Posted on 11/09/2005 9:07:53 AM PST by areafiftyone
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Leakgate investigation is coming unraveled, as witness after witness steps forward to challenge a key premise of his controversial probe.
Was the identity of Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame really a deep dark secret before she was "outed" by columnist Robert Novak in July 2003?
The number of witnesses now saying "No" has climbed to four - and none of them have apparently been interviewed by Fitzgerald's investigators.
On Wednesday, Wayne Simmons, a 27-year veteran at the CIA, told Fox News Radio: "As most people now know, [Plame] was traipsed all over Washington many years ago by Joe Wilson and introduced at embassies and other parties as 'my CIA wife.'
Last week, Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WABC Radio's John Batchelor that during a 2002 conversation with Wilson while the two waited to appear on a TV show, Wilson casually mentioned that his wife worked at "the Agency." In Oct. 2003, NBC's diplomatic correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, told CNBC that Plame's occupation "was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger."
Mitchell added: "So a number of us began to pick up on that."
And in Sept. 2003, NationalReviewOnline's Cliff May wrote that when Plame's CIA connection was mentioned in Novak's column - "That wasn't news to me."
"I had been told that [Plame was CIA] - but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."
The day his report appeared, May told the Fox News Channel's John Gibson: "I knew this, and a lot of other people knew it."
In fact, rumors now swirl around Washington that Plame used to take her friends to lunch at the CIA's cafeteria.
So what has Mr.Fitzgerald - who was hailed as a "prosecutor's prosecutor" only weeks ago - done with the avalanche of testimony that contradicts his stated claim that Plame's job "was not widely known"?
Apparently nothing.
In the six days since he's gone public, Gen. Vallely says prosecutors have yet to contact him.
Ms. Mitchell has been mum since her "widely known" comment resurfaced last week, offering no indication whether Fitzgerald has bothered to check her story out.
If Mr. May has been interrogated, he's also keeping it to himself.
And Mr. Simmons has made no mention of any contact with Fitzgerald's team.
On the other hand, the prosecutor's prosecutor made a big show of interviewing two of the Wilsons neighbors just four days before he announced his indictment of Lewis Libby - in a bid to establish whether Ms. Plame's occupation was indeed secret.
It was, as far as her neighbors were concerned. But the revelation that Fitzgerald had waited till the last minute to confirm such a key aspect of his case raised more than a few eyebrows.
Now, with four witnesses on the record saying they knew what the Wilsons' neighbors didn't - and two of those witnesses coming forward even before the Leakgate investigation began - it's beginning to look like Mr. Fitzgerald deliberately ignored critical testimony that would have compelled him to close up shop well before he ever got to Mr. Libby.
-b-
surprise surprise surprise.
Fitz wanted to be finished for the 2004 election. schmuck.
These people if they are not interviewed by Fitzgerald they need to go on the MSM Television.
I picture a lot of moth holes in the fabric of Fitzgerald's story.
It does, of course, contradict the story he wove around the charges, including the claim that Valerie Plame's employment status was classified.
It's time for Bush to do a bunch of payback on the Democrats who keep leaking our secrets to our foreign enemies.
Many Democrats in leadership positions are know traitors to their own country.
This whole thing is a joke. You want scandal? Let's talk about dead cabinet members, raped and molested interns, stolen FBI files, corrupt land deals, pardoning cocaine traffickers, (takes a breath), and on and on. If Clinton had an (R) after his name, he would have been impeached and convicted by year two.
Well imagine this. I wonder if the prosecutor is going to be reprimanded for this?
Even if they have been interviewed by Fitzpatrick (or testified before the GJ), there is no law stopping them from talking about it on TV.
Right!
How does one get "un" indited I wonder? Libby could still get 30 years in jail for something he didn't do.
darn, seems I was about the only person to not know Ms. Plame was CIA...
Note that Ms. Mitchell's boss is Mr. Russert. Did Russert know, too? If not, why not? Is he that disconnected from the people who work under him? Or did he just "forget"?
I guess Fitzy is bucking for AG in 2008.
Fitzy Earle might more likely be bucking for a disbarment.
Hmmmm.
I'm beginning to think Libby won't have much of a problem beating what looks more and more like a purely political prosecution.
The prosecutor's prosecutor took millions from the taxpayers over two years to fund his large operation, he had to charge somebody. Plus he will be bilking the public for anoither year or two.
This bears repeating. Fitzy doesn't have to talk to these people, because he isn't charging anyone with leaking her name. Just the "cover up" about it.
Newsmax is a lousy news service. A Joke.
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