Fitzgerald Investigation of Leak of Identity of CIA Agent

From the same source:

Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 12 May 2006

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Leopold has absolutely zero credibility....Even truthout is backpedaling from his story.

source


I guess Leopold is even beginning to suspect he's been had (again).

Now, like some foot-stomping four-year-old, he's threatening to tattle-tell on his sources. Evidently he can't see his own hypocrisy (after spending two years investigating how Plame was outed, he now intends to reveal the names of his own seemingly traitorous sources).

Monday should reveal much.

Re: BBB

Repeat? Nixon never dreamed of this! This is the most corrupt dictatorship in American History!

Update: Luskin's cat OK. Leopold, and his Rove Indictment, however ...

Rove Lawyer Has a Pet Peeve

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 22, 2006; C01



Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, says he spent most of the day on May 12 taking his cat to the veterinarian and having a technician fix his computer at home.

He was stunned, therefore, when journalists started calling to ask about an online report that he had spent half the day at his law office, negotiating with Patrick Fitzgerald -- and that the special prosecutor had secretly obtained an indictment of Rove.

The cat's medical tests, Luskin says, found that "the stools were free of harmful parasites, which is more than I can say for this case."

The claim that President Bush's top political strategist had been indicted in the CIA leak investigation was written by a journalist who has battled drug addiction and mental illness and been convicted of grand larceny. That didn't stop more than 35 reporters -- from all the major newspapers, networks and newsmagazines -- from calling Luskin or Rove's spokesman, Mark Corallo, to check it out.

The reports appeared on the liberal Web site Truthout.org, run by Marc Ash, a former advertising man and fashion photographer in California. Jason Leopold, the author of the stories, directed inquiries to Ash, who says that "we stand by the story. We have multiple points of independent confirmation of what we originally reported. Our problem is, the prosecutor's office is under no obligation to go public."

Leopold acknowledges in a new book, "News Junkie," that he is a past liar, convicted felon and former alcoholic and cocaine addict. An earlier version of the book was canceled by publisher Rowman & Littlefield last year.

Salon retracted a 2002 piece by Leopold involving Thomas White, then secretary of the Army. The online magazine apologized, saying it had been unable to confirm the authenticity of an e-mail that Leopold attributed to White. Leopold, a onetime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones, accused the online magazine of being "wimpy" and caving to pressure.

"Jason is a character, but he's been straight with me and I've checked him out very carefully," Ash says.

In an interview with liberal radio host Ed Schultz, Leopold said his sources had given him "detailed information" about the alleged marathon meeting at Luskin's law office that he said was attended by Rove and a Secret Service detail. Leopold said that while "I totally look like I'm wrong," he still believes the indictment story is true.

Rove has testified five times in Fitzgerald's investigation of White House officials' leaking to the press that Valerie Plame, the wife of an administration critic, was a covert CIA operative. Fitzgerald is examining whether Rove misled investigators by initially failing to recall that he had discussed Plame with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.

Leopold's May 12 report said Rove had told the president and top administration officials that he would be indicted and planned to resign. The next day, a Saturday, Leopold reported that Fitzgerald had handed Rove's attorneys an indictment of their client on charges of perjury and lying to investigators, and that an announcement was expected the next week.

Luskin calls the reports "absolutely bizarre. I'm waiting for him to tell me whether Fitzgerald had the chicken or the pasta. . . . There was no meeting, no communication with Fitzgerald's team of any kind."

As the phone inquiries continued through that Saturday night, Luskin says, "some of the reporters felt somewhat demeaned by having to call. It's the editors saying to them, 'I don't care what you think; call up and get some kind of response.' . . . The cumulative weight of all this malicious speculation is really disruptive."

While no other news organization touched the report, word spread through blogs and Internet sites. According to the Detroit Free Press, the keynote speaker at a banquet of Michigan trial lawyers announced the indictment, bringing the heavily Democratic audience to its feet.

Was a bit of impersonation involved as well? Corallo says a man identifying himself as London Sunday Times contributor Joe Lauria called about the story, which Corallo told him "borders on defamation." The man left what turned out to be a wrong number. After Leopold told a liberal blogger that Corallo had told him that the story bordered on defamation, Corallo reached Lauria, who acknowledged that he had dinner with Leopold days before the call.[/quote]

HoHum .... another Fitzmas, another lump of coal.

