The Fitzgerald Indictment: questions unanswered Posted by: Jon Henke
on Saturday, October 29, 2005
Tom Maguire notes a few open questions that need to be answered in the Plame Affair...
Who was Novak's source?
Was national security harmed by the leak of Ms. Plame's identity?
Will there be other charges against other officials? [...] Libby's general story - he learned about Plame from reporters - was daft. Libby had multiple conversations with government officials (State, CIA, the VP, Ari Fleischer) involving Plame. Did he think they would *all* forget when they talked to investigators?
IIRC, it appears that Libby told Ari Fleischer about Ms. Plame on July 7, which is the day that phone logs show Novak calling Ari. Surely that adds to the possibilty that Ari was Novak's first source. [...] Look, *if* Libby is not insane (likely, actually) and *if* he turned down a plea deal (do we know that?), he must think he can defend this case. But how?
My problem with this case—ever since mid-2003—was the lack of coherent motive. "What official', I wrote in September 2003, "in their right mind, would cut their own throat, in order to tweak Ambassador Wilson?" Kevin Drum also made this point, noting that...
For starters, the White House's motivation for smearing Joe Wilson has always been murkier than it might seem at first glance. After all, as Bob Somerby is fond of pointing out, Joe Wilson's famous July 2003 op-ed in the New York Times didn't actually contradict anything the White House had said. In his 2003 State of the Union address, George Bush said that Iraq had "sought...uranium from Africa," while Wilson said only that his trip to Niger convinced him that Iraq had not in fact succeeded in buying uranium. So why the desperate smear campaign against Wilson? Even Karl Rove must have known that leaking his wife's name was fantastically reckless and over the top. Why not just point out the lack of contradiction and leave it at that?
It's possible there's nothing more to this story, and Scooter Libby was merely playing a remarkably stupid game of political hardball. That would go a long way towards answering many—not all, but many—of the open questions. Unfortunately, Libby seems to be planning on a "I'm too busy to remember things" defense. That probably won't help us figure this case out.
essentially, the crux of this indictment is that Libby lied about the way he talked to the press (Russert, Cooper, et al) to cover the original source (which for him seems to be Dick Cheney or another government official. Cheney and Libby did nothing wrong in talking about this, however, so Libby seems to have done lied for political reasons—most likely to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Which, if this is the case, is ironic on a number of levels). Lying to the grand jury is wrong and serious, of course - and Libby has to answer for it (as might Karl Rove, eventually)—but, as pertains to the reason for the investigation, there seems to be no there there.
That is, Valerie Plame, it now seems, was not “outed”—at least not by Novak’s report.
Goldstein may be correct about Libby's motive for lying to the Grand Jury, but how do you reconcile the idea that Valerie Plame "was not outed" with Fitzgerald's statement that "Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson's employment status was classified." Is there a difference between outting a covert agent and an agent whose status was classified?
Moreover—and this is very important—why was Libby not charged with disclosing classified information?
In his press conference, Fitzgerald seems to indicate that more charges may be forthcoming—or maybe not; he's opaque on the matter—but the indictment seems rather clear about the timing and direction of the leak, so why no indictment?
Fitzgerald seems to indicate that more charges may be forthcoming—or maybe not; he’s opaque on the matter—but the indictment seems rather clear about the timing and direction of the leak, so why no indictment?
Well, let’s see. Can anyone name a large investigation against Republicans where those charged with such an investigation actually closed when it was originally scheduled?
Also, look at the date. You may notice the first Tuesday isn’t far away. It’s enough to make one wonder.
Is there much more the prosecutor can do without a grand jury? If he were to empanel a new one, how long would that take? Could he get it off and running by Thanksgiving? Would he start more investigations before Christmas?
I suppose he could have a Rove indictment ready to announce next week, but wouldn’t he have wanted to get the really big fish outed before he let the grand jury go? He said that the bulk of the work of this investigation was over, I believe he just has some loose ends to wrap up like packing his stuff to get back to Chicago ASAP. He surely isn’t going to indict Rove without another big press conference. I think it’s over.
