Posted on 02/12/2007 7:30:58 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Listening to the full Woodward tape of Under Secretary of State Richard Armitage leaking the news about Plame must be giving Fitzgerald nightmares. CNN has posted the full tape played at the trial and it is astounding. The part that got me was when Armitage said “His wife named him”, and Woodward asks, “Why doesn’t this get out?”. Then Armitage says, on June 13th 2003, basically what Andrea Mitchell would say months later when she was talking off the cuff on CNBC. Armitage laughingly says “Everyone knows”. In the words of Mitchell.
MURRAY And the second question is: Do we have any idea how widely known it was in Washington that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA?
MITCHELL: It 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. So a number of us began to pick up on that. But frankly I wasn’t aware of her actual role at the CIA and the fact that she had a covert role involving weapons of mass destruction, not until Bob Novak wrote it.
But Armitage goes further and explains HOW everyone knew. Woodward repeats back incredulously “Everyone knew”? and Armitage provides the hard evidence of who was talking about Plame” .. because Joe Wilson has been calling everybody! He’s pissed off ’cause he’s looked at as some low level guy…”. I predicted long ago, and again just prior to the trial, it would come out that Joe and Valerie were both sources for Kristof and others. Armitage is not saying ‘everyone knows’ who Joe Wilson is (though they did).
(Excerpt) Read more at strata-sphere.com ...
Moreover, the Brits still stand by their information on Saddam's contacts with Niger to this very day. I also question Tenet's allowing "Imperial Hubris," to be released in 2004 during the war and the runup to the election. I have always felt that Tenet was playing both sides of the street on the Iraq War and was attempting to disavow CIA support for the war, even if it was a "slam dunk."
I'm guessing because they were not asked that specific question by Fitz and his team
So the bigger question is .. Why not??
I can't quite figure out why anyone here thinks Tenet will support the President. He was first appointed by Clinton and GWB kept him around in the spirit of bi-partisanship. Look where bi-partisanship has gotten Bush. All the holdovers from Clinton have gone on to try to destroy GWB. I wish he'd wise up.
I can't quite figure out why anyone here thinks Tenet will support the President. He was first appointed by Clinton and GWB kept him around in the spirit of bi-partisanship. Look where bi-partisanship has gotten Bush. All the holdovers from Clinton have gone on to try to destroy GWB. I wish he'd wise up.
I can't believe it is working out well for him though....
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From AJ Strata:
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Bob Woodward just delivered a bombshell regarding the period when Joe Wilson was talking to every reporter out there, and was literally bragging in public he was the mysterious ex-ambassador - because when reporters in DC know who you are, it takes less than a day to track down your spouse!
"Amazing" BUMP!
I think Kurtz gave away the media's intention when he responded, "But, Roger, it’s a show trial that has put the spotlight on the Bush administration’s attempt to make a case about pre-war intelligence that turned out not to be true. That matters."
I thought this trial was supposed to be about the 'outing of a covert CIA agent', but when that wasn't proved, Fitzgerald went after Libby for alleged perjury. According to Kurtz, none of this is the case, and I think he should have to explain where he got that theory of his.
Star Character Witnesses at Libby Trial
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, February 13, 2007; Page A02
*********************************EXCERPT **************************
A familiar-looking man in his early 60s took the stand at the Scooter Libby trial yesterday morning. "I need to ask you to spell your last name," said defense attorney Bill Jeffress.
"W-O-O-D-W-A-R-D," the man replied.
This was not sufficient for Judge Reggie Walton. "We need your first name, too," he said.
"Oh," said the witness. "Bob. B-O-B."
Spectators laughed. Jurors ogled.
Jeffress continued this line of questioning. "What do you do for a living?"
"Assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and book author."
It was a rare moment at the federal courthouse yesterday, and not only because Washington's most famous journalist was answering questions from somebody other than Larry King. Woodward, columnist Robert Novak and a quartet of prominent journalists were called to the stand for the first day of Libby's defense.