You wish. Are you going to go on record that Fitzgerald is not going to issue further indictment(s)?

Roxxxanne wrote:
You wish. Are you going to go on record that Fitzgerald is not going to issue further indictment(s)?


Some people rely on "one" report about an indictment against Rove. Why not wait? Is it that painful? Why jump to conclusions nothing will come of it based on one preemptive report? It may still come true!

I agree with Roxxxanne that more indictments will be coming forward.

Good question .... one I've been wondering throughout this thread.

Awww, because it is fun to speculate. We could 'wait' for everything to happen, but then we'd be nothing but a news reporting site, and that's boring.

Cycloptichorn

Hi Cyclo, It looks really desperate for Bush apologists to hang onto one preemptive report on Rove and conclude there won't be any indictment against him.

Carry on.

Yup.

Ummm...and just how many times have you posted an opinion on this case? Of course, except for Fitzgerald's press conference, everything is speculation based on questionable sources. Luskin as well as Leopold and others.

According to Lawrence O'Donnell, Luskin has never flat out lied although his spin is deceptive. I must admit Leopold's story is suspect at this point but this is irrelevant to the point of whether or not Rove is indicted.

BTW thank you for the kind words concerning my surgery. But will you go on the record that you don't think there will be further indictments and that Rove wil not be (assuming he hasn't been) indicted.

You're quite welcome - I really hope your surgery and its aftermath all goes better than you hope it might.


As for Fitzgerald et al, I'll go on record as expecting any indictments Fitzgerald has currently or may yet obtain to collapse - including Libby's.

The indictments will collapse due to a lack of factual evidence, or due to the AG killing them, Timber?

Cycloptichorn

December 15, 2005
They Do Comedy Too!

by hilzoy

Some recent comedic gems from the Bush administration:

(1) Asked about the idea that our soldiers would be 'welcomed as liberators' in Iraq, President Bush said:

"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome."

Ah, yes: just another one of those non-peaceful welcomes, like the Russian welcome of Napoleon, or the Lakota welcome of Custer at Little Big Horn.

(2) A few days ago, Condoleeza Rice said that "the United States prohibits "cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment" of suspects, "whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States."" Asked whether this represents a policy shift, a senior State Department official said:

"Do not read this in a tortured, convoluted and contrived way."

Yes, but can we read it in a way that, while undoubtedly painful, does not make Dr. Rice's remarks feel a degree of suffering equivalent to organ failure or the loss of a limb? What if a CIA agent, in an undisclosed location outside the US, gives the reading in question? What if we just shut her remarks up in an unheated room on the middle of the Afghan winter, or waterboard them? Would that be OK? Would feeding her remarks lemon chicken make it all better?

(3) As we know, Bush has refused to answer any questions at all about the leak of Valerie Plame's name on the grounds that it might compromise an ongoing investigation. Does he know who leaked her name? No comment. Does he still have confidence in Karl Rove? No comment. What does the President think of Karl Rove's taste in suits? No comment. Does Karl Rove even exist, or is he some sort of collective nightmare? No comment. Anything Bush or any member of the administration says -- anything at all -- might compromise Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation; and, as we all know, George W. Bush is too deeply concerned with letting justice take its course, and with the integrity of judicial investigations, to say a word.

So this was a surprise:

"President Bush said on Wednesday that he thought Representative Tom DeLay, under indictment in Texas, was innocent and that he hoped Mr. DeLay could return to the post of House majority leader.

In an interview with Fox News, Mr. Bush broke with his usual practice of avoiding direct comment on pending criminal investigations to express his faith in Mr. DeLay, who was forced by party rules to step aside as majority leader after being indicted in September on charges of funneling corporate campaign contributions to Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature."

I'm with Reddhedd on this one:

"Um, hello??!?? The President of the United States and former Governor of the State of Texas says he thinks that Tom Delay is innocent to a national news outlet after a presiding judge has just ruled that the charge stands as proper to be tried by a jury of Delay's peers. Did he or his staff even stop to think about the consequences of this public display of affection for Delay? Has anyone explained to the Preznit the meaning of the words "jury tampering?""

