Posted on 01/28/2007 2:28:47 PM PST by freespirited
President Bush's ex-spokesman invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked in front of a grand jury about the illegal outing of spy Valerie Plame, prosecutors revealed this week. Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought and received immunity from prosecution for unmasking the secret agent.
Armed with this immunity, Fleischer is now expected to testify Monday in the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.
Fleischer is expected to tell the court that Libby, formerly Vice President Cheney's top adviser, told him on July 7, 2003, that "he had some information that was hush-hush," said special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
What was hush-hush was that Bush critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA operations officer. Wilson had infuriated Cheney by debunking the White House claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Niger for a nuclear bomb.
Fleischer cited his Fifth Amendment rights in 2004 before a federal grand jury and was "reluctantly" given immunity, Fitzgerald said in court Thursday.
"I didn't want to give him immunity," Fitzgerald said.
Libby is fighting perjury charges for telling a grand jury he first learned about Plame on July 10, 2003, from journalist Tim Russert. That is three days after Libby allegedly told Fleischer about Plame.
Fitzgerald told the jury in opening arguments that Fleischer also helped spread the news about the spy.
"Ari Fleischer had conversations with reporters about Wilson's wife that he should not have had," Fitzgerald said.
Libby's lawyer Ted Wells said Fleischer told NBC's David Gregory and others about Plame during a stroll while on a presidential trip to Africa.
Wells told jurors Thursday that "Fleischer may have issues of credibility because of a deal that was cut."
Fleischer must be a walking computer if he can remember the exact date that someone told him something. I can't remember what I had for breakfast.
I thought the Grand Jury had expired, or was another one empaneled?
And to think that this same Fleischer used to be seen [while a press-secretary] - right here, on FR, - almost as demigod. And now - 'ex-flack' and 'walking computer'. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Funny, I did not know they have shown anything about the so-called outing was illegal.
This case reminds me way too much of the Duke University 'rape case'. . .you know the 'rape case; where there was no 'rape'. . .but for one fricken year; and 'more now'. ..we have heard the lies and misrepresentations; and still. . .there is 'still' a case.
Seems to me Fitzgerald should have been thrown out long ago; but then, the 'Get Bush' factions would have to start all over. . .
I also recall that NOBODY was charged with a crime identified as "outing of spy Valerie Plame."
Scooter Libby is on trial for lying to the Grand Jury so pray tell,
Why is the press keeping this false mantra going that Valeri Plame was outed?
Tell a lie often enough . . . . . . . .
Pulleeeeze! Just tell us, what the crime is Fitzgerald. . .There is not a place in hell; big enough for Fitzgerald and the rest of these people. . .IMHO
Help me here please. Who is Mary McCarthy? FBI?
Three strikes in the very first paragraph!
1. It hasn't yet been extablished that the "outing" was illegal. Certainly no one has been charged with such a thing.
2. It has never been extablished that Valerie Plame was a spy. We know that she's an analyst, which means she's not a spy.
3. Fleischer couldn't be the guy who unmasked the "secret agent" who's not a secret agent since Armitage already said he's the one who did it.
Ari Flieischer may have invoked the fifth as "federal prosecuitors" say, but on looking closer this article doesn't say "Federal prosecutors" gave the reason- the author appears to have made up the reason or perhaps obtained it from the reporter Kristoff and inserted it behind the info from prosecutors in order to give the impression the prosecutors were the source for hat sentence too.
To paraphrase, it's not the nature of the evidence; it's the seriousness of the charge that counts.
Yikes(!) and thanks for the graphic. . . That must have taken more than a little concentration. . .;^)
Mary McCarthy is the CIA leaker who had been appointed by the thief of national archives documents Sandy Berger as the "Special Assistant
to the President and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs ." ... That president being Bill Clinton.
He has a good memory no doubt; but should there be a memory lapse; he could be risk having to go to jail. . .what a total farce this is.
Mary McCarthy : One aspect of her background so far comparatively unexamined is her West African uranium connection. She served in a key government position concerned with West African nations producing yellowcake uranium at the same time that Joseph Wilson was working in the area. The two may be considered members of the “yellowcake community” within the Clinton national security apparatus of the 1990s. There are more questions than answers for the moment, but yellowcake uramium is not only of strategic importance for WMD puposes, it is also a highly profitable commodity traded under UN supervision and restrictions, a set of circumstances known to produce extraordinary opportunities for both profit and corruption, as in Oil-for-Food. These comparatively still waters may run deep. Investigators equipped with both subpoena power and security clearance may be called for.
Mary McCarthy held positions in both African and Latin American analysis desks at Langley while Wilson was U.S. Ambassador to the Gabonese Republic from 1992 to 1995.
Gabon was a [2] producer of yellowcake uranium. Wilson’s powerful position in Gabon from 1992 to 1995 raises questions about his official trip to Niger to discredit President Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought quantities of uranium from Africa.
During his time in Gabon, Wilson must have been deeply knowledgeable about uranium production and trade there, and must have been familiar with officials of the French energy giant [3] COGEMA, now consolidated into the French [4] Areva Group, a firm closely involved with the French government which appoints members of its board. Joe Wilson has his own [5] French connection.
So, who better to send to Africa to dig up dirt to refute intelligence findings of both the US and Great Britain concerning the Iraq-Africa yellowcake trade?
I was certainly taken with Fleischer. I thought he was a nice guy who did a good job. Now I don't think he is a nice guy at all.
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