Murray Waas' latest scoop seems to bring us closer to the conclusion that the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation is, in fact, a de facto investigation of the vice president of the United States. The "sand thrown in the eyes of the umpire" by Scooter Libby's leak may yet turn out to be dirt meant to keep prosecutors from eyeing their real target: Dick Cheney. To Waas' latest National Journal entry:
Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report.
The March 2002 intelligence report was a debriefing of Wilson by the CIA's Directorate of Operations after Wilson returned from a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger to investigate claims, later proved to be unfounded, that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation, according to government records.
The debriefing report made no mention of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, then a covert CIA officer, or any role she may have played in her husband's selection by the CIA to go to Niger, according to two people who have read the report. Now let's pause here for a moment to recall that Mr. Cheney said publicly, inlcuding on "Meet the Press," after the Plamegate scandal broke, that he never knew who Joe Wilson was, let alone that he had been sent to Niger. But apparently, according to his former deputy, Libby, he knew quite well about Wilson's trip, and the debriefing of the former ambassador after it had been accomplished. Read on:
The previously unreported grand jury testimony is significant because only hours after Cheney reportedly instructed Libby to disclose information from the CIA report, Libby divulged to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper that Plame was a CIA officer, and that she been involved in selecting her husband for the Niger mission. [emphasis added] Again, the significance here is that Libby has already testified to learning Ms. Plame-Wilson's identity from his boss, the vice president. How are we now to believe that his later disclosures to Cooper and Miller were simply accidental reiterations of tidbits they had told him? Not likely...
Both Libby and Cheney have repeatedly insisted that the vice president never encouraged, directed, or authorized Libby to disclose Plame's identity. In a court filing on April 12, Libby's attorneys reiterated: "Consistent with his grand jury testimony, Mr. Libby does not contend that he was instructed to make any disclosures concerning Ms. Wilson [Plame] by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or anyone else."
But the disclosure that Cheney instructed Libby to leak portions of a classified CIA report on Joseph Wilson adds to a growing body of information showing that at the time Plame was outed as a covert CIA officer the vice president was deeply involved in the White House effort to undermine her husband. ... And they'll likely stick to that story, right up until the moment the vice president is called to the witness stand.
The only question, it seems to me, is when does Mr. Cheney become more of a liability to President Bush than he's worth? One more bite, and then you can read the entire article for yourself:
On April 5, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, asserted in a court filing that Joseph Wilson's July 6, 2003 op-ed piece in The New York Times criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq policies "was viewed in the office of Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq."
Moreover, on July 12, 2003, the same day that Libby spoke to both Cooper and Miller, Libby and Cheney traveled aboard Air Force Two for the dedication of a new aircraft carrier in Norfolk, Va. During the flight either to or from Norfolk, Cheney, Libby, and Cathie Martin, then-assistant to the vice president for public affairs, discussed how they might rebut Wilson's charges and discredit him, according to federal court records, and interviews with people with first-hand knowledge of accounts that all three provided to federal investigators.
It has long been known that Cheney was among the first people in the government to tell Libby that Plame worked for the CIA. The federal indictment of Libby -- who has been charged with five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators in the CIA leak case -- states: "On or about June 12, 2003, Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."
Fitzgerald asserted that just days before Libby divulged Plame's identity to Miller and Cooper on July 12, "Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate superior, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife." Although contained in a public court filing, this second conversation between Cheney and Libby had gone unreported.
The new disclosure about the CIA report further raises questions about the vice president's role in directly authorizing the leak of classified information outside the formal declassification process. Last week it was reported that Libby also testified to the grand jury that Cheney told him that as part of the effort to rebut Wilson's criticism, President Bush had authorized the leaking of portions of a then-classified National Intelligence Estimate concerning purported attempts by Iraq to develop nuclear weapons. [emphasis added]
Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush. Three men who have made more mistakes than seem normal for a wartime presidency. Seems to me that somebody whose first name is Pat and whose last name rhymes with "whitzgerald" is zeroing in on the man in the middle.
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Tags: Plamegate, Karl Rove, Valerie Plame, Politics, Libby, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Ari Fleischer, Patrick Fitzgerald, Fitzmas, |
