Leopold: Vice President Lied As White House Sought To Defuse Leak Inquiry

[althecat]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00120.htm

Vice President Lied As White House Sought To Defuse Leak Inquiry

By Jason Leopold

Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?

That’s one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It’s unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned—not under oath—about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.

The five-count criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury last month against Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press.

Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.

MORE:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00120.htm

[Canuckistanian]

1. So Fitz can't get him for perjury

Since he was not under oath. But there's another charge - Making False Statements? Is that right?

[funflower]

3. And maybe obstruction?

[astonamous]

4. Even if he wasn't under oath, he can be charged with

obstruction.

[reprobate]

13. Yes, someone posted a link to applicable law. Title 18, I think

It provides that anyone making giving wrong information to any government official, committee, etc. was to be charged with a felony. The law did not require that the information be given under oath.

So the Dirty Dick, if lying to a gov't official is due for a vacation on the government at Club Fed. And no one deserves the honor more.

[wookie294]

2. This is not LBN

And Cheney did testify under oath.

"Cheney was interviewed under oath by Fitzgerald last year."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/25/news/leak.php

[aquart]

5. The NYT backed off the oath thing.

[wookie294]

6. When ? n/t

[stillcool]

9. found a link here...

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/10/26/851/35989
P.S. JPol sent this along from the NYT: "A front-page article yesterday about the C.I.A. leak investigation misstated the terms under which Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed last year by the special counsel in the case. He was not under oath." (Published: October 26, 2005) I hope that's the last correction in THAT story.

if you subscribe you can look it up...i don't.

[althecat]

23. This continues to annoy me..... Why is Scoop not LBN?

I have never recieved a satisfactory explanation. This story was carried by ZNET and then was the lead item in Truthout's bulletin today.....

And because it is not CNN/Washpost/NYT (aka Media Whore News) it is not LBN...

[stillcool]

7. My favorite snip....

White House suggested investigation was waste of time

In hindsight, it now seems that the White House, including President Bush, attempted to steer reporters away from covering the Plame leak by saying the “leaker” would never be found.

On October 7, 2003, Bush and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, said that the White House ruled out three administration officials - Rove, Libby and Elliot Abrams, a senior official on the National Security Council, as sources of the leak - a day before FBI questioned the three of them - based on questions McClellan said he asked the men.

[daleo]

8. They are coming for you Cheney

You better hope torture isn't permitted by then, regardless how much you love it now. When thousands of parents find out how their kids died over your lies, they will want justice.

[willyd]

10. The CIA was responsible for blowing Valerie Plame's Cover...

by their own admission her dossier containing her real name and CIA status was delivered to the US embassy in Cuba. The documents were not given the correct security level and were read by Cuban officials. Her covert status was ended at that point. That is why she has an analyst job which she drives to every day in the CIA headquarters. It is also why she is able to be on the cover of Vanity Fair without fear of blowing her cover. The Washigton Post did the original story on it if you want to look it up. That is why this whole train is going nowhere.

[Pastiche423]

11. Tried to look it up

Din't find it.

Link, please.

[reprobate]

12. Apparently you are the only person privy to this information.

Where, pray tell can the rest or us who aren't among the elite find this?

And BTW, as I recall the CIA stated that her status was under cover up until she was outed by the White House.

If I may suggest, it is proper form here to provide a link to such information when making a statement like that.

Otherwise, you might be more comfortable elsewhere, at places on the internet that are not so fussy about the provenance of 'news'.

[althecat]

14. I love this post willyd......

Cognitive dissonance in its purest form...

[althecat]

15. Found the source.... (Mooney Times - National Review - Andrew McCarthy)

Google leads here...
http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200507180801.asp
(which seems to be dead...)
tis archived (surprise surprise) at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1511588/posts
See also...
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/17176

Which leads to the original source
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040722-115439-4033r.htm


....

This CIA disclosure, moreover, is said to have been made not to Americans at large but to Fidel Castro's anti-American regime in Cuba, whose palpable incentive would have been to "compromise[] every operation, every relationship, every network with which had been associated in her entire career" — to borrow from the diatribe in which Wilson risibly compared his wife's straits to the national security catastrophes wrought by Aldrich Ames and Kim Philby.

....

And it is priceless. The press informs the judges that the CIA itself "inadvertently" compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana. In the Washington Times article — you remember, the one the press hypes when it reports to the federal court but not when it reports to consumers of its news coverage — Gertz elaborates that "he documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them."

....

The defense in Section 422 requires that the revelation by the United States have been done "publicly." At least one U.S. official who spoke to Gertz speculated that because the Havana snafu was not "publicized" — i.e., because the classified information about Plame was mistakenly communicated to Cuba rather than broadcast to the general public — it would not available as a defense to whomever spoke with Novak. But that seems clearly wrong.

...

All this raises several readily apparent questions. We know that at the time of the Novak and Corn articles, Plame was not serving as an intelligence agent outside the United States. Instead, she had for years been working, for all to see, at CIA headquarters in Langley. Did her assignment to headquarters have anything to do with her effectiveness as a covert agent having already been nullified by disclosure to the Russians and the Cubans — and to whomever else the Russians and Cubans could be expected to tell if they thought it harmful to American interests or advantageous to their own?

[althecat]

16. Mindyou.. this piece of gold dust seems to be going nowhere fast

http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-29,GGLD:en&q=valerie+plame+cuba&tab=wn&scoring=d

[jsamuel]

22. "U.S. officials say" - Who? Rove, Libby, and Cheney?

[althecat]

17. So was it ok for Rove, Libby and Cheney to break the law and lie coz...

... they knew plame had already been compromised and so decided it would be ok for them to do it too?

[Boo Boo]

18. Wouldn't matter, even if it were true, willyd

As Fitzgerald pointed out during his press conference, he did not intend to prosecute anyone using the identity protection act. He cited instead the espionage statute which governs the communication of classified information. V. Wilson's job at CIA was in the Directorate of Operations, which is classified information.

Neither Cheney, nor Libby would be the least bit confused that they were not allowed to give that information to people not authorized to receive it. In fact, Libby, according to the indictment, had a phone conversation during which he stated that he could not discuss V. Wilson's CIA status over an unsecured telephone, so it seems pretty clear that he knew he was dealing with classified information.

The definitive source for all this is not the WaPo, or some right wing talking head---it is Fitzgerald. He explained his investigation during a public press conference, and was very clear about the reasons why Libby was charged with lying and obstruction.

The train has left the station and it's definitely going somewhere.

[mainer]

19. Why would her name be sent to cuba?

I'm trying to understand the logic of this. She worked in WMD's. So ... our embassy just HAPPENS to broadcast the name of a covert agent to some country in which she's not involved? For what purpose? Why send her name at all?

Also, I notice that the Washington Times article says its information about this came from sources who refused to be name. Could their source be ... Scooter libby?

[Beetwasher]

20. Well, In That Case, Fitz Must Just be Chasing Rainbows

Why, in fact, the CIA must have their heads up their asses since THEY are the one's who wanted her outing investigated. Now, why would they do that?

Just click your heels together three times Dorothy and say "This whole train is going nowhere, this whole train is going nowhere, this whole train is going nowhere..."

Pathetic. How does it feel to defend blatant treason?

[Richard Steele]

21. More "magical secret facts" that only repubs can see?

Your story is ridiculous crap.
Utterly false.

The only REAL question is: Did you make up this fiction
all by yourself, or did you have help?