The simple fact is this whole thing got started because the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate who outed Valerie Plame.
No actually the simple fact is that when Wilson went public, the White House asked the CIA who authorized the trip since Wilson claimed Cheney did. Cheney obviously did not know what the hell he was talking about and asked Tenet who did. That is how the CIA GAVE the administration Valerie Plame’s name and then the CIA turns around and is upset about the disclosure. I think that the CIA is a bit of a mess these days and the best solution might be to shut it down and start over. I mean what could that hurt? Missing 911? Missing the evidence on the wmds in Iraq not being there? etc. etc etc.
By ‘disclosure’ of course Fred means disclosure to a journalist, not the other double meaning which would be legal ‘disclosure’ to White House officials (with security clearances.) 
Innocent in the court of law doesn’t mean that you don’t take precautions with people who are accused of serious crimes. People deemed flight risks or likely to commit other crimes, destroy evidence, etc. are often put in jail pending trial despite the presumption of their being innocent.
For example, if a postal worker goes into work and kills several people and is seen doing so by several people and recorded on video doing it. He’s “innocent until proven guilty,” but it would be mighty odd to insist that he be treated as though he’s done nothing, allowed to return to work, etc. Life just doesn’t work that way, no matter how much the GOP leadership might think it can afford to tolerate traitors in the White House.
Libby’s done some pretty horrible things – and pending his criminal case the safer assumption is that he will continue to do what he does best – impede federal investigations and “out” CIA officers.
Well, in comparing steamy Democrat sex scenarios with the sort of treason that’s apparently condoned at the top levels of the Bush administration, I’ll choose the Democrat anytime.
"The CIA leak case has apparently contributed to a withering decline in how Americans view Bush personally. The survey found that 40 percent now view him as honest and trustworthy – a 13 percentage point drop in the past 18 months. Nearly six in 10 – 58 percent – said they had doubts about Bush’s honesty, . . . "
That bastion of leftist thought, USA Today, has an interesting editorial on the Libby kerfuffle:
news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200511 … &printer=1
[quote]When an investigation began two years ago into who leaked a CIA officer’s name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, it made sense to think Novak would be a key player at any trial.
However, he’s barely mentioned in the indictment against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, who was arraigned Thursday on five counts of lying to investigators and the grand jury probing the leak. (Related story: Libby pleads innocent)
Now, as Libby prepares for a trial next year, attorneys and legal experts say the fact that Novak is not critical to the case says a lot about what Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has decided about the alleged original crime - the leak. It also signals that Libby was not one of Novak’s sources on the story, they say.
Novak’s absence from the case, says attorney Steven Reich, supports the assumption that Fitzgerald decided the leak itself wasn’t a crime. Reich was a senior associate counsel in the Clinton White House. He’s now with the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
No one who leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame’s name has been charged with a crime for doing so and Fitzgerald has said his investigation is nearly over. It can be illegal to disclose a CIA officer’s name, but the laws prohibiting it are very narrowly written and make it very difficult to prove any violation.
“So, given that the case seems to turn squarely on what happened inside the grand jury and in conversations (Libby had) with Mr. Fitzgerald’s investigators,” Reich says, “it seems that what happened with Mr. Novak is essentially beside the point,” because no crime was likely committed by the person who told Novak about Plame.
Novak’s role in the “outing” of Plame remains a fascinating part of a complicated story because it was his July 14, 2003, column that disclosed her identity. Novak wrote that he had been told that Plame was an “operative” at the agency by “two senior administration officials,” neither of whom he named. Novak has said the original source was “not a partisan gunslinger,” and he said the second source merely confirmed what the first had said. That second source, according to a person with knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove’s testimony to the grand jury, was Rove. Rove spoke with at least one other reporter about Plame: Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper has written that he discussed Plame with Rove in July 2003.
Novak has said little else about who his sources were. Both Novak, through an assistant, and his attorney declined to comment further this week.
But attorneys and former prosecutors draw this conclusion about Novak’s “original” source: It almost surely was not Libby. Why they say that:
-
In the indictment, Fitzgerald details conversations Libby had about Plame with Time’s Cooper and with Judith Miller of The New York Times. He mentions no conversations between Libby and Novak.
-
Fitzgerald also lays out in great detail the conversations Libby had about Plame with seven government officials, including Cheney.
If Fitzgerald is aware of a conversation between Libby and Novak, it is likely he would have mentioned it in the indictment, says Randall Eliason, an adjunct law professor at American University and George Washington University and a former assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia.
