First, let's identify a couple of seminal threads on the Wilson/Plame/Novak (and now /Rove) affair:
Set up? Anatomy of the contrived Wilson "scandal", Wolfstar, October 2, 2003. I.e., the thread you're on.
Joseph Wilson, Niger, Uranium and Bush’s Famous Sixteen Words: Evolution of a Confused Story, Shermy, April 16, 2004
Plus a third thread that appears related...
Democrats to raise doubts about America: Strategy memo calls for undermining public confidence, Jon Dougherty on World Net Daily.com, sourced from Capitol Hill Blue and posted by John Huang2 on January 8, 2003.
In addition, there are two other threads which are intimately related with this subject -- and, as I can't find them, I ask for your assistance.
1. A report in the MSM that references the meeting cited above, ostensibly of the Democrat Senate Policy Committee, where the decision was made to attack the President's credibility. It took place in early January, 2003 and the report I'm seeking specifically mentions that among the invited guests were Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV (ret), Nicholas Kristof of the NYTimes and, I believe, a WaPo reporter (probably Walter Pincus). This report would've appeared sometime after Wilson gained prominence because I seem to recall that it was a "puff piece" about him. So, we're probably talking July-Oct, 2004. Nick Danger has asked for a link to this story, but all I have is a memory...
2. A Capitol Hill Blue rant by Doug Thompson, based on a "source" named Terrance J. Wilkinson -- who came "out of the closet" before Joe Wilson's op-ed and told a story very much like the story Joe Wilson told. My strong suspicion is that Terrance J. Wilkinson, who turned out to be vaporware, was in fact Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV (ret.).
The point being is that there is linkage between all these events. Wilson, Schumer, et al hatched this scheme in January, 2003 -- twisting Wilson's Niger trip to their purposes. Or Wilson/Plame may have hatched it in Spring, 2002, when he went to Niger, then Joe retailed it to the Democrat Senate Policy Committee as the answer to their prayers in January, 2003.
Whatever... Here's another pair of items that may be linked:
1. Once Novak published the name -- Valerie Plame is a CIA agent -- Joe Wilson immediately identifies Karl Rove as the leaker, soon to be frog-marched from the White House. Evidently without any aforethought, and with stupefying certainty. He proclaims this version loudly, to anybody who will give him a forum, for a couple of weeks -- then begins to backtrack.
2. Judith Miller refuses to reveal her source and goes to jail.
Now, consider that:
a. Judith Miller is a Washington-based reporter for the NYTimes, who specializes in WMD.
b. Valerie Plame is a Washington-based employee of the CIA who, likewise, specializes in WMD. Plus, she and her husband are known to travel in circles frequented by the media.
Is it not likely that Miller knew Plame...and knew what she did? Is it not likely that she had cultivated Plame as a source? Indeed, perhaps, received some story guidance in the past from Plame?
What if Plame (or Wilson) were to purposefully let Miller in on a little secret about ol' Joe's trip to Niger? What if it was suggested (or planned or hoped) that she pass this word along to Rove once the balloon went up with Wilson's op-ed?
It makes sense, doesn't it? The pieces fit, don't they? There is certainly no shortage of motivation (or ambition), is there?
All along, the main objective of this little scheme is to "damage the President's credibility" by attacking the SOTU message and the underlying premise for an Iraq war. But if Karl Rove should end up being "collateral damage", what would be wrong with that?
Thoughts, everybody? And can anybody find those two missing threads -- Wilson at the Democrat Senate Policy Conference and Doug Thompson's report (and following mea culpa) on Terrance J. Wilkinson. Both of these fit in the timeline...
Oh! One other question. Was Chuckie Schumer, Joe Wilson's "handler" at today's press conference a member of the Democrat Senate Policy Committee and/or was he in attendance at their January, 2003 meeting?
Sounds reasonable to me. What should be very clear is that Miller didn't go to jail to protect Rove, since Rove already signed a waiver.
So she's in jail to protect someone else.
Now, consider that:
a. Judith Miller is a Washington-based reporter for the NYTimes, who specializes in WMD.
Another consideration on Miller I'd like to suggest may be linked:
BBC reporter who claimed "sexed" up Intelligence accused of changing his story.
The BBC journalist who claimed that Alastair Campbell had "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was tonight accused of changing his evidence by MPs. Andrew Gilligan, the defence correspondent on Radio 4's Today programme, was described as an "unsatisfactory witness" by the Commons foreign affairs select committee following his second appearance before it today.
He had been recalled to give further evidence after a senior Ministry of Defence official, Dr David Kelly, denied suggestions that he was the possible source of Gilligan's story.
