What Fitzerald is REALLY looking into -- false statements and obstruction of justice. [Archive]

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Webruary

07-25-2005, 08:16 PM

CIA Referral Did Not Mention Intelligence Identities Protection Act (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1450116/posts)

Newsweek ^ (http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8682500/site/newsweek) | August 1, 2005 | Michael Isikoff

This interesting note is buried in the last paragraph of the Newsweek story:

=========================================
Leak Investigation: The Russert Deal—What It Reveals

Fitzgerald has been said to be investigating whether any aides violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act—which makes it a felony to disclose the identity of a covert CIA employee: it requires showing the violator knew the agent's undercover status. (The State memo makes no reference to that.) But the CIA's initial "crimes report" to the Justice Department requesting the leak probe never mentioned that law, says a former government official who requested anonymity because of the confidential material involved. Fitzgerald may be looking at other laws barring the disclosure of classified info or the possibility that current or former White House aides made false statements or obstructed justice.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8682500/site/newsweek) ...

Webruary

07-25-2005, 08:18 PM

Can someone clue me in ( without any sarcasm ), as to what the reason for the investigation was in the first place ? I am not so sure anymore.

aaron11

07-25-2005, 11:22 PM

Being from "Newsweek" I think I will just wait and see...This whole thing just stinks of rat cheese...

Venus de Smilo

07-26-2005, 02:51 AM

I don't think Fitzgerald is after a violation of the 1982 law - it's just too obvious that the strenuous requirements for violation of the statute haven't been met. There's another fed law dealing with secrecy violations that might come into play or, and more likely, Fitzgerald sniffed out some perjury/obstruction or what appears to be perjury/obstruction for the time being - until clarification of the statements/testimony or confirmation of perjury/obstruction. But I'm not as confident as the author of the article that current or former administration officials are the ultimate target. There are plenty of people from many walks of D.C. life involved. While targets for violations pertaining to leaks of classified information would be limited to administration and other government officials, perjury and obstruction charges could apply to ANYBODY.

I doubt that the CIA's initial crimes report to the justice department requesting investigation of the leak absolutely has to state exactly what law they think was violated; the point being that that info alone probably doesn't mean much in terms of serving as a crystal ball to show us what Fitzgerald is actually after. I think Isikoff has thrown a red herring into his report with that factoid. The CIA is an intel agency, not a LE agency per se, so they would likely not be required to furnish what specific statutes were violated - only to report that a leak occurred that appears to violate classified information policy as a basis to request an investigation. Determination of what, if any, violations occurred is the purvue of the justice department, not the CIA.

At any rate, the whole thing was a set-up from the git-go, and I'm sure the CIA knows it and certain personnel there contributed to what amounts to a conspiracy.

The_RANDy_Corporation

07-26-2005, 08:22 AM

Webruary

07-26-2005, 10:07 PM

Warlady

07-26-2005, 10:15 PM

If and that's a big IF Rove lied to investigators then he should pay the price. It's called obstruction of justice but I find it hard to believe he would be that stupid as smart as he is. But if they're going to go after Rove then they should also indict Leaky Leahy, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and almost every other Democrat in DC who has obstructed justice. I still don't believe Karl Rove is guilty of anything. Fitzgerald has continuously stated that Rove IS NOT a target of his investigation. Why would he now claim otherwise?

Webruary

07-26-2005, 10:27 PM

Fitzgerald has continuously stated that Rove IS NOT a target of his investigation. Why would he now claim otherwise?

I still don't know what the source of this come from. Do you have a link ?

From what I learned, Rove is not a "TARGET", but he is a "SUBJECT" of the investigation.

Go figure what the difference is because it isn't clear to me.

Warlady

07-26-2005, 10:48 PM

Oh hell, my bad. I just realized this article is written by NEWSWEEK. Jesus Christ. Can you say "diversion"?

Venus de Smilo

07-26-2005, 11:40 PM

IT IS NOT TIME TO PAT YOUR BACK ON ROVE's EXONERATION YET. HE MAY YET BE IN TROUBLE BASED ON NEW DEVELOPMENTS !!!!

First, there's been a lot of speculation now about a potential perjury charge against Rove, I thimk mostly based on the basis that he omitted mentioning his conversation with Matt Cooper to the FBI.

Tom Maguire (http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/07/what_did_waas_k.html) writes about it this way:

Only time will tell if this is so. We won't know until the end of the investigation.

What most of you missed is this new revelation that came from the Washinton Post ----

Plame's identity was clearly marked "secret" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html) in the State Department memo.

The Dems and the Moveon.org supporters have been hammering home this point over the last couple days, claiming that it proves Rove knew what he was doing when he leaked Plame's identity. IN OTHER WORDS, THEY ARE NOW CLAIMING THAT ROVE NEW THAT PLAME's IDENTITY WAS MARKED SECRET BUT HE REVEALED IT ANYWAY.