“Either Libby never spoke to Novak or if he did, the prosecutor felt he didn’t lie about it” later and it wasn’t pertinent to the case against Libby, says Michael Madigan, an attorney at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. He was a counsel to Republicans on the Senate Watergate Committee.
Other clues that lead to the conclusion that Libby was not a source for Novak on the Plame leak come from outside Fitzgerald’s investigation:
-
Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, wrote in his 2004 book The Politics of Truth that four days before Novak’s column ran, Novak told him a “CIA source” said Plame worked at the CIA.
-
A mystery source - who wasn’t Libby - also apparently talked to Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus about Plame a month before Novak’s column was published. That’s a sign that some other “senior administration official” was pitching the story and may also have been Novak’s original source.
The Post has reported that Libby was not Pincus’ source. Pincus, who covers intelligence issues, has written that the person was a “senior administration official” whom he was interviewing about “a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities” - a topic he is unlikely to have called Rove to discuss.[/quote]
Hmm. So the CIA appears to have “outed” its own agent? And Wilson’s and Plame’s subsequent ranting, fuming, venting, and media-whoring are what blew it wide open, destroying that “Boston front company’s” cover.
How sad. It appears that even USA Today thinks that the whole leftist conspiracy theory is a crock of sh*t.
Please provide information on this. If not, thanks for playing.
A Bush administration official exposes a key CIA weapons-proliferation intelligence officer’s identity, thus compromising some 20 years worth of contacts and source-gathering, and exposing the CIA covers used by Plame over her career (bet anybody who met her years ago will definitely take a close look at her business cards), and making it very difficult for Plame to continue what had, to all accounts, been a very good career spent on behalf of the United States. The moment Plame’s name went out from Novak’s keyboard into circulation was the day that we all saw the Bush administration deep-6 someone who was a tremendous asset to our war on terror.
But I guess “anything goes” in the Bush-Rove mentality that politics should have nothing to do with the actual interests of the nation. Patriotism is something that apparently has more to do with dressing up in a little fighter-pilot suit and prancing around on the deck of an aircraft carrier than it does with the long, hard slog necessary for weapons-proliferation intelligence gathering.
Leaders watch the backs of their subordinates, not stab them.
Yes, it is sad. A sitting president has tolerated traitors at the highest levels of govenment, and he’s unwilling to clean house voluntarily … waiting instead to have them indicted one by one. And their only way to defend themselves against charges related to the disclosure is to, instead, lie and perjure themselves until the prosecutor simply has to take that tack instead. The strategy doesn’t seem to be working – Bush’s numbers are still dropping because Americans probably see right through this.
Oh, yes, “USA Today” is quite the bastion of journalism. “McPaper” is what it’s commonly called, in which the editorial theme since its founding has been to cover “happy” news. Cute graphics for polls is what they’re mostly known for, but I am not sure if they want to put Bush’s latest figures up. That would be very “frowny face” news.
An interesting parallel case to the Scotter Libby matter:
Libby might not face the death penalty, as the perjury/obstruction of justice/lying to the FBI charges were made in the period after the Bush Administration lies that sent 2,000 Americans to their deaths in Iraq.
Don’t start get the Pink Champale out of the fridge yet kids. 
From today’s Washington Post:
[quote]
Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago
By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; A01
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.
Woodward, who is preparing a third book on the Bush administration, has called Fitzgerald “a junkyard-dog prosecutor” who turns over every rock looking for evidence. The night before Fitzgerald announced Libby’s indictment, Woodward said he did not see evidence of criminal intent or of a major crime behind the leak.
“When the story comes out, I’m quite confident we’re going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter,” he told CNN’s Larry King.
Woodward also said in interviews this summer and fall that the damage done by Plame’s name being revealed in the media was “quite minimal.”
“When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,” he told National Public Radio this summer.[/quote]
How does that change whether Libby lied to the grand jury and to the FBI? Doesn’t seem to make any difference.
It’s called the Martha Stuart Syndrome. She actually didn’t violate any laws - except for that small one of lying to the investigator
'The reality is, there is no evidence that Clinton committed a crime. The key witnesses all told investigators that Clinton never ordered a cover-up, told them to lie to investigators or promised Lewinsky a job to buy her silence.
Clinton’s scandals could have been better resolved by a team of psychiatric social workers.’
