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Context of 'Late 1985 and After: State Department Official Joins NSC, CIA Officials in Funding Contras'
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March 7, 2005: President Bush Appoints John Bolton as Ambassador to UN
John Bolton. [Source: Publicity photo via American Enterprise Institute]President George Bush selects John Bolton, currently an official in the State Department, to be the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton is a staunch neoconservative with a long record of opposing multilateral efforts. As undersecretary of state for arms control, Bolton opposed a multilateral effort in July 2001 to create broad worldwide controls on the sale of small arms (see July 9, 2001). In February 2002, Bolton made it clear that the Bush administration did not feel bound to the 1978 pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states (see February 2002). Bolton was also a strong advocate of taking unilateral action against Saddam Hussein (see January 26, 1998) and in May 2002, he effectively removed the US signature from the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC) (see May 6, 2002). [USA Today, 3/7/2005]
Entity Tags: John R. Bolton, George W. Bush
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran
March 13, 2005: Fake Government News Segments Used Far More Widely than Previously Reported, Media Finds
Stations such as Los Angeles's KABC-TV routinely re-edit graphics to fit their own formatting. The graphic on the left was part of a VNR produced by a private firm; on the right is KABC's edited graphic. [Source: PRWatch (.org)] (click image to enlarge)An investigation by the New York Times reveals that the government's use of "video news releases," or so-called "fake news" reports provided by the government and presented to television news viewers as real news (see March 15, 2004), has been used by far more government agencies than previously reported. The Times report finds that VNRs from the State Department, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Agriculture Department are among the agencies providing VNRs to local television news broadcasters. Previous media reports focused largely on the VNRs provided by the Department of Health and Human Services to tout the Bush administration's Medicare proposals. The Times finds that "at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years.… Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.… [T]he [Bush] administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source."
VNRs Presented as Actual News - While government VNRs are generally labeled as being government productions on the film canister or video label, the VNRs themselves are designed, the Times writes, "to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the 'reporters' are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration." The VNRs often feature highly choreographed "interviews" with senior administration officials, "in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy."
Benefits to All except News Consumers - The Times explains how VNRs benefit the Bush administration, private public relations firms, networks, and local broadcasters: "Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting." News viewers, however, receive propaganda messages masquerading as real, supposedly impartial news reports.
Ducking Responsibility - Administration officials deny any responsibility for the use of VNRs as "real" news. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," says William Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions." But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has disagreed, calling the use of government-produced VNRs "covert propaganda" because news viewers do not know that the segments they are watching are government productions (see May 19, 2004). However, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Justice Department (see March 2005) have called the practice legal, and instructed executive branch agencies to merely ignore the GAO findings.
Creative Editing - The Times gives an example of how seamlessly government-produced propaganda can be transformed into seemingly real news segments. In one segment recently provided by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ends the segment by saying, "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the US Department of Agriculture." The segment is distributed by AgDay, a syndicated farm news program shown on some 160 stations; the segment is introduced as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was edited to state: "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting." Final result: viewers are unaware that the AgDay segment is actually an Agriculture Department production. AgDay executive producer Brian Conrady defends the practice: "We can clip 'Department of Agriculture' at our choosing. The material we get from the [agency], if we choose to air it and how we choose to air it is our choice." The public relations industry agrees with Conrady; many large PR firms produce VNRs both for government and corporate use, and the Public Relations Society of America gives an annual award, the Bronze Anvil, for the year's best VNR.
Complicity by News Broadcasters - Several major television networks help distribute VNRs. Fox News has a contract with PR firm Medialink to distribute VNRs to 130 affiliates through its video feed service, Fox News Edge. CNN distributes VNRs to 750 stations in the US and Canada through its feed service, CNN Newsource. The Associated Press's television news distributor does the same with its Global Video Wire. Fox News Edge director David Winstrom says: "We look at them and determine whether we want them to be on the feed. If I got one that said tobacco cures cancer or something like that, I would kill it." TVA Productions, a VNR producer and distributor, says in a sales pitch to potential clients, "No TV news organization has the resources in labor, time or funds to cover every worthy story." Almost "90 percent of TV newsrooms now rely on video news releases," it claims. The reach can be enormous. Government-produced VNRs from the Office of National Drug Control Policy reached some 22 million households over 300 news stations. And news stations often re-record the voiceover of VNRs by their own reporters, adding to the illusion that their own reporters, and not government or PR employees, are doing the actual reporting.
Office of Broadcasting Services - The State Department's Office of Broadcasting Services (OBS) employs around 30 editors and technicians, who before 2002 primarily distributed video from news conferences. But in early 2002, the OBS began working with close White House supervision to produce narrated feature reports promoting American policies and achievements in Afghanistan and Iraq, and supporting the Bush administration's rationale for invading those countries. Between 2002 and now, the State Department has produced 59 such segments, which were distributed to hundreds of domestic and international television broadcasters. The State Department says that US laws prohibiting the domestic dissemination of propaganda don't apply to the OBS. Besides, says State Department spokesman Richard Boucher: "Our goal is to put out facts and the truth. We're not a propaganda agency." State Department official Patricia Harrison told Congress last year that such "good news" segments are "powerful strategic tools" for influencing public opinion. The Times reports that "a review of the department's segments reveals a body of work in sync with the political objectives set forth by the White House communications team after 9/11." One June 2003 VNR produced by the OBS depicts US efforts to distribute food and water to the people of southern Iraq. The unidentified narrator condluded, "After living for decades in fear, they are now receiving assistance—and building trust—with their coalition liberators." OBS produced several segments about the liberation of Afghan women; a January 2003 memo called the segments "prime example[s]" of how "White House-led efforts could facilitate strategic, proactive communications in the war on terror." OBS typically distributes VNRs through international news organizations such as Reuters and the Associated Press, which then distribute them to major US networks, which in turn transmit them to local affiliates.
The Pentagon Channel and 'Hometown News' - In 2004, the Defense Department began providing The Pentagon Channel, formerly an in-house service, to cable and satellite operators in the US. The content is provided by Pentagon public relations specialists who produce "news reports" identical to those produced by local and national news broadcasters. And the content is free. The Pentagon Channel's content is supplemented by the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service (HNS), a 40-man unit that produces VNRs for local broadcasters focusing on the accomplishments of "hometown" soldiers. Deputy director Larry Gilliam says of the service, "We're the 'good news' people." Their reports, tailored for specific local stations, reached 41 million households in 2004. But the service's VNRs sometimes go beyond celebrating a hometown hero. Weeks after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, HNS released a VNR that lauded the training of military policemen at Missouri's Fort Leonard Wood, where many of the MPs involved in the scandal were trained. "One of the most important lessons they learn is to treat prisoners strictly but fairly," the "reporter" in the segment says. A trainer tells the narrator that MPs are taught to "treat others as they would want to be treated." Gilliam says the MP report had nothing to do with the Pentagon's desire to defend itself from accusations of mistreatment and prisoner abuse. "Are you saying that the Pentagon called down and said, 'We need some good publicity?'" Gilliam asks the Times reporter. He answers his own question, "No, not at all." [New York Times, 3/13/2005]
Congress Bans Use of Government VNRs - Two months after the Times article is published, Congress will ban the use of government VNRs for propaganda purposes (see May 2005).
Entity Tags: Brian Conrady, Transportation Security Administration, Richard A. Boucher, Reuters, Associated Press, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Defense, US Department of Health and Human Services, AgDay, Army and Air Force Hometown News Service, William Pierce, US Department of Justice, US Department of State, Pentagon Channel, US Census Bureau, Pat O'Leary, David Winstrom, Fort Leonard Wood, Patricia Harrison, Bush administration (43), CNN, Fox News, Public Relations Society of America, Larry Gilliam, Office of Management and Budget, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Office of Broadcasting Services, Government Accountability Office, Medialink, New York Times
April 2, 2005: FBI Finds Additional Evidence in Former Home of Convicted Oklahoma City Bombing Conspirator
The FBI searches the home that once belonged to convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and May 26, 2004) and finds explosive materials related to the 1995 bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The bureau acts on a tip that it missed evidence in its search a decade earlier (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). Blasting caps and other explosive materials were concealed in a crawl space of the Herington, Kansas, home, buried under about a foot of rock, dirt, and gravel, an area not searched in the 1995 investigation. FBI agent Gary Johnson says, "[T]he information so far indicates the items have been there since prior to the Oklahoma City bombing." Nichols's lawyer, Brian Hermanson, says the discovery is either a hoax or evidence of a major failure by the FBI: "They were there often. It's surprising. I would think they would have done their job and found everything that was there. But I'm still suspicious that it could be something planted there. The house was empty for several years." [Associated Press, 4/2/2005] Reportedly, Nichols has admitted conspiring to build the bomb that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see November 30, 2004).
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Brian Hermanson, Terry Lynn Nichols, Gary Johnson
April 3, 2005: Former CIA Operative Suggests Tie Between Michael Ledeen and Forged Niger Documents
Journalist and radio host Ian Masters asks former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro during an interview, in reference to the question of who forged the Niger documents (see March 2000), "If I were to say the name Michael Ledeen to you, what would you say?" Cannistraro replies, "You're very close." After the radio show, Ledeen denies in a statement that he has any connection to the documents. [Ian Master's Background Briefing, 4/3/2005]
Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Vincent Cannistraro
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
April 14, 2005: Anti-Abortion Bomber Pleads Guilty, Explains Motives in Manifesto
Anti-abortion activist Eric Rudolph, who has pled guilty to bombing abortion clinics (see January 16, 1997 and January 29, 1998), a gay and lesbian nightclub (see February 21, 1997), and the 1996 Olympics (see July 27, 1996 and After and October 14, 1998) in a series of court proceedings, releases an 11-page "manifesto" that explains the rationale behind his bombing spree. In the document, which the Associated Press terms "[a] sometimes-rambling, sometimes-reflective" statement, Rudolph writes that he considers himself a "warrior" against abortion, which he calls murder, and the US government, which he charges with permitting the "slaughter" of "innocent babies." Rudolph will receive four life sentences without parole in return for the prosecution removing the death penalty from consideration (see July 18, 2005). He has also alerted authorities to a large stash of explosives he created while hiding in the mountains of western North Carolina.
Abortion Providers, Lawmakers 'Legitimate Targets' in 'War' - The "holocaust" of abortion is his driving impulse, Rudolph writes in his statement. Anyone who supports or allows abortion, he writes, is an enemy deserving of death. "Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified… in an attempt to stop it," he writes, "whether these agents of the government are armed or otherwise they are legitimate targets in the war to end this holocaust.… Abortion is murder. And when the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned, and legitimized this practice, they forfeited their legitimacy and moral authority to govern."
Rationale for Bombing Olympics - Rudolph also writes that the Olympic bombing was envisioned as the first in a weeklong campaign of bombings designed to shut down the Olympics, held in Atlanta, and embarrass the US government as a result. He had hoped to use high-grade explosives to shut down the Atlanta power grid and force the termination of the Olympics, but was unable to procure the explosives, and calls the results of his bombing a "disaster." He writes: "In the summer of 1996, the world converged upon Atlanta for the Olympic Games. Under the protection and auspices of the regime in Washington, millions of people came to celebrate the ideals of global socialism. Multinational corporations spent billions of dollars, and Washington organized an army of security to protect these best of all games. Even though the conception and purpose of the so-called Olympic movement is to promote the values of global socialism, as perfectly expressed in the song Imagine by John Lennon, which was the theme of the 1996 Games even though the purpose of the Olympics is to promote these despicable ideals, the purpose of the attack on July 27 was to confound, anger, and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand."
Racist, Homophobic Views - In the document, Rudolph attacks homosexuality as an "aberrant" lifestyle, and blames the government for condoning it. He denies holding racist or anti-Semitic views [Associated Press, 4/13/2005; Associated Press, 4/14/2005; CNN, 4/19/2005] , though his ex-sister-in-law Deborah Rudolph told reporters that Rudolph believed abortion was part of a plot to undermine the white race; she said, "He felt like if woman continued to abort their white babies, that eventually the white race would become a minority instead of a majority." Others have said that Rudolph told them he believed the Holocaust never occurred. [CNN, 6/15/2002]
'Worse to Him than Death' - After Rudolph's guilty plea, Deborah Rudolph says of the prospects of his life in jail, "Knowing that he's living under government control for the rest of his life, I think that's worse to him than death." [Associated Press, 4/13/2005] Rudolph, Prisoner No. 18282-058, will be incarcerated in a tiny cell in the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colorado, colloquially known as the "Supermax" facility. Rudolph lives on "bomber's row" along with Ted Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber" (see April 3, 1996), Islamist terrorist Ramzi Yousef (see February 7, 1995), "shoe bomber" Richard Reid (see December 22, 2001), and Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). After his imprisonment, he releases a statement that reads in part, "The talking heads on the news [will] opine that I am 'finished,' that I will 'languish broken and unloved in the bowels of some supermax,' but I say to you people that by the grace of God I am still here—a little bloodied, but emphatically unbowed." [Orlando Weekly, 8/24/2006]
Entity Tags: Terry Lynn Nichols, Deborah Rudolph, Richard C. Reid, Ramzi Yousef, Eric Robert Rudolph, Theodore J. ("Ted") Kaczynski
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism
May 2005: Congress Outlaws Government Propaganda Packaged as News
Congress passes a law clarifying and expanding its earlier ban on government propaganda. The new law bans the use of federal money to produce any news story (see March 2005) that does not openly acknowledge the government's role in producing and slanting that story. The new law dramatically restricts the ability of the federal government to produce and disseminate fake news stories (VNRs—see March 15, 2004 and May 19, 2004) in local news broadcasts. [Savage, 2007, pp. 173]
May 9, 2005: Defense Official Still Not Sure Why Iraq War Did Not Go as Planned
Outgoing Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, one of the key architects of the Iraq occupation, is bemused by the fact that, despite his predictions and those of his neoconservative colleagues, Iraq is teetering on the edge of all-out civil war. He has come under fire from both political enemies and former supporters, with Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) accusing him of deceiving both the White House and Congress, and fellow neoconservative William Kristol accusing him of "being an agent of" disgraced Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see November 6-December 18, 2006). Feith defends the invasion of Iraq, calling it "an operation to prevent the next, as it were, 9/11," and noting that the failure to find WMD is essentially irrelevant to the justification for the war. "There's a certain revisionism in people looking back and identifying the main intelligence error [the assumption of stockpiles] and then saying that our entire policy was built on that error." Feith is apparently ignoring the fact that the administration's arguments for invading Iraq—including many of his own assertions—were built almost entirely on the "error" of the Iraqi WMD threat (see July 30, 2001, Summer 2001, September 11, 2001-March 17, 2003, Shortly After September 11, 2001, September 14, 2001, September 19-20, 2001, September 20, 2001, October 14, 2001, November 14, 2001, 2002, 2002-March 2003, February 2002, Summer 2002, August 26, 2002, September 3, 2002, September 4, 2002, September 8, 2002, September 8, 2002, September 10, 2002, September 12, 2002, Late September 2002, September 19, 2002, September 24, 2002, September 24, 2002, September 28, 2002, October 7, 2002, December 3, 2002, December 12, 2002, January 9, 2003, February 3, 2003, February 5, 2003, February 8, 2003, March 22, 2003, and March 23, 2003, among others).
