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 ...
Are you serious??
Why would I not be serious? Doesn't this represent a clear conflict of interest.
The Washington Post assign a more objective reporter??
LOL!!! .. now that is funny
That is correct. This report is worthless.
We have obtained copies of Scooter Libby's letter to Judith Miller dated September 15, 2005, in which he again urged her to testify before the grand jury, and repeated the waiver that he gave her more than a year ago; a letter dated September 16, 2005, from Libby's lawyer Joe Tate to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, expressing astonishment at the claim that Libby's purported failure to give a "voluntary" waiver was the reason why Miller remained in jail; and a letter dated September 29, 2005--the day before yesterday--from Miller's former lawyer, Floyd Abrams, to Joe Tate, in which Abrams disputes Tate's account of their conversation of one year ago and claims that Libby really is the "source" on whose behalf Miller languished in prison. Here they are:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/MillerF.php
It strikes me that a game of very high-stakes poker is being played here. I still think it almost inconceivable that Judith Miller, or anyone else, would sit in prison for three months, if all she needed to get out was a letter from Libby saying, in effect, "I meant what I said a year ago," without ever asking Libby for such a letter or communicating to him that it was on his behalf that she was in prison. That scenario, as outlined by Abrams, seems senseless to me. It also doesn't explain, as Paul noted last night, why Miller stayed in jaiil for another ten days after getting Libby's letter.
Which leaves open the question we asked last night: What is really going on here?
PAUL adds: Abrams argues that Miller didn't regard Libby's waiver as voluntary because Tate allegedly told Abrams that Libby made the waiver as a condition of continuing to work in the administration. However, as Beldar notes, even if this is what Tate told Abrams, the notion that a waiver executed under that circumstance is coerced or non-voluntary runs counter to the law. Otherwise, says Beldar
there could never be a valid guilty plea, for instance. [And] you could freely breach every contract by claiming, "Oh, well, I was coerced into breaking my promise because I suddenly realized it would be disadvantageous to me to keep it."
Presumably Judith Miller hired her high-priced lawyers (Abrams and then Bennett) to explain these sorts of things to her (Abrams' claim that Tate "persuasively mocked" the notion that the waiver was voluntary is laughable -- since when does a lawyer base his legal conclusions on the mocking of another lawyer). The other reporters involved in this case were satisfied with Libby's waiver as Tate explained it to their lawyers. Abrams response to this is to huff that "Ms. Miller was not." But why not? Is it because she received inferior legal advice? Because she wanted to serve some time to enhance her reputation? Or because she had another source to protect?
Abrams apparently would have us believe that it's none of the above, but rather because she's more principled than the other journalists. But that still wouldn't answer the question of why she waited so long to get the answer that she, Judith Miller, needed to satisfy her lofty principles. Abrams admits that Miller regarded Tate's message (as now depicted by Abrams) as "mixed." The rational response to a mixed message under these circumstances would be to seek clarification before serving several months in jail.
In short, Abrams' account doesn't add up. The attempt to make Libby the fall-guy for Miller's jail time is unconscionable.
JOHN agrees: It seems clear that Judith Miller and her lawyers aren't telling the truth. What isn't obvious, is why. Three possibilities: 1) Miller went to jail because she wanted to pose as a martyr, and she just needs an excuse for why she now wants to go home. That's plausible as far as it goes, but it doesn't explain why Miller stayed in jail for another week and a half after getting Libby's "clarification," while her lawyer negotiated with the prosecutor. 2) Miller went to jail because she didn't want to answer questions about her tipping off a terrorist-supporting group that the FBI was about to execute a search warrant, an episode that also could have come before Fitzpatrick's grand jury. She and her lawyer laid the blame on Libby so that the public wouldn't learn about the other episode, which is pretty much unknown. Plausible, and consistent with what we've been told about her lawyer's deal with the prosecutor--if, indeed, the terrorist tipoff was something that Fitzgerald could have pursued. I'm not sure whether that's correct or not. 3) The third alternative is the most sinister: Miller went to jail to protect not Libby, but another source or sources, and the prosecutor has agreed not to ask her about those other sources. If that's true, it suggests that someone in the administration--presumably, either Karl Rove or Scooter Libby--is being set up.
Maybe there are other alternatives, but those are the ones that jump out at me.
A fair prosecution would involve a case against Wilson on several counts of perjury, malfeasance, and divulgence of classified intelligence information - charges far more serious than any discussion of who his wife worked for on the Washington DC party circuit.
If there is a prosecution against the administration all it will demonstrate is that politics is the meanest BS carried out by the most un-American scum we can buy for election or to report news.
Judith Miller is protecting Joseph Wilson --- that is why she spent 3 months in jail.
Wilson is the architect of the conspiracy with the falsehoods about whom sent him to Africa, to the facts of the uranium, to who revealed his wife's identity as a CIA employee.
Wilson conspired against the Bush Administration.
She's a freaking joke same as her husband. She's no top secret Mata Hari spy doing field work. I'm as much a CIA spy as she is. She sits on her butt in the CIA putting in her time for her Federal gubbermint pension. Same as a lot of the other dead wood we have there. And no way is she making less than 100 thou a year
Yep. Valerie drove her car from her home to Langley every day for six years. Pretty covert, huh? You can't be stationed at Langley and be covert. The rusky's still have agents watching that place and how hard is it to trace license plates? Covert from whom? Certainly no one in the spy community. Even the towel heads watch Langley. Good grief Charlie Brown.
This prosecutor seems to be narrowly focused on the Bush administration figures. Also, the Post article seems to leave open the possibility of a conspiracy charge, not unlike what happened to Delay. I'm having difficulty understanding what they conspired to do, however.
President subtittle ?
WTF?
It was a joke around the DC cocktail circuit that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA. Rove and this Scooter Libby guy simply spread around this chatter
Please tell give us more facts. Lots of people read FR and that info has to be put out there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51840-2005Feb24.html
Reporters' Phone Records Are Protected, Court Rules
(snip)
The case began in late 2001, when federal agents were investigating two Islamic foundations for alleged ties to terrorists. On Dec. 3, 2001, Times reporter Judith Miller telephoned officials with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based charity accused of being a front for Palestinian terrorists, and asked for a comment about what she said was the government's probable crackdown on the group.
ooops .. I forgot to copy this part..
U.S. officials said this conversation and Miller's article on the subject in the Times on Dec. 4 increased the likelihood that the foundation destroyed or hid records before a hastily organized raid by agents that day
No wonder Miller was giving them a heads up.
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