*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns
In today’s Washington Post ombudsman column, “Covert Question, Open Controversy,” Deborah Howell says, “Wilson’s New York Times op-ed piece, critical of the Bush administration’s use of intelligence, set off a chain of events that led to the disclosure of Plame’s job.”
But information and testimony revealed during the course of the Libby Trial indicates that it wasn’t Wilson’s op-ed piece that set the off the chain of events leading to their disclosure of the CIA WMD analyst and her covert network. The Bush administration began its campaign to discredit Valerie Plame/Wilson at least a month prior to the release of her husband’s article.
I can’t criticize Howell for her focus on the op-ed as the ball that got the campaign rolling. I, and most of the media, having been basically taking the same line in previous postings on this topic. Most of the writers on the CIA leak have been doing the same. Joseph Wilson’s book, The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat’s Memoir: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity
But when Wilson wrote his book, he did not have access to behind-the-scenes discussions about his wife now revealed through the perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff. Retaliation there was, in spades, but testimony and documents in the Libby trial demonstrate, unrefuted, that administration discussion of Mrs. Wilson began several weeks before Wilson’s column appeared.
The reasons why are still unclear, and the prosecution was not permitted to delve into ramifications of the leak. But that the administration was already targeting both Wilson and his wife, Valerie — overseeing a crucial intelligence network monitoring WMD activity in the middle east — is now beyond question.
So why, beyond Wilson’s op-ed, was the Bush Administration previously so intent on discrediting one of its own CIA assets?…
Trial testimony and evidence show the Administration already gunning for Plame/Wilson well prior to her husband’s editorial. While the prosecution isn’t allowed to say this very directly, because it would be too prejudicial, here is the timeline of the pre-op-ed activities:
- May 29, 2003 ““ Libby calls Marc Grossman, then an Under Secretary in the State Department, asking how and why Joe Wilson was sent to Niger about uranium.
- “late May and early June, 2003″ according to Grossman’s testimony — Grossman gives oral interim reports to Libby that Wilson was the ambassador who went to Niger (mentioned but not named in a May 6 NYTimes piece by Nicholas Kristof, “Missing in Action: Truth“).
- June 9, 2003, according to Grossman’s testimony ““ Grossman had a conversation with Wilson, who was “upset” about Condoleezza Rice’s claim the day before on Meet the Press that the White House was unaware of doubts about the Niger uranium story. (In his book, Wilson says this conversation “elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself”; he got in touch with the NYTimes the same day. p.332.)
- June 9, 2003 ““ classified documents from CIA are faxed to the Office of the Vice President to Libby and colleague John Hannah, mentioning the Wilson trip but not naming Wilson.
- June 10, 2003 ““ a classified State Department memo written by State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR) gives Grossman the background on Wilson’s Niger trip, refers explicitly to Valerie Wilson as Wilson’s wife and “a CIA WMD manager.” The memo also strongly debunks the Niger uranium story.
- June 11, 2003 ““ Robert L. Grenier, then “Iraq mission manager” and “point person for Iraq,” receives a phone call from Libby, then is summoned from a meeting with the CIA Director to talk with Libby about Wilson; tells Libby Wilson’s wife is in CIA. (Grenier is no longer with the CIA.)
- June 11/12, 2003 ““ Marc Grossman has a “30-second discussion” about Mrs. Wilson with Libby, according to Grossman’s testimony.
- June 12, 2003 ““ Libby is informed by Cheney in a phone call that Wilson’s wife is in CIA (handwritten note: “CP: his wife works in that div”).
- June 12, 2003 ““ David Addington, Cheney’s government lawyer, receives the same notes from Libby’s office mentioning Wilson’s wife in CP (typed copy).
- June 13, 2003 ““ Richard L. Armitage tells Bob Woodward, on tape, that Mrs. Wilson works for CIA, suggests that Mrs. Wilson sent Wilson on the Niger trip.
