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Memo Is a Focus of CIA Leak Probe By Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, July 16, 2005; A06 Federal prosecutors investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity have asked several witnesses in the case whether they read a State Department memorandum mentioning her that circulated inside the Bush administration in the days before she was publicly named, according to people familiar with the testimony. FBI agents showed the State Department memo to several witnesses during the interviews over the past two years, according to lawyers in the case, in an effort to...

Karl Rove had a secret. In public, he was masterminding President Bush's reelection and brushing off suggestions he had played any part in an unfolding drama: the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame. In private, the senior White House adviser was meeting, on five occasions, with federal prosecutors to tell what he knew about the matter. The story he would tell prosecutors did not seem to square with the White House's denial that it had played any role in one of the most famous leaks since Watergate. (snip) The more Wilson pushed, the more the White House was determined to...

After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races. In what Republican strategists call "the DeLay effect," questions plaguing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are starting to hurt his fellow party members, who are facing news coverage of their own trips and use of relatives on their campaign payrolls. Liberal interest groups have begun running advertising in districts where Republicans may be in trouble, trying to...

Getting Blogged Down in the News By Michael Getler Sunday, April 17, 2005; Page B06 Being away for 10 days usually means coming back to some old business. It's unusual for old business to remain new business over such a stretch, but that's what has happened with The Post's coverage of the mysterious Senate memo dealing with political strategy in the case of the now-deceased Terri Schiavo. It started on Sunday, March 20, with a front-page story by reporters Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia about Congress preparing to have the federal courts become involved, in hopes that doctors would be...

Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said Wednesday that a senior member of his staff had written an unsigned memorandum about the partisan political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo that became a controversial footnote to the debate over the wisdom and motives of Congress's actions. In a statement on Wednesday night, Mr. Martinez said that he had just learned that the memorandum originated in his office and that its author had resigned. He did not name the author, but aides said it was Brian Darling, his counsel. Mr. Darling could not be reached for comment. "It...

This time, the hoax was on them. Still gloating over their role in unmasking CBS's faulty National Guard memo story last September, right-wing bloggers launched a new memo-based crusade against the so-called liberal media last month, one that turned out to be completely phony. But unlike CBS and its tarred former anchor, Dan Rather, who eventually admitted their mistakes in the Memogate affair, these bloggers (many of whom were also involved in the CBS campaign) haven't had the guts to apologize for their blunder. When the Terri Schiavo story became national news in mid-March, a curious subplot revolved around a...

With the revelation that an aide to Senator Mel Martinez was the source of the widely-trumpeted "GOP talking points memo," we have written this article for the Daily Standard to summarize the story as it has developed to date: For the past two and one-half weeks, Washington has been roiled by controversy over an alleged "GOP talking points memo" that, according to ABC News and the Washington Post, was circulated among Republican Senators on the evening of March 17, when the Senate took up debate on the Terri Schiavo federal jurisdiction bill. The memo, of which Republicans disclaimed any knowledge,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Mel Martinez said Wednesday an infamous unsigned memo passed around on Capitol Hill emphasizing the politics of the Terri Schiavo case originated in his office. The memo -- first reported by ABC News on March 18 and by The Washington Post and The Associated Press two days later -- said the fight going on then over removing Schiavo's feeding tube "is a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats." "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo,...

Where Did They Get That Idea? There's a reason people think that the Terri Schiavo "talking points memo" was written by Republicans. by Scott Johnson 04/04/2005 12:00:00 AM Increase Font Size Printer-Friendly AFTER 60 Minutes II broadcast its fraudulent story on President Bush's Air National Guard service on September 8, 2004 holy heck broke loose on the Internet. Virtually anyone with eyes to see the evidence that accumulated during the days after the report came to the conclusion that the documents on which the story was based were fraudulent; yet CBS stonewalled for 12 days before admitting that its story...

Talking Points (Cont'd) The flap about a Washington Post report on an unsigned strategy memo in the Terri Schiavo case, which the paper said was "distributed to Republican senators," isn't going away. It turns out that The Post's news service put out an early version of the March 20 story -- published by numerous other papers -- that said the talking points, which touted the Schiavo case as a political opportunity, were "distributed to Republican senators by party leaders." GOP congressional leaders say they never saw the document, whose author remains unknown. Post reporter Mike Allen, who was unaware the...

