Shorter Fitz: His office didn't leak anything and because his office doesn't talk to the media about the case he takes no position on whether there should be a gag order.]]>Shorter Libby: Team Libby admits to two disclosures, explains and justifies them, (quite well in my opinion) and opposes a gag order.
I think the Judge will not issue a gag order based on Libby's response.
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The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.
"Mr. Rove is still a subject of the investigation," Luskin said. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that prediction again Wednesday.
...
Fitzgerald is said to have introduced more evidence Wednesday alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was questioned about how he found out that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and whether he shared that information with the media, attorneys close to the case said.
It's looking bad for the administration right now, especially if the best they can do is try to claim legitimate declassification.
]]>President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.
Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him… …It is not known when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place. The White House has declined to provide the date when the president used his authority to declassify the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified document that detailed the intelligence community's conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq....Because Bush declassified the intelligence document, the White House does not view Libby's conversations about it as a leak. But that determination is difficult to make without knowing precisely when Bush decided to declassify the information.
Okay…so…didn’t Bush think about the fact that the Plame leak might have been part of the Iraqi/Niger NIE declassification? Couldn’t he have cleared this up by simply stating that he declassified the NIE and a mistake was made due to that declassification? Or did he actually declassify it later and if we knew the actual date several people would look guilty as all hell? Many questions, too few answers…
Tom Maguire has this to say about it and he seems quite annoyed by lefty blogoshere:
So - Libby hasn't said that Cheney ordered him to out Plame; Tenet hasn't said that he warned Cheney that Plame was covert - this is quite a compelling case that is coming together. That said, Fitzgerald did speak with Addington (an attorney in the Office of the Vice President who has been moved up to Libby's old spot), Bush and Cheney, so we can presume that Libby's story was not flatly contradicted. But did Bush and Cheney respond with "I don't recall that? We don't know.I guess Maguire is concluding, and doing a pretty good job of it, that he believes there was no conspiracy to discredit Wilson or out Plame. I don't believe that for a second. Maguire does go on to do a sentence-by-sentence slamback of the AP article:
(AP)"...Q: Now that the story is out that Bush and Cheney put Libby in play, are the president or the vice president expected to be called to testify at Libby's trial?A. The prosecution and the defense have not signaled their intentions. "
(Maguire)"Put Libby in play"? As the story eventually notes (see MORE, below), the timeline is hazy at best. This is partly because, at the time Libby testified, Special Counsel Fitzgerald was unaware of Libby's chats with Judy Miller and Bob Woodward in June 2003; consequently, Fitzgerald's questions to Libby about his conversations with reporters focused on July, and the issue of whether Libby was cleared to talk with Woodward did not arise.
As a result, it is hard to judge whether Libby began leaking and then sought authorization, or the reverse. That is assuming that the authorization even occurred, and is not a convenient ex post fiction (The Anon Lib wonders about this).
Libby passed the information about the document to New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003. It was 10 days later, on July 18, when the same portions of the document that Libby discussed with Miller were released publicly.
This date is far less important than the Woodward date which was in June. If the White House declassified the NIE in July than Libby sought it post leak. If Bush declassified it in June than Libby had authority to ‘leak’ some info and Bush should have fessed up to the cause of the possible Plame error three years ago.
On another note – I guess there will be no graymail defense success afterall:
CIA Leak Judge Says No to Secret Arguments
Walton said the government may in some cases present the court the actual classified information that Libby wants for his defense without letting the defendant and his lawyers see it. The judge would then determine whether some of the deletions or substitutions that the government is making are proper. "Despite the fact that the defendant is a former national security official and some of his defense team hold security clearances, this does not entitle them to view documents that exceed the level of their security clearances or documents that may discuss particularly sensitive issues with profound national security implications," the judge wrote.Since Judge Walton will be viewing the documents first, he can determing what Libby will need and what needs to remain blacked out for the purposes of ‘national security’. This must be a blow to the Libby defense team even though it looks the other way around.
From Firedoglake:
Hypocrisy has a way of catching up to you at the most inopportune time, doesn’t it? You know, like when you are down to 36% in the polls, before the story of your sneaky, half-truth maneuver ever hit the news wires? I bet George Bush is a peach of a guy to be around the weekend. Here’s a sampling of this morning’s headlines on the Leaker In Chiefhere Thank Chis Hardin Smith for this roundup of news.