- June 14, 2003 ““ CIA daily briefer Craig Schmall briefing of Libby at Libby’s home notes question about Wilson (“ex-amb”) and the Niger trip, notes Wilson and Valerie Wilson by name.
- June 23, 2003 ““ Libby has a discussion with Judith Miller, mentions Wilson’s wife at “bureau” (CIA). (Miller had returned to the U.S. on June 8.)
- July 6, 2003 ““ Joseph Wilson’s op-ed criticizing the Niger story finally appears in the NYTimes.
Additionally, on June 20, June 23 and June 27, according to a cautious statement by Bob Woodward in the WashPost, Woodward met with another official, spoke with Libby on the phone and then met with Libby, bringing items including “yellowcake” and “Joe Wilson’s wife” with him.
So why were there all these colloquies in the administration, about Wilson’s wife, before Wilson’s article even came out?
Retaliation is too simple an answer. Wilson had already expressed doubts about the war and WMD on television programs from January through April, 2003. He seems to have pulled his punches sometimes ““ undoubtedly wondering whether the White House might actually have some evidence of Iraq WMD ““ but he still made plenty of public comments that could have irritated the White House into attacking him, or investigating him, at any time. There is no sign that they did so until May ““ a month when Wilson made few if any public remarks.
Nor does the administration seem to have tipped its hand to the Wilsons beforehand to stop Wilson from going public.
What did happen in regard to Niger uranium ““ before Kristof’s piece ““ is that Seymour Hersh published a devastating New Yorker article, “Who Lied to Whom?” in March, which reappeared on April 22 as “Iraq Post Mortem” in the British magazine Prospect. The article emphasized the blatantly forged Niger documents that generated the “yellowcake” brouhaha. (Judith Miller, for one, seems to have backed down on Iraq WMD immediately following the definitive debunking in Prospect.) Did the administration simply decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Wilson, convinced that his going public would be the last straw on the “mushroom cloud”? Or with its usual tin ear, did it fear that Joe Wilson and Seymour Hersh would join forces? Or did it go for a two-fer, moving to disrupt analysis in the WMD counter-proliferation unit at the CIA where Mrs. Wilson worked?
If so, it moved fast: by the time Wilson’s column appeared, his wife’s name and CIA connection had already been leaked to Bob Woodward of the Post and Judith Miller of the Times ““ for 23 days and 13 days, respectively. Note: Armitage, Woodward’s source, is another Cheney man and has been since before Bush 41.
Whatever the reasons for the activity and whatever the trial outcome, one point continues to be clear: The man at the top who chose Dick Cheney as his Vice, is ultimately — and Constitutionally — responsible.
Got my champagne chilled in case of a guilty verdict (oh please TOMORROW oh please oh please). I’ll have to buy an entire CASE if this leads to Cheney’s indictment.
OT – BRAD – another White House scrub?
The White House website is getting scrubbed
Cheney is rather the sadistic sort wouldn’t we say? I think he yearns for someone to cross him, gathering ammunition in the meantime. That’s all he’s about. It’s all a sick game. Anyone who may show he’s wrong is a target. And he LOVES to “send messages”.
Any way doesn’t some CIA person have to have tipped Cheney off early? In order for Libby to be ordered into hot pursuit? I can’t imagine that Cheney can pull all of his “fact” from that tapeworm that was his gray matter. (Where’s House when you need him.)
IMHO, I think if the jury is serious they’ll have to listen to the tape, put faces to names, rehash, take their time. I think they need time to convict – the more the better. Say Tuesday? 🙂 STILL, the investigation will go on won’t it? Cheney next?
Thank you Margie for laying out the time frame and names. I tried to do it but got lost…
I personally think they went for the two-fer. Outed Valerie to make it easier to sell the invasion of Iran as she likely would contradict their claims of Iran having nuclear weapons.
Joe Wilson is a true patriot.