"Kelly's last cry for help: I'm haunted by 'many dark actors playing games'", July 20, 2003
A former Labour minister called for Mr Blair to resign, as the mystery of Dr Kelly's death deepened, with the revelation that he sent friends emails hours before his death, talking of being haunted by "many dark actors playing games". Dr Kelly's claim, sent to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter, is certain to be key evidence in the judicial inquiry into the affair - announced by Mr Blair - to be chaired by Lord Hutton, a law lord.
In fact, Judith Miller apparently knew David Kelly rather well. She had quoted him in several of her earlier articles going back to 1998, and according to the Globe article referenced above, Kelly had helped her write her book about Weapons of Mass Destruction published several years before.
Piasa, I'm relating this to the timeline on July 2003 you posted last night in Posts 179 and 204 here:
Byron York: There's a lot we don't know yet about the CIA flap
It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began....
It was July 9, 2003, less than 48 hrs after the bogus "CIA agent T J Wilkinson" popped up as a named source in a Capital Hill Blue article that, through a Truthout.org submission to "Japan Today," propelled the Wilson story back into the lime light and into the MSM when CNN picked up the scent of the disredited story, edited it, and ran with it.
July 9 was the date that Greg Thielman came out with his rant against colin Powell and Bush.
Remember this apology from CHB on that TJ Wilkinson story?
"Recently, this web site [Capitol Hill Blue] discovered it has been played as a sucker by a source that was used in seven stories that ran in Capitol Hill Blue from September 2002 until July of 2003. The person in question was quoted as an unnamed source in six of the seven articles and by name (Terrance J. Wilkinson) in the seventh. We later learned the name was bogus even though I had known (or thought I knew) the person by that name for more than 20 years.
"We have turned all our information on this source over to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and, at their instruction, will not discuss the matter publicly until they have concluded their investigations. When those investigations are complete, we will publish a full accounting with every piece of detail that we can produce or uncover about the individual involved. We owe that to our readers....
"...But we live in a different era now. Technology makes it easier for people to pull together enough information to create a story that sounds credible on the surface but still have hidden agendas underneath.
"Many journalists have told me they cannot do their job without unnamed sources. I used to agree with them but events of this past week have caused me to rethink that philosophy."
---- - "A message from Capitol Hill Blue. . .No more "unnamed sources," DOUG THOMPSON, Jul 10, 2003, 11:51
Note that under the same law that pertains to the alleged outing of Plame, this T J wilkinson tale would also require investigation since the guy was claiming to be CIA.
Hmmm, what else occurred on July 11, 2003 while Cooper was jotting down his email to his bureau chief? Was it something in the UK like this, where a reporter by the name of Watts tells her bosses at the BBC she can't go along with their request for her to back up the BBC's correspondent Gilligan's claims about what the late wmd expert Dr. Kelly told him?:
JULY 11, 2003 : (UK : NEWSNIGHT SCIENCE EDITOR WATT'S LAWYER WRITES THE BBC TELLING THEM THAT WATTS WAS PREPARED TO COOPERATE WITH THE BBC ONLY IN LINE WITH HER DUTIES AS AN EMPLOYEE, BUT NOT IF IT MEANS VIOLATING HER ETHICS AND RESPONSIBILITIES AS A JOURNALIST : See HUTTON INQUIRY ) Documents released by the [Hutton] inquiry show that Fiona Campbell, of Finers Stephens Innocent, wrote to the BBC on 11 July saying that Watts was prepared to cooperate only in line with her duties as an employee. 'Such duties, however, do not extend to "co-operating" where her ethics and responsibilities might conflict or in circumstances where she is being asked to participate in statements with which she cannot agree.' - "Email kept from BBC board; said that Gilligan had been guilty of 'loose use of language'," by Kamal Ahmed and Martin Bright, UK observer, 08/17/03 and "Email kept from BBC board : · Governors split over 'dumbing down' of Today programme · Gilligan accused of being 'too distant' from colleagues ," by Kamal Ahmed and Martin Bright, The Observer, Sunday August 17, 2003
SNIP
JULY 17, 2003 3PM : (UK : DAVID KELLY IS MISSING AFTER TELLING HIS WIFE HE WAS GOING FOR A WALK) - "Man named as BBC source reported missing," by Ciar Byrne, The Guardian UK, Friday July 18, 2003 Speaking of July 17, 2003 ... who leaked the copies of the Niger docs that were in IAEA hands to the Italian paper and are the copies really accurate copies? Someone at State? Or CIA? The French? Or ?
