this is disinformation and counter spin to the revelation that the person who supplied the forgeries to the Italian security services has now come forward (this past week) and turned himself in to Italian authorities. He has admitted that he was a paid agent of the French DGSE and that they provided him the forgeries. He is saying he thought they were genuine.
Fitzgerald reportedly made a trip to Italy three weeks ago. If true, was it to show evidence of the French intelligence service's involvement in a plot to undermine the American government? A plot involving rogue elements in the CIA along with Joe Wilson and willing accomplices in the MSM?
If the above is true the French would have every incentive to eliminate their agent/dupe so that he can't implicate them, hence his coming forward as his only means of protecting himself.
The French had two motives for pulling off such an operation. First they were actively supporting Saddam and trying to stop the US from enforcing the peace agreement that ended GW1 and the subsequent UN resolutions. Second a French government owned company controls the yellow cake urnaium mining operations in Niger. There was already other intelligence that Saddam was working with this company to obtain yellow cake to replace the material under UN inspector seal so that he could restart his nuke program. The French created the forgeries and planted them in the intelligence community so that they could later be exposed as fakes. That would then discredit any other evidence as likely fake as well.
The elements within the CIA who mounted their end of the operation (e.g. sending a partisan opponent of President Bush to Niger) were desperate to deflect criticism for their pitiful failure for 30 years in dealing with islamic terrorism. They also have been in a war with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who are trying to clean house of the paper shufflers and clintonistas and this was a way to strike back.
The Plame / Wilson / Rove / Libby "scandal" is a bonus. That is unless Fitzgerald is actually investigating the underlying crime of treason exposed by the "leak" investigation.
Bits and pieces. That's how a good prosecutor builds a case. Wouldn't it be great if this is what Fitzgerald was doing? Imagine the rhetorical whiplash the MSM goons who have been praising Fitzgerald as "non partison" and "above politics" when they have to start attacking him. Of course, there are a few on the other side, such as Sean Hannity, who will have the opposite problem.
It would be fun.
this was a collaborative effort by the French and CIA coordinated by Wilson and his second wife. Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy burglary...when the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. The Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:
It is notable that last week, the phone number listed on Fitz's new web page was answered with the greeting "Counterintelligence" at DoJ. The reason given was that Fitz and his nomadic staff just coincidentally happened to be crammed into that particular office space at DoJ, and didn't have their own telephone.
Right, a two year investigation with no telephone. Sorry, not plausible. Why concoct such an absurd cover?
Because this is first and foremost a counterintelligence investigation, not a political one, and it's not about trivial political perjury or certainly about Plame's long-disproven status as a "covert agent".
So if there is any truth whatsoever to Rove and Libby being "targets", it is only at the end of a very long chain that begins with Wilson, Plame, and their pals at the CIA, and the injection of false documents and false statements into the intelligence process.
You don't maintain a counterintelligence investigation for two years over two or four or even ten acts of alleged "perjury".
Is there a link to this?