NOVAK: 'NOBODY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS'

Drudge Report ^ | 09/29/03

[Pokey78]

In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clitnon administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of an undercover operatives...

[mewzilla]

Supposedly Wilson had been bruiting about that he has internal investigative docs that identify Rove as the leaker. Somebody ought to follow up on this...

[Sacajaweau]

I'm still trying to get by the

"Valerie called her hubby to see if he would take the job" bit

He was not paid for the work

He issued no written report

He said that they were trying to obtain Yellow Cake

He said it was UNLIKELY that the deal went through (What does that mean except "I don't know").

In the meantime, in another camp, a dude was arrested who had strong ties with Hitlery.

[ontos-on]

I agree, but Andrea Mitchell, Howard Fineman, Maura Liasson, and all the rest will be trying their best to give a bad impression of Bish to the people. They are contemptible and this one shows more than anything their bias. Even when the correct story gets out, they ignore that and keep repeating the false one. It now appears that it wasw incorrect that the story broke this past weekend because CIA asked Justice Dept to investigate the matter. I now hear that this happened in July or at the latest August. Any competent reporter must know this by now, but they keep repeating the original incorrect report--even the ones who are asked to give an overview on the various news programs. It is easy to slant the news, you would have to have truth squad bird-dogging every reporter.

[ontos-on]

You do know that J. Wilson was a member of Clinton's National Security Council.

[ontos-on]

I heard that Wilson was a member of Clinton's National Security Council. I would like confirmation or denial an dpromise not to repeat it until I hear more sources for it. Does anyone knwo anything about this?

[PhilipFreneau]

In any event, Novak is spinning when he says that Wilson was a Clinton Administration official. It's true that he was a Clinton Administration official just as it's true that he was a George W. Bush Administration official and a George HW Bush official and a Reagan Administration official and a Carter Administration official.

Novak is correct. Wilson was an ambassador under several administrations, but in a political capacity it appears from his bio that he served only in the Clinton administration. He also worked in the congressional offices of Al Gore and Tom Foley in the 1980's, but not for the administration.

You can read his bio here.

[b4its2late]

That's true. He did it to cover his own arse.

[Just mythoughts]

Read his bio, he apparently knows Clark and is in bed with the French.

Maybe this is where so many of those fraudulent documents were hatched.

This man has contributed $2000 to the KERRY for president campaign and also to another un-named dimwitt running for president. Can hardly call him neutral.

Now from his bio he has no credibility or background to be sent to anyplace to verify, or investigate the veraciy of nuke material being sought or sold to Saddam.

So Mr. Wilson was a set up apparently offered by his wife to the CIA to verify what? There is more here than outing his wife.

[MissAmericanPie]

I knew this story had legs, and someone will end up with egg on their face, hopefully the democrats. This is what comes from not blowing Clinton holdover's out of the administration. They are nothing but land mines, looking for an unwary foot.

[dogbyte12]

Here is the problem with Wilson and money though. He gave money to John Kerry this year, but in 1999, he actually contributed to the Presidential campaign between Gore and Bush. His candidate of choice was George W. Bush. May 20, 1999 he wrote a check for $1,000 to Texas Governor George W. Bush.

[Just mythoughts]

Hey if you are a mole you have to keep your back side covered. He would want to keep his connections and thus give to both parties. So was it before his African "tea" trip that he declared "liberal" or after.

I saw this guy being interviewed and he has an agenda, he is carrying the "poop" for someone and the target is President Bush via Rove and Ashcroft. There has been a great outcry about "library" searches, when in fact none have been done and those crying out knew there were none done.

Rove is the political advisor and Ashcroft is the LAW enforcer. Now something is brewing and "ASHCROFT" the LAW enforcer has been assaulted as much as President Bush has in past two months.

Now looks like what we have here is a "PRE-EMPTIVE" strike that the liberals claim they hate so much about President Bush's foreign policy.

[windchime]

This is so full of garbage that I hate to dump it on the thread.  Mezwilla, I think it's the same you happened upon last night that was removed at the request of Al Martin, the author.

 by Al Martin

The Ambassador Wilson Affair: The End of Karl Rove – And George Bush?

(Sep 2) This is the hottest and most explosive story behind the scenes in Washington in terms of how it could affect the Bush administration.

      Ambassador Joseph Wilson has been turning up the heat in this situation. He revealed on Friday August 29 in a symposium in Washington the person in the Bush administration, who had leaked it out to the Washington Post that Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent of 26 years. As a consequence of this leak, her entire team of overseas assets were liquidated.

      The leaker, it turns out, was none other than the notorious Karl H. Rove, Bush’s so-called White House advisor. Ambassador Wilson identified him as Karl Roverer, with the umlaut over the “o.”

      According to reliable sources, as well as our own Al Martin Raw.com investigation, Karl Rove is, in fact, the grandson of Karl Heinz Roverer, the gauleiter of Mecklenburg, who was also a partner and senior engineer of Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurbüro AG. They built Birchenau, the concentration camp in Nazi Germany.

      So Karl Rove has been identified as the leaker responsible for the deaths of more than 70 CIA assets overseas (See previous story “Will the Real Chemical Ali Please Stand Up? The Curious Case of Ambassador Joseph Wilson)

      When Ambassador Wilson was asked how he knew it was Rove, he had documents in his possession identifying Rove as the leaker from a secret investigation of the State Department’s Internal; Security Unit. It was a from a small clique, four Clinton holdovers in that department of the State Department that were sympathetic to what had happened to Wilson.

