Fitzmas: Does defense strategy open door for future indictments?

[Cetacea]

I am by no means a legal scholar and maybe someone could help me out here.
I believe that Fitz, knowing that Libby was covering for everyone deliberately used Libby and his sources so that the defense would have no choice but to have other journalists testify that their sources were not from Libby. By the end of the defense portion of the trial, it will be evident to anyone with a brain that marching orders could have only come from Cheney, Bush, Rove, or all three of them.

[hlthe2b]

1. Seems like he's opening the door for Congress

re: investgations/impeachment...I don't know about other indictments, but one can only hope..



To whomever gave me the donation heart... Thanks so much! I'm very touched. :loveya:

[Cetacea]

2. Thanks. I meant to add Congressional Investigations as well.eom

[displacedtexan]

3. Who hired Libby's defense team? Cheney?

Unless Wells has one bodacious ace up his sleeve, it looks like
Libby could appeal based on a bad defense attorney.

Jeez. Wells hasn't spent more than a minute trying to refute the
charges against his client (lying and obstructing).

Instead, it looks like Wells is defending Cheney.

Or did I miss something?

[PoiBoy]

7. The presidential pardon at the end of the rainbow?

Why try to refute the irrefutable? It's only "lying and obstructing"... a minor violation in the eyes of BushCo. I submit Libby is willing to "take the hit", knowing that BushCo will pardon him (Libby), no matter what..

We can only hope that Fitz or Congress will escalate Libby's upcoming conviction for "lying and obstructing" into commission of a treasonous act for revealing the identity of an active, covert CIA agent...

...then let's see BushCo try to pardon someone convicted of treason...

[flyarm]

8. bow tie boy..tucker's dad is involved in the fund raising for the defence of libby! n/t

[hughee99]

4. From what I've seen, I don't think so

I'd like to believe it would open the door, but if the stories about Richard Armitage's role in this are true, I think it would be difficult to make a case (and make it stick) against Darth, * or KKKarl.

[Cetacea]

5. Did Amirtage have direct access to Plame's status?

Not that I believe his story. I know he's been an insider over the years but am not sure if he'd need Bush or Darth to know the NOC status?

[hughee99]

6. I don't know if he knew her status...

but it has been reported that Armitage had leaked the name to Novakula while the White House conspiracy was still in their "planning" stages. IMHO, If they can show the name got out there in the first place without their help, it's going to be a lot harder to make the case that the White House was the one pushing this information. I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that I'd be surprised to see any of them actually face trial for this. Unfortunately, no one's going to get them into court (at least * and Darth, KKKarl could still be a possibility, I guess) unless they have a slam dunk case.

[Cetacea]

9. hmmm...

Considering Plame's NOC status, and the type of work that BJ was involved with, I don't see how anyone but Darth or * could have at least initiated the process. All those trips to Langley are highly unprecedented . But yes, how this can be proven is another matter.

[hughee99]

10. I don't really see how that would have worked either...

but if they can show that the information got out there from Armitage, and that he didn't get this info from the White House, then it would make * and Darth's potential defense much easier and a prosecutor much less likely to get them to trial.

As I said, I'd like to believe that they will be held accountable, but from what I've seen so far anyway, I don't think it's going to happen.

[EVDebs]

11. Defense witnesses Pincus and Woodward intelligence backgrounds

makes exposing THEIR ties to the intell verrrrrry interesting.

Pincus has admitted ties to CIA and potentially Operation Mockingbird (which is assumed to be ongoing)

""In 1977, Rolling Stone alleged that one of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists alleged by Rolling Stone Magazine to have been willing to promote the views of the CIA included Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), Charles Douglas Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), William C. Baggs (The Miami News), Herb Gold (The Miami News) and Charles Bartlett (Chattanooga Times). <5> According to Nina Burleigh (A Very Private Woman), these journalists sometimes wrote articles that were commissioned by Frank Wisner. The CIA also provided them with classified information to help them with their work. <6>""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Woodward's intelligence background is now public knowledge yet his covert operations status potential, like Pincus's, in the domestic realm leave many unanswered questions

Probe bio of Woodward
http://www.ctka.net/pr196-woodward.html

Woodward's and Sen Bennett's Watergate Deep Throat connections
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/07.03.97/scoop-9727.html

"""I have told Woodward everything I know about the Watergate case, except the Mullen Company's tie to the CIA."--Robert F. Bennett, testifying before House Special Committee on Intelligence, July 2, 1974.

Robert Bennett was the head of Robert R. Mullen and Co., a CIA front headquartered in the very same building as the CIA's Domestic Operations Division. ""

Exposing these two "journalists" domestic intelligence operations, illegal according to the CIA's charter, would go a long way to get further domestic operations by the Republican goon squads who have infiltrated the nether lands of our intel community outted.

[EVDebs]

12. Someone PLEASE mention Operation Mockingbird at this trial, huh ?

Get a brain DUers. This is the camel's nose under the Domestic Operations illegality's tent !

Unless you want to wait to get screwed first hand in Denver in '08

CIA Plans to Shift Work to Denver
Domestic Division Would Be Moved

by Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 6, 2005; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/05/AR2005050501860.html

Domestic operations working to suppress legitimate dissent against an illegal war is itself illegal !

Operation CHAOS shows us this is against the CIA's charter:

""For over fifteen years, the CIA, with assistance from numerous government agencies, conducted a massive illegal domestic covert operation called Operation CHAOS. It was one of the largest and most pervasive domestic surveillance programs in the history of this country. Throughout the duration of CHAOS, the CIA spied on thousands of U.S. citizens. The CIA went to great lengths to conceal this operation from the public while every president from Eisenhower to Nixon exploited CHAOS for his own political ends.""

and this,

""After Richard Nixon took office in January 1969, Helms continued operations with the assurance that nothing would ever be leaked to the public. But he began to face pressure from two opposing factions within the CIA community.

One wanted to expand domestic operations even more, while the other reminded him that Operation CHAOS and similar activities were well "over the line" of illegality and outside the CIA's charter. To put a damper on this internal dissent, Helms ordered Ober to stop discussing these activities with his direct boss in counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton. The internal protests continued, however, as White House aide and staunch anti-Communist Tom Charles Huston, pressed for ever increasing domestic operations. ""

from

Domestic Surveillance:
The History of Operation CHAOS
by Verne Lyon
from Covert Action Information Bulletin, Summer 1990
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html

Without supervision or oversight, domestic operations by default and human nature WILL ALWAYS RUN AMUCK !

Fitz has a real chance here to open the doors on this and get a new Church Committee hearing started. Sooner the better DUers.

[Cetacea]

13. Thanks! nt

[EVDebs]

14. You're welcome anytime 'choke ! nt