The irrepresible Tom Maguire (http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/07/the_emerging_ca.html), however, makes a reasonable case explaining why Rove could have seen the memo anyway. If he did, then AT LEAST, he might have inadvertedly leaked what was supposed to be classified information ( information marked "SECRET" ).

So folks, hold all your self-congratulations yet.

At this point, the case against Rove is looking much more serious, and let me be clear about this. If Rove is found to have deliberately and knowingly leaked this classified information, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER OR NOT PLAME WAS COVERT OR NOT. HIS CRIME WOULD BE LEAKING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ( if he indeed saw the memo).

Web, I've read all of Maguire's stuff, too.

There are two things about the WaPo article that need to be pointed out:

1). Pincus, the author, is in the thick of the controversy. He's one of a number of journalists under scrutiny and probably subpoena, although the subpoena may not have been served yet. The title of the article concludes that the WH is the target and that somebody did something wrong in regard to the State Department memo. Here's what the article says: "Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said." This is misleading because memoes containing classified information are marked specifically as to which parts are classifed. In other words, not all the information contained in such a memo is classified, and the memoes are very specific as to which parts are and secret/classified. Pincus omits this crucial information from his piece.

<NITF>2). Also from the article: "Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation." Those sources could easily be the authors of the article and again point their fingers at the WH when it could have gone from the CIA itself, Plame or Wilson or others directly to the media. In other words, the authors, suspects or at least subjects themselves, have written yet ANOTHER article on the subject pointing their fingers at the WH.

I suggest those who are truly interested do some research on Pincus and the rest of the media players involved.

The situation of THIS author writing on THIS subject would be loosely analogous to the "fox in charge of the hen house".

Venus de Smilo

07-27-2005, 04:05 AM

What Venus said.

Let me play this card. What if it is a reporter or editor/publisher that Fitzgerald is sniffing around about re perjury/obstruction? Far fetched? Then why is it the NY Times is protecting someone by refusing to let their reporter testify, having her rot in jail instead? To protect a Bush Administration source? I think not.

No, not far-fetched at all. Of course the NYT would bend over backwards to release dirt on the administration. The thing is, though, that there needn't have been any leak from the WH or the press. Sure, the press is always after the administration, but it's also no secret that the CIA bureaucrats are lefties, as is Wilson. The CIA or Wilson (or Plame herself) could have leaked, in which case we're back to one or both leak laws. It's also no secret that the State Department is infiltrated with lefties, too. The leak could have come from State. Consider this: there was a 7/10/03 State Department memo that named Plame as a previous operative, but whether that was the main thrust of the memo we don't know. It may have been incidental information. All such memoes carefully note which parts/pieces of information are classified. The State Department would receive information about CIA operatives from the CIA, unless it was memorialized in the memo as an allegation, I would think. It seems more plausible to me that the leak came from one of those agencies or Plame or Wilson. All would be entities that the NYT would like to protect for as long as possible, leaving Rove and the administration twisting in the wind. It was a CIA senior administrator that leaked in Watergate.

Who benefits by the leak? Whomever wants to give the administration a black eye and take out Rove for revenge. I think the elitist Washington left hate him as much or more than they do Bush. In order to accomplish that, they'd have to either manipulate the press or have the press's open cooperation, neither of which would be difficult. Only a couple would be needed.

Another question: Why didn't Miller publish a story on the Plame/Wilson maneuvering to get Wilson the job, including the leaked info? She's reputed to have a zillion contacts in the administration and WA in general. She wrote many of the news reports about the war in Iraq, Her colleagues felt she was too easy on the administration in her articles If Rove was Miller's source, there'd be no reason for the NYT to want to protect the source, just as you say, so why are they letting Miller languish in jail?

That's brings me to other people who would know Plame's past and status, and that's who was in the previous administration during or after Plame's actual undercover assignement overseas, namely the Clintons. So would Kerry have known - he is and has been on the senate intel committee, and they get that kind of information, too. I don't think it's a stretch to say he'd have loved to have knocked Rove out before the election as well as after.

The_RANDy_Corporation

07-27-2005, 07:41 AM

Good analysis, Venus.

Naturalized-Texan

07-27-2005, 01:28 PM

I still don't know what the source of this come from. Do you have a link ?

From what I learned, Rove is not a "TARGET", but he is a "SUBJECT" of the investigation.

Go figure what the difference is because it isn't clear to me.
There are links in threads in this forum that answer your questions and concerns. Look them up. Do your own research. We have already done ours.

Webruary

07-27-2005, 01:32 PM

Can anyone verify these sequence of events ?
There are six reporters that suddenly came across the information about Valerie Plame on July 7. Those reporters have said that they came by their information from "two senior White House officials."