      These investigations could not have possibly been made without at least the tacit acquiescence of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

      Wilson has announced that he will have his private attorneys petition the Department of Justice demanding that Roverer a/k/a Karl Rove be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identity Protection Act . This law specifically supposed to prevent what has happened in this case and that is the Bush administration attempting to retaliate against a senior government official who tells the truth about that administration by revealing the identities of intelligence members within their own families.

      This is a law that was specifically designed to prevent this from happening. It is a law that was proffered by the Democrats in 1982 that the Republicans fought and could not defeat. The law carries an automatic mandatory 10 years to life imprisonment as punishment.

      And where would Rove go? Karl Rove, it should be noted, is a dual citizen of the United States and Germany. Because of his position he has special diplomatic status. The idea is that if its absolutely necessary he could go to Switzerland where he couldn’t be extradited.

      The law specifically states in this case (and this depends on how much Secretary of State Colin Powell is prepared to get involved, if he signs a formal complaint from the State Department, then the Attorney General has no choice but to prosecute. He is required to prosecute, even if he doesn’t want to do so.

      This is very explosive and what makes it so explosive is that this Intelligence Identity Act, if it can be proved, and Rove can be successfully prosecuted and if Rove reveals that the president George Bush told him to institute this leak, then the President's automatic shield of immunity is removed and the president himself can be prosecuted for murder if any deaths of any US intelligence agents or assets resulted from the leak. This is the only legal statute that has this provision.

      The Bush Administration is exerting enormous pressure on Colin Powell because he is the real linchpin. They are exerting pressure on him NOT to proceed to file a formal complaint with the Department of Justice.

      Wilson’s problem is that he has no greater legal standing than that of a private citizen. The Department of Justice, unbeknownst to anybody, has had a lot of communications with Wilson’s attorney and they’re claiming that Wilson has no special status, that he's just an everyday citizen, so that any demand he would make for prosecution would carry no more weight than a private citizen or OFU.

      (OFU is George Bush Senior’s term to describe the average American citizen. It stands for “One Fodder Unit.”)

      Wilson is saying, however, that when Rove leaked this out, he was still formally employed by the State Department. Wilson, it should be remembered, was the former ambassador during the Clinton Regime, was formally rehired, and he received a paycheck from the Department of State. When these leaks took place he still had another three weeks left on his contract. Therefore he was still a United States Ambassador and that apparently is also a key legal point.

      When this goes before the US Court of Appeals in Washington and if the court agrees that Wilson was a formal ambassador at the time, then Colin Powell can not refuse to formally petition the Department of Justice for the prosecution of Karl Rove and to open an investigation into the president’s and vice president’s role in the affair.

      Was Rove really the source of the leak? The investigation held thus far by the State Department’s Internal Security (ISD) has stated that Rove did indeed leak the information out about the Ambassador’s wife, CIA agent Valerie Wilson, to the Washington Post. Apparently they have an affidavit from the reporter he leaked it to.

      The way the Bush Regime is trying to quash it is to slow it way down by exerting so much pressure against Pro-Bush Media. Please note that you have not heard one word about this on CNN or MSNBC or Fox News And not one word about this on ABC, CBS, or NBC.

      If there is no public attention, there will be no steam behind it. Some of the congressmen are trying to push this into higher quarters. They’re trying to get Howard Dean to talk about it since he’s getting so much press coverage

      It’s been said that Dean is himself frightened to start talking about it because it would diminish the press coverage he’s been getting. The Bush Administration has let it be known to the Democratic National Committee that any Democrat who tries to push this will find press coverage severely limited.

      When the Democratic presidential selection process filters out (since there are now nine declared Democrats) and when there is one Democrat that everyone is behind, who’s going to be the contender, then they won’t be so frightened.

      But this is a story, which should be more widely known, since the treatment of Ambassador Wilson and his family (not to mention the US intelligence assets who were liquidated overseas) is certainly one of the most egregious abuses of power yet perpetrated by the Bush administration.

      Yet. However, who knows what they might do tomorrow?

     

[windchime]

Sorry the article posted so weirdly....couldn't get it to format any other way.

[unsycophant]

According to Wilson: Novak contacted him to confirm that his wife was an operative. He cited his sources as "inside the CIA". When Wilson asked him about this in a later conversation, Novak said he "misspoke" and that the sources were 'senior administration officials'.

Wilson has repeated these details a few times over the past few months.

Is it common practice for a reporter to contact someone's spouse to confirm whether they are an "operative" with the CIA? Or, to advise them that the CIA just outed her?

[Merovingian]

more on Rove:

In 1992, Rove was fired as a consultant for the Bush-Quayle Texas campaign, after officials suspected that he was the source for a column by Novak and Roland Evans that portrayed the Texas presidential operation as in disarray. Rove was accused of making up the story because of a feud with the campaign's chairman, Rob Mosbacher Jr., whom the column reported, erroneously, was to be dumped.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/page1/2128132

[BushisTheMan]

Just one problem .. he didn't prepare a report

Government officials are not only privately disputing the genesis of Wilson's trip, but publicly contesting what he found. Last week Bush Administration officials said that Wilson's report reinforced the president's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. They say that when Wilson returned from Africa in Feb. 2002, he included in his report to the CIA...

So, he really did write a report.

[Mo1]

So, he really did write a report.

He said in his op-ed piece that he didn't .. but did say that he informed others and it's likely that they wrote up the report

[Mo1]

. His candidate of choice was George W. Bush. May 20, 1999 he wrote a check for $1,000 to Texas Governor George W. Bush.

An odd thing to do since Wilson has openly stated that he is not found of Bush