I'm putting up two talking points today which, if argued properly, will expose trolls from the wrong side of the tracks. CS talking point # 1. Fitzgerald and Samborn have done an about face. In October 2005, after the Libby indictment was announced both Fitz and Samborn unequivocally stated that...

There will be no frog marching of Karl Rove out of the White House. For months, there has been plenty of irresponsible speculation about an impending indictment of senior White House aide Karl Rove for his purported role in leaking the identity of Valerie Plame in an effort to "discredit" her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. In the wake of yesterday's announcement that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed Mr. Rove that he will not be indicted, we know definitively the indictment scenario was a fantasy -- like virtually every other charge leveled by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration in...