Cooper has revealed his conversations with Rove, but he hasn't yet said where he got the question he was asking Rove, which was the question about the involvement of Wilson's wife.

How did Cooper and five other reporters suddenly come across the information about Plame? They've all implicated the White House, but they won't say who in the White House told them.

So, the leak is a White House leak, not a CIA leak, not a State Department leak, not a Wilson family cocktail party leak (the mode of leak you would most dearly loved it to be). It's a White House leak.

The big mystery is who leaked, and what was the leak mechanism? There's at least one level of indirection involved, as the story that's circulating is consistently that everyone heard it from a journalist.

So here's the question, Which journalist would have told five other journalists rather than keep this as the scoop of the year to him/herself ?

The easy answer is: One of the many journalists that was taking money from White House and GOP propaganda slush funds. I'm not saying that this is the absolute answer, but it's very likely. James Guckert is the the example of the near-perfect shill for the transfer of this untraceable information, but that's sheer speculation at this point.

THE QUESTION STILL IS THIS -----

1) IS The White House the source of the leak ?

2) WAS the leak classified information ?

3) WAS the purpose of the leak to discredit Wilson's account of the Iraq intelligence ?

Naturalized-Texan

07-27-2005, 05:17 PM

Web: The "journalist" who had ALL of the details about Wilson/Plame first was a guy by the name of Corn. I posted a link to that info about 10 days ago.

Naturalized-Texan

07-27-2005, 05:44 PM

As a favor to you, here is the link and a quote from the article about David Corn that I linked to on July 18, 2005. I really don't want to get into a habit of doing your research for you, but I'll make an exception this time:

Did the CIA “Out” Valerie Plame? (http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200507180801.asp)

My colleague Cliff May has already demonstrated (http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200507150827.asp) the bankruptcy of the narrative the media relentlessly spouts for Bush-bashing public consumption: to wit, that Valerie Wilson, nee Plame, was identified as a covert CIA agent by the columnist Robert Novak, to whom she was compromised by an administration official. In fact, it appears Plame was first outed to the general public as a result of a consciously loaded and slyly hypothetical piece by the journalist David Corn. Corn's source appears to have been none other than Plame's own husband, former ambassador and current Democratic-party operative Joseph Wilson — that same pillar of national security rectitude whose notion of discretion, upon being dispatched by the CIA for a sensitive mission to Niger, was to write a highly public op-ed about his trip in the New York Times. This isn't news to the media; they have simply chosen not to report it.

Here is an excerpt from Cliff May's article linked to above:

So if Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was a secret agent, who did? The evidence strongly suggests it was none other than Joe Wilson himself. Let me walk you through the steps that lead to this conclusion.

The first reference to Plame being a secret agent appears in The Nation, in an article by David Corn published July 16, 2003, just two days after Novak’s column appeared. It carried this lead: “Did Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security — and break the law — in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?”

Since Novak did not report that Plame was “working covertly” how did Corn know that’s what she had been doing?

Corn does not tell his readers and he has responded to a query from me only by pointing out that he was asking a question, not making a “statement of fact.” But in the article, he asserts that Novak “outed” Plame “as an undercover CIA officer.” Again, Novak did not do that. Rather, it is Corn who is, apparently for the first time, “outing” Plame’s “undercover” status.

Corn follows that assertion with a quote from Wilson saying, “I will not answer questions about my wife.” Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn’s questions about his wife — after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background? Read the rest of Corn’s piece and it’s difficult to believe anything else. Corn names no other sources for the information he provides — and he provides much more information than Novak revealed.

Corn also claims that Wilson “will not confirm nor deny that his wife …works for the CIA.” Corn adds: “But let’s assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson …”

On what basis could Corn “assume” that Plame was not only working covertly but was actually a “top-secret” operative? And where did Corn get the idea that Plame had been “outed” in order to punish Wilson? That is not suggested by anything in the Novak column which, as I noted, is sympathetic to Wilson and Plame.

Federal Farmer

07-28-2005, 10:26 PM

No, not far-fetched at all. Of course the NYT would bend over backwards to release dirt on the administration. The thing is, though, that there needn't have been any leak from the WH or the press. Sure, the press is always after the administration, but it's also no secret that the CIA bureaucrats are lefties, as is Wilson. The CIA or Wilson (or Plame herself) could have leaked, in which case we're back to one or both leak laws. It's also no secret that the State Department is infiltrated with lefties, too. The leak could have come from State. Consider this: there was a 7/10/03 State Department memo that named Plame as a previous operative, but whether that was the main thrust of the memo we don't know. It may have been incidental information. All such memoes carefully note which parts/pieces of information are classified. The State Department would receive information about CIA operatives from the CIA, unless it was memorialized in the memo as an allegation, I would think. It seems more plausible to me that the leak came from one of those agencies or Plame or Wilson. All would be entities that the NYT would like to protect for as long as possible, leaving Rove and the administration twisting in the wind. It was a CIA senior administrator that leaked in Watergate.

