Nobody's looking to indict Wilson or his wife. I'm sure Turd Blossom wishes HE and Scooter could say that. This thing just KEEPS GETTING SWEETER!
SCOOP: John Bolton Was Regular Source for Judith Miller WMD and National Security Reporting
thewashingtonnote.com
TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.
The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.
It's all "thickening."
-- Steve Clemons
03:45 PM
JOHN BOLTON TESTIFIED BEFORE GRAND JURY IN VALERIE PLAME INVESTIGATION
David Schuster of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews made a whopper revelation about grand jury testimony in the Valerie Plame-outing investigation: John Bolton has testified about the top secret document that Colin Powell had aboard Air Force One.
TWN has confirmed with MSNBC that it it standing by its story.
Shuster's report yesterday:
DAVID SHUSTER, NBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A witness who testified at the grand jury and lawyers for other witnesses say the memo was written in July of 2003, identified Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, as a CIA officer, and cited her in a paragraph marked S for sensitive.
According to lawyers, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and undersecretaries, including John Bolton, gave testimony about this memo. And a lawyer for one State Department official says his client testified that, as President Bush was flying to Africa on Air Force One two years ago, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer could be seen reading the document on board.
The timing is significant, because the president's trip on July 7 was one day after Ambassador Joe Wilson's column was published criticizing the administration. In other words, on July 6, Wilson's column comes out. On July 7, the State Department memo about Wilson's wife is seen on Air Force One. And, on July 8, Karl Rove had a conversation with columnist Robert Novak, but says it was Novak who told him about Valerie Plame, not the other way around.
Rove also says he never saw the State Department memo until prosecutors showed it to him. Six days later, on July 14, 2003, Novak published the now infamous column that publicly identified Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, as a CIA operative.
Grand jury witnesses say a call record kept by Ari Fleischer shows Novak placed a call to him during this period. And lawyers for several witnesses say their clients were questioned by investigators about Fleischer's conversations. Fleischer, however, did not have the power to be a decision-maker in the administration. And White House observers point out, he wouldn't have likely taken it upon himself to disseminate the State Department memo. In any case, Fleischer and his lawyer have declined to comment.
As far as Karl Rove is concerned, a recent line of questioning about him suggests the grand jury may be pursuing issues related to possible inconsistencies. For weeks, Karl Rove's lawyer has been saying the now deputy White House chief of staff testified his 2003 conversation with “TIME†magazine reporter Matt Cooper was about welfare reform and, only at the end of that discussion, did Rove talk about anything else.
Matt Cooper recalls leaving Karl Rove a message about welfare reform. But Cooper testified that, when he and Karl Rove spoke, Joe Wilson was the only topic of conversation. Cooper says this contradiction with Rove, combined with his testimony that Rove told him about the Wilson's CIA wife, prompted a flurry of grand jury questions. And Cooper told NBC's Tim Russert the grand jurors themselves played an active role.
This takes us back to whether it is possible that John Bolton's shop played a role in promulgating not only the Niger/Uranium story inside the State Department but in its cozy relationship with the Vice President's office tried to help undermine Joe Wilson by exposing the identity of his wife.
The John Bolton and Fred Fleitz rap was that they constantly crossed lines of appropriate behavior and conduct.
More on this -- as it develops.
-- Steve Clemons
11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)
When Several People are Collusively Lying, Isn't that Called "Conspiracy"?
CIA Director George Tenet was steamed when Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity was revealed -- and his people put it to him to insist on a serious investigation. Tenet would not back off when others in the White House tried to evade at the time -- and Tenet demanded that this investigation take place.
If Rove and Scooter Libby fall, George Tenet had a lot to do with it.
Now it seems that a pattern of lies and deceit about who told what to whom is emerging -- and as Bloomberg reports, the Rove and Libby stories don't mesh with what has been reported by journalists.
Cover-up? Certainly. Conspiracy? Looking more like that every day.
What did the President know and when did he know it?
What did the Vice President know and when did he know it?
From Bloomberg:
Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.
These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert intelligence agent.
These guys took America into war and have relied on lies and deceit to accomplish much of what they have done. They are the most responsible for puncturing the mystique of American power, moral authority and status in the world.
It is when America is showing its limits that allies will not count on us and enemies will move their agendas.
Add that to Karl Rove's and Dick Cheney's roster of accomplishments.
-- Steve Clemons
08:12 AM |
