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 ...
because she can deny that fact - and get away with it. because the administration never made an attempt to point out who Wilson was, what he did, what the senate intelligence committee said about him. so outside the few well informed people here, none of the sheeple know this.
I think that is exactly where we are, friend.
LOL, C'mon bud.. get serious :-)
snip
SPUN FROM THE START
My colleague Cliff May has already demonstrated the bankruptcy of the narrative the media relentlessly spouts for Bush-bashing public consumption: to wit, that Valerie Wilson, nee Plame, was identified as a covert CIA agent by the columnist Robert Novak, to whom she was compromised by an administration official. In fact, it appears Plame was first outed to the general public as a result of a consciously loaded and slyly hypothetical piece by the journalist David Corn. Corn's source appears to have been none other than Plame's own husband, former ambassador and current Democratic-party operative Joseph Wilson — that same pillar of national security rectitude whose notion of discretion, upon being dispatched by the CIA for a sensitive mission to Niger, was to write a highly public op-ed about his trip in the New York Times. This isn't news to the media; they have simply chosen not to report it.
The hypocrisy, though, only starts there. It turns out that the media believe Plame was outed long before either Novak or Corn took pen to paper. And not by an ambiguous confirmation from Rove or a nod-and-a-wink from Ambassador Hubby. No, the media think Plame was previously compromised by a disclosure from the intelligence community itself — although it may be questionable whether there was anything of her covert status left to salvage at that point, for reasons that will become clear momentarily.
snip
THE MEDIA TELLS THE COURT: PLAME'S COVER WAS BLOWN IN THE MID-1990s
As the media alleged to the judges (in Footnote 7, page 8, of their brief), Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a spy in Moscow. Of course, the press and its attorneys were smart enough not to argue that such a disclosure would trigger the defense prescribed in Section 422 because it was evidently made by a foreign-intelligence operative, not by a U.S. agency as the statute literally requires.
But neither did they mention the incident idly. For if, as he has famously suggested, President Bush has peered into the soul of Vladimir Putin, what he has no doubt seen is the thriving spirit of the KGB, of which the Russian president was a hardcore agent. The Kremlin still spies on the United States. It remains in the business of compromising U.S. intelligence operations.
Thus, the media's purpose in highlighting this incident is blatant: If Plame was outed to the former Soviet Union a decade ago, there can have been little, if anything, left of actual intelligence value in her "every operation, every relationship, every network" by the time anyone spoke with Novak (or, of course, Corn).
THE CIA OUTS PLAME TO FIDEL CASTRO
Of greater moment to the criminal investigation is the second disclosure urged by the media organizations on the court. They don't place a precise date on this one, but inform the judges that it was "more recent" than the Russian outing but "prior to Novak's publication."
And it is priceless. The press informs the judges that the CIA itself "inadvertently" compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana. In the Washington Times article — you remember, the one the press hypes when it reports to the federal court but not when it reports to consumers of its news coverage — Gertz elaborates that "[t]he documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but [unidentified U.S.] intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them."
Thus, the same media now stampeding on Rove has told a federal court that, to the contrary, they believe the CIA itself blew Plame's cover before Rove or anyone else in the Bush administration ever spoke to Novak about her. Of course, they don't contend the CIA did it on purpose or with malice. But neither did Rove — who, unlike the CIA, appears neither to have known about nor disclosed Plame's classified status. Yet, although the Times and its cohort have a bull's eye on Rove's back, they are breathtakingly silent about an apparent CIA embarrassment — one that seems to be just the type of juicy story they routinely covet.
snip
LINGERING QUESTIONS
All this raises several readily apparent questions. We know that at the time of the Novak and Corn articles, Plame was not serving as an intelligence agent outside the United States. Instead, she had for years been working, for all to see, at CIA headquarters in Langley. Did her assignment to headquarters have anything to do with her effectiveness as a covert agent having already been nullified by disclosure to the Russians and the Cubans — and to whomever else the Russians and Cubans could be expected to tell if they thought it harmful to American interests or advantageous to their own?
If Plame's cover was blown, as Gertz reports, how much did Plame know about that? It's likely that she would have been fully apprised — after all, as we have been told repeatedly in recent weeks, the personal security of a covert agent and her family can be a major concern when secrecy is pierced. Assuming she knew, did her husband, Wilson, also know? At the time he was ludicrously comparing the Novak article to the Ames and Philby debacles, did he actually have reason to believe his wife had been compromised years earlier?
And could the possibility that Plame's cover has long been blown explain why the CIA was unconcerned about assigning a one-time covert agent to a job that had her walking in and out of CIA headquarters every day? Could it explain why the Wilsons were sufficiently indiscrete to pose in Vanity Fair, and, indeed, to permit Joseph Wilson to pen a highly public op-ed regarding a sensitive mission to which his wife — the covert agent — energetically advocated his assignment? Did they fail to take commonsense precautions because they knew there really was nothing left to protect?
Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
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 ...Obstruction and perjury, if the ONLY person he heard it from is Cheney. And hearing it from Cheney raises the possibility that Libby told Miller.
It's also possible for him to know from Cheney, and to independently hear it from Miller, etc. All sorts of possible fact patterns.
At any rate, it muddies the water and drags Cheney in for the swim.
at this point - this story hinges on one thing - has anyone from the left compromised Fitzgerald, promised him something if he "delivers".
Dang! Cheney and Libby did something that WASN'T ILLEGAL? Shame on them.
Gotta love a sticky mouse trigger!
"I don't believe Cheney actually testified under oath."
Here's a list of folks who have either testified or have been interviewed by Patrick Fitzgerald (or by FBI agents) in connection with the Plame probe. Please send us omissions and additions and expansions. Anonymity is guaranteed. To repeat: the list below is of those who have been interviewed by officials in connection with the case. Inclusion does not necessarily indicate that the listed person has testified under oath.
* Cheney: Early summer, 2004 (did not testify under oath)
Full list here:
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/10/the_f_list.html
*Cannot vouch for accuracy*
Rove & Libby sold out Cheney to save themselves???
Oh yea right .. That Fineman is such a bright guy .. / sarcasm >
ha ha
and that's what the left wants. I guess they realized that the indictment of some dude named "Libby", that the sheeple never heard of (apart from the canned vegetables), wouldn't go very far. so this drags Cheney in.
that is indeed an ominous sign.
Stranger who stopped Novak in the street
""The DUers must be positively nerve-wracked.""
I doubt it...
If you don't follow the approved DU Party Line on DU, they ban you....
Opposing opinions aren't allowed, and everything is Ra-Ra-Ra in LibbyLand....
And what I want to know is, what is with the web site this Fitz guy started. Seems rather weird to me. And why the heck has this ridiculous investigation taken 2 1/2 yrs?
This whole thing is an embarrassment to the judicial system.
...and those msnbc folks are all damn nuts!
"Anonymity is guaranteed.
ha ha"
Unless you are a Republican and are speaking with a reporter in confidence.
Who knows. Let's win this with a touchdown, not a field goal.
The story written implies that Cheney told Libby who Plame was, then the article says Cheney didn't know what her name was. Therefore, when Libby heard Flame frm Judy, he heard 'her name' for the first time, which would be correct. Just because Tenet said "Joe's wife" doesn't reveil the identity of Plame. This isn't going to get a conviction.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.