Who benefits by the leak? Whomever wants to give the administration a black eye and take out Rove for revenge. I think the elitist Washington left hate him as much or more than they do Bush. In order to accomplish that, they'd have to either manipulate the press or have the press's open cooperation, neither of which would be difficult. Only a couple would be needed.

Another question: Why didn't Miller publish a story on the Plame/Wilson maneuvering to get Wilson the job, including the leaked info? She's reputed to have a zillion contacts in the administration and WA in general. She wrote many of the news reports about the war in Iraq, Her colleagues felt she was too easy on the administration in her articles If Rove was Miller's source, there'd be no reason for the NYT to want to protect the source, just as you say, so why are they letting Miller languish in jail?

That's brings me to other people who would know Plame's past and status, and that's who was in the previous administration during or after Plame's actual undercover assignement overseas, namely the Clintons. So would Kerry have known - he is and has been on the senate intel committee, and they get that kind of information, too. I don't think it's a stretch to say he'd have loved to have knocked Rove out before the election as well as after.
I think your analysis is spot on Venus. I've always said this is dirty politics. Anything with the likes of Daschle, Pelosi, Conyers (the Dems who first called for the GAO to look into it) is going to smell.

hdmundt

07-29-2005, 10:28 AM

No, not far-fetched at all. Of course the NYT would bend over backwards to release dirt on the administration. The thing is, though, that there needn't have been any leak from the WH or the press. Sure, the press is always after the administration, but it's also no secret that the CIA bureaucrats are lefties, as is Wilson. The CIA or Wilson (or Plame herself) could have leaked, in which case we're back to one or both leak laws. It's also no secret that the State Department is infiltrated with lefties, too. The leak could have come from State. Consider this: there was a 7/10/03 State Department memo that named Plame as a previous operative, but whether that was the main thrust of the memo we don't know. It may have been incidental information. All such memoes carefully note which parts/pieces of information are classified. The State Department would receive information about CIA operatives from the CIA, unless it was memorialized in the memo as an allegation, I would think. It seems more plausible to me that the leak came from one of those agencies or Plame or Wilson. All would be entities that the NYT would like to protect for as long as possible, leaving Rove and the administration twisting in the wind. It was a CIA senior administrator that leaked in Watergate.

Who benefits by the leak? Whomever wants to give the administration a black eye and take out Rove for revenge. I think the elitist Washington left hate him as much or more than they do Bush. In order to accomplish that, they'd have to either manipulate the press or have the press's open cooperation, neither of which would be difficult. Only a couple would be needed.

Another question: Why didn't Miller publish a story on the Plame/Wilson maneuvering to get Wilson the job, including the leaked info? She's reputed to have a zillion contacts in the administration and WA in general. She wrote many of the news reports about the war in Iraq, Her colleagues felt she was too easy on the administration in her articles If Rove was Miller's source, there'd be no reason for the NYT to want to protect the source, just as you say, so why are they letting Miller languish in jail?

That's brings me to other people who would know Plame's past and status, and that's who was in the previous administration during or after Plame's actual undercover assignement overseas, namely the Clintons. So would Kerry have known - he is and has been on the senate intel committee, and they get that kind of information, too. I don't think it's a stretch to say he'd have loved to have knocked Rove out before the election as well as after.

Sounds pert 'near right to me.
Why doesn't Miller just testify, toss off her stripes, and hide herself in the bosom of the NYT legal department? With that option available to her, is she really protecting herself, Matt Cooper or the Wilson's to this degree (i.e., going to prison)? If not, who in her world inspires that kind of loyalty? At the risk of being accused of needing a new collander I'm going to suggest considering "Hillary" as the answer to that question. Her own personal abstracts of the 900 FBI files probably contain a lot of leak-quality information. I've read that Matt Cooper's wife is a high-level strategist for the Hillary machine. It isn't as if the Dems and the media avoid each other's company. The possible connections are there.
In any case, I'll be shocked if this whole thing is not, in fact, another Dem-witted stratagem gone bad.

Venus de Smilo

07-29-2005, 12:18 PM

Hdmundt, the NYT legal team protects the NYT. That's a big hint right there.

I don't think Hillary-behind-the-curtain is an impossibility.

The point is, I think, that it's pretty clear that different journalists were either complicit or unwitting players in disseminating a piece of information that could be known to a vast number (by D.C. standards) of people going back to at least the point in time that Plame worked overseas in a covert position (which started about ten years ago, I believe), and that dissemination had a purpose.

My guess is that Fitzgerald knows who Miller's source was, or at least certainly who all it wasn't.