Cultural Understanding Did Not Lead to Success - Feith says he is not sure why what he describes as his deep understanding of Iraqi culture did not lead to accurate predictions of the welcome the US would receive from the Iraqi people (see November 18-19, 2001, 2002-2003, September 9, 2002, and October 11, 2002). "There's a paradox I've never been able to work out," he says. "It helps to be deeply knowledgeable about an area—to know the people, to know the language, to know the history, the culture, the literature. But it is not a guarantee that you will have the right strategy or policy as a matter of statecraft for dealing with that area. You see, the great experts in certain areas sometimes get it fundamentally wrong." Who got it right? President Bush, he says. "[E]xpertise is a very good thing, but it is not the same thing as sound judgment regarding strategy and policy. George W. Bush has more insight, because of his knowledge of human beings and his sense of history, about the motive force, the craving for freedom and participation in self-rule, than do many of the language experts and history experts and culture experts."
'Flowers in Their Minds' - When a reporter notes that Iraqis had not, as promised, greeted American soldiers with flowers, Feith responds that they were still too intimidated by their fear of the overthrown Hussein regime to physically express their gratitude. "But," he says, "they had flowers in their minds." [New Yorker, 5/9/2005; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 228-229]
Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Carl Levin, William Kristol, Douglas Feith
May 10, 2005: OLC: Past, Present Interrogation Methods Not Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Steven Bradbury, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, issues a classified memo to John Rizzo, the senior deputy counsel for the CIA. The memo will remain classified for nearly four years (see April 16, 2009). It addresses, in the words of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "whether CIA interrogation methods violate the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment standards under federal and international law." Bradbury concludes that neither past nor present CIA interrogation methods violate such standards. [Office of Legal Counsel, 5/10/2005 ; American Civil Liberties Union [PDF], 1/28/2009 ]
CIA Techniques Not Torture, Bradbury Explains - Bradbury calls torture "abhorrent" and "universally repudiated," and says the US will never condone it. Afterwards, he spends a great deal of effort explaining why the various techniques used by the CIA do not constitute torture. Bradbury goes into numerous details about varieties of "harsh interrogation techniques" that can be used on prisoners, often restating details from an August 2002 OLC memo (see August 1, 2002) and elaborating on those descriptions. One technique he details is forced nudity. "Detainees subject to sleep deprivation who are also subject to nudity as a separate interrogation technique will at times be nude and wearing a diaper," he writes, and notes that the diaper is "for sanitary and health purposes of the detainee; it is not used for the purpose of humiliating the detainee and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique.… The detainee's skin condition is monitored, and diapers are changed as needed so that the detainee does not remain in a soiled diaper." He cites "walling," a technique involving slamming a detainee into a "false wall," and writes, "Depending on the extent of the detainee's lack of cooperation, he may be walled one time during an interrogation session (one impact with the wall) or many times (perhaps 20 or 30 times) consecutively." Other techniques Bradbury cites include waterboarding, "abdominal slaps," and "water dousing." For water dousing, Bradbury gives specific restrictions: "For example, in employing this technique:
"For water temperarure of 41°F, total duration of exposure may not exceed 20 minutes without drying and rewarming.
"For water tempetarure of 59°F, total duration of exposure may not exceed 60 minutes without drying and rewarming.
"The minimum permissible temperature of the water used in water dousing is 41°F, though you have informed us that in practice the water temperature is generally not below 50°F, since tap water rather than refrigerated water is generally used." [Office of Legal Counsel, 5/10/2005 ; CNN, 4/17/2009]
Waterboarding Used More Frequently than Authorized - Bradbury also notes that waterboarding is sometimes used more times than authorized or indicated. Referring to an as-yet-unreleased 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general on torture and abuse of detainees, he writes: "The IG report noted that in some cases the waterboard was used with far greater frequency than initially indicated.… ('[T]he waterboard technique… was different from the technique described in the DoJ [Department of Justice] opinion and used in the SERE training (see December 2001 and July 2002). The difference was the manner in which the detainee's breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, the subject's airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the [CIA] interrogator… applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee's mouth and nose. One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the agency's use of the technique is different from that used in SERE training because it is 'for real—and is more poignant and convincing.')… The inspector general further reported that 'OMS [the CIA's Office of Medical Services] contends that the expertise of the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant. Consequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe.'… We have carefully considered the IG report and discussed it with OMS personnel. As noted, OMS input has resulted in a number of changes in the application of the waterboard, including limits on frequency and cumulative use of the technique. Moreover, OMS personnel are carefully instructed in monitoring this technique and are personally present whenever it is used.… Indeed, although physician assistants can be present when other enhanced techniques are applied, 'use of the waterboard requires the presence of the physician.'" [Office of Legal Counsel, 5/10/2005 ]
Entity Tags: US Department of Justice, Steven Bradbury, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Legal Counsel (DOJ), American Civil Liberties Union
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties
May 30, 2005: OLC Sends Secret Memo Regarding Interrogation Methods
Steven Bradbury, the acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, issues a classified memo. The contents and the recipient remain secret, but the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will later determine the memo deals with the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA. In early May, Bradbury determined that none of the CIA's past or present interrogation methods violated either federal or international standards (see May 10, 2005). [American Civil Liberties Union [PDF], 1/28/2009 ]
Entity Tags: Office of Legal Counsel (DOJ), American Civil Liberties Union, US Department of Justice, Steven Bradbury
May 31, 2005: Felt Revealed as 'Deep Throat'
W. Mark Felt. [Source: Life Distilled.com]The identity of "Deep Throat," the Watergate source made famous in Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's book All the President's Men, is revealed to have been W. Mark Felt, who at the time was the deputy director of the FBI. As "Deep Throat," Felt provided critical information and guidance for Bernstein and Woodward's investigations of the Watergate conspiracy for the Washington Post. Felt's identity has been a closely guarded secret for over 30 years; Woodward, who knew Felt, had repeatedly said that neither he, Bernstein, nor then-editor Ben Bradlee would release any information about his source's identity until after his death or until Felt authorized its revelation. Felt's family confirms Felt's identity as "Deep Throat" in an article published in Vanity Fair. Felt, 91 years old, suffers from advanced senile dementia. Felt's character as the romantic government source whispering explosive secrets from the recesses of a Washington, DC, parking garage was burned into the American psyche both by the book and by actor Hal Holbrook's portrayal in the 1976 film of the same name. Woodward says that Holbrook's portrayal captured Felt's character both physically and psychologically. [Washington Post, 6/1/2005] Bernstein and Woodward release a joint statement after the Vanity Fair article is published. It reads, "W. Mark Felt was Deep Throat and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories written in the Washington Post." [Woodward, 2005, pp. 232]
Surveillance Methods to Protect Both Felt and Woodward - Felt used his experience as an anti-Nazi spy hunter for the FBI to set up secret meetings between himself and the young reporter (see August 1972). "He knew he was taking a monumental risk," says Woodward. Woodward acknowledges that his continued refusal to reveal Felt's identity has played a key role in the advancement of his career as a journalist and author, as many sources trust Woodward to keep their identities secret as he did Felt's.
Obscuring the Greater Meaning - Bernstein cautions that focusing on Felt's role as a "deep background" source—the source of the nickname, which references a popular 1970s pornographic movie—obscures the greater meaning of the Watergate investigation. "Felt's role in all this can be overstated," Bernstein says. "When we wrote the book, we didn't think his role would achieve such mythical dimensions. You see there that Felt/Deep Throat largely confirmed information we had already gotten from other sources." [Washington Post, 6/1/2005] Felt was convicted in 1980 of conspiring to violate the civil rights of domestic dissidents belonging to the Weather Underground movement in the early 1970s; Felt was pardoned by then-President Ronald Reagan. [Woodward, 2005, pp. 146-147] At that time, Felt's identity as "Deep Throat" could have been revealed, but was not.
Felt, Daughter Decide to Go Public - The Vanity Fair article is by Felt family lawyer John D. O'Connor, who helped Felt's daughter Joan coax Felt into admitting his role as "Deep Throat." O'Connor's article quotes Felt as saying, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." O'Connor says he wrote the article with the permission of both Felt and his daughter. Woodward has been reluctant to reveal Felt's identity, though he has already written an as-yet unpublished book about Felt and their relationship, because of his concerns about Felt's failing health and increasingly poor memory. The Washington Post's editors concluded that with the publication of the Vanity Fair article, they were not breaking any confidences by confirming Felt's identity as Woodward's Watergate source. [Washington Post, 6/1/2005]
Endless Speculation - The identity of "Deep Throat" has been one of the enduring political mysteries of the last 30 years. Many observers, from Richard Nixon to the most obscure Internet sleuth, have speculated on his identity. Watergate-era figures, including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan, Nixon deputy counsel Fred Fielding, Nixon chief of staff Alexander Haig, National Security Council staffers Laurence Lynn and Winston Lord, then-CBS reporter Diane Sawyer, and many others, have been advanced as possibilities for the source. Former White House counsels John Dean and Leonard Garment, two key Watergate figures, have written extensively on the subject, but both have been wrong in their speculations. In 1992, Atlantic Monthly journalist James Mann wrote that "Deep Throat" "could well have been Mark Felt." At the time, Felt cautiously denied the charge, as he did in his 1979 memoir, The FBI Pyramid. [Woodward, 2005, pp. 153-156; Washington Post, 6/1/2005] In 1999, the Hartford Courant published a story saying that 19-year old Chase Coleman-Beckman identified Felt as "Deep Throat." Coleman-Beckman had attended a day camp with Bernstein's son Josh a decade earlier, and Josh Bernstein then told her that Felt was Woodward's source. Felt then denied the charge, telling a reporter: "No, it's not me. I would have done better. I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?" Woodward calls Felt's response a classic Felt evasion. [Woodward, 2005, pp. 158-159]
Motivated by Anger, Concern over Politicization of the FBI - Woodward believes that Felt decided to become a background source for several reasons both personal and ideological. Felt, who idealized former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was angered that he was passed over for the job upon Hoover's death; instead, the position went to L. Patrick Gray, whom Felt considered both incompetent and far too politically aligned with the Nixon White House. The FBI could not become an arm of the White House, Felt believed, and could not be allowed to help Nixon cover up his participation in the conspiracy. He decided to help Woodward and Bernstein in their often-lonely investigation of the burgeoning Watergate scandal. Woodward and Bernstein never identified Felt as anyone other than "a source in the executive branch who had access" to high-level information. Felt refused to be directly quoted, even as an anonymous source, and would not give information, but would merely confirm or deny it as well as "add[ing] some perspective." Some of Woodward and Felt's conversations were strictly business, but sometimes they would wax more philosophical, discussing, in the words of the book, "how politics had infiltrated every corner of government—a strong-arm takeover of the agencies by the Nixon White House…. [Felt] had once called it the 'switchblade mentality'—and had referred to the willingness of the president's men to fight dirty and for keeps…. The Nixon White House worried him. 'They are underhanded and unknowable,' he had said numerous times. He also distrusted the press. 'I don't like newspapers,' he had said flatly." [Woodward, 2005, pp. 167-215; Washington Post, 6/1/2005]
Entity Tags: Diane Sawyer, W. Mark Felt, Vanity Fair, Ronald Reagan, Carl Bernstein, Weather Underground, Winston Lord, Chase Coleman-Beckman, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Patrick Buchanan, Nixon administration, Washington Post, Laurence Lynn, Fred F. Fielding, Hartford Courant, Henry A. Kissinger, Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Mann, J. Edgar Hoover, John D. O'Connor, Joan Felt, Josh Bernstein, L. Patrick Gray, Leonard Garment, John Dean
Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate
June 2005: State Department Adviser Challenges Legal Justifications for Torture
Philip Zelikow, the chief adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (see February 28, 2005) and the former executive director of the 9/11 Commission (see Shortly Before January 27, 2003), writes a classified memo challenging the Justice Department's legal justifications for its authorizations of torture. Zelikow writes his memo after gaining access to four secret memos from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (see April 16, 2009), in his role as Rice's policy representative to the National Security Council's Deputies Committee. Rice and her legal adviser, John Bellinger, are the only others besides Zelikow to have been briefed on the memos. Zelikow was aware of what many of the suspected terrorists did, or were alleged to have done, through his experience on the 9/11 Commission. The evidence against most of them is "damning," he will later write: "But the issue is not about who or what they are. It is about who or what we are." In the memo, which he will publicly discuss four years later (see April 21, 2009), Zelikow focuses on three main areas of contention.
First, the question should not be whether waterboarding (or any other particular technique) is torture, but on the idea of a program of authorized torture. The program used numerous well-planned, carefully considered methods of physical coercion to gain information from detainees, or as Zelikow will write, "to disorient, abuse, dehumanize, and torment individuals over time." Waterboarding is only one of many objectionable, and illegal, techniques being used against prisoners.
Second, the question of torture should not first be settled by lawyers. The moral and professional aspects of such an issue should be dealt with before asking lawyers to justify such actions. Better questions would be: Are these methods reliable in getting important information? And does the garnering of such information, even if such can be proven, justify the moral position of using torture? In 2009, Zelikow will write: "There is an elementary distinction, too often lost, between the moral (and policy) question—'What should we do?'—and the legal question: 'What can we do?' We live in a policy world too inclined to turn lawyers into surrogate priests granting a form of absolution. 'The lawyers say it's OK.' Well, not really. They say it might be legal. They don't know about OK."
Finally, the legal opinions themselves have what Zelikow calls "grave weaknesses." Many of the OLC opinions, particularly the May 30, 2005 opinion (see May 30, 2005), "presented the US government with a distorted rendering of relevant US law." He goes on: "The case law on the 'shocks the conscience' standard for interrogations would proscribe the CIA's methods," in his view. Moreover, the OLC position ignores "standard 8th Amendment 'conditions of confinement' analysis (long incorporated into the 5th Amendment as a matter of substantive due process and thus applicable to detentions like these). That case law would regard the conditions of confinement in the CIA facilities as unlawful." And, while "the use of a balancing test to measure constitutional validity (national security gain vs. harm to individuals) is lawful for some techniques… other kinds of cruel treatment should be barred categorically under US law—whatever the alleged gain." The logical extension of the OLC's position is that since the "substantive standard is the same as it is in analogous US constitutional law… the OLC must argue, in effect, that the methods and the conditions of confinement in the CIA program could constitutionally be inflicted on American citizens in a county jail. In other words, Americans in any town of this country could constitutionally be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, waterboarded, and all the rest—if the alleged national security justification was compelling. I did not believe our federal courts could reasonably be expected to agree with such a reading of the Constitution."
