Chirac linked directly to smear bid [Chirac's going DOWN??]

The Australian ^ | May 13, 2006 | Emma-Kate Symons

[Enchante]

A day after Mr Chirac denounced the so-called Clearstream affair as a "dictatorship of rumours", Le Monde newspaper published notes of General Philippe Rondot that pitched the 73-year-old President into the centre of the scandal, which continues to blow the lid on the way power is exercised in the dying days of his inglorious 11-year presidency.

Mr Chirac and his protege, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, are accused of covertly instructing a French intelligence official to secretly investigate their internal party rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, in an apparent attempt to ruin his chances of becoming president.

.............

General Rondot is the shadowy former spy and adviser to Defence Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie.

His diary notes say he was acting on the "instructions" of "Le PR (President of the Republic)" and "D de V" (Dominique de Villepin) when he set off in search of evidence to compromise Mr Sarkozy.

"The PR wanted me to deal directly with D de V; only at his level," General Rondot wrote on January 21, 2004.

[Enchante]

Big scandal, Chirac and de Villepin directly implicated!?!

[Enchante]

Vicomte13, your insight into these machinations would be most appreciated!

[trashcanbred]

This has been going on for weeks but this is the first I have read of a direct link to Chirac. Yowza!

[mmercier]

What kind firkin spy keeps a diary...?

[mmercier]

What of kind of spy keeps a diary...?

[Neville72]

French Watergate....or worse?

[KJC1]

I think by French law a president can't be tried for any crimes until he's out of office, so I guess that would be next year.

This will certainly be interesting to watch.

[vollmond]

... inglorious 11-year presidency ...

If our newspapers wrote like that, I might actually read them.

[Enchante]

I am suspicious that this sordid affair has a "twisted sister" parallel case with what was done with the Joe Wilson affair.... another dirty trick by current and/or former French intel people to try to block the USA from going into Iraq and then to punish us for having done so??

It's not a stretch at all, given all the juicy stuff that Fedora and ravingnutter have dug up.....

If Chirac could order such a "political hit" on a domestic rival using French intel (whether current or former), he surely would not have hesitated to do so to harm President Bush and the much-resented USA, especially if you consider all the French commercial and diplomatic interests they considered to be at stake......

[trashcanbred]

That is what the press has been calling it in France, Le Watergate Français:

PARIS, April 30 (Reuters) - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a possible contender in the 2007 French presidential election, said the government risked its own "French Watergate" over an alleged smear campaign that involves top politicians.

[Miss Marple]

I agree with your assessment and suspicions about Chirac.

Nothing will make me happier than to see him and also Dominque leave office in disgrace.

[Neville72]

"What of kind of spy keeps a diary...?"




The kind that finds those orders so dispicable he bides his time until he can release them with the greatest effect.

It worked.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer pair than Chirac and deVillepin.

[Enchante]

Everyone, don't miss this if you haven't seen it before:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1256475/posts

"What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa: Joseph Wilson's Silent Partners"

"Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war."

[RetiredArmy]

Smear Campaign???

Hell, the democrats run smear campaigns every day of the week. How is this news?

[Dark Skies]

Excellent!

[RedBeaconNY]

Nixon recorded all of his Watergate conversations... maybe he's got an ego complex.

[Enchante]

Hi, I don't know if you're only being facetious, but if you delve into the details there is all kinds of sordid and illegal activity that goes well beyond the usual sorts of depraved smears from the left (bad as those are). They made up a fictitious list of bank accounts (supposedly connected to corruption) to get the French justice ministry to investigate Sarkozy, so there may be charges to do with fabricating evidence and interfering with official investigative bodies, etc.

I don't know French law, but apparently there is a statute against this: "the crime of "calumnious denunciation" is under investigation by French justice officials."

They tried to use the official justice machinery of the French state to go after a political rival and unless they can get the horses back in the barn now there should be prosecutions.

[RetiredArmy]

Sarcasm.

[Philistone]

As has been previously stated, French President's are immune from ANY prosecution while in office.

Chirac still has the threat of prosecution hanging over him from his days as Mayor of Paris when he diverted public health funds into his political party coffers. He's a sleaze bag who has actually managed to hang on to power longer than Ted Kennedy.

[Grampa Dave]

Relax, have some wine, a cigie, some bread and some cheese.