My bet — it had something to do with Iran. They conveniently thwarted CIA work that possibly would have shown that Iran was no where close to having nuclear weapons.
http://stopiranwar.com/
(The above is not only a message to Jr (which we all know will do no good), but a resource to contact Congress as well as the media. If you want to skip the message to Jr. part, click the “Take Action” link at top of page.)
Was it Novak who told Chris Matthews Wilson’s wife was something like… “fair game”?
These people are sick… And when are the Dem’s going to start saying so at every opportunity…in public!?
Diane:
I’m almost positive Matthews said it was Karl Rove that made the “fair game” statement. I don’t know why that never comes up anymore, it’s not only illuminating but disturbingly evil.
Imagine you are Cheney, making those 17 unprecedented trips to the CIA, trying to drum up excuses to go into Iraq, with the British insisting upon the UN route. Now picture if you will, an agent at Langley and she keeps telling you there is nothing and she will not compromise the truth.
Seymour Hersh’s April 10, 2006 article in the New Yorker quoted an anonymous official saying,
Now she is messing with your plans to steal Iraqi oil and you are running out of time. So you keep coming back to Langley to put pressure on her, but she sticks to her guns and the truth.
That isn’t what you want to hear. Now being the biggest Dick in the country, also makes you a vengeful prick. So you start the process of revenge, because you know she is eventually going to be trouble. Especially since Iran is next on the agenda.
Plame worked on the Counterproliferation Task Force; she was working on WMD intelligence gathering activities regarding Iran.
If this were a great work of fiction, a moive script of epic proportions … Iran would Cheney’s nemesis, his Moby Dick, as it were (tailgate party photos notwithstanding). And he must get it, like Captain Ahab, he must do … something. Revenge? Just what has gotten into Dick?)
It makes sense that he would need to remove Plame from the field for her Iran WMDs non-proliferation work and destroy that office’s years of contacts, shile simultaneously silencing a pesky critic of the first stage, thus any impediment to the successful implementation of the Long Occupation in Iraq, once Wilson’s Op-ed slipped out… then use Iraq as an opportunistic proxy, a probably-bloodier-than-he-expected stand-in, for war with Iran. Iraq becomes, intentionally or not, a geographically convenient staging ground for a “next phase” in this script.
But why?
…that is, if this were a movie, or a great work of fiction.
Oh, looks like Bull Dog #9 got to it first. I must have been composing my comment about the same time he posted his.
KBE #1 and Miss Persistent #3
Remember a few years ago when ZERO evidence had been produced and the whole thing was in a fog.
We hypothesized that since they are a top-down, decider in chief down, and lock-step regime, that Libby would do nothing on his own.
Independent thinking is not the way things are done at the regime building.
We concluded way back then that Cheney and Bush were the originators of the crime.
Hey time shows we were correct and accurate … while Ricky said we were conspiracy nuts. 🙂
On this blog, I have also been calling the American Government during the 109th congress years the “republican dictatorship”.
I have been pointing out that we ought not look back to Hitler and Mussolini for examples of a dictatorship. A modern dictatorship which has years of psyop type professional training is smooth and not apparent to those who are not watching closely. Anything that thwarts the will of the people is a part of dictatorship.
A great mystery happened in the ’08 election and the congress was transformed in part.
That was a signal to the republican dictatorship, and some republicans in congress do not want to be a part of the dictatorship any more.
But will it matter?. Check this out:
(AP Report, emphasis added).
That makes it official that the scope of the republican dictatorship has been narrowed to the Bush regime.
But is it now more dangerous, since it is now in open defiance to the congress the people recently elected?
A recent dailykos piece that got picked up in newspapers across the world made the startling point that the VP’s efforts were to discredit and thereby dismantle the CIA’s counterproliferation unit. Haunting analysis that manages to makes sense of the big WHY in terms that make sense:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyon.../7/112015/2282
It has been said that Plame was the original target because with her expertize on the proliferation of WMD in Iran she would have to be removed so she wouldn’t be there to refute the bullshit the administration is spewing about Iran now.