White House Orders Copies Destroyed - Zelikow will admit he has no standing to offer a legal opinion. However, he will write: "I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable. My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo." Zelikow will say he believes that copies still exist in State Department archives. [Foreign Policy, 4/21/2009; Politico, 4/21/2009]
Entity Tags: Office of Legal Counsel (DOJ), Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration (43), 9/11 Commission, Condoleezza Rice, National Security Council, US Department of State, Philip Zelikow, John Bellinger, US Department of Justice
June 8, 2005: Congressman Accuses CIA of Dismissing Source with Valuable Iran Intel; but Source Later Deemed Dubious
In his new book, "Countdown to Terror," Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), the vice chairman of the House Homeland Security and Armed Services Committees, accuses the CIA of dismissing an informant who he says has valuable information on Iran. Weldon's source claims to have knowledge that Osama Bin Laden is in Iran and that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a terrorist assault on the US called the "12th Imam attack." But according to Bill Murray, a former CIA Station Chief in Paris who met with Weldon's source on four occasions, the information provided by the informant was believed to have originated with Iranian gunrunner Manucher Ghorbanifar, a "known fabricator," familiar to the CIA since the 1980s (see December 9, 2001 and December 2003). Murray compares Ghorbanifar to Ahmed Chalabi, whose false claims about Iraqi WMD were fed to US intelligence, Congress, and the public during the lead-up to war with Iraq. [American Prospect, 4/1/2005; New York Times, 6/8/2005] Murray later identifies Weldon's source, whom Weldon nicknames "Ali," as Ghorbanifar's associate Fereidoun Mahdavi. According to Murray, Mahdavi is a complete liar. "Mahdavi works for Ghorbanifar," Murray will say. "The two are inseparable. Ghorbanifar put Mahdavi out to meet with Weldon." Weldon was accompanied on at least one visit to "Ali" by Peter Hoekstra, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. [American Prospect, 6/10/2005; Vanity Fair, 3/2007]
Entity Tags: Laura Rozen, Peter Hoekstra, Manucher Ghorbanifar, House Intelligence Committee, Curt Weldon, Ahmed Chalabi, Bill Murray, Fereidoun Mahdavi
June 27, 2005: Supreme Court Does Not Intervene in Plame Wilson Leak Case
The Supreme Court refuses to intervene in two reporters' attempts to refuse to testify in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak investigation (see February 15, 2005 and March 23, 2005). [Washington Post, 7/3/2007] One of the reporters, the New York Times's Judith Miller, says she will go to jail rather than reveal her confidential sources. "Journalists simply cannot do their jobs without being able to commit to sources that they won't be identified," she says. "Such protection is critical to the free flow of information in a democracy." Lawyers for the second reporter, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, say they will file a motion to reargue the case. [New York Times, 6/28/2005]
Entity Tags: Matthew Cooper, Judith Miller, US Supreme Court
Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
After June 27, 2005: Reporter Asks Wilson to Intervene with Judge
A few days after the Supreme Court's refusal to quash the subpoenas of two reporters in the Valerie Plame Wilson case (see June 27, 2005), Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson, pass one of the reporters, Matthew Cooper, on the street. Cooper buttonholes Wilson and, obviously struggling with himself, asks, "Could you do something for me?" Cooper asks Wilson if he would write the judge who ruled against Cooper and fellow reporter Judith Miller (see August 9, 2004) a letter asking for leniency for him. Wilson, whom his wife will describe as "taken aback," tells Cooper that he will ask his lawyer about the request. Over dinner, the Wilsons marvel over Cooper's request. They wonder if "Matt [had] momentarily lost his mind." Plame Wilson will write: "A request from Joe for leniency on Matt's behalf would carry little or no weight with the presiding judge. More pointedly, it was obviously in our interest to have the reporters testify. We, along with the entire country, wanted to hear what they would say under oath. We wanted to know what sources in the administration had leaked my name to the media, thereby undermining our national security." More generally, Plame Wilson will reflect: "In the debate over whether reporters should be compelled to reveal their sources, it seemed to me that some of the leading advocates of reporters' First Amendment rights had lost sight of a basic fact in this case: people in the administration had used reporters to advance their own political agenda. That alone is not unusual, or even criminal. But the reporters' refusal to testify would not help to uncover government wrongdoing, but assist officials who wanted to cover up their illegal behavior. It was the Pentagon Papers (see March 1971) or Watergate (see June 15, 1974) turned on its head.… [T]his particular case was not about the freedom of the press, or about reporters' roles as watchdogs on behalf of the governed, the citizens of this country. These reporters were allowing themselves to be exploited by the administration and were obstructing the investigation. It didn't make much ethical sense to me." [Wilson, 2007, pp. 220-221]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, US Supreme Court, Matthew Cooper
July 2005: Italian Parliament Allegedly Names Chalabi, Bush Administration Allies as Likely Niger Document Forgers; Report Denied by Italian Officials, Press
According to CounterPunch, the Italian Parliament releases a report on the forged Iraq-Niger uranium documents (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). The report names four people as the most likely forgers: neoconservative Michael Ledeen (see April 3, 2005), former CIA agent Duane Clarridge (see Late 1998), Iraqi National Congress (INC) head Ahmed Chalabi (see 1992-1996 and February 2002), and Chalabi's close friend and colleague Francis Brooke, who belongs to the Rendon Group, a public relations group formed by the Pentagon in part to promote Chalabi and the INC (see May 1991 and Mid-December 2003). The report suggests the forgeries may have been planeed at a December 2001 meeting in Rome (see December 9, 2001) that involved Ledeen, head of the Italian intelligence service SISMI Nicolo Pollari (see September 9, 2002), and accused spy Larry Franklin (see December 9, 2001). [CounterPunch, 11/1/2005; CounterPunch, 11/9/2005] When the report is publicized in November 2005, Italian government officials will deny the existence of any such report, a denial bolstered by media reports. Journalist Laura Rozen will write that no such report was ever produced, nor was a parliamentary investigation into the Niger forgeries held by the Italian parliament at the time. "There is no parliamentary report," a spokeswoman for Enzo Bianco, a member of Italy's parliament, will say. Nor is there an unpublished report, the spokeswoman will say. Rozen will write that Bianco's spokeswoman "does not just appear to be engaged in a cover up of a secret report. No one in Italy seriously investigating the Niger forgeries has heard of such a report." The Italian newspaper La Repubblica will also report that no such parliamentary report was ever written. Former CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro, who will say he knew of rumors about such a report at one time, will also say that no such report exists. "There is no published report," he will tell Rozen. "If there is a report, we might expect it would have some analysis and conclusions. There is no report, at least not a published report.… I think this stuff is just getting circulated." [Laura Rozen, 11/3/2005]
Entity Tags: La Repubblica, Enzo Bianco, Duane Clarridge, Ahmed Chalabi, Francis Brooke, Italian Parliament, Nicolo Pollari, Iraqi National Congress, Vincent Cannistraro, Laura Rozen, Larry Franklin, Michael Ledeen
July 3, 2005: Rove Lawyer Admits His Client Spoke to Reporter, Will Not Divulge Contents of Conversation
According to lawyer Robert Luskin, White House political strategist Karl Rove did speak to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003) in the days before CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson's identity was exposed in the press (see July 14, 2003). Luskin is Rove's attorney. He says he will "not characteriz[e] the subject matter of that conversation" between Cooper and his client. He adds: "Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame [Wilson]'s identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else.… Who outed this woman?… It wasn't Karl." Rove "certainly did not disclose to Matt Cooper or anybody else any confidential information," he says. Luskin notes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has assured him that he and his investigators "have no reason to doubt the honesty of anything [Rove has] said." [CNN, 7/4/2005] In the days ahead, Cooper will testify that Rove leaked Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA official to him (see July 6, 2005, July 10, 2005, and July 13, 2005).
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Karl C. Rove, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Matthew Cooper, Robert Luskin
July 10, 2005: Convicted Oklahoma City Bombing Conspirator Says White Supremacists May Have Been Involved with Co-Conspirator
Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, June 4, 1998, and May 26, 2004) has said that he believes his co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh (see 7:14 a.m. June 11, 2001), was involved with a white supremacist compound in eastern Oklahoma, Elohim City (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995). Nichols's statements to the FBI, a US congressman, and his family are now being reported by The Oklahoman. Representative Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), who met with Nichols on June 27, 2005 at the federal prison in Florence, Colorado, says: "He said he was driving past it one time and Tim McVeigh knew everything about Elohim City, just told him all about it. And he said on a number of occasions… Tim McVeigh mentioned his friend, Andy the German, who lives at Elohim City.… So there was a strong indication that Tim McVeigh had much more than just a minor association with some of the people at Elohim City." "Andy the German" is Andreas Strassmeir, a former German soldier who helped coordinate security at Elohim City (see 1973 and After). Strassmeir has admitted meeting McVeigh at a 1993 Tulsa gun show (see April 1993), but has said he never saw or spoke with him again. Strassmeir has denied any role in the bombing (see November 1994), as has Elohim City leader Robert Millar (see May 24, 1995). The FBI investigated Elohim City after discovering McVeigh called there two weeks before the bombing (see April 5, 1995), and ruled out the residents as suspects (see February 1995). The bureau never found conclusive proof that McVeigh ever visited there, though other sources found that McVeigh and Nichols had visited there in late 1993 (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994) and learned that McVeigh took part in paramilitary exercises there in late 1994 (see September 12, 1994 and After). For years, many have speculated that Strassmeir and other Elohim City residents may have played a part in the bombing; Rohrbacher says he is considering holding Congressional hearings on the possibility, and says he asked Nichols specifically about those theories. Former federal informant Carole Howe has claimed she saw McVeigh and Strassmeir together at Elohim City in July 1994, and has said Strassmeir talked about blowing up federal buildings in Oklahoma (see August 1994 - March 1995 and November 1994). Federal prosecutors did not believe Howe's claims. [The Oklahoman, 7/10/2005] A precursor of the McVeigh-Nichols bomb plot was hatched in 1983 by Elohim City residents (see 1983). Some believe that Strassmeir may have been McVeigh's alleged co-conspirator identified only as "John Doe No. 2" (see June 14, 1995), even though federal authorities have said that person was not involved with Nichols or McVeigh (see January 29, 1997). McVeigh told his friend Michael Fortier that he planned the Oklahoma City bombing with input from people at Elohim City (see December 1994). Less than two weeks before the bombing, McVeigh went to a strip club with people from Elohim City, including Strassmeir (see April 8, 1995).
Entity Tags: Michael Joseph Fortier, Andreas Strassmeir, Carole Howe, Elohim City, Robert Millar, Terry Lynn Nichols, Timothy James McVeigh, Dana Rohrbacher
July 12, 2005: Novak Cooperated with Plame Wilson Investigation, Press Learns
The press learns that conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson almost two years ago (see July 14, 2003), has been cooperating with the Plame Wilson leak investigation headed by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. The news of Novak's cooperation comes from attorneys familiar with his testimony. Novak's lawyer, James Hamilton, refuses to comment. Novak, according to the sources, said that his Bush administration sources (see July 7, 2003, July 8, 2003, and July 8 or 9, 2003) did not identify Plame Wilson as a covert CIA official (see Fall 1992 - 1996). His use of the word "operative" to describe Plame Wilson in his column was his own formulation, he has said, and not the words of his sources. The lawyer for White House political strategist Karl Rove, Robert Luskin, has told reporters that Rove never told Novak or other reporters that Plame Wilson was a covert operative. Reporter Murray Waas writes: "Federal investigators have been skeptical of Novak's assertions that he referred to Plame as a CIA 'operative' due to his own error, instead of having been explicitly told that was the case by his sources, according to attorneys familiar with the criminal probe. That skepticism has been one of several reasons that the special prosecutor has pressed so hard for the testimony of Time magazine's [Matthew] Cooper (see July 13, 2005) and New York Times reporter Judith Miller" (see September 30, 2005). Investigators are also interested in telephone conversations between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days after the press reported the FBI was opening an investigation into the Plame Wilson leak (see September 29, 2003 and October and November 2003). And, in other testimony, a US government official told investigators that Novak asked him specifically if Plame Wilson had some covert status with the CIA. It is unclear who that official is or when he talked to investigators. [Murray Waas, 7/12/2005]
Entity Tags: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, James Hamilton, Bush administration (43), Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper, Karl C. Rove, Robert Novak, Robert Luskin, Murray Waas, Valerie Plame Wilson
July 13, 2005: Time Reporter Testifies before Plame Wilson Grand Jury
Time reporter Matthew Cooper testifies before the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see December 30, 2003 and July 1, 2005). [Washington Post, 7/3/2007] "I testified openly and honestly," Cooper says after the session. "I have no idea whether a crime was committed or not. That is something the special counsel is going to have to determine." [New York Times, 7/14/2005] Four days later, Cooper will write of his testimony for Time, though special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told him he would rather Cooper remained silent. Cooper is under no legal obligation not to divulge his grand jury testimony. He will say that while grand juries are famously passive, ready to "indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asks it of them," this one is unusually active. About a third of the questions he answers are from jurors, not prosecutors. Cooper testifies that in the week after Joseph Wilson's now-famous op-ed disclosing the fraudulence of the Iraq-Niger uranium claims (see July 6, 2003), the administration had done something it rarely does: admit a mistake. It was admitting that it had erred in using that claim to advance its arguments for war with Iraq (see July 8, 2003). That was big news, and Cooper, having been at Time less than a month, was aggressively covering it. He was curious about the White House's apparent efforts to smear Wilson, and called White House political adviser Karl Rove on July 11 to discuss the apparent smear campaign (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). The jury is interested, and apparently amused, at Cooper's choice of words regarding the status of his conversation with Rove: "double super secret background." Cooper concludes, "So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD'? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I'm as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has." [Time, 7/17/2005]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Bush administration (43), Karl C. Rove, Matthew Cooper, Time magazine, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
July 14, 2005: Source Confirms Rove Spoke with Columnist about Plame Wilson
A source from within the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak investigation confirms that White House political adviser Karl Rove had spoken with conservative columnist Robert Novak before Novak published his column identifying Plame Wilson as a CIA officer (see July 8, 2003 and July 14, 2003). Rove discussed Plame Wilson with Novak. However, according to the source, Rove first heard about Plame Wilson from Novak, as well as learning from Novak that she had played a role in recommending her husband, Joseph Wilson, for a trip to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from that country (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003). According to the source, Novak, not Rove, initiated the conversation about Plame Wilson. It is not clear who revealed Plame Wilson's identity to Novak, or whether Novak has identified that source to the grand jury. [New York Times, 7/15/2005; New York Times, 7/16/2005] In its reporting, the New York Times publicly reveals the July 8, 2003 conversation between Rove and Novak (see July 8, 2003). [New York Times, 7/15/2005] Novak has disputed Rove's version of events, saying that Rove confirmed Plame Wilson's identity to him and not the other way around (see October 7, 2003, February 5, 2004, and September 14, 2004).
