Posted on 07/15/2005 7:51:18 PM PDT by blogblogginaway
WASHINGTON, July 15 - Prosecutors in the C.I.A. leak case have shown intense interest in a 2003 State Department memorandum that explained how a former diplomat came to be dispatched on an intelligence-gathering mission and the role of his wife, a C.I.A. officer, in the trip, people who have been officially briefed on the case said. Investigators in the case have been trying to learn whether officials at the White House and elsewhere in the administration learned of the C.I.A. officer's identity from the memorandum. They are seeking to determine if any officials then passed the name along to journalists and if officials were truthful in testifying about whether they had read the memorandum, the people who have been briefed said, asking not to be named because the special prosecutor heading the investigation had requested that no one discuss the case.
The memo was sent to Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, just before or as he traveled with President Bush and other senior officials to Africa starting on July 7, 2003, when the White House was scrambling to defend itself from a blast of criticism a few days earlier from the former diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson IV, current and former government officials said.
Mr. Powell was seen walking around Air Force One during the trip with the memo in hand, said a person involved in the case who also requested anonymity because of the prosecutor's admonitions about talking about the investigation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Times obviously doesn't know when to limp away from a fight with its tail between its legs...
and here is Powell's name in the mix finally as some on here have predicted. But if its a memo in the state department, you got hundreds of suspects ;)
Either that, or they're making it all up.
Time to move the goalposts!
The SP really needs to get control of the leaker in the GJ......I've been waiting for Powell's name to surface and they didn't disappoint me.
I'm starting to think the media's working on a new strategy here - undermine the credibility of the investigation itself by publishing evry little leak they can find, all the while constantly telling us how the prosecutor has demanded no one talk about the case. They did this with great success during Ken Starr's investigation into Clinton. That would imply that Rove and the Administration really will be completely exonerated by Fitzgerald.
NY Slimes still describing Plame as "covert."
If you read carefully between the lines, the NYT is trying to do some honest-to-God actual analysis here, instead of just slamming Rove.
What they're saying, in essence is, "there appears to be an earlier source of the information, and maybe it wasn't Rove -- maybe it was a State Department official."
They KNOW they screwed up going after Rove -- and they KNOW that the SP report will exonerate Rove -- so to save face, they need to hustle now and scoop the SP, by revealing the actual source of the info.
They're hoping to be remembered as having been "fair" to Rove, and broken the real story, and not remembered as the paper that printed false rumours.
This State Department story is their exit strategy, folks.
Having come up empty on Karl Rove, it appears that Ari Fleischer and Scooter Libby ( and by association, VP Cheney ) are now in the cross hairs of the NYT .
None of whom are in jail-just their reporter, Judith Miller.
I expect that the next NYT expose on Mrs Maxwell NotsoSmart talking into her Ferragamo pump to Sweaty Joe,
will will be on the cleaning lady at Camp David.
I don't think so. It's the NYT.
The source for these stories is probably Miller testifying without testifying. Giving them info.
The media and the dems have been trying to get a Bush Admin official for something, anything, for years.
Cheney/Halliburton, Condi/16 words, Rummy/Abu Ghraib, Ashcroft/insert any of 10,000 things here. None of it has worked. Rove is in the line of fire now and they can see it's not working so they have to move on to their next boogeyman in the closet.
It is also interesting that these little snippits of information are being "leaked" right after Cooper testified. My guess is he is leaking information to the NYTimes as to what went on in his testimony. Little snippits now, in advance of his "big" story in Time next week.
Was it "administration officials", or "government officials". I can't recall, and it makes a big difference, especially since the name Rockefeller is now beginning to make the rounds.
Well this article still puts Rove in the clear:
1)"But the person said Mr. Rove first heard from Mr. Novak the name of Mr. Wilson's wife and her precise role in the decision by the C.I.A. to send her husband to Africa to investigate a report, later discredited, that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire nuclear material there."
2)"It is not clear who Mr. Novak's original source was, or whether Mr. Novak has revealed the source's identity to the grand jury." (Rove was the 2nd one to speak with Novak)
3)"The information contained in the State Department memo generally tracked the information Mr. Novak laid out for Mr. Rove in their conversation about the matter, according to the account of their exchange provided by the person briefed on what Mr. Rove has told investigators."
So it still boils down to who was Novak's first source and where did that source receive the info. It seems like Novak testified to the grand jury and did not hold back. So you would think Fitzgerald knows who the first source is. Maybe it is someone from the State Dept (which could be considered an "Administration Source").
The Times is using a single anonymous source for all this stuff they're popping off with in the past few days.
Either that, or they're making it all up.
Applying Occam's Razor indicates that they're making it all up. Think of it as a kook out.
The NYTimes is trying everything it can to muddy the waters and hope than no one connects the dots from Miller to N. Kristof. The NYTimes is up to its armpits in slime but just keeps flailing away.
If that's the case it's time for Judy to start talking.
To me this article suggest that this memo was to alert the Admin on Wilson for their upcoming attack on him....Wilson said something yesterday that caught my attention...he said *source at the WH told him they were keeping a file on him and his family*...this is where the NYT is heading IMHO
From DU ........... "I'm beginning to think the real whistleblower may very well have been Powell after all."
NEXT! LOL
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