JULY 17, 2003 : (TIME MAGAZINE JULY 21 STORY BY MATTHEW COOPER APPEARS ON TIME'S WEBSITE; )-- "Reporters Subpoenaed in CIA Leak," By Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, May 22, 2004; Page A11, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46823-2004May21.html
JULY 17, 2003 : (THE IAEA HAS STILL NOT RELEASED THE FORGED NIGER DOCUMENTS, THOUGH THE ITALIAN LEFTWING PAPER LA REPUBBLICA CLAIMS IT HAS OBTAINED THEM THROUGH A LEAK - * PRESUMABLY COPIES OF THEM, ANYWAY) The forged documents were passed in February this year by the US to the IAEA, which a month later declared them to be forgeries. The IAEA has not released the documents. But it is understood the documents are the same as those leaked to La Repubblica. The paper [left-of-centre daily La Repubblica] claimed the forged documents were passed to British intelligence in Rome and their contents given to the CIA. -- "Iraq uranium forgeries crudely done, newspaper reveals," By Sophie Arie, Rome, The Guardian, July 18 2003 via TheAge.com.au, http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2003/07/17/1058035132835.html
Here it is:
Damn, I hate it when I've been had and I've been had big time.
In 1982, while I was working for Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a man came up to a me during a gathering in Albuquerque and introduced himself as Terrance J. Wilkinson. He said he was a security consultant and gave me a business card with his name and just a Los Angeles phone number.
A few weeks later, he called my Washington office and asked to meet for lunch. He seemed to know a lot about the nuclear labs in New Mexico and said he had conducted "security profiles" for both Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs. Lujan served on the committee with oversight on both labs and he offered his services if we ever needed briefings.
We already had nuclear experts on the committee, on loan from the Department of Energy, and we never used Wilkinson for briefings but we kept in touch over the years. He said he had served in Vietnam with Army Special Force, worked for Air America, later for the FBI and as a consultant for the CIA. He said he had helped other Republican members of Congress I called some friends in other GOP offices and they said yes, they knew Terry Wilkinson.
"You can trust him, he's one of the good guys," one chief of staff told me. When I left politics and returned to journalism, Wilkinson became a willing, but always unnamed, source.
Over the last couple of years, Wilkinson served as either a primary or secondary source on a number of stories that have appeared in Capitol Hill Blue regarding intelligence activities. In early stories, I collaborated his information with at least one more source. His information usually proved accurate and, over time, I came to depend on him as a source without additional backup.
On Tuesday, we ran a story headlined "White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes." For the first time, Wilkinsson said he was willing to go on the record and told a story about being present, as a CIA contract consultant, at two briefings with Bush. He said he was retired now and was fed up and wanted to go public.
"He (Bush) said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said in our story. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."
After the story ran, we received a number of emails or phone calls that (1) either claimed Wilkinson was lying or (2) doubted his existence. I quickly dismissed the claims. After all, I had known this guy for 20+ years and had no doubt about his credibility. Some people wanted to talk to him, so I forwarded those requests on to him via email. He didn't answer my emails, which I found odd. I should have listened to a bell that should have been going off in my ear.
Today, a White House source I know and trust said visitor logs don't have any record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever being present at a meeting with the President. Then a CIA source I trust said the agency had no record of a contract consultant with that name. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever heard of this guy," my source said.
I tried calling Terry's phone number. I got a recorded message from a wireless phone provider saying the number was no longer in service. I tried a second phone number I had for him. Same result.
Then a friend from the Hill called.
"You've been had," she said. "I know about this guy. He's been around for years, claiming to have been in Special Forces, with the CIA, with NSA. He hasn't worked for any of them and his name is not Terrance Wilkinson."
Both of his phone numbers have Los Angeles area codes but an identity check through Know-X today revealed no record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever having lived in LA or surrounding communities.
His email address turns out to be a blind forward to a free email service where anyone can sign up and get an email account. Because it was not one of the usual "free" services like Hotmail, Yahoo or such, I did not recognize it as one (although you'd think that someone like me would have known better).
The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme. I've spent the last two hours going through the database of Capitol Hill Blue stories and removing any that were based on information from Wilkinson (or whoever he is). I've also removed his name, quotes and claims from Tuesday's story about the White House and the uranium claims.
Erasing the stories doesn't erase the fact that we ran articles containing informattion that, given the source, were most likely inaccurate. And it doesn't erase the sad fact that my own arrogance allowed me to be conned.
It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information. The next one who does had better be prepared to produce a birth certificate, a driver's license and his grandmother's maiden name.