Entity Tags: Robert Novak, Joseph C. Wilson, Karl C. Rove, Valerie Plame Wilson
(July 15, 2005): Prosecutors Look into State Department Memo Divulging Plame Wilson's Identity
Prosecutors in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak case (see December 30, 2003) become intensely interested in a 2003 State Department memo (see June 10, 2003) detailing how former ambassador Joseph Wilson—Plame Wilson's husband—was chosen to journey to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from that country (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). The memo also sheds light on the role Wilson's wife played in his selection. Prosecutors are trying to learn whether White House officials learned of Plame Wilson's identity from the memo, if any officials then leaked her name to the press, and if those officials were truthful in their testimony about the memo. It is possible that the memo could show that the State Department told the White House of Plame Wilson's identity as an undercover CIA agent before July 6, 2003, when Wilson publicly lambasted the Bush administration's justification for war with Iraq in a New York Times op-ed (see July 6, 2003). It is as yet unclear who actually saw the memo, or whether it was the original source of information for whoever gave Plame Wilson's name to conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003). Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer is also a person of interest in the investigation. Prosecutors want to know how much detailed information he had about the State Department memo. [New York Times, 7/16/2005]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Ari Fleischer, US Department of State, Bush administration (43), Robert Novak, Joseph C. Wilson
July 27, 2005 and After: Liberal Blogger: Miller May Herself Be the Source of Plame Wilson's Identity
Arianna Huffington. [Source: Boston Globe]Liberal blogger Arianna Huffington slams the perception that New York Times reporter Judith Miller is, in Huffington's words, "a heroic martyr, sacrificing her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity" by going to jail to protect her White House sources in the Plame Wilson leak investigation (see July 6, 2005). Huffington speculates that Miller is herself the source she is trying to protect. It was Miller, Huffington theorizes, who found out from "her friends in the intelligence community" that Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent, and subsequently told White House official Lewis Libby of Plame Wilson's CIA status. Miller's motivation was to protect her own rapidly deteriorating reputation as a purveyor of manipulated and deceptive information to promote the Iraq invasion (see July 6, 2003 and July 25, 2003). "Maybe Miller tells [White House official Karl] Rove too—or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell [reporters Robert] Novak and [Matthew] Cooper. The story gets out. This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her 'source' at the White House—because she was the source.… This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives. Which Novak did" (see July 14, 2003). [Huffington Post, 7/27/2005] When Miller learns of Huffington's article, via her lawyer Saul Pilchen, she is horrified. Pilchen, himself taken aback by Huffington's vociferous and unsourced assertions (which Huffington called "a scenario" and not established fact), will later tell reporter Marie Brennan: "It was my first experience with the blog culture. It was astounding to me how little constraint the bloggers had. They were passing off speculation as fact, and it read to me like pure character assassination." Miller considers the Huffington piece certainly mistaken, and possibly libelous. But, as Brennan will later observe, the discussion and debate generated by Huffington and many others in the "blogosphere" make it difficult for fellow journalists to defend Miller. Reporter Lowell Bergman, a Miller defender, will later tell Brennan that it quickly became clear that Huffington's idea of Miller being part of a White House conspiracy "was a fantasy fed by the deep animosity of people toward Judy.… It was a surrogate for what they all wanted to do to the Bush administration." [Huffington Post, 7/27/2005; Vanity Fair, 4/2006]
Entity Tags: Marie Brennan, Bush administration (43), Arianna Huffington, Judith Miller, Lowell Bergman, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Saul Pilchen
July 29, 2005: House Republicans Quash Resolution Asking that White House Divulge Names of Leakers
Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduces a resolution that would request the Bush administration to divulge the name, or names, of the White House officials responsible for leaking the CIA status of Valerie Plame Wilson to the press (see June 13, 2003, June 23, 2003, July 7, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003, and July 12, 2003). The resolutions are referred to four House committees: Judiciary, International Relations, Armed Services, and Intelligence. The Republican leadership votes the resolution down in each committee, arguing in each case that to make such a request would interfere with the Justice Department's ongoing criminal investigation. In December 2005, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will write, "This argument would seem to be disingenuous given that there are numerous precedents for Congressional committees investigating concurrently with the Justice Department and with other matters under criminal review by the executive branch, most notably many concurrent investigations by the Republican Congress involving the Clinton administration." [Waxman, 12/2005]
Entity Tags: House Judiciary Committee, Bush administration (43), House Armed Services Committee, Rush Holt, House Intelligence Committee, Valerie Plame Wilson, House International Relations Committee
July 31, 2005: Woodward Repeats Baseless Claim that Wilson Contradicted Himself in Report, Op-Ed
Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward repeats the baseless claim that a 2002 report by former ambassador Joseph Wilson on attempts by Iraq to secure Nigerien uranium (see March 8, 2002) contradicted his 2003 New York Times op-ed criticizing the Bush administration's use of the uranium claim to justify its invasion of Iraq (see July 6, 2003). The progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters will note that according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report (see July 9, 2004), "there appears to be no contradiction between the report and Wilson's op-ed.… Wilson's language [in the op-ed] closely echoes the Intelligence Committee's description of his report." Woodward says that according to Wilson's 2002 report, "there were reasonable grounds to discredit" Wilson, and goes on to say that Wilson "had said something in his reports a year before that contradicted what he wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times." Woodward also mocks the idea that anyone in the Bush administration wants to "trash" or "discredit" Wilson (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, and April 5, 2006), and goes on to say that "there were reasonable grounds to discredit him." [Media Matters, 8/1/2005] Woodward does not reveal that he himself was an early recipient of the White House's leaked information that Wilson's wife is a clandestine CIA officer (see June 13, 2003).
Entity Tags: Bush administration (43), Bob Woodward, Senate Intelligence Committee, Media Matters, Joseph C. Wilson
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
August 2005: Libby, Attorney May Have Attempted to Discourage or Influence Reporter's Testimony, Investigation Learns
Members of the special counsel's investigation into the Plame Wilson identity leak learn that former White House official Lewis Libby and/or his attorney, Joseph Tate, may have tried to influence or discourage New York Times reporter Judith Miller's testimony. Miller received information from Libby about Plame Wilson's covert CIA status (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his staff learn from press accounts of possible witness tampering by either Libby, Tate, or both. It is known that Tate has discouraged Libby from giving Miller a waiver of confidentiality that would free her from her responsibility of protecting Libby as a source. Miller is currently in jail for refusing to testify in the investigation (see July 6, 2005). Upon learning about the potential tampering, Fitzgerald strongly urges attorneys for Miller and Libby to negotiate an agreement that would allow Miller to testify. (Libby will give Miller a waiver releasing her from their confidentiality agreement—see September 15, 2005). According to investigative reporter Murray Waas, because Fitzgerald is loathe to lose Miller's testimony, and is unsure of what she might testify to, he will not aggressively pursue the possibility that Libby and/or Tate might have attempted to influence or discourage Miller's testimony (see August 12, 2004 and After). However, the possibility of witness tampering does give further impetus to Fitzgerald's inclination to bring criminal charges against Libby. Waas will write, "Potentially misleading and incomplete answers by Libby to federal investigators are less likely to be explained away as the result of his faulty memory or inadvertent mistakes," according to his sources. A Justice Department official will tell Waas: "Both intent and frame of mind are often essential to bringing the type of charges Fitzgerald is apparently considering. And not wanting a key witness to testify goes straight to showing that there were indeed bad intentions." [National Journal, 10/18/2005]
Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Joseph Tate, Murray Waas, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
August 4, 2005: Novak Leaves CNN Set Rather than Answer Questions about Plame Wilson Leak
James Carville and Robert Novak, moments before Novak leaves the CNN set. [Source: CNN / Comedy Central]Conservative columnist Robert Novak storms off the set of CNN's Strategy Session, apparently unwilling to discuss his outing of CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003). Novak, discussing an unrelated matter with Democratic strategist James Carville, says, "Just let me finish what I'm going to say, James, please. I know you hate to hear me." Carville says to host Ed Henry: "He's gotta show these right-wingers that he's got backbone, you know. The Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em you're tough." Novak stands up, saying, "Well, I think that's bullsh_t, and I hate that." He says to Henry, "Just let it go." Novak then walks off the set. Later in the broadcast, Henry apologizes to viewers, saying: "I had told him in advance that we were going to ask him about the CIA leak case. He was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully, we'll be able to ask him about that in the future." [Media Matters, 8/4/2005]
Entity Tags: CNN, Robert Novak, James Carville, Ed Henry
August 6, 2005: Libby Admits Disclosing Plame Wilson's Identity to Reporter
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, tells federal investigators that he disclosed CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name to New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). Reporter Murray Waas will write, "The new disclosure that Miller and Libby met on July 8, 2003, raises questions regarding claims by President Bush that he and everyone in his administration have done everything possible to assist Fitzgerald's grand jury probe." Many involved in the investigation question Libby's apparent decision not to give a personal waiver of privilege to Miller, who is currently sitting in jail rather than disclosing the contents of her conversations with Libby (see July 6, 2005). Miller does not accept the validity of a general waiver signed by Libby and others at the behest of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and his prosecutors consider the meetings between Libby and Miller critical to proving that Libby committed criminal offenses by giving information on Plame Wilson's CIA status to Miller and other reporters. [American Prospect, 8/6/2005]
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George W. Bush, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Judith Miller, Murray Waas, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
September 12, 2005: Fitzgerald Tells Libby He Can Release Reporter from Confidentiality
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald writes a letter to Joseph Tate, one of the lawyers representing White House aide Lewis Libby. Fitzgerald wants to clarify any potential misunderstandings regarding Libby's possible release of reporter Judith Miller from their understanding of confidentiality. Miller is currently serving an indefinite jail sentence over her refusal to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury about her conversations with Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald cites media accounts that indicate there may be misunderstanding between the parties; he affirms that any communication from Libby to Miller granting Miller a confidentiality waiver would be voluntary, and would not be construed as obstruction. [Office of Special Counsel, 9/12/2005 ] Three days later, Libby releases Miller from her confidentiality pledge (see September 15, 2005).
Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Joseph Tate, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
September 15, 2005: Libby Releases Reporter from Confidentiality Pledge
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, writes jailed reporter Judith Miller (see July 6, 2005) a chatty two-page letter that asserts he had wanted her to testify about their conversations all along. Miller is jailed pending her reversal of a decision not to reveal Libby as a confidential source; Libby had told Miller that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Libby's letter comes after rounds of intensive negotiations between his lawyers, Miller's lawyer Robert Bennett, and special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Libby says that he is glad to grant Miller a waiver of confidentiality which will allow her to testify about their conversations (see September 12, 2005), and says that a year earlier his lawyer had assured her lawyer that he had then waived confidentiality (see January 2-5, 2004). He reassures her that his decision to waive confidentiality is completely voluntary, and says he will actually be "better off" if she testifies. In conclusion, Libby writes: "You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover—Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—and life." [Libby, 9/15/2005 ; New York Times, 9/29/2005] Miller will deny any hidden meaning in Libby's last few lines, and deny to Fitzgerald that Libby attempted to "shape" her testimony in any way through the letter. [New York Times, 10/16/2005] Bennett will say he does not believe that Libby was trying to influence Miller's testimony, but knew as soon as he read his letter that it would "be trouble" for her. "I know that the letter bothered [Judy] and it bothered me," Bennett says. "She might be soon testifying, and a prosecutor might construe that as an attempt to influence her testimony. It was more probably just sort of a dumb thing to put in a letter." Bennett will add: "I think it is important that Judy was protecting a source in terms of source confidentiality and the journalistic privilege. She was not protecting a source to prevent someone from going to jail. The letter just didn't help matters." [National Journal, 10/18/2005]
Entity Tags: Robert T. Bennett, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Judith Miller, Joseph C. Wilson, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame Wilson
September 28-October 1, 2005: Conservative Radio Host: Aborting All Black Children Will Lower US Crime Rate
William Bennett. [Source: Ashbrook Center, Ashland University]William Bennett, the conservative radio host, Fox News contributor, and former secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, tells his listeners that one way to drop the US crime rate would be to "abort every black baby in this country." Bennett, who reaches a weekly audience of some 1.25 million, is apparently going off a claim in the economic treatise Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, who argued that legalized abortion has lowered crime rates, since many aborted fetuses, growing up in poor homes and in single-parent or teenaged-parent homes, would have been more likely to commit crimes. Levitt and Dubner made no race-based claims. A caller to Bennett's show says the national media "talk[s] a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade (see January 22, 1973), the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't—never touches this at all." After some back-and-forth about assumptions over how many of those aborted fetuses would have grown up to be productive citizens, speculations about costs, and Bennett's citation of the Freakonomics claim, he says: "I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky." [Media Matters, 9/28/2005; CNN, 9/30/2005] Bennett will face heavy criticism for his remarks (see September 29-30, 2005), but in his turn will claim that he is the one owed the apology (see September 30 - October 1, 2005).