Libby must believe himself to be in desperate legal straits to have six journalists serve as his character witnesses. And, indeed, the reporters' testimony appeared to do little to dent the prosecution's case that the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney eagerly shared CIA officer Valerie Plame's name with reporters and then said otherwise under oath. But Libby's team did establish that the defendant wasn't the only administration official dishing about Plame.
No mention of Armitadge stating that Wilson was calling all of the reporters.....
See post #70 and 71....
Well .. no DUH!!
And .. while Wilson tried to say Cheney sent him .. Armitage says, "the 'agency' sent him - meaning Wilson's wife.
From page 2 of the article..........
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Defense lawyers won permission to play for the jury a tape of his interview with Armitage. It showed a Woodward interview style that, in contrast to his broad narratives, is equal parts staccato, gossipy and profane.
Armitage: "His wife's a [expletive] analyst at the agency."
Woodward: "It's still weird."
Armitage: It's perfect . . . she is a WMD analyst out there."
Woodward: "Oh, she is."
Armitage: "Yeah.
Woodward: "Oh, I see."
Armitage: "[Expletive] look at it."
Woodward: "Oh I see. I didn't [expletive] . . ."
Armitage: "His wife is in the agency and is a WMD analyst. How about that [expletive]?"
The jurors chuckled as they listened to the scrubbed transcript.
"You redacted some words that were offensive," Woodward observed.
"Expletives? Yes," Jeffress answered.
Woodward seemed disappointed. "In the raw," he said, "it has a little more fire."
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No mention of the statement about Wilson calling reporters and identifying himself as the mysterious ex-ambassador...........
Tomorrow's story in Wash Post...see #70, 71 & 75.
On this:
Corn is a far-left agitprop scum, while Isikoff pretends to be a more legitimate "investigative" reporter.
Isikoff probably does have a more mainstream reputation than Corn, but he has a habit of coauthoring with agitprop types which tends to undermine that rep. On the post linked, Q&A #22, I comment on his relationship with Mark Hosenball, a former codefendant of Philip Agee who does a regular column with Isikoff:
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22. Did Michael Isikoff’s relationship with Philip Agee’s associate Mark Hosenball influence Newsweek’s coverage of the investigation?
Corn was aware of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act because he had previously written a biography of a CIA agent which touched on the act, passed in response to the disclosure of CIA agents’ identities by former CIA agent Philip Agee. After leaving the CIA, Agee had offered CIA secrets to the KGB before defecting to Cuban intelligence, Soviet archives reveal.
Corn’s coauthor Michael Isikoff had previously cowritten articles with Mark Hosenball, who happened to have a history with Agee. In 1976, while writing for the London Evening Standard in Britain, Hosenball and coauthor Duncan Campbell had written an article exposing the British equivalent of the National Security Agency. As a result of this article, British authorities began proceedings to deport Hosenball, who was the son of an American lawyer. At the same time, they began proceedings to deport fellow American Agee as one of Hosenball’s sources. Agee had fled from the US to Britain and had written a book on the CIA with help from KGB agent Edgar Anatolvevich Cheporov. He was now exposing CIA agents from the Agency’s London station, and MI6 blamed his work for the assassination of two MI6 agents in Poland. Agee and Hosenball were both linked to an antiwar group called Concerned Americans Abroad (CAA aka Group 68), and the British and American left rallied around them, with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL aka Liberty, a sort of British version of the ACLU) hosting the Agee-Hosenball Defence Committee. Among those testifying on their behalf was American CIA critic Morton Halperin, who Agee says helped him obtain CIA correspondence between the US Embassy in Athens and CIA headquarters through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Agee and Hosenball were expelled by British authorities in 1977. Now with Newsweek, where he works with Isikoff, Hosenball is credited in the Acknowledgments of Isikoff and Corn’s book: “Michael Isikoff. . .has especially benefited from the insights of his longtime sidekick and ‘Terror Watch’ colleague Mark Hosenball, who knows more about the subject of this book--most notably the machinations of the Chalabites--than any other journalist in the Western world, as Meg Ryan can readily attest.”
The only NOC list containing the name "Valerie Plame" was stolen by Ethan Hunt.
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