– Bob Woodward on whether Bill Clinton committed perjury by lying under oath
Of course, there is the John Dean article about how sensitive information leaks have been prosecuted under a different section of the law. Fitzgerald has a difficult situation – he can’t get to the underlying crime because the top-level Republicans have so little respect for the law that they do lie under oath and to FBI investigators.
and lying to the grand jury… and FBI agents. Other than that, I’m sure he’s perfectly innocent. 
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”]Don’t start get the Pink Champale out of the fridge yet kids.
From today’s Washington Post:
[quote]
Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago
By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; A01
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.
Woodward, who is preparing a third book on the Bush administration, has called Fitzgerald “a junkyard-dog prosecutor” who turns over every rock looking for evidence. The night before Fitzgerald announced Libby’s indictment, Woodward said he did not see evidence of criminal intent or of a major crime behind the leak.
“When the story comes out, I’m quite confident we’re going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter,” he told CNN’s Larry King.
Woodward also said in interviews this summer and fall that the damage done by Plame’s name being revealed in the media was “quite minimal.”
“When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,” he told National Public Radio this summer.[/quote]
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 57_pf.html[/quote]
It’s funny how people can so easily miss the most obvious things. As it’s already been pointed out, this is irrelevant to whether Libby committed the crimes for which he is being charged. It only shows that Woodward’s attempts to minimalize the impact of leak was motivated by his own guilt.
Also, in light of the article, I’d be willing to be that old Dick must be sweating bullets about now.
A comment grabbed from Kos, including some indictment dates…
[quote]1.) Cheney’s office first asks the State Dept about the Wilson trip on May 29th of 2003.
2.) Cheney and Libby get a classified report on June 9th of 2003, and Libby scrawls Wilson’s name in the margins.
3.) On June 11th or 12th an Undersecretary of State orally tells Libby that Wilson’s wife was involved in the selection of Wilson for the trip. Libby gets the same information from a senior officer of the CIA on June 11th. (Pincus’ article, which does not mention Wilson by name, is published by WAPO on June 12, 2003.)
4.) Sometime before June 12th, Walter Pincus contacts the office of the Vice President about his article on Wilson. Also on June 12th, Cheney advises Libby that Plame is a CIA employee in the Counterproliferation Division.
5.) On June 14th, Libby meets with a CIA briefer about Wilson and Plame.
6.) On June 19th, an article about the selling of War with Iraq appears in the New Republic. The article is very anti-administration and mentions an unnamed ambassador who insists that the Bushies are lying.
7.) On June 23rd, Libby meets with Judith Miller.
So Libby is intimately involved with stuff about Plame for almost a month before Woodward supposedly “spills the beans” on June 27th.
In other words, the whole Woodward thing is bullshit of the rankest kind, and even a brief look at the indictment makes this completely clear.[/quote]
Typical Republican spinning to cover deceptions and lies. Woodward is the fall guy as a price for his acces to WH. Mass media can be relied upon not to dig, just print/play Cheney’s (Mr. 19%) bs for the gullible public. :loco:
Hopefully, Fitzgerald can widen the indictments.
WASHINGTON, DC
This just in – Rove’s future is supposedly hanging on a Time reporter ironically named Novak (no relation to the scumbag who published Plame’s name at the GOP’s behest).
[quote]It’s not clear why Luskin believes Novak’s deposition could help Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, who remains under investigation into whether he provided false statements in the case. But a person familiar with the matter said Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October, when the prosecutor brought perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters and the subsequent investigation of it.[/quote]
So, we’ve got a Luskin buddy providing some BS “alibi” for these losers. 
And far from getting Rove or Libby out of trouble, it looks like Woodward’s about to open up some fresh wounds in the White House:
[quote]Woodward’s source could face legal troubles because the source testified earlier in the case and apparently did not mention a conversation with Woodward about Plame, according to lawyers in the case. If the source provided inaccurate or incomplete information, Fitzgerald could seek to bring charges, they said.
Rove’s fate remains uncertain. He has testified that he talked to columnist Robert D. Novak and Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper about Plame’s CIA employment. But in his initial conversations with federal investigators and testimony, Rove did not mention the conversation with Cooper, later telling the grand jury he forgot about it and did not intend to mislead anyone, according to lawyers in the case. Luskin has worked behind the scenes to convince Fitzgerald that Rove is guilty of nothing more than a faulty memory.[/quote]
Blimpie is going down any day now.
Think so Spook? Are you a betting man? I might be willing to take some odds on that.