Entity Tags: Stephen Dubner, Steven Levitt, William J. Bennett
September 29-30, 2005: Reporter, Author Speculate that Libby Attempted to 'Coach' Times Reporter's Testimony Via Media Leaks, Letter
The Washington Post publishes an article, written by Susan Schmidt and Jim VanderHei, that reveals details of White House official Lewis Libby's conversations with New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Miller has just been released from jail (see September 29, 2005) after receiving a confidentiality waiver from Libby (see September 15, 2005). The details of the Libby-Miller conversations come from a source the reporters call "familiar with Libby's account of his conversations with Miller in July 2003." According to the source, Libby told Miller he heard that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, "had something to do with sending him" to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), "but he did not know who she was or where she worked, the source said." The reporters then write that during his second conversation with Miller, Libby said he had learned that Plame Wilson "had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said." The source also told the reporters that Libby never spoke with columnist Robert Novak about Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003). [Washington Post, 9/30/2009] The source "familiar with Libby's" testimony was repeating the same falsehoods that Libby told the Plame Wilson grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Miller will testify that in their first conversation, Libby told her that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA's Weapons, Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control office (see September 30, 2005, October 7, 2005, and October 12, 2005). [National Journal, 10/18/2005] Author and blogger Marcy Wheeler will later write that she believes Libby used the Post story to attempt to "coach" Miller's testimony. Both Wheeler and reporter Murray Waas will note that the same anonymous source quoted in the Schmidt/VandeHei story attempted, and failed, to get articles based on the same information published in two other newspapers. Waas will write: "Journalists at two news organizations declined to publish stories. Among their concerns was that they had only a single source for the story and that that source had such a strong bias on behalf of Libby that the account of his grand jury testimony might possibly be incomplete or misleading in some way. But more important were concerns that a leak of an account of Libby's grand jury testimony, on the eve of Miller's own testimony, might be an effort—using the media—to let Miller know what Libby had said, if she wanted to give testimony beneficial to him, or similar to his. (There is no evidence that Miller did not testify truthfully to the grand jury.)" Wheeler accuses Schmidt of being Libby's "stenographer," a reporter all too willing to publish whatever a person wishes without investigating the possible motives behind the provision of the information. Wheeler also believes Libby may have attempted to coach or influence Miller's testimony in his letter releasing the reporter from their confidentiality agreement (see September 15, 2005). [National Journal, 10/18/2005; Marcy Wheeler, 11/3/2005] The Schmidt/VandeHei article is dated September 30, but appears on the Post's Web site on September 29, well before Miller's testimony. [National Journal, 10/18/2005]
Entity Tags: Jim VanderHei, Judith Miller, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Susan Schmidt, Central Intelligence Agency, Marcy Wheeler, Murray Waas, Valerie Plame Wilson, Washington Post
September 30, 2005: Miller Testifies Before Plame Wilson Grand Jury
Judith Miller speaks to reporters outside the courtroom. [Source: Luke Frazza / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images]New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who yesterday was released from jail after agreeing to testify before the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 29, 2005), testifies before that jury. [Washington Post, 7/3/2007] In some respects Miller's testimony is less than enlightening. She admits that Lewis Libby was the source that she was protecting (see September 15, 2005), but says that she doesn't believe Libby told her Plame Wilson's name. In the same notebook Miller used to take notes from her conversations with Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), Miller wrote "Valerie Flame," an apparent misspelling. Asked why that name appears in the notebook alongside the notes from her conversations with Libby, Miller equivocates, saying she doesn't believe she heard the name from Libby. She will later write of her testimony, "I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall." As a side note, the Times only now reveals Libby as Miller's source, though other news outlets have already identified Libby. [New York Times, 10/16/2005] Miller testifies that she does not recall her first meeting with Libby, which took place June 23. She will change her testimony (see October 7, 2005 and October 12, 2005) after prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald shows her Secret Service logs showing that she had met with Libby in the Executive Office Building. [National Journal, 10/20/2005] This memory lapse is consistent with theories that Miller may be attempting to protect Libby by failing to testify about that first meeting, where Libby informed Miller that Plame Wilson was a CIA official working in the Weapons, Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control office (see September 29-30, 2005). Miller also testifies that Libby saw the media's reporting of the Iraq-Niger story as the product of "selective leaking" by the CIA. The purpose of the CIA leaks, Miller says Libby believed, was to protect the agency if no WMD were found in Iraq. [Roberts, 2008, pp. 151]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Judith Miller, New York Times
October 2005: CIA Report Concludes There Never Was Any Hussein-Al-Zarqawi Link
A CIA report completed this month concludes that Saddam Hussein's Iraq government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward [Islamist leader Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi and his associates." The report will be made public one year later as part of a bipartisan Senate investigation. That investigation will conclude that Hussein regarded al-Qaeda as a threat rather as a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service "actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success." The New York Times will later report that "The disclosure undercuts continuing claims by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda." But despite this report, President Bush will continue to allege such a link existed. For instance, in August 2006, he will claim in a news conference that Hussein "had relations with Zarqawi." [New York Times, 9/8/2006]
Entity Tags: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
October 2, 2005: ABC Host: Bush, Cheney Directly Involved in Disclosing Plame Wilson's Identity to Reporters
During a roundtable discussion on ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos says, "[A] source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions" about disclosing CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name to reporters (see July 14, 2003). [Think Progress, 8/2/2005]
Entity Tags: George Stephanopoulos, Valerie Plame Wilson, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George W. Bush
October 5, 2005: Defense Department Official Pleads Guilty for Passing Secrets to Israel
Defense Department analyst Larry Franklin pleads guilty to passing government secrets to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group and to an Israeli government official, a violation of the Espionage Act. He is later sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. [Washington Post, 10/6/2005; Washington Post, 1/21/2006; Savage, 2007, pp. 173] Franklin, an Iran specialist, gave details of US policy towards Iran to Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two members of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) which the Washington Post calls "one of Washington's most influential lobbying organizations." He also admits to giving classified information directly to Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Gilon returned to Israel, but Rosen and Weissman have been charged in what prosecutors claim was a conspiracy to obtain and illegally pass classified US information to foreign officials and news reporters. Franklin reportedly has been cooperating with investigators in return for a relatively lenient sentence. [Washington Post, 10/6/2005; Washington Post, 1/21/2006] It appears that Franklin was caught by accident in 2003 as part of a larger FBI investigation into Israeli spying that began in 2001 (see September 9, 2001). Investigators had been monitoring Gilon and were reportedly "floored" to watch Franklin sit down and eat lunch with him. [United Press International, 12/9/2004]
Entity Tags: Naor Gilon, Keith Weissman, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Larry Franklin, Steven Rosen
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, Complete 911 Timeline
October 7, 2005: New York Times Reporter's Notes Show that Meeting with Libby Took Place Much Earlier than Previously Revealed
New York Times reporter Judith Miller turns over additional notes to the prosecutors in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak case. The notes indicate that she met with Lewis "Scooter" Libby on June 23, 2003 (see June 23, 2003) and discussed Plame Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson. Until these notes are revealed, Miller had testified that she had not met with Libby until almost two weeks later (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). [New York Times, 10/8/2005] Miller will later say that she discovered the notes in the Times newsroom after her first testimony (see October 12, 2005). [New York Times, 10/12/2005] It was during the June 23 meeting that Libby told Miller of Plame Wilson's position in the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) office. Miller's memory is also jogged when special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald shows her Secret Service logs showing that she met with Libby on June 23 in the White House Executive Office Building. Only after seeing the logs does Miller search her notes and find the information about her first meeting with Libby. Miller's lawyer, Robert Bennett, says: "We went back on the second occasion to provide those additional notes that were found, and correct the grand jury testimony reflecting on the June 23 meeting." He says Miller's testimony is now "correct, complete, and accurate." Washington defense attorney Stan Brand says that even if Fitzgerald believes Miller deliberately feigned a memory lapse about that first meeting with Libby, he is unlikely to "make an issue out of this because he got what he wanted from her," and might still be dependant upon her as a witness during a potential trial. [National Journal, 10/20/2005]
Entity Tags: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Judith Miller, New York Times, Stanley Brand, Robert T. Bennett, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
October 14, 2005: Rove Testifies for Fourth Time before Plame Wilson Grand Jury, Admits to Second Leak
Karl Rove (right) and his lawyer, Robert Luskin. [Source: Doug Mills / The New York Times]White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove testifies for a fourth time before the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see December 30, 2003). [Washington Post, 10/15/2005; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] Rove amends and clarifies his earlier testimony, most notably his failure to remember outing Plame Wilson to Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spends a large portion of Rove's session focusing on the omission. In earlier testimony, Rove attempted to claim that he had only a "hazy recollection" of hearing Plame Wilson's name (see October 15, 2004) before reading Robert Novak's column which publicly outed her as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003). He now testifies that he informed Cooper of her status as a CIA agent days before the article appeared, and his memory apparently failed him during his earlier statements to the grand jury. Rove testifies that his recollection was prompted by the discovery of an e-mail message to Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, that he wrote after talking to Cooper (see March 1, 2004). [National Journal, 10/7/2005; New York Times, 10/15/2005] He insists that he never identified Plame Wilson by her name, but "merely" as the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, and did not intentionally reveal her as a covert CIA official because he did not know of her clandestine status. [Washington Post, 10/15/2005] He says he may have learned of Plame Wilson's CIA identity from fellow White House official Lewis Libby, and says that both he and Libby learned of her CIA employment status from reporters. He says someone else outside the White House also told him of Plame Wilson's identity, but he cannot remember who that was. [Washington Post, 10/20/2005] Previously, Rove insisted that he learned of Plame Wilson's identity from reporters, and not the other way around, as many reporters and others have already testified. Rove has said that one of the reporters who told him that Plame Wilson was a CIA official was Novak, a statement Novak has contradicted (see October 7, 2003, February 5, 2004, and September 14, 2004). Rove also testified that he never told Cooper Plame Wilson's name, but merely identified her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson. [Associated Press, 7/15/2005]
Rove's Testimony No Distraction, White House Officials Claim - White House spokesman Scott McClellan says Rove's testimony has not distracted the administration from its usual affairs: "[W]hile there are other things going on, the White House doesn't have time to let those things distract from the important work at hand." [New York Times, 10/15/2005] White House chief of staff Andrew Card concurs. "Well, obviously we're all human beings and we know that there are external activities that impact the environment you're working in," he says. "It is something that is there, but it is something that we don't talk about because it would be inappropriate.… I haven't found anyone that is distracted because of the ongoing investigation, but we all know that it's taking place and we're all working to cooperate with the investigators." [Washington Post, 10/15/2005]
Lawyer: Rove 'Always Honest' with FBI, Jury, President - Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, says that his client "has always attempted to be honest and fully forthcoming" to anyone "he has spoken to about this matter, whether that be the special prosecutor or the president of the United States. My client would not hide anything, because he has nothing to hide. It would not be to his benefit to do so." Previously, Rove had failed to disclose his discussion with Cooper to either the FBI or to President Bush (see After September 26, 2003). [National Journal, 10/7/2005] "The special counsel has not advised Mr. Rove that he is a target of the investigation and affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges." [Washington Post, 10/15/2005]
Fitzgerald Mulling Criminal Charges against Rove - Sources close to the Fitzgerald investigation say Rove's statements to Bush and to the FBI are at the heart of the decision whether or not to charge him with making false statements to investigators, or with obstruction of justice. Lying to the president could in itself be worthy of charges. Law professor Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor and assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration, says: "The president is the top law enforcement official of the executive branch. It is a crime to make a false statement to a federal agent. If the president was asking in that capacity, and the statement was purposely false, then you might have a violation of law." However, if Bush had discussed the matter with Rove in a more informal capacity, then, Little says, a case for making false statements to a federal agent would be more difficult to prove. Law professor Randall Eliason says that if Rove deliberately lied to the president, a prosecutor could construe the lie as an "overt act… in furtherance of a criminal plan." Law professor Stephen Gillers notes: "Misleading the president, other officials of the executive branch, or even the FBI might not, in and of themselves, constitute criminal acts. But a prosecutor investigating other crimes—such as obstruction of justice or perjury—might use evidence of any such deception to establish criminal intent. And a lack of candor might also negate a claim of good faith or inadvertent error in providing misleading information to prosecutors." [National Journal, 10/7/2005]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Bush administration (43), Karl C. Rove, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Stephen J. Hadley, Andrew Card, Scott McClellan, Randall Eliason, Stephen Gillers, Matthew Cooper, Robert Luskin, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Rory Little, Robert Novak
October 16, 2005: New York Times and Times Reporter Admit that Prewar Iraq Stories Were 'Totally Wrong'
The New York Times again finds itself apologizing for its failures in covering the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson and its handling, or lack of handling, of the newspaper's star reporter, Judith Miller, who recently testified as to her knowledge of the matter (see September 30, 2005). It also admits that much of Miller's prewar reporting on Iraq was "totally wrong." Although the paper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and its executive editor, Bill Keller, supported Miller's decision to go to jail rather than reveal the source of her knowledge about Plame Wilson's CIA identity (see July 6, 2005), neither knew many details of Miller's conversations with her source, former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Neither knew, for example, that Miller's claim of not learning Plame Wilson's identity from Libby was undermined by her own notes. Ultimately, both Sulzberger and Keller left most of the decisions on how to handle the situation to Miller herself. "This car had her hand on the wheel because she was the one at risk," says Sulzberger. While Miller continues to portray her decision to go to jail as one rooted in principle, critics say that she and the Times were not protecting a whistleblower, but an administration source bent on crushing dissent. Asked what she regretted about the Times's handling of the matter, managing editor Jill Abramson says, "The entire thing."
'I Got It Totally Wrong' - Many in the newsroom and in the editorial staff believed that Miller's prewar articles on Iraq's WMD—articles that have long been proven to be based largely on false information from unreliable Iraqi defectors (see December 20, 2001, September 18, 2002, March 19-20, 2003, July 25, 2003, and Autumn 2003)—unfairly advanced the administration's case for war. Miller operated with a level of autonomy other reporters found unusual and distressing, especially since many of them believed her reporting verged on administration propaganda. Investigative editor Douglas Frantz recalls that Miller once called herself "Miss Run Amok"; when he asked her what she meant, she replied, "I can do whatever I want." Miller now admits her reports were largely specious. "WMD—I got it totally wrong," she says. "The analysts, the experts, and the journalists who covered them—we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could."