One has to remember that Iran has always been the target. The saying in this administration has been, “Real men go to Tehran”. Read PANC. It’s all there.
There is a good case to be made that it wasn’t Wilson they wanted to neutralize, but Plame.
Months ago for one day only and no longer covered by any media was a story that she stopped some WMD from going into Iraq as planned by Cheney’s covert action so they could be discovered.
Hello? What about Brewster Jennings? I remember reading that, just prior to the “outing” of Plame, Brewster Jennings was responsible for the interception of a shipment of “WMDs” that were being transported to Iraq from along the Turkish border. It was a black op, the mission of which was to plant WMDs in Iraq to falsely justify the invasion. When Cheney got wind of the interception, he went ballistic. THAT’S why, in a second Robert Novak column, Novak outs BREWSTER JENNINGS as the brass plate company within which Plame did her work.
No one seems to want to connect the dots to the Brewster Jennings interception. Why is that?
Let’s not forget, that they stole the 2000 election, too. the stolen 2004 election was a result of the stolen 2000 election, so the 2000 one is worse. So, we’re in this situation because of election fraud.
BUT…how good was our system, if we were ONE stolen presidential election away from this??? What’s the difference WHEN they stole it? If we were ONE stolen election away from FASCISM, then this democracy wasn’t setup good to begin with.
We need to impeach, the Dems need to impeach. We need to clear up the radio and TV airwaves of propoganda, and we need to have elections in which EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS!
Dems??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT ALL OF THIS???
We need to start seeing people thrown in the slammer for what they did to our country!!!!!!!!!
The 2000 election, Bush was APPOINTED BY THE CROOKED SUPREME COURT AND SCALIA…who had a conflict of interest in the case. They overrode the STATE SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA, proving that “conservatives” are full of shit, that they believe in STATE RIGHTS over FEDERAL…another line of “conservative BULLSHIT”…
The Supreme Court members should be treated like the treasonous criminals they are, and thrown in the slammer!!!
Of course, the common link involved in everything, is the corporate media did not tell us all of this.
Reply to “Gonnuts” comment #15: I have not been reading Kos while sitting in on the trial, because I don’t want to be influenced unduly. However, my friend Wayne Madsen was actually all over this topic back in 2005. See for example http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/2005_july.php: ” The untold story of Rovegate may be whether the White House not only leaked the name of Joseph Wilson’s wife for purely political retaliation but also to close down her and her Brewster Jennings’ team’s work on counter-WMD proliferation. Some insiders believe that the CIA covert group was getting uncomfortably close to clandestine business deals that would have exposed members of the Bush family and their closest political and business friends.”
The biggest problem of all, is that we were ONE STOLEN ELECTION AWAY FROM ALL OF THIS!!!
So, WAS THAT GOOD??????? I don’t think so!!!
It was a MATTER OF TIME only, then…it could’ve been 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012…WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE??? Or it could’ve been 1992 or 1996.
I remember reading that, Margie…
…geez, over a year ago I read a couple places (cloak+dagger website,Tom Flocco etc.) that The hot Mrs.Plame DID indeed intercept the V.P.’s WMD shipment being imported into Iraq as the ‘Proof’ about the premise to go to war.Boy was he angry,apparently. Hey, I’ve never heard of anybody explaining the pipeline going to Kuwait built right after ‘Victory’ It’s in a 2003 Popular Mechanics. No one’s paying attention to these 24/7 secret Administration moneymakers and that’s why Iraq happened….
Since one juror was removed, over the objection of the prosecutor, from the 12-person jury, I thought I would discuss it here.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in general terms requires a 12-person jury:
(§2.01 [B], emphasis added).
There is an exception where an 11-person jury will do:
(Federal Criminal Rule 23, emphasis added).
The key is “good cause”. If Libby is found not guilty, Fitz would have the right to appeal and try to show that there was no “good cause” to use the 11-person jury instead of using an alternate juror to bring the total back up to 12 persons.
