Posted on 10/09/2005 2:02:27 PM PDT by YaYa123
subtitle: "The latest twist in the Plame Affair only deepens the mystery: What's in the suddenly uncovered notebook that documents the previously unknown Judith Miller/Scooter Libby chat of June 25, 2003? Who told the prosecutor about it? And why, exactly, does he want to talk to Miller again?"
October 09, 2005) -- If its recent track record is any guide, The New York Times, later today or tomorrow, will get around to confirming Michael Isikoff’s Newsweek revelation late Saturday that the missing notes Judith Miller suddenly found and turned over to the federal prosecutor on Friday in the Plame case were located in a notebook in the newspaper’s Washington, D.C. bureau. The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has now scheduled another meeting with Miller on Tuesday.
Besides the ongoing mystery of why the Times is always a step or two behind its competition in reporting on its own reporter, this latest twist raises several tantalizing issues. If anyone at the Times objects to raising the following questions: It’s your own fault for not disclosing more about this case yourself.
(Excerpt) Read more at editorandpublisher.com ...
Thanks for the link. Many intriguing questions.
I have a couple of more.
(1) Why the heck is it that reporters and newspapers (and other media outlets) are now so comfortable BEING involved with a story to the point of being PART of the story?
(2) Has anybody ever gotten a satisfactory answer to the question of whether Valerie Plame even fits within the definition of undercover (or covert) agent as spelled out in the Intelligence Identities Act?
My guess: Wilson figures in Miller's earlier notes because she knew he was at that point writing his infamous I-saw-nothing-in-Niger column and
(a) Wilson wanted to alert the Administration to the upcoming story
(b) Was scoping out Wilson's bona fides for the Op-Ed section by calling the chief aide to the man (Cheney) whom Wilson strongly suggested (but never explicitly stated) had sent him.
If there was a resident Free Republic bookmaker, I'd place a substantial wager that Miller and the Times are in a lot more trouble than Rove and Libby.
(c)
"(2) Has anybody ever gotten a satisfactory answer to the question of whether Valerie Plame even fits within the definition of undercover (or covert) agent as spelled out in the Intelligence Identities Act?"
Well that would be too simple. Besides to even ask the question would beg an answer which would turn this into a non-story. And we wouldn't want that now would we.
Possible answers:
(1) This may be a large part of what the prosecutor is trying to figure out
(2) No, not yet (officially), but it's likely we'll get an answer within the next couple of weeks.
From "JustOneMinute"...he says the question may not be why did Miller not turn the over before, but did she turn them over now. Her subpeona was specific to dates, and these notes fell outside that range (notes earlier):
"And legal minds will ponder this - why is she producing them at all, since her subpoena seemed limited as to dates. Here is an excerpt from a court ruling summarizing her subpoena:
In the meantime, on August 12 and August 14, grand jury subpoenas were issued to Judith Miller, seeking documents and testimony related to conversations between her and a specified government official “occurring from on or about July 6, 2003, to on or about July 13, 2003, . . . concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether referred to by name or by description as the wife of Ambassador Wilson) or concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium.” Miller refused to comply with the subpoenas and moved to quash them."
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/10/judy_remembers.html
Was a new subpeona issued with different dates?
"Was a new subpeona issued with different dates?"
I do not know. But Fitz may have been able to get something out of Miller during her testimony that prompted the turnover of the notes.
--And while we're at it: Why have the Times' seven hard-hitting weekday opinion columnists remained virtually silent, pro or con, on their colleague Judith Miller throughout this ordeal? Conflicted? Afraid to appear disloyal? Or discouraged from commenting?
The fact that there are notes he wanted to see (involving Miller and Libby) doesn't sound good.
Political BS....I am so sick of it. Perhaps when the media and the Libs see it doesn't sway elections, they will end the nonsense...but they are slow learners-stupid is as stupid does.
I'm glad Fitzgerald is pushing the reporters for more info. The reporters knew way too much already before calling WH. It appears to me that Libby & Rove were not "sources". At most, they were weak confirmantions ('yeah, i heard that too'). To them, these reporter's calls were probably no different they receive dozens of times in a week.
Everybody is guessing now. These MSM media articles have no better info than anyone else. They just happen to spin it against the WH. But that is not a surprise. It will be an exciting couple of weeks.
If Libby and Rove were not the sources, then these reporters are in big trouble, because they testified before the grand jury to that effect.
I don't know what they testified to. But Cooper and Miller (nad NYT) have been very quiet lately (compared to what they were like a few months ago). Plus Fitzgerald called Wilson a week ago. It probably wasn't to ask him how he was doing. Maybe Fitz just needed to get the name of Wilson's lawyer.
I noted several times yesterday that Miller had only been subpoenaed for those July dates.
I do think Libby told about the June meeting and that's why the notes were now turned over.
if she's not covert, then what is Fitz investigating? Wouldn't that have been his first question? I don't get why the CIA asked him to investigate in the first place if she wasn't covert.
That is a very good question.
Maybe they're avoiding questions about Wilson's contact with the Times prior to his 7/6/2003 op-ed, mentioned in the 1/2004 Vanity Fair feature article on Wilson and Plame:
In early May [2003], Wilson and Plame attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq; one of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger and said Kristof could write about it, but not name him.
Wilson likewise mentioned this in his 6/14/2003 EPIC lecture, weeks before his op-ed appeared in the Times:
[Beginning 1:25 minutes into Wilson's lecture, my transcription:] Let me just start out by saying, as a preface to what I really want to talk about, to those of you who are going out and lobbying tomorrow, I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the President's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the President is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa. That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States, so I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did.
I know.
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