Not a Clear-Cut Decision to Fight - Keller says: "I wish it had been a clear-cut whistle-blower case. I wish it had been a reporter who came with less public baggage." Times reporter Todd Purdom says: "Everyone admires our paper's willingness to stand behind us and our work, but most people I talk to have been troubled and puzzled by Judy's seeming ability to operate outside of conventional reportorial channels and managerial controls. Partly because of that, many people have worried about whether this was the proper fight to fight." For her part, Miller says she intends to take some time off and perhaps write a book about her ordeal. She says she wants to get back into investigative reporting, and continue to cover "the same thing I've always covered—threats to our country." [New York Times, 10/16/2005]
Criticism of Miller, Times - The next day, columnist Norman Solomon will write, "It now seems that Miller functioned with more accountability to US military intelligence officials than to New York Times editors." Solomon also notes that in her July 8, 2003 meeting with White House official Lewis Libby (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003), Miller expressed frustration at the government's refusal to allow her "to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq." Solomon writes: "There's nothing wrong with this picture if Judith Miller is an intelligence operative for the US government. But if she's supposed to be a journalist, this is a preposterous situation—and the fact that the New York Times has tolerated it tells us a lot about that newspaper." Solomon also notes that Miller's claim of "analysts, the experts, and the journalists who covered them" were "all wrong" about Iraqi WMD is itself wrong. "Some very experienced weapons inspectors—including [the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency] Mohamed ElBaradei, [former chief UN weapons inspector] Hans Blix, and [former UN weapons inspector] Scott Ritter—challenged key assertions from the White House," he writes. "Well before the invasion, many other analysts also disputed various aspects of the US government's claims about WMDs in Iraq.… Meanwhile journalists at some British newspapers, including The Independent and The Guardian, raised tough questions that were virtually ignored by mainstream US reporters in the Washington press corps.… [T]he Times did not 'fall for misinformation' as much as jump for it. The newspaper eagerly helped the administration portray deceptions as facts." [CounterPunch, 10/17/2005] Liberal columnist and blogger Arianna Huffington provides a long list of reporters and publications who "didn't get it wrong" on Iraqi WMD. She quotes reporter Joe Lauria, a veteran foreign affairs reporter who writes for the London Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, and the Boston Globe, who told her: "I didn't get it wrong. And a lot of others who covered the lead up to the war didn't get it wrong. Mostly because we weren't just cozying up to Washington sources but had widened our reporting to what we were hearing from people like Mohamed ElBaradei and Hans Blix, and from sources in other countries, like Germany, France, and Russia. Miller had access to these voices, too, but ignored them. Our chief job as journalists is to challenge authority. Because an official says something might make it 'official,' but it doesn't necessarily make it true." [Huffington Post, 10/21/2005]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Douglas Frantz, Bill Keller, Arthur Sulzberger, Arianna Huffington, Jill Abramson, Judith Miller, Norman Solomon, New York Times, Todd Purdom, Joe Lauria
October 18, 2005: Columnist: Fitzgerald's Investigation a 'Disaster' for Freedom of Press and Freedom of Speech
Slate's Jacob Weisberg. [Source: Paid Content (.org)]Jacob Weisberg, a senior editor of Slate magazine, warns liberals that the possible prosecution of White House official Karl Rove and/or former White House aide Lewis Libby may not be cause for celebration. "Opponents of the Bush administration are anticipating vindication on various fronts—justice for their nemesis Karl Rove, repudiation of George W. Bush's dishonest case for the Iraq war, a comeuppance for Chalabi-loving reporter Judith Miller of the New York Times, and even some payback for the excesses of independent counsels during the Clinton years," he writes. Weisberg calls support for the potential prosecutions "self-destructive," and explains: "Anyone who cares about civil liberties, freedom of information, or even just fair play should have been skeptical about [special prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald's investigation from the start. Claiming a few conservative scalps might be satisfying, but they'll come at a cost to principles liberals hold dear: the press's right to find out, the government's ability to disclose, and the public's right to know." Weisberg calls the law that is at the heart of the Plame Wilson investigation, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), "flawed," and the entire Fitzgerald investigation "misbegotten." The law is difficult to use for a conviction because it requires that prosecutors prove intent to do harm. "Under the First Amendment, we have a right to debate what is done in our name, even by secret agents," Weisberg writes. "It may be impossible to criminalize malicious disclosure without hampering essential public debate." After calling the White House "negligent" and "stupid" for revealing Plame Wilson's CIA status, he says that no one has shown Rove, Libby, or any other official leaked her name with the intent of causing her or her career harm. Weisberg writes: "[A]fter two years of digging, no evidence has emerged that anyone who worked for Bush and talked to reporters about Plame… knew she was undercover. And as nasty as they might be, it's not really thinkable that they would have known. You need a pretty low opinion of people in the White House to imagine they would knowingly foster the possible assassination of CIA assets in other countries for the sake of retaliation against someone who wrote an op-ed they didn't like in the New York Times" (see July 6, 2003). The outing of Plame Wilson was "accidental," Weisberg claims, part of the Bush administration's attempts to defend itself against its failure to find WMD in Iraq. Weisberg calls Fitzgerald "relentless and ambitious," implying that he is pursuing the case for the fulfillment of his personal ambition, and says that no evidence exists of anyone breaking any laws, whether it be the IIPA, statutes against perjury or conspiracy, obstruction of justice, or anything else. Fitzgerald will indict someone for something, Weisberg states, because not to do so would seem like he failed in his investigation. Fitzgerald is sure to bring what Weisberg calls "creative crap charges of his own devising" against someone, be it a White House official or a reporter. Weisberg concludes by calling Fitzgerald's investigation "a disaster for freedom of the press and freedom of information." [Slate, 10/18/2005]
Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Bush administration (43), George W. Bush, Karl C. Rove, Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Jacob Weisberg, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
October 25, 2005: New York Times Columnist Warns that Fitzgerald Indictments Might Be 'Overzealous'
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes that the Fitzgerald investigation of the Plame Wilson identity leak is running the risk of moving too far, too fast, and may end up jailing Bush administration officials without good cause. Kristof cites two Republican-driven investigations from the 1990s—the "fanatical" Kenneth Starr investigation of former President Clinton and the "appalling" 10-year pursuit of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros—to warn that the Fitzgerald investigation, like those he cites from the 1990s, may be moving into murkier areas than originally warranted, i.e. the investigation into who leaked the name of a clandestine CIA agent. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald may be "considering mushier kinds of indictments," Kristof writes, "for perjury, obstruction of justice, or revealing classified information. Sure, flat-out perjury must be punished. But if the evidence is more equivocal, then indictments would mark just the kind of overzealous breach of prosecutorial discretion that was a disgrace when Democrats were targeted. And it would be just as disgraceful if Republicans are the targets." Kristof acknowledges that White House officials "behaved abominably in this affair," and says, "the idea of a government official secretly using the news media… to attack former Ambassador Joseph Wilson [is] sleazy and outrageous. But a crime? I'm skeptical, even though there seems to have been a coordinated White House campaign against Mr. Wilson" (see October 1, 2003). "My guess is that the participants in a White House senior staff meeting discussed Mr. Wilson's trip and the charges that the administration had knowingly broadcast false information about uranium in Niger—and then decided to take the offensive. The leak of Mrs. Wilson's identity resulted from that offensive, but it may well have been negligence rather than vengeance." Kristof doubts that anyone in the White House knew that Plame Wilson was an undercover agent, and believes that "some official spread the word of Mrs. Wilson's work at the CIA to make her husband's trip look like a nepotistic junket." He calls such behavior "appalling," and says that columnist Robert Novak "was absolutely wrong to print the disclosure" (see July 14, 2003). "But there's also no need to exaggerate it," he concludes. The entire Plame Wilson affair is an example of "backstabbing politics," he writes, "but not… obvious criminality." Therefore, Fitzgerald should be wary of handing down indictments, both in the interest of legal restraint and for fear that indicting "White House officials on vague charges of revealing classified information… will have a chilling effect on the reporting of national security issues." [New York Times, 10/25/2005]
Entity Tags: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Bush administration (43), Central Intelligence Agency, Nicholas Kristof, Clinton administration, Robert Novak, Henry Cisneros, Joseph C. Wilson
October 27, 2005: Cheney, Office of Vice President Interfered with Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Pre-war Intelligence Failures
The media learns that Vice President Dick Cheney and staffers from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) regularly interfered with the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 report on the intelligence community's failures to accurately assess Iraq's WMD threat (see July 9, 2004). According to administration and Congressional sources, that interference was facilitated and encouraged by committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS). Cheney and the OVP members regularly intervened in the committee's deliberations, and drastically limited the scope of the investigation.
Protecting the Bush Administration - Reporter Laura Rozen will later write, "In order to prevent the White House and the Office of the Vice President itself from ever coming under any Congressional oversight scrutiny, Cheney exerted 'constant' pressure on [Roberts] to stall an investigation into the Bush administration's use of flawed intelligence on Iraq." Cheney and the OVP also withheld key documents from the committee. Some of the withheld materials included portions of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the United Nations (see February 5, 2003) that were written by Cheney's then-chief of staff, Lewis Libby, and documents that Libby used to make the administration's case for war with Iraq. The OVP also withheld the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) documents: written intelligence summaries provided to President Bush by the CIA. The decision to withhold the documents was spearheaded by Cheney's chief legal counsel and chief of staff David Addington. Much of the withheld material, and Cheney-OVP interference, was designed to keep the committee from looking into the Bush administration's use of intelligence findings to promote the war. According to committee member John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Cheney attended regular policy meetings in which he gave White House orders to Republican committee staffers. It is "not hearsay," Rockefeller says, that Cheney pushed Roberts to, in reporter Jonathan Landay's words, "drag out the probe of the administration's use of prewar intelligence." The committee chose to defer the second portion of its report, about the administration's use of intelligence to propel the nation to war, until after the November 2004 elections. That portion of the report remains uncompleted.
Shifting the Blame to the White House - Reporter Murray Waas writes, "Had the withheld information been turned over, according to administration and Congressional sources, it likely would have shifted a portion of the blame away from the intelligence agencies to the Bush administration as to who was responsible for the erroneous information being presented to the American public, Congress, and the international community." He continues: "When the [report] was made public, Bush, Cheney, and other administration officials cited it as proof that the administration acted in good faith on Iraq and relied on intelligence from the CIA and others that it did not know was flawed. But some Congressional sources say that had the committee received all the documents it requested from the White House the spotlight could have shifted to the heavy advocacy by Cheney's office to go to war. Cheney had been the foremost administration advocate for war with Iraq, and Libby played a central staff role in coordinating the sale of the war to both the public and Congress." [National Journal, 10/27/2005; Wilson, 2007, pp. 381]
Entity Tags: Office of the Vice President, John D. Rockefeller, George W. Bush, David S. Addington, Colin Powell, Bush administration (43), Jonathan Landay, Murray Waas, Laura Rozen, Senate Intelligence Committee, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Pat Roberts
October 28, 2005: Addington Becomes Cheney's Chief of Staff
David Addington. [Source: Richard A. Bloom / Corbis]David Addington, the chief counsel for Vice President Dick Cheney, is named Cheney's chief of staff to replace Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame Wilson case (see February 13, 2002). [National Journal, 10/30/2005; MSNBC, 11/4/2005] Addington is described by one White House official as "the most powerful man you never heard of." A former Justice Department official says of Addington, "He seems to have his hand in everything, and he has these incredible powers, energy, reserves in an obsessive, zealot's kind of way." He is, according to former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, Cheney's "eyes, ears, and voice." [US News and World Report, 5/21/2006] Addington is a neoconservative ideologue committed to dramatically expanding the power of the presidency, and a powerful advocate of the "unitary executive" theory of presidential power. He has been with Cheney for years, ever since Cheney chose him to serve as the Pentagon's chief counsel while Cheney was Defense Secretary under Ronald Reagan. During that time, Addington was an integral part of Cheney's battle to keep the Iran-Contra scandal from exploding (see 1984). [Washington Post, 10/11/2004; National Journal, 10/30/2005; MSNBC, 11/4/2005; US News and World Report, 5/21/2006] According to Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, documentary evidence shows that Cheney's office, and Addington in particular, were responsible for giving at least tacit approval for US soldiers to abuse and torture prisoners in Iraq (see January 9, 2002). In an administration devoted to secrecy, Addington stands out in his commitment to keeping information away from the public. [Washington Post, 10/11/2004] Though Addington claims to have a lifelong love affair with the Constitution, his interpretation of it is somewhat unusual. One senior Congressional staffer says, "The joke around here is that Addington looks at the Constitution and sees only Article II, the power of the presidency." [US News and World Report, 5/21/2006] Addington's influence in the White House is pervasive. He scrutinizes every page of the federal budget, hunting for riders that might restrict the power of the president. He worked closely with Gonzales to oppose attempts by Congress to pry information from the executive branch, and constantly battles the State Department, whose internationalist philosophy is at odds with his and Cheney's own beliefs. [Washington Post, 10/11/2004] Former Reagan Justice Department official Bruce Fein calls Addington the "intellectual brainchild" of overreaching legal assertions that "have resulted in actually weakening the presidency because of intransigence." According to Fein, Addington and Cheney are doing far more than reclaiming executive authority, they are seeking to push it farther than it has ever gone under US constitutional authority. They have already been successful in removing executive restraints formerly in place under the War Powers Act, anti-impoundment legislation, the legislative veto and the independent counsel statute. "They're in a time warp," Fein says. "If you look at the facts, presidential powers have never been higher." [Washington Post, 10/11/2004] "He thinks he's on the side of the angels," says a former Justice Department official. "And that's what makes it so scary." [US News and World Report, 5/21/2006]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, US Department of State, Theodore ("Ted") Olson, US Department of Justice, US Department of Defense, Ronald Reagan, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, National Security Council, Bruce Fein, Bradford Berenson, 9/11 Commission, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, David S. Addington, John Bellinger, Jack Goldsmith, Lawrence Wilkerson, John C. Yoo, Valerie Plame Wilson
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
October 29, 2005: Reporter Claims Fitzgerald Receives Italian Report on Iraq-Niger Forgeries
According to a United Press International (UPI) report, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has sought and received documentation on the Iraq-Niger forgeries (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003) from the Italian government. UPI reports, "Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with [y]ellowcake uranium." (In November, that parliamentary report will be shown not to exist—see July 2005.) According to reporter Jason Leopold, the information about the Iraq-Niger documents being provided to Fitzgerald comes from NATO sources. Leopold's reporting will later be shown to be less than reliable (see June 19, 2006). [Raw Story, 10/24/2005; Global Research, 10/29/2005; CounterPunch, 11/9/2005]
Entity Tags: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United Press International, Jason Leopold
October 31, 2005: Former Solicitor General Says Libby Did Not Lie, Did Not Out Plame Wilson
The Wall Street Journal prints an editorial by former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson lambasting the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation and the indictment of former White House aide Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), and criticizing the use of the Independent Counsel Law to investigate the Plame Wilson identity leak. The Journal does not inform its readers of Olson's participation in using the Independent Counsel Law to bring articles of impeachment against former President Clinton. Olson calls the investigation a "spectacle," questions special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's impartiality, and says the entire Plame Wilson-Libby investigation is another example of "special prosecutor syndrome," a politically motivated investigation run amok. Olson writes that he does not believe Libby is guilty of perjury because "I know him to be an honest, conscientious man who has given a large part of his life to public service." Any misstatements Libby may have made to investigators (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004) must have been inadvertent failures of memory and not deliberate lies. Moreover, Olson asserts, Libby had nothing to do with exposing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA official (see (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). [Wall Street Journal, 10/31/2005]
Entity Tags: Wall Street Journal, Bush administration (43), Independent Counsel Law, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Theodore ("Ted") Olson, Valerie Plame Wilson
November 2005: CIA Destroys Videotapes of Detainees' Interrogations without Advance Notification
The Central Intelligence Agency destroys videotapes of the interrogations of two high-ranking detainees, Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, which were made in 2002 (see Spring-Late 2002). One anonymous senior intelligence official later claims that "Several hundred hours" of videotapes are destroyed. [Washington Post, 12/18/2007] The tapes are destroyed at the CIA station in Thailand by station chief Michael Winograd, as Zubaida and al-Nashiri apparently were tortured at a secret CIA prison in that country. [Newsweek, 6/28/2008; Associated Press, 7/26/2010] The decision to destroy the tapes is apparently made by Jose Rodriguez, chief of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, despite previous advice not to destroy them (see November 2005). However, some accounts will suggest that Rodriguez received clearance to destroy the tapes (see December 7, 2007). [New York Times, 12/8/2007] The CIA's treatment of detainees has recently come under increased scrutiny. As the Wall Street Journal will later remark, "the Abu Ghraib prison pictures were still fresh, the existence of secret CIA prisons had just been revealed, and politicians on Capitol Hill were talking about curtailing 'extreme techniques,' including the Central Intelligence Agency's own interrogation tactics." [Wall Street Journal, 12/10/2007] Beginning on November 2, 2005, there are some pivotal articles revealing details about the CIA's handling of detainees, suggesting that some of them were illegally tortured (see November 2-18, 2005). According to a 2007 statement by future CIA Director Michael Hayden, the tapes are destroyed "in the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them" and because they apparently pose "a serious security risk"; if they were leaked, they could be used for retaliation by al-Qaeda and its sympathizers. [Central Intelligence Agency, 12/6/2007] However, this rationale will be questioned when the destruction is revealed in late 2007 (see December 6, 2007). Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) will call this "a pathetic excuse.… You'd have to burn every document at the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it under that theory." CBS News will offer an alternative explanation, saying that the tapes are destroyed "to protect CIA officers from criminal prosecution." [CBS News, 12/7/2007] CIA Director Porter Goss and the CIA's top lawyer, John Rizzo, are allegedly not notified of the destruction in advance, and Rizzo will reportedly be angry at this failure. [New York Times, 12/8/2007] But Newsweek will later claim that Goss and Rizzo were involved in extensive discussions with the White House over what to do with the tapes. Goss supposedly thought there was an understanding the tapes would be saved and is upset to learn they have been destroyed (see Between 2003-Late 2005 and Before November 2005). [Newsweek, 12/11/2007] Congressional officials responsible for oversight are not informed for a year (see March 14, 2007). A White House spokeswoman will say that President Bush has "no recollection" of being made aware of the tapes' destruction before 2007 (see December 11, 2007). It is also unclear whether the Justice Department is notified in advance or not. [New York Times, 12/8/2007] The CIA still retains tapes of interrogations of at least one detainee (see September 19 and October 18, 2007).
