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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (166963)	7/23/2005 12:27:34 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

I think LeakGate could become BIGGER than WaterGate...If Bush and Cheney had any honor and integrity they would resign...fyi... latimes.com CIA Leak Investigation Turns to Possible Perjury, Obstruction By Douglas Frantz, Sonni Efron and Richard B. Schmitt Los Angeles Times Staff Writers July 23, 2005 WASHINGTON — The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from determining whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status. Differences have arisen in witnesses' statements to federal agents and a grand jury about how the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, was leaked to the press two years ago. According to lawyers familiar with the case, investigators are comparing statements by two top White House aides, Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, with testimony from reporters who have acknowledged talking to the officials. Although no one has suggested that the investigation into who leaked Plame's name has been shelved, the intensity of the inquiry into possible perjury charges has increased, according to one lawyer familiar with events who spoke on condition that he not be identified. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, and his team have made no decision on whether to seek indictments. The investigation focused initially on whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, in a campaign to discredit Wilson after he wrote an op-ed article in the New York Times criticizing the Bush administration's grounds for going to war in Iraq. The sources said prosecutors were comparing the various statements to the FBI and the grand jury by Rove, who is a White House deputy chief of staff and President Bush's chief political strategist. In Rove's first interview with the FBI, he did not mention a telephone conversation he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, according to lawyers involved in the case. Cooper has since said that he called Rove specifically to discuss the matter. Rove has been interviewed twice by the FBI and has made three appearances before the grand jury, according to lawyers familiar with the case. Rove was told by prosecutors in October that he was not a target of the inquiry, said his lawyer, Robert Luskin. Rove, through his lawyer, has denied being the source of Plame's name. "I am quite sure that if his status has changed, I would be informed about it," Luskin said Friday. "I am not aware of anything that has come to light that would change the facts in front of the prosecutor that would change that assurance." Rove "has, from the beginning, been candid, forthcoming and accurate," Luskin said. "There has never been any moment when the government, prosecutors or investigators have suggested that they thought he was being anything but truthful or cooperative." The investigation's change in emphasis comes amid indications that Fitzgerald's inquiry has gone beyond the White House and scrutiny of officials such as Rove and Libby, who is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. A former senior State Department official has acknowledged that he testified before the grand jury in Washington, and a congressional source confirmed that Robert Joseph — who worked on the White House National Security Council — told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he had been questioned by the special prosecutor. Karen P. Hughes, a former top aide to Bush, also told the committee that she had been questioned, the source said. In addition, a senior U.S. official said that several State Department officials — including then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell — were questioned months ago about the creation and distribution of a classified memo that mentioned Plame. Prosecutors are interested in the memo because it may have been a vehicle for spreading Plame's name among administration staff members. Disclosing the identity of a CIA undercover agent is a crime under some circumstances, but legal experts have said that elements of the law make it difficult to prove a violation. Prosecutors could have an easier time winning a conviction under another law that makes it a crime for officials with security clearances to disseminate certain information. According to that statute, it could be a crime to have confirmed that Plame was a CIA agent if she was operating undercover. Plame was first identified as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in an article that appeared July 14, 2003 — eight days after Wilson's op-ed piece challenged administration claims that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium for its nuclear program from the African nation of Niger. An official close to the investigation said Fitzgerald was concentrating on what happened in the White House and other parts of the administration in those eight days. The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Rove and Libby were intensely focused on discrediting Wilson during that period. Prosecutors have been told that although lower-level aides routinely handled media inquiries, Rove and Libby began communicating directly with reporters about Wilson, the Times report said. The CIA requested the inquiry into Plame's unmasking. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed a special prosecutor in December 2003 and was given wide latitude to conduct his investigation. He is working with FBI agents, a team of attorneys from the Justice Department in Washington and four prosecutors from his Chicago office. The investigation has led to the jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times, found in civil contempt for refusing to reveal her sources in inquiring about the Plame case; she did not publish any stories on the matter. Other reporters have testified before the grand jury about conversations with sources after receiving waivers of confidentiality from their sources. Fitzgerald has asked witnesses not to discuss their grand jury testimony, but the law does not prohibit them from speaking publicly. Rove and Libby spoke with reporters during the crucial eight-day period when the administration was working to undermine Wilson's credibility, in part by suggesting that his wife had put his name forward for the fact-finding mission to Niger in early 2002. His assignment was to determine the authenticity of claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from that country for its nuclear program. Wilson later wrote in the op-ed piece that the claims were likely false and that intelligence cited by the Bush administration to support the invasion of Iraq "was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." According to Luskin, Rove has said that he learned Plame's name from Novak. Novak has refused to discuss his testimony, but investigators are believed to be focusing on possible variations with Novak's account. Writing in Time magazine, Cooper said that he had telephoned Rove to ask about Wilson's column. But Rove, according to lawyers involved in the case, told the grand jury that Cooper had telephoned him about a welfare issue and that Wilson came up later. Cooper wrote that Rove had disclosed to him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though Rove did not use her name. Cooper said that he did not learn Plame's name until he read it in the Novak column several days later, or that he might have learned it from a computer search. Libby, according to a person familiar with events, told investigators that he learned Plame's name from a reporter, apparently Tim Russert of NBC-TV. But Russert, who spoke with Fitzgerald last summer after Libby released him from a pledge of confidentiality, said he did not give Plame's name to Libby, according to a statement issued by NBC at the time. Cooper wrote in Time that he had also talked to Libby. He said he asked Libby whether he had heard anything about Wilson's wife dispatching Wilson to Niger, and that Libby replied, " 'Yeah, I've heard that, too,' or words to that effect." Fitzgerald's term as special prosecutor expires in October, but it could be renewed if the investigation is not finished.