Yes indeed, the cheney gang committed treason with two goals in mind:
1) protect their treasonous gun-running activities in the middle east, and
2) make sure it is impossible to get accurate intel on whether Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
One would have to assume from the actions of the neoscum and darth cheney that Plame and her undercover operation were well aware that Iran does not have a weapons program that is bearing any fruit. She also may have been onto other treason activities of the bush crime family and the larger neocon menace besides gun running to our enemies.
It is indeed difficult to find any “people” on the planet more evil than dumbya, darth, abu gonzales,
HI Dredd #12 – Yes, I remember! Poor lil Ricky.
Does anyone remember where in the timeline the stranger on the street who was saying nasty things about Wilson comes in? How did that story go again?
I’ll mention what I’ve read and pieced together from others’ speculation. The prez,v.p.,gonzo and more well known types had sealed-indictments against them over a year ago, Fitz learned some crazy stuff(including 9/11,Bush+Clinton crime families,etc.). Some conspiratorial minded folks figure that if Fitz went for it there would suddenly be a major country-wide constitutional crisis exposing too many dirty politicians, or… Iran ‘does something’,(or a terror attack,massive bird flu outbreak,etc.) would change All the rules overnight in BigBro’s favour. A pro-bush friend also recently told me that the Prez stays in power in a declared war, so if enough stuff goes badly for the Admin. before the next election….
This is interesting:
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.c...-awaiting.html
Let’s not forget that according to Wilson’s book, it was the Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus who warned Wilson that the NY Times was about to out him as a result of inquiries about Kristof’s article. It’s not hard to speculate that Judy may have been the one charged by the Times with crafting the never written hit piece. Whatever she was meeting Scooter about ended up not seeing the light of day. Could that have been related to Wilson’s decision to effectively out himself? Keller may not have known at that time that Wilson already had a standing invite to write his op-ed, which he initially took a pass on when the chance was offered. Did Keller know what Judy was working on? After Pincus’ advice to Wilson, Wilson called his contact and the op-ed piece ran. The rest is history.
# Dredd: No, a prosecutor can NEVER appeal an acquittal, only PRE-TRIAL motions related to evidence and charges (and maybe other issues that don’t come to mind right now). On the other hand, if Libby is convicted HIS attorney can claim the use of an 11 person jury denied him his rights. He’ll lose that one. He’d have to prove abuse of discretion and it wasn’t.
The juror who refused to wear a valentine costume was the juror who was pulled. Am I a conspiracy theorist or is there some significance here? Don’t ask me, I’m not a lawyer. I am only a C average high school graduate with a spell checker.
I’ve been watching and I just feel ‘the Fix is in’ and proceeding as well as expected when They decided on it. He’s agreed to take the fall(+payoff) and then wait for his pardon,… the thing I don’t get is that with all the Crazy stuff that Fitz apparently has learned and is sitting on, why he isn’t wearing a bullet-proof face mask 24/7. This is playing out all nice’n’civilized like on CNN, how mainstream for the sheep to understand…
Sandy D #30
Perhaps you are correct and I am in error. Here is my reasoning for your perusal.
The “appeal” would not be an appeal of the acquittal but an appeal of the judges error in either not declaring a mis-trial or in not empaneling a proper jury. And that error changed the outcome of the jury deliberations to the point that there is no valid verdict.
Until there is a fair trial using a fair and legal jury, in effect there has been no trial.
The federal criminal rules require a 12 member jury except that an 11 member jury can be used if both parties agree. However, if one party disagrees then there must be “good cause” to not use the alternate jurors then available.
The issue would be, on appeal, did the trial judge have good cause not to use one of the two alternate jurors when only about two days of deliberation had taken place when the one juror was dismissed.
And the prosecutor may have to show that the dismissed juror was going to vote guilty.
You are right that it is a very narrow issue, and if the prosecutor does not move for mistrial immediately that may remove all of the very, very narrow window of opportunity.