Entity Tags: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Zubaida, Jose Rodriguez, Jr., CIA Bangkok Station, John Rizzo, Porter J. Goss, Michael K. Winograd, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, Civil Liberties
November 2, 2005: Press Learns of Bolton Contact, Cooperation by Former Cheney Aides
The press learns that UN Ambassador John Bolton was contacted in May 2003 by Lewis Libby to find out who sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson on a fact-finding mission to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and May 29, 2003). Bolton was the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs when Libby contacted him. The progressive news Web site Raw Story learns of the Bolton contact from lawyers involved in the investigation of the Plame Wilson identity leak, and from documents posted on the investigation's Web site. The lawyers say that two former Libby aides, John Hannah and David Wurmser, informed special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald of Libby's inquiry to Bolton (see Before October 17, 2005 and Before October 19, 2005). At the time, Wurmser was on loan from Bolton's office and serving as a Middle Eastern affairs aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and Libby. Both Hannah and Wurmser have been cooperating with Fitzgerald's investigation, the lawyers say. MSNBC has reported that Bolton testified before the Plame Wilson grand jury. Wurmser, the lawyers say, has been cooperating for fear that he would be charged for his role in leaking Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity; Hannah began cooperating after learning that he had been identified by witnesses as a co-conspirator in the leak. Raw Story writes: "It is unclear whether Bolton played any other role in the Plame outing, but his connection to the Iraq uranium claims certainly gave him a motive to discredit Wilson, who had called into question the veracity of the Niger documents. A probe by the State Department inspector general revealed that Bolton's office was responsible for the placement of the Niger uranium claims in the State Department's December 2002 'fact sheet' on Iraq's WMD program." The lawyers say it is doubtful that the information Hannah and Wurmser have provided will ever be made public, but their information was crucial to Fitzgerald's investigation because it allowed him "to put together a timeline that showed how various governmental agencies knew about Plame [Wilson]'s covert CIA status." [Raw Story, 11/2/2005]
Entity Tags: Raw Story, David Wurmser, John Hannah, John R. Bolton, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, US Department of State, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
November 3, 2005: FBI Closes Investigation into Iraq-Niger Forgeries, Concludes Documents Produced for Personal Profit
The FBI terminates its two-year investigation into who disseminated the forged documents that alleged Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). Italian intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari has confirmed that former Italian intelligence agent Rocco Martino disseminated the documents (see November 3, 2005). FBI chief Robert Mueller has praised Pollari and SISMI's cooperation with the bureau's investigation. In part because of information provided by SISMI to the FBI, the bureau concludes that the forgeries were produced by a person or persons for personal profit, and rules out any possibility that SISMI attempted to influence US policies. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica has published a three-part investigative series claiming Pollari had knowingly provided the US and Great Britain with the forgeries (see October 16, 2001, October 18, 2001, December 9, 2001, and September 9, 2002), perhaps at the behest of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who it says was said to be eager to help President Bush in the search for weapons in Iraq (see (After October 18, 2001)). Berlusconi has denied any involvement. [New York Times, 11/4/2005]
Entity Tags: La Repubblica, Federal Bureau of Investigation, George W. Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, Nicolo Pollari, Rocco Martino, Robert S. Mueller III
November 4, 2005: Conservative Lawyers: Exposure of Plame Wilson a 'Public Service'
Conservative Washington lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey publish a guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal defending the Bush administration, and specifically the indicted Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), for their actions in the Plame Wilson identity leak. No crime was committed, Rivkin and Casey allege, and no legal ethics were breached. Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA official was moot because, Rivkin and Casey write, "she was not a covert agent—a readily ascertainable fact that should have concluded special counsel Fitzgerald's investigation almost as soon as it got underway" (see Fall 1992 - 1996). In fact, Rivkin and Casey write, exposing Plame Wilson's role in her husband Joseph Wilson's 2002 mission to Africa (see February 19, 2002, February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002, July 22, 2003, October 17, 2003, and July 20, 2005) "was relevant to an accurate understanding of his later allegations against the administration." In general, the lawyers state, it is not a crime to expose an intelligence official's "classified" status, only genuine covert agents. Since Plame Wilson was not a covert agent, by Rivkin and Casey's standards, no crime was committed in exposing her as a CIA official. And even had she been, they continue, certainly no damage could have been done by her exposure (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). When Wilson decided to publish his New York Times op-ed (see July 6, 2003), the lawyers write, he "eliminated whatever shreds of anonymity" Plame Wilson retained. The lawyers conclude that "the revelation of Ms. Plame [Wilson]'s connection to the CIA was a public service, neither criminal nor unethical." [Wall Street Journal, 11/4/2005]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Bush administration (43), David Rivkin, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, Wall Street Journal, Lee Casey, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
November 7, 2005: New York Post Editorial: CIA Exposed Plame Wilson to Cover Own Ineptitude
New York Post editorial writer Deborah Orin echoes charges made by previous columnists in the Wall Street Journal that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is conducting a partisan political prosecution of former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 29, 2005 and October 31, 2005), and repeats charges by former Reagan Justice Department official Victoria Toensing that the CIA is behind the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity (see November 3, 2005). Orin repeats previously made assertions that the CIA allowed Plame Wilson's exposure by allowing her to send her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger (see February 13, 2002, February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, October 17, 2003, and July 20, 2005), failed to have Wilson sign "the usual confidentiality agreement," and failed to require him to write a written report (see March 4-5, 2002, (March 6, 2002), and March 8, 2002). Orin accuses Wilson of only voicing his public criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq invasion after he "joined" the presidential campaign of John Kerry (D-MA) in May 2003, even though he began publicly criticizing the administration a year earlier (see May 2002, October 13, 2002, November 2002, December 9, 2002, January 28-29, 2003, February 13, 2003, February 28, 2003, March 3, 2003, March 5, 2003, and March 8, 2003), and the White House began its retaliatory attack against his criticisms in March 2003 (see March 9, 2003 and After). Orin also repeats Toensing's sourceless assertion that Wilson's New York Times op-ed about his findings in Niger (see July 6, 2003) "sharply conflicted with what he'd told the CIA." It was the CIA's actions, not the White House's, that led to Plame Wilson's exposure, Orin avers (see June 13, 2003, June 23, 2003, July 7, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003, and July 12, 2003). Orin quotes Toensing, who said: "It [the Plame Wilson exposure] was a planned CIA covert action against the White House. It was too clever by half." The reason, Orin says, was to divert attention from its intelligence failures surrounding the US failure to find WMD in Iraq: "Having Wilson go public was very useful to the CIA, especially the division where his wife worked—because it served to shift blame for failed 'slam dunk' intelligence claims away from the agency. To say that Bush 'twisted' intelligence was to presume—falsely—that the CIA had gotten it right." The White House was merely defending itself from the CIA's propaganda onslaught, Orin writes, adding that since Plame Wilson was not a covert agent (see Fall 1992 - 1996), the agency was "dishonest" in claiming that its intelligence operations had been damaged by her exposure (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). [New York Post, 11/7/2005]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration (43), Deborah Orin, John Kerry, Joseph C. Wilson, Victoria Toensing, Valerie Plame Wilson, New York Post, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Wall Street Journal
November 10, 2005: Former Cheney Aide Praises Libby, Accuses Wilson of Falsifying Information
The National Review publishes an editorial by Cesar Conda, an assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney from January 2001 to September 2003. Conda writes a glowing defense of indicted perjurer Lewis Libby, whom he worked with in Cheney's office. Conda notes that he was not "personally close" to Libby, and says he has not spoken to him since December 2004. Conda claims no access to the Libby defense team, nor any knowledge of the Libby defense strategy. However, he writes, "I have my own observations of the man, and some commonsense arguments that should to be considered as they relate to the indictment." Conda calls the portrayal of Libby in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of him (see October 28, 2005) a "caricature" that "is utterly at odds with his professional and personal history." Libby, Conda writes, "is honorable, discreet, selfless—a man of unquestionable integrity. Most of his professional career has been spent in public service, as a behind-the-scenes, yet invaluable staffer at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Congress." Libby served in Cheney's office "at great personal sacrifice," according to Conda, choosing to leave "a lucrative private law practice" and "compromis[ing] family time with his two grade-school children—to focus his energies on his all consuming job in the White House." Conda goes into detail about Libby's overwhelming workload, a key element of the Libby defense team's "memory defense" (see January 31, 2006). According to Conda, Libby should be expected to misremember some "fleeting" conversations he may have had with reporters about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and Wilson's wife, CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, July 10 or 11, 2003, October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). Conda claims that Wilson is at the heart of the Libby indictment, and accuses him of falsifying his report about the Iraq-Niger uranium hoax (see March 4-5, 2002 and July 6, 2003). Conda concludes by praising Libby as a man whose "noble" goal was "to protect the American people from terrorism." [National Review, 11/10/2005]
Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Bush administration (43), Cesar Conda, Joseph C. Wilson, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, National Review
November 14, 2005: Post Reporter Testifies about Plame's Identity Being Divulged
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward testifies under oath in a sworn deposition to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald concerning his knowledge of the identity of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see December 30, 2003), and how he came upon that knowledge. Woodward testifies that he spoke "with three current or former Bush administration officials" in regards to his book Plan of Attack. He testifies for two hours under an agreement that he will only discuss matters specifically relevant to Fitzgerald's investigation, and with written statements from each of the three administration officials waiving confidentiality "on the issues being investigated by Fitzgerald." Woodward's name came to Fitzgerald's attention after one of the three officials, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, told Fitzgerald that he had revealed Plame Wilson's identity to Woodward (see June 13, 2003 and After October 28, 2005). In his story for the Post about his testimony, Woodward does not reveal Armitage's identity, but it is soon disclosed by other sources (see March 14, 2006). Woodward spoke with a second administration official, whose identity he also does not disclose, and with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, but says he did not discuss Plame Wilson with either Libby or the other official (see June 23, 2003). He testifies that he did not discuss Plame Wilson with any other government officials (see June 20, 2003) before Robert Novak publicly outed her on July 14 (see July 14, 2003). Woodward notes, "It was the first time in 35 years as a reporter that I have been asked to provide information to a grand jury." [Washington Post, 11/16/2005; Washington Post, 11/16/2005; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] Investigative reporters for the progressive news Web site Raw Story identify National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley as Woodward's source for Plame Wilson's identity, a claim echoed by the Times of London. Hadley refuses to answer questions on the topic. [Raw Story, 11/16/2005; London Times, 11/20/2005] In 2006, the National Security Council will refuse to directly deny Hadley's involvement, and will request that Raw Story attribute denials to the White House and not to itself.) [Raw Story, 3/19/2006]
Woodward Told Second Reporter about Plame Wilson - Woodward testifies that he told another reporter about Plame Wilson: "I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at the Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst." Pincus says he has no memory of Woodward telling him anything about Plame Wilson, and says he would certainly have remembered such a conversation, especially since he was writing about Plame Wilson's husband, war critic Joseph Wilson, at the time (see June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, and (July 11, 2003)). "Are you kidding?" Pincus says. "I certainly would have remembered that." Pincus believes Woodward is confused about the timing and the nature of their conversations; he remembers Woodward making a vague allusion to Plame Wilson in October 2003. That month, Pincus had written a story explaining how an administration source had contacted him about Wilson. Pincus recalls Woodward telling him that he was not the only person who had been contacted.