But here comes the funny part: Scott McClellan was asked about this in today's press briefing, and guess what? He refused to answer, on the grounds that that would constitute commenting on the Plame investigation:

"Q Scott, the President told Brit Hume that he thought that Tom DeLay is not guilty, even though the prosecution is obviously ongoing. What does the President feel about Scooter Libby? Does he feel that Mr. Libby --

MR. McCLELLAN: A couple of things. First of all, the President was asked a question and he responded to that question in the interview yesterday, and made very clear what his views were. We don't typically tend to get into discussing legal matters of that nature, but in this instance, the President chose to respond to it. Our policy regarding the Fitzgerald investigation and ongoing legal proceeding is well-known and it remains unchanged. And so I'm just not going to have anything further to say. But we've had a policy in place for a long time regarding the Fitzgerald investigation.

Q Why would that not apply to the same type of prosecution involving Congressman DeLay?

MR. McCLELLAN: I just told you we had a policy in place regarding this investigation, and you've heard me say before that we're not going to talk about it further while it's ongoing.

Q Well, if it's prejudging the Fitzgerald investigation, isn't it prejudging the Texas investigation with regard to Congressman DeLay?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I think I've answered your question."

Gotta love those guys in the White House -- they're such kidders.

Posted by hilzoy at 04:28 PM in Politics | Permalink

2 in CIA to testify Libby lied on leak

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Two top CIA officials will bolster prosecutors' charge that Vice President Cheney's chief aide lied to them, court papers show.
Prosecutors say disgraced Cheney chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby learned CIA spy Valerie Plame's identity from, among others, agency officials who will be called to testify at his trial for perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.

The U.S. alleges he learned about Plame from one of the CIA officials when he went after dirt on her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson shattered a pillar of President Bush's rationale for war - that Iraq was seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Both CIA officials - including a top architect of the 2003 Iraq invasion - discussed Plame with Libby a month before columnist Robert Novak blew her cover in July 2003, prosecutors charge.

Libby has said journalists told him about Plame - not Cheney or the six witnesses named so far by prosecutors.

Until recently, the CIA officials' identities were kept secret by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who did not name them in Libby's October indictment.

But subsequent documents allege Libby asked top CIA official Robert Grenier on June 11 why the agency sent Wilson to Niger to see if Iraq tried to buy uranium. Grenier replied that Plame was an agent and "believed responsible" for arranging her husband's trip.

The other official was Craig Schmall, a CIA briefer whom Libby complained to about the Wilson trip on June 14, court files allege.

Grenier, the CIA's station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, helped stage the successful U.S. attack on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

He then joined the CIA's Iraq Issue Group, hatching operational plans for invading Iraq.

"Bob had to go to lots of White House meetings in the runup to the war," said one colleague.

The source expressed surprise that Grenier would have discussed Plame with Libby.

This year, as CIA Counterterrorist Center chief, Grenier oversaw the failed missile strike aimed at Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Shortly afterward, Grenier was demoted.

But Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, said Grenier lost his job over his "concerns about aggressive interrogations [of terrorist detainees] at secret sites."

blueflame, The message that sticks out in your article is how Bush keeps people in line. Anyone that disagrees with the Bush Doctrine doesn't keep their jobs very long.

That so many men and women will sacrifice their own integrity to keep their job says more about Americans than any discussion concerning this presidency.

ADMINISTRATION
Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court [PDF] on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.


Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate.



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I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said.

Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own.

The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing.

Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.

In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war.

Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax.

According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."

Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger.

Two days after Wilson's op-ed, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and not only disclosed portions of the NIE, but also Plame's CIA employment and potential role in her husband's trip.

Regarding that meeting, Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized in advance... to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because Vice President Cheney believed it to be "very important" to do so, the court papers filed Wednesday said. The New York Sun reported the court filing on its Web site early Thursday.

Libby "further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE," the court papers said. Libby "testified that the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE."

Additionally, Libby "testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the Vice President, whom [Libby] considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."

Addington succeeded Libby as Cheney's chief of staff after Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 28, 2005 on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his role in outing Plame as an undercover CIA operative.