Bloggers are swarming around a new target: the Terri Schiavo "talking points." Fresh from declaring victory over CBS News and its discredited National Guard memos about President Bush, some of the same bloggers are raising questions about a strategy memo, first reported by ABC News and The Washington Post, that cast the Schiavo right-to-die case as a partisan opportunity for Republicans to stick it to Democrats. "Fake but Accurate Again?" says the Weekly Standard headline on an article by John Hinderaker, an attorney and conservative blogger who had challenged the CBS documents. While there is no hard evidence that the...

Liberals To Target DeLay In Ads By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A04 Democratic officials and a well-funded liberal advocacy group said yesterday that they will try to capitalize on the new visibility of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) by casting him as a symbol of Republican excess, as critics once did with former House speaker New Gingrich. Democratic officials in the House and Senate said that news coverage of DeLay's travel and ties to lobbyists, and his high profile in the congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, has given them an...

A week after their unprecedented intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, Republican congressional leaders find themselves in a moral and political thicket, having advanced the cause as a right-to-life issue -- only to confront polls showing that the public does not see it that way. "How deep is this Congress going to reach into the personal lives of each and every one of us?" asked Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), one of only five Republicans in the House to vote against the Schiavo bill. Republican lawmakers and others engaged in the debate say an internal party dispute over the Schiavo case...

Schiavo case tests GOP alliances, priorities Public reaction to federal intervention surprises many lawmakersANALYSIS By Shailagh Murray and Mike Allen Updated: 11:43 p.m. ET March 25, 2005WASHINGTON - A week after their unprecedented intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, Republican congressional leaders find themselves in a moral and political thicket, having advanced the cause as a right-to-life issue — only to confront polls showing that the public does not see it that way. "How deep is this Congress going to reach into the personal lives of each and every one of us?" asked Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), one of only...

About four years ago, a Catholic-school science teacher named Bobby Schindler appeared before a board meeting of the antiabortion group Florida Right to Life to tell the activists about his older sister, one Terri Schiavo. Attendees, who were gathered around tables at an Assemblies of God church in Winter Park, recall Schindler saying that his sister was disabled, and that her husband was basically trying to kill her. "We were appalled," said Lynda Bell, a board member since 1989. "The first thing we did was, many of us began to open up our checkbooks." The donations were small, Bell said...

ABC News and the Washington Post have described--but not actually produced--a memorandum relating to the Terri Schiavo case which they have described as "GOP talking points" that were "distributed only to Republican Senators." Many other news outlets have picked up on ABC's and the Post's reporting, such as this Houston Chronicle article, which relies in part on the memo to support a bitter attack on the Republican Party: Most interesting is a talking-points memo from the Senate side of the Capitol that spells it right out in stark electoral terms: "the pro-life base will be excited" and "this is a...

ABC News, the original source of the story on the alleged "GOP talking points" memo now appears to be backing off the story. Blogger Josh Clayborn has been talking to ABC representatives, both on and off the record, and they are now telling him that they never meant to imply that the "talking points" memo originated with the Republicans--only that it was given to some Republican Senators. See his most recent posts at In the Agora. ABC's current position, as reported by Josh, makes little sense, as their coverage certainly did say that this was a Republican memo. (ABC's website...

The memo that ABC News claims constitutes "GOP talking points" on the Schiavo case has turned up on the web, even though neither ABC nor the Washington Post, which has also reported on the memo and declared it to be genuine, has made it public. This web site, however, has posted the document, saying that it was leaked by "a source on Capitol Hill." Here it is; click to enlarge: The memo is not only "unsigned," as it was described by the Washington Post; it is not on House or Senate letterhead, nor is there any indication of source or...

Post's 'GOP memo' questioned Paper claimed Republicans exploiting Schiavo case Posted: March 23, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com A media watchdog is questioning the veracity of the Washington Post's claim that Republicans sent out a memo with the intent of exploiting the Terri Schiavo case for political purposes. The Post's Mike Allen reported on the memo, which allegedly called the Schiavo case "a great political issue." But Accuracy in Media Editor Cliff Kincaid believes the response of the Post's Robert Kaiser to questions about the memo raises doubts. When asked why the memo had not been seen, Kaiser...

When the US House of Representatives voted 203 to 58 in the wee hours of Monday morning to hand the case of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman, over to a federal judge, the politics were unmistakable. For members from socially conservative districts, questions over the propriety of Congress jumping in and passing a law of debatable constitutionality pale in the face of the stark reality: that Ms. Schiavo appeared certain to die without their intervention. It was a vote that went to the heart of supporting the "culture of life" that is central to the religious conservative ethos. For...