To: geode00 who wrote (166963)	7/23/2005 2:01:52 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

"Rovush" GREAT one. And the Wilson affair leads back to DSM: Wilson was right, yes, absolutely unequivocally right, Karl and America. Yet we rushed into Iraq and blew up the country? We took our eyes off the so-called War on Terror in Afghanistan and opened up a second front for our already short numbers of troops, to leave them short in both conflicts, under-equipped, with no post-victory plan to stabilize Iraq. We ignored our major allies' admonitions, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the UN, and went ahead with our unilateral war, the same Richard Clarke had told us Bush wanted from day one of his administration, pre-9/11. What's more, the question remains, why hasn't President Bush fired Rove for outing Wilson's wife and ending her career as a CIA operative and endangering the lives of those who worked for her—and for smearing the name of her hero husband, Joe Wilson? Why? Bush said three times so far that whoever leaked the information in the White House would be fired. Could it be that if we pull the Rove thread we find that it connects to the thread of mastermind Cheney, originally designing and spreading the WMD fear and paranoia? The Cheney thread connects to the hem of Condolezza Rice, echoing that mushroom clouds of destruction would soon be appearing if we didn't go to war immediately. That connects to the thread of the well-tailored suits of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Colin Powell & Company, the bobble-dolls nodding their heads to it all, yes, we had to fight immediately, even sooner, here are the graphs, charts, right now, go, give your lives, take more! But don't blame the CIA on this one. The CIA told them up front the intelligence was faulty, and got blamed afterward by Bush, who claimed it gave the administration false information. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But if we do pull the thread long enough, we will unravel an organized conspiracy to take America to war, illegally, unconstitutionally. Keep pulling the thread and we see the emperor has no clothes, no defense. The commander in chief gave a nod to this all. Yes, like his Republican precursor, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was the hand, the force behind Watergate, the burglars, the Plumbers, and the refusals to testify to the Senate, to give up the tapes, the recorded plans to corrupt America's government. So too it is Bush, albeit with his ventriloquist Cheney, who is behind Rovegate, the thread to the grand plan to globalize the world through perpetual war for oil and the power it brings. Is it any wonder Nixon ducked impeachment and resigned from the presidency? The prospect of getting booted into a jail cell didn't look good to the paranoid, alcoholic Nixon. I wonder how it looks to George W. Bush, ex-boozer and cokehead, or to Dick Cheney and their fellow conspirators. What's more, Rovegate is far worse than Watergate, far worse. Rovegate, the conspiracy to take America to war illegally, has caused the death of nearly 1,800 American fighting men and women, caused upwards of 12,000 casualties, and the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis. In fact next to Rovegate, Watergate is a mere stone dropped in a pond, a plop in the roiling cauldron of history. But the consequences of Rovegate can blow that cauldron apart. Yet, what is the response? The Republicans are all out front cheerleading for Rove as a whistle-blower. What or whose whistle is he blowing? Someone tell me. He outed Plame. Part A of the federal law says "a government official with access to classified information about covert personnel who intentionally exposes an operative, knowing that the US 'is taking affirmative measures to conceal' the operative's identity, can face up to 10 years in prison or a $50,000 fine or both." I'll spare you parts B and C because Rove fits Part A to a tee, as in thread. The question is will Prosecutor Fitzgerald have the courage to pull the thread? Remember what happened to his fellow Irishman, John O'Neill, the super-straight FBI investigator, who had been blocked at every turn tracking down leads on Osama bin Laden because he might discover connects from Afghanistan to CIA digs. O'Neill was stopped cold from investigating the Cole bombing. And put off other leads by Louis Freeh and Thomas Picard, two club members who made sure important reports from FBI agents vanished. O'Neill, who had resigned from the FBI and counter-terrorism efforts after 30 years of service, had ironically become head of security for World Trade Center, where he died on Sept. 11. 2001. And will the public demand that Fitzgerald pull the thread? Will America finally unravel this web of death and deception, the shame of the millennium, the same that goes back to 9/11 with even more shocking revelations. Does the rhetoric disturb my conservative friends or my liberal friends? Does the sight of those bodies, at WTC or abroad, disturb them? Does a world at war disturb anyone, a crumbling economy, a staggering debt, the looting of health, pension and welfare funds, Social Security, state budgets? Does anything haunt these weavers of Rovegate? Will someone help George pull the thread, and maybe seek a bailout deal, like Tricky Dick. Will someone see what pulling the thread to Rovegate really is, an end to the end-times we've been living, a goodbye to the Antichrist at the helm, a return to a moral and normal life. onlinejournal.com