Jon: maybe I’m just reading the indictment funny (and I know I’m probably not getting this out straight), but it seems to me that Libby’s statements represent what Libby claims to have said to the reporters and been told by the reporters. I see where Libby is saying his conversation with the reporters went a certain way, but I don’t see where he flat out lied to investigators about where/when he learned about Plame.
In other words, I don’t see where Libby was asked straight out where he had learned about Plame and answered "from Russert".
If I’m right, there’s a disagreement between Libby and the reporters about who said what to whom, and I wonder about Fitzgerald’s brains in basing a perjury charge on the testimony of biased reporters.
Full explanation (or what passes for it so far): here
Disclaimer: [Wouldn’t we all be better off if MK used this convention?] I don’t think that the Plame game will amount to shit when all is said and done so I don’t want to read intensively to make certain that I know what I am talking about before I express myself.
Havng said that, it seems apparent that Fitzgerald is using the time-honored prosecutor’s ploy of charging the hell out of one suspect in order to coerce them to tesify against another suspect. If Scooter has a pair and good counsel he will thunb his nose at Fitzgerald and it’s all over. If Fitzgerald is SouterFitzgerald, then Bithead has it precisely correct and the other shoe [whatever Fitzgerald’s imagination can come up with] drops just prior to First Tuesday.
[sarcasm/humor alert for the following] Hey, liberals, it’s time to pull out all the stops. To hell with principles. If we don’t, the damned feckless Democrats are going to let us down and our whole agenda ... we’ve got to get these guys!
My problem with this case—ever since mid-2003—was the lack of coherent motive. "What official’, I wrote in September 2003, "in their right mind, would cut their own throat, in order to tweak Ambassador Wilson?"
I think the motive is clear. Last summer Robert Novak explained why he discussed Plame in his July 2003 column. He said "My column of July 14, 2003, asked why the CIA in 2002 sent Wilson, a critic of President Bush, to Niger..."http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2005/08/01/155068.html In the summer of 2003, Nick Kristoff had written a NY Times op-ed column about Wilson’s trip, Walter Pincus had written a news story in the Washington Post and Wilson himself had written his NY Times op-ed piece. Wilson’s trip had become the latest weapon used by Democrats and the MSM to wage their propaganda campaign against the Iraq war. People like Novak were asking a very good question which I remember was also discussed in the blogosphere and elsewhere. Why was Wilson, of all people, sent on that sensitive trip?
The MSM and their fellow liberals concocted the story that the vindictive, corrupt Bush Administration would stop at nothing to punish those brave truth tellers who would expose their lies. In reality, however, Plame was merely part of the explanation about how Wilson was chosen to go to Niger. There was no grand conspiracy to punish Wilson or Plame. The allegations in the indictment show a pretty random sequence of events and conversations. There doesn’t seem to be anything organized about it. I think that’s why there were no indictments for conspiracy to mishandle classified information. It may still have been a crime (or at least negligent) to disclose Plame’s name if it was classified information, but there isn’t any evidence that the Bush Administration was motivated by anything other than the desire to answer critics who wondered how they could have sent a partisan Democrat to Niger.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction again? That’s right.
This Iraq War adventure would likely not have gained support without the fear of WMDs.
Is someone claiming that Wilson did not have the credentials to complete the task he was sent to do by the CIA? Please explain, because Wilson seems to have impressive credentials. This administration knew it, but sought to undercut his credibility by saying he was sent by his wife in the CIA, and imply he had no credentials.
The problem with recognizing Wilson as credible would take away the main component which provided public support for the war; that Iraq possessed WMDs. No WMDs, no war.
Pretty simple. It was important to discredit Wilson for the neocons to realize their dream of war with Iraq. If only the neocons knew that wishing something does not make it so: hence, no WMDs, no flowers to great or troops, no slam-dunk, no ....
Where are the weapons of mass destruction again? That’s right.
This Iraq War adventure would likely not have gained support without the fear of WMDs.