Comment
Posted by: Tom Maguire | April 8, 2006 10:38 PM
I am troubled by this:
If Bush declassified it in June than Libby had authority to ‘leak’ some info and Bush should have fessed up to the cause of the possible Plame error three years ago.
Obviously you are aware of the difference between the NIE leak and the Plame leak, so why blur thenm here?
And even the WaPo has noted that in Fitzgerald's filing Bush got a bit of a pass:
During this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser [i.e., Libby, who had both jobs] had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment...
"The President was unaware" should be inconsistent with Bush authorizing the Plame leak.
"President Bush authorized White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose highly sensitive intelligence information to the news media in an attempt to discredit a CIA adviser whose views undermined the rationale for the invasion of Iraq..."At the heart of this whole matter is simply, how much authority does the POTUS have when it comes to sharing our national secrets? What are the legal checks and balances and did Bush cross the liine? Perhaps these questions have been answered clearly but I haven't read it.
"President Bush personally authorized leaking classified information to deflect Iraq war critics at a time when declining public support for the invasion threatened his reelection campaign, according to testimony from a former senior White House aide."
Why was poor Scotty kept in the dark for so long if dirty tricks weren't in the mix? Just asking...]]>
Scott McClellan:“There's been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president’s office as well."
White House, 9/29/03
"Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own."
If the info was already declassified why did Bush say this on Sept 30, 2003: (from Tom Maguire)
"And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.
People who broke the law were to be fired; folks who leaked classified info were to be treated appropriately."
"Some of the responses to the Bush Connection are over-done - Fitzgerald does not come close to alleging wrong-doing by President Bush."I guess I need to understand how an authorization to release classified information that resulted in compromising our national security because someone shared that which was authorized wasn't wrongdoing. I don't even make sense to myself. Anyone care to explain it to me?
The Smoking Gun has a pdf of
Fitz’s filing hereFiredoglake harkens back:
"And it sure does bring the interview with Fox News after Dick Cheney shot the old man in the face into a sharper focus, doesn’t it?In an interview with Fox News in February, Mr. Cheney, who has a reputation for secrecy, acknowledged that he has sometimes pressed for the official release of classified records.
"I’ve certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions," he said.
Asked if he had ever "unilaterally" declassified material, Mr. Cheney replied, "I don’t want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."
Talk about things that make you go "hmmmmm.""
"I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime."For whom is Scooter Libby covering? That question just got a whole lot more interesting as I’m reading through the Fitz motion response."
Firedoglake also posted a reader's response:
"Page 24 of the Fitz filing. Only 3 people Pres, VP and Libby knew that Pres had authorized disclosure of NIE (which Addington gave an off the cuff opinion amounted to de-classifiaction).
Yest despite the fact that the Pres supposedly had already declassified it, and Libby had already revealed it to Miller, the WH was still pressing for it for it to be declassifed???
How can the Pres request the declassification of something he has already declassified???
Help, the room is spinning! Opps, that was my head going 360."
Responding with:
"Is it because: … …(b) Bush was grifting his own administration and not being forthcoming about having already declassified the information because he either wanted it declassified to cover his butt or because he didn’t want them to know he had previously declassified the information because…he knew what was done with it — including revealing Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity — was wrong? (And criminal, in the case of outing a CIA NOC?)"
JOSH GERSTEIN of the New York Sun broke this story. Thank you.
"The testimony is being picked apart throughout the blogosphere. Did the President personally authorize the selected release of classified information meant to manipulate public opinion about Iraq? Or did Cheney lie? If Cheney corroborates Scooter Libby's story, he implicates the President. If he denies it, he calls his former Chief of Staff a liar.Lots of questions, though I suspect we won't be receiving any answers from the White House. After all, the President doesn't comment on ongoing investigations (except, of course, when he does). "
The Washington Note wonders out loud - Does the President Plan to Fire Himself?