Four days after the meeting with Miller, on July 12, 2003, Libby spoke again to Miller, and also for the first time with Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper, during which Libby spoke to both journalists about Plame's CIA employment and her possible role in sending her husband to Niger.

Regarding those conversations, Libby understood that the Vice President specifically selected him to "speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson," the court papers said. Libby also testified, Fitzgerald asserted in the court papers, that "at the time of his conversations with Miller and Cooper, he understood that only three people -- the President, the Vice President and [Libby] -- knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified.

"[Libby] testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials-including Cabinet level officials-were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson's trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003." It is unclear from the court papers what the January 24, 2003 document might be.

During those very same conversations with the press that day Libby "discussed Ms. Wilson's CIA employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time)," the court papers further said.

Although the special prosecutor's grand jury investigation has not uncovered any evidence that the Vice President encouraged Libby to release information about Plame's covert CIA status, the court papers said that Cheney had "expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."

Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor.

Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators.

Two senior government officials said that Tenet did recall, however, that he made inquiries regarding the veracity of the Niger intelligence information as a result of inquires from both Cheney and Libby. As a result of those inquiries, Tenet then had the CIA conduct a new review of its Niger intelligence, and concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had in fact attempted to purchase uranium from Niger or other African nations. Tenet and other CIA officials then informed Cheney, other administration officials, and the congressional intelligence committees of the new findings, the sources said.

Six days after Libby's conversation with Cooper and Miller regarding Plame, on July 18, 2003, the Bush administration formally declassified portions of the NIE on Iraqi weapons programs in an effort to further blunt the damage of Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration misused the faulty Niger intelligence information to make the case to go to war. It is unclear whether the information that Bush and Cheney were said to authorize Libby to disclose was the same information that was formally declassified.

One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.

The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified.

As National Journal recently disclosed, the one-page summary of the NIE told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that an Iraqi procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort", the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

Despite receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

The former senior official said in an interview that he believed that the attempt to conceal the contents of the one-page summary were intertwined with the efforts to declassify portions of the NIE and to leak information to the media regarding Plame: "It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don't see it in that context yet."

Although the court papers filed Wednesday revealed that Libby had testified that Bush and Cheney had authorized him to disclose details of the NIE, two other senior government officials said in interviews that Libby had asserted that Cheney had more broadly authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq as part of an administration effort to make the case to go to war.

In another instance, Libby had claimed that Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack."

Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book's preparation: "There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate," said one former government official.

It is unclear whether Libby will argue during his upcoming trial that these other authorizations by both the President and Vice President show that he did not engage in misconduct by disclosing Plame's CIA status to reporters, or that he considered these other authorizations giving him broad authority to make other disclosures.

Fitzgerald has apparently avoided questioning Libby, other government officials, and journalists about other potential leaks of classified information to the media, according to attorneys who have represented witnesses to the special prosecutor's probe. Outside legal experts said this might be due to the fact that other authorized leaks might aid Libby's defense, and because Fitzgerald did not want to question reporters about other contacts with Libby because of First Amendment concerns.

In a Feb. 17, 2006 letter to John D. Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote that he believed that disclosures in Woodward's book damaged national security. "According to [Woodward's] account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison services."

Woodward's book contains, for example, a detailed account of a January 25, 2003 briefing that Libby provided to senior White House staff to make the case that Saddam Hussein had aggressive programs underway to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

Two former government officials said in interviews that the account provided sensitive intelligence information that had not been cleared for release. The book referred to intercepts by the National Security Agency of Iraqi officials that purportedly showed that Iraq was engaging in weapons of mass destruction program.

Much of the information presented by Libby at the senior White House staff meeting was later discarded by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and then-CIA Director George Tenet as unreliable, and would not have either otherwise been made public.

One former senior official said: "They [the leakers] might have tipped people to our eavesdropping capacities, and other serious sources and methods issues. But to what end? The information was never presented to the public because it was bunk in the first place."

In the letter to Negroponte, Sen. Rockefeller complained: "I [previously] wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures in [Woodward's book]. The only response that I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration."

-- Previous coverage of pre-war intelligence and the CIA leak investigation from Murray Waas. Brian Beutler provided research assistance for this report.