Is someone claiming that Wilson did not have the credentials to complete the task he was sent to do by the CIA? Please explain, because Wilson seems to have impressive credentials. This administration knew it, but sought to undercut his credibility by saying he was sent by his wife in the CIA, and imply he had no credentials.
The problem with recognizing Wilson as credible would take away the main component which provided public support for the war; that Iraq possessed WMDs. No WMDs, no war.
Pretty simple. It was important to discredit Wilson for the neocons to realize their dream of war with Iraq. If only the neocons knew that wishing something does not make it so: hence, no WMDs, no flowers to great or troops, no slam-dunk, no ....
It was important to discredit Wilson for the neocons to realize their dream of war with Iraq.
Saddam was already out of power once the fight with Wilson had begun. The published articles by Novak, Wilson, etc. were months after the war began in March.
Bush’s famous State of the Union speech witht he 16 words was in January 2003.
The War was began in March 2003.
Wilson’s July 2003 NYT editorial was not his first action with regard to disputing the State of the Union speech. But, it did cast doubt on the rationale the Bush administration used for the war early on.
Novak’s peice was written as a rebuttal to the NYT Wilson peice in attempt to debunk Wilson’s claims that the WMD justication was not there.
WMDs were a MAJOR reason public support was given to this administration to go to war.
Wilson assumed that other evidence beyond his researched Niger-Yellow cake CIA mission must have been out there. But, when the Bush administration used the already debunked Niger-Iraq connection, he wrote his article.
Wilson revealed the administration’s lie.
Dream War would be one with strong public support; one without damaging assertions that they had been lied to.
There were no stockpiles. We’ve been over that quite a bit at this blog.
Is someone claiming that Wilson did not have the credentials to complete the task he was sent to do by the CIA?
Not among the bloggers. I think he had excellent credentials to put out feelers. He’s hardly able to "solve" the mystery, but that wasn’t what he was sent to do.
Wilson revealed the administration’s lie.
Nothing in Wilson’s article contradicted the administration’s claim. Wilson said no sale had taken place; the administration claimed Iraq had "sought" uranium. Wilson never said Iraq had not "sought" uranium.
Meanwhile, even France was telling us that Iraq was working on their nuclear program.
I don’t visit this blog so often. But show up now and again to feel the RW barometer.
Why do you suppose there was an effort by this administration to castrate Joe Wilson?
Why would there be such a long cover-up? Why didn’t Bush call in all group, find out what happened, "oops" and go on. WHY did it take two years to find that Libby and Rove spoke about Plame with reporters?
There seems to be too much effort if what he said was not important.
Why was Wilson dangerous and worth such an initiative to debunk his criticism?
You seem like a smart guy, I am just curious about this.
Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?
Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?
Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Why do you suppose there was an effort by this administration to castrate Joe Wilson?
My assumption is that they were simply pushing back against the impression that he was creating with his story. At this point, we’re all guessing, though. We don’t know.
The excerpts you cite do not contradict the administration’s claim. Read the "16 words" and then tell me what part of the article alleges that Iraq did not seek uranium in Africa.
The introduction in the article essentially says he thinks the administration lied (twisted to exaggerate). That is a fairly strong statement to start an article with, don’t you think?
Didn’t Bush et. al., eventually retract those 16 words?
The introduction in the article essentially says he thinks the administration lied (twisted to exaggerate). That is a fairly strong statement to start an article with, don’t you think?
Yes, but nothing in the article actually contradicts the 16 words.
Didn’t Bush et. al., eventually retract those 16 words?
They said that the statement should not have been included in the SOTU. Nothing else. And it was certainly not based on Wilson’s trip, which—if anything—only suggested that the claim might be accurate. (according to the 9/11 report)
Why retract if they are true words? Present the "real" uranium/WMD program evidence, directly.
Wilson does not imply there was NO truth, but that the intelligence was twisted and exaggerated to pump-up the administration’s justification for war.
When Wilson went to Niger, he made these conclusions. He did not know the full extent of the intelligence used by the administration. However, when the debunked Niger claim was used in the SOTU speech, it flashed that the administration was (including) debunked reasoning. Thus, his article.
