Posted on 10/02/2005 12:10:11 AM PDT by YaYa123
As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.
With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.
His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President subtittle: Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement
Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.
Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Pincus is part of the "activist media," where opinions and solutions often substitute for facts. He once said at a conference that it was his job to "cure something we find to be wrong." Until the late 1980s, he focused on nuclear arms control; "activism" on this beat generally meant supporting arms control agreements regardless of the impact on U.S. national security. He co-wrote and helped produce anti-nuclear television documentaries in the 1980s at the height of the "nuclear freeze" campaign. His articles consistently warned of dire consequences should the U.S. abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and he has blamed the U.S. for North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
snip
Pincus has had a long relationship with the CIA. Herbert Romerstein, a veteran investigator of Soviet subversion, disinformation and espionage, says Pincus and Gloria Steinem attended a Communist International Youth Festival in Vienna in 1959, with funds provided by the CIA. The CIA financed at least one more trip for Pincus in 1960. He has said that he rejected a job offer from CIA. During the Clinton years, Pincus enjoyed access to high-ranking CIA officials. He consistently portray-ed the Agency's leadership in the most favorable light-as long as that leadership came from within the Democratic Party. He has been particularly kind to George Tenet, a Clinton appointee who, has been held over by George W. Bush.
snip
The Pincus-Tenet relationship probably dates back to the mid-1980s. Tenet got his start in Washington as a Capitol Hill aide to Senator John Heinz; after Heinz's death, he moved to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, working for the ranking member, Senator Patrick Leahy. Tenet moved up to become staff director when the Democrats regained control of the Senate and David Boren took over the chairmanship of the committee. Boren and Tenet ran many of the Senate's Iran-Contra investigations, portrayed as a Republican scandal. Pincus wrote stories about the CIA's involvement in the scandal, based apparently on a steady stream of leaks from the Democrats.
snip
Pincus has close personal links to the Clintons. His wife, Ann, is a native of Little Rock and, for a time, his son, Ward, was a reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He claims an "association with Arkansans over the past 30 years," and says that through these connections, he and his wife befriended the late Vincent Foster. They were among the "family friends" who gathered at Foster's home on July 20, 1993 after he was found shot to death in Ft. Marcy Park. Pincus was the first to suggest that Foster had cracked under the pressure of his job as Deputy White House Counsel.
snip
That same year, Ann Pincus became a high-ranking Clinton political appointee at the U.S. Information Agency. Later, when USIA was folded into the State Department, she became a senior official in State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His other son, Andrew, became General Counsel of the Commerce Department in 1997, just as the campaign finance scandal was unfolding. Beginning that year, Commerce came under increasing fire for liberalizing high-technology exports to China, especially satellites, allegedly in return for contributions to the Democratic National Committee. Pincus wrote a number of articles refuting those allegations that were similar to his later coverage of the Chinese nuclear espionage scandal.
snip
An official at the Washington Post described Pincus as "a friend of Bill's." He said that the couple were frequent guests at Camp David and had attended formal White House dinners for visiting foreign dignitaries. In 1995,"Reliable Source," the Post's gossip column, reported that the Clintons had attended a dinner party at the Pincus home. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, the Post assigned Pincus to cover two of Clinton's most damaging national security scandals. The President benefited greatly from this friendship.
Other than a CIA referral to DOJ and a GJ investigation.
If she wasn't covert, the investigation takes about 3 seconds. That fact would end the matter. So why is everyone so quick to assume that is the case? And why does anyone think that facts established her role (what she was doing, with who) would ever be made public?
Ah, yes - I almost forgot. Though we haven't seen it, it has been widely reported that CIA has conducted a damage assessment for the publication of her employment there. Why would that ever occur if she wasn't covert?
Oh, the fact that Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA has been established to be classified information?!
Link to citation, please.
I don't know what your problem with me is, but I'm extremely familiar with this story and don't appreciate your condescending tone.
I am not naive, I know the facts here.
I'm sure you know this as well, but I don't think the CIA makes a habit of confirming classified info just because it has been leaked. But anyone who believes she wasn't covert should be outraged that an investigation even exists, since establishing that basic fact would end the entire matter immediately and it wouldn't matter in the least who said what to whom.
You can look forward, then, to indictments on the basis of your theory.
I will be surprised if there are any, because nothing I've seen so far indicates a knowing violation by Rove or Libby of any obligation. But hey, I've been surprised before.
And were you this zealous of classified information leaked to the MSM by the Clinton Administration? Actually, my question is a non-sequitor, because the Clinton Administration and the MSM were not separate entities.
Some of us "self-identified conservatives" are quite concerned about the unfairness of holding Republican administrations to a hyper-standard of conduct, and giving Democrat administrations a complete pass, which seems to be standard operating procedure for the MSM.
It's why I figured it wasn't the aim of the investigation.
If you can't intelligently discuss the topic, resort to ascribing positions to others that they haven't taken.
I don't know if violating one's obligations under SF 312 raises any kind of criminal implication at all, and I haven't said anywhere that I'm 'looking forward' to indictments. What I have said is that it is anything to cheerlead about, which seems to be the dominant position around here. Even if it is legal, it ain't what I want the people I pay to do the job doing. I don't care what there affiliation is.
I was, however, the subject of the referral.
Whoops. It, not I.
I happen to completely agree with you that the better response for Rove and Libby in these conversations is exactly as you have suggested.
But I wonder if you appreciate that the liberals and the MSM want to see Rove's and Libby's heads on pikes, and they are not interested in making fine distinctions. They are completely corrupt and hypocritical on the entire subject of leaking classified information. I believe we should NOT be giving them any ammunition at all.
I don't care what the media says about it.
Not even a little bit.
And my interest in the issue has nothing to do with what the media says about it. And my view of what anyone says - the players, I mean - is based upon what THEY have said, not what the media says about what they have said.
My interest in the issue is that our officials should not be giving information to reporters - whether it be in the form of explicit leaks, hints, confirmations, or non-denials - when reporters aren't supposed to have that information. Period. And I am a bit disgusted that the vast majority of conservatives are acting like it is okay because Wilson is a slimebag. It doesn't matter why- it should not be done.
Well, I can agree with you on this.
I suppose what I can't agree with you on is that we can safely ignore what the media says, because that can have real-world disastrous consequences in all kinds of ways.
Yep!
I saw the headline, then saw the source.
The information is not credible
Isn't that what Walter wants us to think?
In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake -- a form of lightly processed ore -- by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.
Quite a few media organizations argued that 50 USC 421 et seq was not violated, for exactly that reason. Their argument was presented in an Amicus brief to the Circuit Court of appeals in the Cooper/Miller case.
The original investigation by DOJ was triggered by the CIA referral - and ironically, mushroomed into an independent counsel case on political pressure from DEMs and the media.
Any possibility his report would say Ms Plame's employment was common knowledge?
Joe Wilson: "[W]hat They Did, What The Office Of The Vice President Did, And, In Fact, I Believe Now From Mr. Libby’s Statement, It Was Probably The Vice President Himself ..." (CNN’s "Late Edition," 8/3/03)
Continuing that transcript results in an impression that corresponds with Wilson's statement in his "What I didn't find in Africa" column.
WILSON: Well, look, it's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. Rice nor even George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby's statement, it was probably the vice president himself...
BLITZER: Scooter Libby is the chief of staff for the vice president.
WILSON: Scooter Libby.
They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed.
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