Here’s Pete Yost’s take in the AP
The Jurist has a small bit and
American Journalism Review keeps The Confidentiality Crisis subject alive with this oh so pertinent bit:
He also touched on the question of whether bloggers should be covered by shield laws that guard journalists from revealing confidential sources.]]>
Perhaps outing plame was a pre-meditated two-fer. It's hard to instigate war against solid intelligence, but much easier to do it based on sketchy intelligence. In compromising Plame, they broke the whole Iran nukes intel machine. Now they can make stuff up (as they are doing), justify a strike and then blame the CIA for incompetance later. Cheney is not stupid, but he doesn't mind the label. I wouldn't either if my assets were growing in 10x increments.
Posted by: Bat Guano | April 6, 2006 12:24 PM
David Glenn crafts a perceptive analysis of veteran intel reporter Walter Pincus in Columbia Journalism Review. It's aptly titled The Optimist. The theme throughout is journalists and sources.
"Pincus scoffs at the idea of turning over his Wilson notes, which, he says, could not possibly include anything relevant to the perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges facing I. Lewis Libby. ... ...Hopefully, he will share what he has learned at Georgetown.
But during precisely the same conversations, alongside the avuncular growls, there are moments when Pincus’s eyes light up and he launches into a soliloquy about some interesting new thing he has learned. He attended Georgetown Law School part-time beginning in 1995 and graduated in 2001, at the age of sixty-eight. While there, he says, he picked up new perspectives on the history and structure of the reporter-source privilege..."
On a different but earth shattering and loud note -- from Steve Clemons at The Washington Note: On Iran, Intelligence-Blind American War Planners Should Consult with the Better-Informed Israelis
Add to this the Valerie Plame affair -- in which it has been reported that she too was working to gain intelligence on Iran's nuclear program. Of course, that operation has been spiked.Andrew Sabl over at Reality-Based Community concurs summing up clemons --
And does anyone remember that it was Ahmed Chalabi's team who informed Iran that the U.S. had broken its codes. It was the Iraqi National Congress's intel chief who turned out to be an Iranian spy. Chalabi's operation worked out of Douglas Feith's legal office before Feith moved into DoD. And Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress's lawyer was former CIA Director R. James Woolsey.
Yes, those putting war plans together for Iran think carefully. We have botched so much already; don't repeat errors.
And in this case, TALK TO THE ISRAELIS -- the ones responsible for national security there. I found their sensibilities on Iran to be remarkably well informed, nuanced, confident, and sensible.
it seems that while U.S. hawks are worried about a nuclear Iran, Israeli hawks are more worried about the consequences of a deranged U.S. attack on Iran.We have not only botched Plame's Iranian work, we have bungled intel in Iran con toto. As we make our war plans in Iran we are blind. Are we still kvetching about whether leaking Plame's identity affected our national security? I hope not. Hopefully Israel remains levelheaded during this phase of posturing.
Meanwhile, Talkleft continues investigating LIbby's blame State campaign --'Predicting Scooter Libby's Next Move'
]]>"Jason Leopold breaks more news in the Valerie Plame investigation, confirming John Hannah cooperated early with Fitz and rolled on Libby and Rove. He also writes that Fitz is close to presenting an Indictment to the grand jury for Karl Rove."I guess I have to continue wondering how Leopold has such an IV to the heart of this case. He does end his article with this:
"...In the interest of fairness, any person identified in this story who believes he has been portrayed unfairly or that the information about him is untrue will have the opportunity to respond in this space."
Finally we get some more news about the Plame issue. Libby will have a new defense strategy that the administration most certainly isn't going to like: "There was so much other recrimination going on that I coudn't possbily have remembered something so comparatively insignificant as outing a NOC."
New legal documents raise the potential that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial could turn into a political embarrassment for the Bush administration by focusing on whether the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.In a court filing late Friday night, Libby's legal team said that in June and July 2003, the status of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame was at most a peripheral issue to "the finger-pointing that went on within the executive branch about who was to blame" for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.
"If the jury learns this background information" about finger-pointing, "and also understands Mr. Libby's additional focus on urgent national security matters, the jury will more easily appreciate how Mr. Libby may have forgotten or misremembered ... snippets of conversation" about Plame's status, the defense lawyers said.
Obviously, Scooter is not taking this lying down, and he will not be the sacrificial lamb for whatever administration higher-ups authorized this.
Further reading: Frontpage poster SusanG at Daily Kos comments on this issue.
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