Off course, both sdk and Jon are having this discussion as if the 9/11 commission did not cover Joe’s spurious and changing story. The 9/11 comission found Joe to be rather untrustworthy, his story variable, and he reliablity questionable. I won’t provide the relevant quotes, sdk, do a search on this blog and you will find them in a matter of seconds.
In the end, L’Affair Plame was a tempest in a teapot. Everyone in Washington knew who and hat she was, Aldrich Ames outed her and her networks to foreign intelligences years before. She was effectively a lame duck and her current position was a desk one. She was merely part of the endless number of cliques at the CIA running their own foreign policy king-making. In this one case, their desires (having Saddam stay in place) coincided with those on the left. The left pretended to be appalled at the "national security issues" when they and theirs are quite happy to out countless numbers of sensitive intelligence operations when they feel the need and damn the damage done to the US intel and the people risking their lives. I call Hypocrisy, my friends, just hypocrisy.
I do not classify information. The CIA classifed Ms. Wilson’s status as Top Secret.
If Ms. Wilson had been an operative prior to her "desk" work, she possibly established relationships and understandings with a variety of individual’s. So, devulging her identity, especially in such a public way, allows people to back-track and re-evaluate her past relationships and activities. Thus, it is very dangerous (to her contacts). But, the point is really that her identity remained officially classified. You and I do not really make that decision. And Fitgerald and the Grand Jury that handed down the indictment, with 2 years worth of evidence, seem not to agree, as well.
Moving to Libby, et. al.; He signed documents of understanding and affirmation as to his ability to handle classified information. A promise, or contract, so to speak. If he divulged classified information intentionally, this is a serious violation of his trust and national security. And really, he may be culpible even if he was just careless in his sharing of information.
This is where Cheney is important. Did Cheney make Scooter, et al, aware of the sensitive nature of Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment? Otherwise, Libby may not have known that she was classified, unless he also was privy to documents that stated as such.
Why don’t you impress me and do that fast search and put your facts on the table. Otherwise, you are just talking out of your butt, so to speak, as far as I am concerned. But, really, I would find such points illuminating, as would Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Tate.
Hey sdk, You managed to contradict yourself in a mere post. There you say she is secret, here top secret. Well which is it? Secret or Top Secret, or is that a nuance thing.
As for facts, you have a real talent for refurbishing the same items and presenting them as "new" facts. I suppose I could read one of your posts and then be sure that I would know exactly how you respond in any given situation.
W.r.t to your fundamental laziness to search as evidenced by your belief in Joe Wilson being a source of veracity when all the top Dem dogs have relegated him to the same obscurity that Sheehan is rapidly decending into. I will give you the links that you are too lazy to look up as a one time favor but if you keep coming to class and unprepared don’t expect me to keep doing your homework for you.
Read this one pal and stop embarrassing yourself. Turns out that Joe Wilson admitted his wife was not clandestine on national tv. Guess you missed that in the KoS echo chamber.
when the debunked Niger claim was used in the SOTU speech
Wilson confirmed Iraqi officials met with Niger’s former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki in 1999 to discuss "expanding commercial relations." Wilson said Iraq didn’t buy any uranium from Niger. Please point out where the Bush administration claimed Iraq succeeded in purchasing uranium in the SOTU. I can’t seem to find it.
I did correct the secret-top secret, albeit on another qando blog.
There is a distinction between Secret and Top Secret, to be sure. However, in this case it is a technicality, because it was still classified information, and rules are broken by sharing it classified information to those not autorized to receive it(top secret or secret).
Wilson, in his NYT peice, said that the administration twisted and exaggerated information with regard to its reasoning/justification for going to war. He did not say that there was NO substance to the administration’s justification.
With regard to Ms. Wilson’s classification. She WAS classified. She may not have been working under-cover at the moment, but her past relationships and activities were always in jeopardy if her identity was revealed, even if she works a desk job now.
The point is, her actual working with the CIA was classified information, per the indictment. It is not up to Blitzer, Hannity, Capt Joe, or myself to decide what’s important to classify.