Any news publication exists on the trust of its readers. Because I depended on a source that was not credible, I violated the trust that the readers of Capitol Hill Blue placed in me.
I was wrong. I am sorry.
© Copyright 2003 by Capitol Hill Blue
Two notes that might help in searching for this:
1. I'm finding references to Wilson meeting Kristof at a meeting of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. From the big Vanity Fair article:
In early May, Wilson and Plame attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq; one of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger and said Kristof could write about it, but not name him.
2. However, the meeting where the Democrats plotted how to undermine confidence in Bush may have been a meeting of the Democratic National Committee:
Dems plan to undermine America to beat Bush
Capitol Hill Blue obtained a copy of the talking points when the Democratic National Committee sent them to a news outlet recently acquired by CHB’s parent company.
The Iraqi WMD shell game. Now Hussein has them. Now he doesn't. For the better part of 20 years we were told he had them. We know he did in the '80's, because he used them. Then, he up and decides to invade Kuwait. Golden opportunity to use WMD against the Kuwaitis, the Israelis, and the vastly superior coalition forces. But he doesn't. Why? Might it be that contrary to conventional wisdom, he wasn't afraid of retaliation, but that he didn't have much of a stockpile left?
Enter the UN weapons inspectors after the Gulf War. Again, throughout the '90's, we're told that Hussein is a menace. He has WMD. He's not cooperating. Gotta keep those inspectors rummaging around in Iraq. Yada, yada, yada. Our Congress even passes the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, making the ouster of Hussein national policy. Bill Clinton signed it and most of the Dems now caterwauling about how "Bush lied" issued hair-raising warnings about Iraq on the Senate floor and voted for it.
In the meantime, a little gravy train called the Oil-for-Food program was enriching a whole bunch of people. None of the players (including Hussein) in the weapons inspection scam wanted to go home and declare Iraq free of WMD, because that would mean the gravy train would come to a screeching halt. So Hussein continued to play the intransigent dictator, Kofi Annan's minions kept rummaging around Iraq, and all the players kept getting rich.
Enter George W. Bush, the "accidental" president who, from the Left's point of view, was dumber than a box of Texas rocks. The unthinkable happens -- a massive terrorist attack on American soil that catapults GWB into the ranks of our most significant presidents ever. GWB takes us into a real shooting war.
Worse, he begins lecturing the UN about its responsibilities, and begins making plans to invade Iraq. Oh, no! That would slam the door on the gravy train for sure. And it would also threaten the exposure of a lot of Euro and UN Leftists who made millions off the suffering of the Iraqi people. Can't have that, now, can we?
So it wouldn't surprise me at all that various schemes were cooked up here and in Europe to (1) provide cover for the crooks, and (2) set GWB up to take the fall for years of corruption about Iraq, its here-today, gone-tomorrow WMD, and the Oil for Food Program.
Now what Patrick Fitzgerald is up to, who knows. I doubt seriously that he's doing anything significant. Like most special prosecutors, once they get started, it's almost impossible to get them to wrap up and come to a conclusion. The history of such SP's is that their investigations take on a life of their own and run for years, often with little or no results to show for the effort and cost.
But the whole Wilson-Plame saga has provided excellent cover for the vastly more serious crimes that were committed re Oil-for-Food and its rationale, the continued UN search for Iraqi WMD.
JANUARY 6, 2003 : (CHB ARTICLE : DEMOCRAT PLANS TO UNDERMINE THE PRESIDENT : EFFORT TO BE LED BY DICK GEBHARDT) Democrats plan to undermine public confidence in President George W. Bush by challenging his credibility and raising doubts about America, sources within the party tell Capitol Hill Blue. A multi-pronged attack against Republicans and the President will focus not only on economic issues, but question American values, raise doubts about how this country is viewed by other nations and question the patriotism of Bush and his party. The extensive campaign, developed by senior Democratic consultants and party leaders, was launched last week with attacks on the Bush economic plan by Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Richard Gephardt. - "Dems Plan to Undermine America to Beat Bush," by Doug Thompson, CapitolHillBlue, January 6, 2003
JANUARY 8, 2003 : (SPIES : SUSAN LINDHAUER DELIVERED A LETTER TO A US GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL WHICH INDICATED HER ACCESS TO MEMBERS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME) On Jan. 8, 2003, prosecutors said, Lindauer tried to influence U.S. foreign policy by delivering to the home of a U.S. government official a letter in which she conveyed her access to and contacts with members of Saddam's regime. The official was not identified in the indictment.