Posted on 10/24/2005 6:28:34 PM PDT by nj26
I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.
Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.
The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson’s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration’s handling of intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program to justify the war.
Lawyers said the notes show that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You know, I consider myself pretty politically aware...but I couldn't give a flying fig about any of this. I feel so bad that I don't really care. I know I should, but I just don't.
I even clicked on the thread to try and make myself care. But....nothing.
Isn't is ironic that an investigation into leaks is leaking like a sieve? It's time to convene another GJ and require the NYT to divulge it's sources for this and other articles. If any of Fitzgerald's attorney's or aides are a source, they need to be quartered and hung as examples. Either we stick to the rules or throw the rules out entirely and let Joe Wilson and Karl Rove settle this the old fashion way - 12 paces at dawn.
Fineman is on Scarborough saying that tonight in the White House must feel like a very isolated man, that Libby, et al., are "giving up" Cheney to save themselves.
This is ridiculous.
No wonder the liberals like Matthews are all foaming at the mouth; they have gotten what they wanted -- a gen-u-ine (manufactured) scandal in the Bush White House.
He won't be, there is not enough evidence.
Why was this post removed?
It is so laughable that it needs to be seen. We have nothing to fear from this nonsense. It should be seen & refuted & ridiculed.
----
Here it is:
Since you seem to be so in the dark on the Valerie Plame case, and her status in the CIA, I am more than happy to enlighten you, friend.
Valerie Plame was NOT a desk jockey.
She was a covert CIA operative with unofficial cover.
Do you know what that means?
It means that she were to go overseas somewhere, as part of her job, and she got kidnapped or taken hostage, the United States would not provide any official help to rescue her.
There are some CIA operatives who actually have "cover," so if they were to go overseas and get kidnapped, the U.S. would provide resources to help rescue them.
Because of Valerie Plame's status as someone with unofficial cover, the United States would not have validated her identity and tried to rescue her.
She put her life on the line for her country, to work on issues of weapons of mass destruction, and her government repaid her by outing her for purely political reasons.
Speaking of Wilson lying .. O'Reilly had a liberal babe on tonight and she denied that Wilson lied. So the liberals are covering for Wilson, by denying he lied.
This is just more of the "fantasy" the libs have built. They're going to be franctured when it all falls down.
Fineman is gonna have to go change his panties. He's so giddy, I think he wet himself.
Who cares? He is the V.P., isn't he? I hope to heck he knows what's going on! That's why I elected them.
You are making the assumption that these are leaks. A person before the GJ can freely discuss his, or in this case, her testimony.
Only if it goes to trial
I'm still waiting for the Civil Suit that Wilson keeps promising
I'm with you, StarFan! *sigh*
Plames cover was probably blown in the early 1990's by Ames the spy...Go back to DU...She was not undercover anymore..
It's all about the war in Iraq for the MSM.
******
Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.
That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains classified.
All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.
The claim that the VP sent Wilson is more apparent in the Kristof article: I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.
"and not enough on the spin."
Unfortunately, I have been focusing too much on the media spin the last couple of weeks. But the good is now, if anything less than indictments on the entire WH are issued, I will consider it a win!
Thanks for the chuckle on such a thread. :-)
Of course, you do mean that's what THEY think, right?
Now we have Howard Fineman saying that this is all about Libby falling on the sword for Cheney.... ROFLMAO. Now we even have Lawrence O'Donnell back on MSNBC... double ROFLMAO
This is a total joke and all the bed wetters are loading up on liquids for the next few days :-)
The truth is that Joe Wilson and his wife are the only proved liars in this case and the real questions are....
"Why was Joe Wilson sent to Niger"
"What was his Wife's Motive?"
"What laws did Joe Wilson violate when he wrote about his secret trip to Niger in his OpEd in the NYT's"
"What ties were there to Joe Wilson and the DNC, as well as his (Prior to his Op Ed)connection to the John Kerry Campaign?"
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