Libby Lawyer: Woodward's Testimony Undermines Case against Client - Lewis Libby's lawyer, William Jeffress, says Woodward's testimony undermines the case Fitzgerald is building against his client (see October 28, 2005). "If what Woodward says is so, will Mr. Fitzgerald now say he was wrong to say on TV that Scooter Libby was the first official to give this information to a reporter?" Jeffress says. "The second question I would have is: Why did Mr. Fitzgerald indict Mr. Libby before fully investigating what other reporters knew about Wilson's wife?" [Washington Post, 11/16/2005]
Plame Wilson 'Deeply Disappointed' in Woodward - In 2007, Plame Wilson will write, "I was deeply disappointed that [Woodward] had chosen to react as a journalist first and a responsible citizen only when his source 'outed' him to the special prosecutor." [Wilson, 2007, pp. 238]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Walter Pincus, Robert Novak, Richard Armitage, Raw Story, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, National Security Council, Bob Woodward, Bush administration (43), Joseph C. Wilson, William Jeffress, London Times, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Stephen J. Hadley
November 17, 2005: Post Analysts Says Woodward Revelation May Benefit Libby
A Washington Post analysis posits that the revelation that Post reporter Bob Woodward was the first to learn of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity (see June 13, 2003 and November 14, 2005) may "provide a boost" to the legal defense of indicted White House leaker Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005). Woodward has testified that another government official leaked Plame Wilson's name to a member of the press—himself—well before Libby's leaks to other reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Furthermore, Woodward has testified that Libby did not divulge Plame Wilson's name to him during their two conversations in late June (see June 23, 2003 and June 27, 2003), a time period in which special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald says Libby was passing information about Plame Wilson to reporters and colleagues. The Post writes, "While neither statement appears to factually change Fitzgerald's contention that Libby lied and impeded the leak investigation, the Libby legal team plans to use Woodward's testimony to try to show that Libby was not obsessed with unmasking Plame and to raise questions about the prosecutor's full understanding of events." Former federal prosecutor John Moustakas says: "I think it's a considerable boost to the defendant's case. It casts doubt about whether Fitzgerald knew everything as he charged someone with very serious offenses." But Randall Eliason, formerly the head of the public corruption unit in the Washington, DC, US Attorney's Office, says he doubts the Woodward account will have much effect on Libby's case, and calls such theories "defense spin." Eliason says: "Libby was not charged with being the first to talk to a reporter, and that is not part of the indictment. Whether or not some other officials were talking to Woodward doesn't really tell us anything about the central issue in Libby's case: What was his state of mind and intent when he was talking to the FBI and testifying in the grand jury?… What this does suggest, though, is that the investigation is still very active. Hard to see how that is good news for [White House deputy chief of staff Karl] Rove or for anyone else in the prosecutor's cross hairs." The Libby defense team is calling Woodward's testimony a "bombshell" with the potential to derail Fitzgerald's case. Rove's defense lawyers add that Woodward's testimony benefits their client also. A source the Post calls "close to Rove" says: "It definitely raises the plausibility of Karl Rove's simple and honest lapses of memory, because it shows that there were other people discussing the matter in what Mr. Woodward described as very offhanded, casual way. Let's face it, we don't all remember every conversation we have about significant issues, much less those about those that are less significant." [Washington Post, 11/17/2005] Criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, notes: "Fitzgerald did not say that Libby was the first administration official to disclose Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to a reporter. He said Libby was the first person known to the government to have disclosed her identity. There's a sea of difference between the two.… I think it's perfectly clear what Fitzgerald meant in light of his statement at the beginning of the conference—Libby was the first person the investigation uncovered who disclosed the information to a reporter. I see nothing in Woodward's revelations that affect the charges against Libby. He's not charged with leaking Plame Wilson's identity or with engaging in a vendetta against Wilson, although some have said he did both. He's charged with lying to Fitzgerald's investigators and the grand jury about what he told reporters and when and what reporters told him—and obstructing justice." [Jeralyn Merritt, 11/16/2005]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Jeralyn Merritt, Bob Woodward, John Moustakas, Karl C. Rove, Randall Eliason, Washington Post, Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
November 18, 2005: Neoconservative Demands Dismissal of Charges against Libby
Neoconservative John Podhoretz adds his voice to the recent demands from conservatives for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to drop his prosecution of former White House official Lewis Libby (see November 10, 2005, November 17, 2005, November 17, 2005, and November 17, 2005). Podhoretz calls Fitzgerald's investigation an "inquisition," and, like many of his fellow commentators, points to the recent revelation that reporter Bob Woodward received leaked information about Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA status before Libby leaked it to a different reporter (see November 14, 2005). In his indictment of Libby (see October 28, 2005), Fitzgerald said that Libby was "the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter" when he told former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald did not know then that another, as-yet-unnamed government official (later revealed to be former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage—see June 13, 2003) had "outed" Plame Wilson before Libby. Therefore, Podhoretz concludes, there is no evidence that Libby knowingly lied to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to Fitzgerald's grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) in denying his leaks of Plame Wilson's identity. "How can it be fair to convict Libby when even the prosecutor himself can't get the story straight?" Podhoretz asks. [New York Post, 11/18/2005]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Bob Woodward, John Podhoretz, Judith Miller, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Richard Armitage, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence, Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
December 2005: Influential Neoconservative Denies Any Role in Iraq-Niger Fabrication
Author and Vanity Fair reporter Craig Unger interviews Michael Ledeen regarding the false claims that Iraq attempted to purchase massive amounts of uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). Ledeen, a prominent neoconservative who holds the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, is well known to have extensive ties to the Italian intelligence community and for his relationship with discredited Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar (see 1981 and December 9, 2001). Ledeen denies any involvement in promulgating the fraudulent uranium allegations. "I'm tired of being described as someone who likes fascism and is a warmonger," he says. (Ledeen has written books and articles praising Italy's Benito Mussolini, and wrote numerous articles in the run-up to the Iraq invasion calling for the US to forcibly overthrow numerous Middle Eastern governments along with Iraq's—see September 20, 2001, December 7, 2001, and August 6, 2002.) "I think it's obvious I have no clout in the administration. I haven't had a role. I don't have a role." He barely knows White House political adviser Karl Rove, he says, and has "no professional relationship with any agency of the federal government during the Bush administration. That includes the Pentagon." The facts contradict Ledeen's assertions. Since before Bush's inauguration, Rove has invited Ledeen to funnel ideas to the White House (see After November 2000). Former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski says Ledeen "was in and out of [the Pentagon] all the time." Ledeen is very close to David Wurmser, who held key posts in the Pentagon and State Department before becoming the chief Middle East adviser for Vice President Dick Cheney. Ledeen also has close ties to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Of course, none of this proves or disproves his connections, if any, to the Iraq-Niger fabrications. [Unger, 2007, pp. 231]
Entity Tags: Manucher Ghorbanifar, Bush administration (43), American Enterprise Institute, Craig Unger, David Wurmser, Karen Kwiatkowski, Karl C. Rove, Stephen J. Hadley, Michael Ledeen, US Department of Defense, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
December 2, 2005: Media Learns that Rove Altered Testimony after Reporter Told Lawyer of Leak
Viveca Novak. [Source: Annenberg Public Policy Center]The New York Times learns that a conversation between the lawyer for White House official Karl Rove and Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak led Rove to change his testimony to the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak (see October 14, 2005). Novak told Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, that her colleague at Time, Matthew Cooper, had possibly learned of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA status from Rove (see March 1, 2004). Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has summoned Novak to testify before his grand jury about the Luskin conversation. Sources say Fitzgerald is still determining whether Rove has been truthful and forthcoming in his multiple testimonies before the jury, and whether he altered his testimony after learning that Cooper might identify him as a source (see October 15, 2004). Previously, Rove testified that he only spoke to columnist Robert Novak (no relation to Viveca Novak) about Plame Wilson's secret CIA identity (see July 8, 2003), and failed to disclose his similar leak to Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Rove testified that he simply forgot about his conversation with Cooper during previous testimony. [Washington Post, 11/29/2005; New York Times, 12/2/2005] Progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters notes that Novak never disclosed her conversation with Luskin to Fitzgerald, and failed to inform her readers of her contacts and her knowledge of the case in several articles she wrote about the investigation subsequent to her conversation with Luskin. Media Matters also notes that Novak "provid[ed] Luskin with information that might prove crucial to Rove's defense in the case.… Novak, an experienced journalist working for a prestigious publication, disclosed to Rove's lawyer information that she did not give to her readers and that Cooper would zealously try to withhold for more than a year on the basis of the purportedly sacrosanct anonymity agreement between a reporter and a source.… Novak may have affirmatively helped Rove—a source the magazine covers and will continue to cover—beat a perjury rap, not by exonerating him through a story in the course of her job, but by providing his lawyer with information in a private conversation.… Novak apparently felt free to disclose to Rove's lawyer that Cooper might be compelled to testify before a grand jury about the conversation between Cooper and Rove, but she did not accord Time readers the same privilege." [Media Matters, 12/2/2005] The Washington Post notes that Luskin and Novak are friends. [Washington Post, 11/29/2005]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Media Matters, Matthew Cooper, Karl C. Rove, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Robert Novak, Viveca Novak, Robert Luskin
December 14, 2005: Columnist Says Bush Knows Who Leaked Plame Wilson's Identity to Press
Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who first outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003), writes that he believes President Bush knows which administration official or officials leaked Plame Wilson's identity to the press. If Novak is correct, this would implicate Bush in a potential crime. [Washington Post, 7/3/2007]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Robert Novak, Valerie Plame Wilson
December 19-20, 2005: Media Picks Up on Flawed Study Purporting to Prove 'Liberal Bias' of Mainstream Reporting
The media discovers a study from late 2004 purporting to show that the mainstream media in the US is heavily biased towards liberal views (see December 2004 and December 14, 2005). On December 19, MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, a conservative, interviews one of the study's authors, Jeffrey Milyo of the University of Missouri-Columbia. Milyo repeats the study's contention that news outlets such as CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are heavily liberal in their coverage. Carlson calls the statement "terrifying." Milyo repeats the assertion often made by conservatives that most reporters "tend to be about as liberal as the voters in Berkeley, California.… And the same is true in academia too, by the way, and you know, so that doesn't mean that those preconceptions or biases or favoritism infects the job that people do." [MSNBC, 12/19/2005] The study is also cited on the December 19 edition of Fox News's morning show, Fox and Friends [Fox News, 12/19/2005; Media Matters, 12/21/2005] , and that evening on Fox's Special Report with Brit Hume. [Fox News, 12/19/2005] Several other press outlets, such as CBS News, the Memphis, Tennessee Commercial Appeal, and Investors Business Daily also report on the study. [Media Matters, 12/21/2005] On December 20, CNN commentator Jack Cafferty tells viewers: "Let's talk about media bias. It's real, according to a new study led by the University of California at Los Angeles, which shows there is a strong liberal bias. Well, there's a bulletin. Researchers found out that of 20 main media outlets, 18 scored to the left of center. The most liberal of all were the news pages of the Wall Street Journal, not the editorial pages, the news pages. Followed two, three, and four by the CBS Evening News, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. In this study, only Special Report with Brit Hume over there on the F-word network [Fox News] and the Washington Times scored to the right of the average voter. The most centrist media outlets in the country, The News Hour With Jim Lehrer and USA Today." [CNN, 12/20/2005]
Entity Tags: Memphis Commercial Appeal, Jeffrey Milyo, Tucker Carlson, Investors Business Daily, CBS News, Fox News, Jack Cafferty
December 21, 2005: Journal Parent Company Slams Study Claiming 'Liberal Bias' in Media
The Wall Street Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co., issues a statement that challenges the findings of a recent study claiming that the Journal is one of the most "liberally biased" news outlets in America (see December 2004 and December 14, 2005). Dow Jones states: "The Wall Street Journal's news coverage is relentlessly neutral. Of that, we are confident. By contrast, the research technique used in this study hardly inspires confidence. In fact, it is logically suspect and simply baffling in some of its details. First, its measure of media bias consists entirely of counting the number of mentions of, or quotes from, various think tanks that the researchers determine to be 'liberal' or 'conservative.' By this logic, a mention of al-Qaeda in a story suggests the newspaper endorses its views, which is obviously not the case. And if a think tank is explicitly labeled 'liberal' or 'conservative' within a story to provide context to readers, that example doesn't count at all. The researchers simply threw out such mentions." The statement criticizes the study's failure to "characterize" a number of "important policy groups" such as, "say, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the AFL-CIO, or the Concord Coalition, but that does include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals?" It goes on to call the study's attempt to rank the various groups "simply bizarre." The statement concludes, "Suffice it to say that 'research' of this variety would be unlikely to warrant a mention at all in any Wall Street Journal story." [Poynter Online, 12/21/2005]
Entity Tags: Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and Co.
January 2006: Pentagon Investigation of Feith Stalling Senate Intelligence Committee Report
The second part of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the mismanagement of intelligence before the Iraq invasion (see July 9, 2004) is being held up by the Pentagon's internal investigation of former Defense Department official Douglas Feith, one of the department's primary architects of the war plans (see Late December 2000 and Early January 2001, Shortly After September 11, 2001, September 20, 2001, Fall 2002, and May 9, 2005). The committee is waiting on a report from the Pentagon inspector general on Feith's alleged role in manipulating pre-war intelligence to support a case for war. Feith is also being investigated by the FBI for his role in an Israeli spy case. One aspect of the committee's investigation is likely to focus on the efforts by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to procure top-level security clearances for Feith after he was fired from the National Security Council in 1982 over allegations of espionage (see March 1982). Feith is one of a large number of pro-war conservatives to shuttle in and out of the Pentagon despite being involved in intelligence-related scandals (see Late 1969, October 1970, 1978, April 1979, March 1981, 1983, April 13, 1999-2004, 2001, and October 5, 2005), many of whom were provided security clearances by Rumsfeld. The committee's report is being delayed because both Feith and the Defense Department refuse to provide documents and witnesses to the committee. The committee is investigating whether Feith and other current and former Defense Department officials broke the 1947 National Security Act by refusing to keep the committee "fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities" and refusing to "furnish the Congressional intelligence committees any information or material concerning intelligence activities, other than covert actions, which is within their custody or control, and which is requested by either of the Congressional intelligence committees in order to carry out its authorized responsibilities." Senate sources say committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) is not pressuring the Pentagon to cooperate, but instead is deferring to the Pentagon's Inspector General, in essence allowing the Pentagon to investigate itself. [Raw Story, 1/30/2006] The report will be issued in June 2008, with few of the above issues addressed (see June 5, 2008).
Entity Tags: National Security Council, US Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General (DoD), Pat Roberts, Senate Intelligence Committee, Douglas Feith, Donald Rumsfeld
January 9, 2006: Plame Wilson Resigns from CIA
After a long and difficult struggle with herself, senior CIA case officer and outed covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003) resigns from the agency. In 2007, she will reflect that for 20 years, "I had loved what I was doing, but I could no longer continue to do the undercover work for which I had been trained. My career had been done in by stupidity and political payback, and that made me angry. I would… resign—sadly, but on my terms." Plame Wilson's boss "literally beg[s]" her "to reconsider her decision, and despite my respect for her and my belief in the mission, I was not tempted for a moment. Leaving was the right choice for me and my family. I was ready to close this chapter in my life." Plame Wilson will recall: "The young officers whom I had supervised were particularly outraged at what had happened and at the increasing politicization of intelligence that my case exemplified. Like me, they had entered the agency filled with energy, hope, and patriotism, only to emerge a few years later with a realization of their own vulnerabilities, the danger of politicians meddling in intelligence matters, and a clearer sense of the moral ambiguity that characterizes even the most honorable institutions." [Wilson, 2007, pp. 239-240, 389]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson
January 11, 2006: Media Learns Iranian Arms Dealer Attempted to Fabricate Story of Stolen Uranium Involving Iraq, Iran
The Internet news site Raw Story learns that Iranian exile and arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar (see December 9, 2001) attempted to peddle a fabricated story of stolen uranium to US and other Western governments in the spring and summer of 2003 (see March 7, 2003 and After). The story comes from US and foreign intelligence sources, and is confirmed by former CIA station chief Bill Murray. Ghorbanifar's story, of an Iranian intelligence team infiltrating Iraq just before the March 2003 invasion and stealing enriched uranium to use in Iran's nuclear weapons program, was apparently designed to earn him money as well as to embroil both Iran and Iraq in a spurious WMD plot. It is possible that a June 2003 meeting between Ghorbanifar and two US officials was part of his attempt to peddle the story (see June 2003). Ghorbanifar was extensively involved in the Iran-Contra scandal as a middleman between Iranian government officials and members of the Reagan administration (see July 18, 1985, July 25, 1985, December 8, 1985, and December 1986). [Raw Story, 1/11/2006]
Entity Tags: Raw Story, Bill Murray, Manucher Ghorbanifar
January 17, 2006: Neoconservative Allegedly Involved in Iraq-Niger Forgery Dissemination Admits to Working for Italian Magazine
Controversial neoconservative Michael Ledeen, a consultant for the Bush Defense Department, confirms that he was a contributor to the Italian magazine Panorama. A Panorama reporter, Elisabetta Burba, was one of the first to come across forged documents that purported to prove Iraq had attempted to obtain weapons-grade uranium from Niger (see September 12, 2002 and Afternoon October 7, 2002). Ledeen is widely suspected of playing a role in channeling those forged documents to the CIA (see October 18, 2001, December 9, 2001, and April 3, 2005), though he has always denied doing so. Ledeen confirms that "several years ago" he was a "twice a month" contributor to Panorama, but refuses to give further details. He also denies, again, any involvement in the Niger documents: "I've said repeatedly, I have no involvement of any sort with the Niger story, and I have no knowledge of it aside from what has appeared in the press," he writes. "I have not discussed it with any government person in any country." Reporter Larisa Alexandrovna notes that Ledeen wrote for Panorama during the time that the magazine received the forgeries from an Italian intelligence peddler, and sent them from the US Embassy in Rome via backchannels to the US State Department. Around that same time, Ledeen also allegedly facilitated an unusual meeting between the head of Italy's military intelligence agency and Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration (see September 9, 2002). Hadley has denied discussing anything about uranium during that meeting. [Raw Story, 1/17/2006]
Entity Tags: Larisa Alexandrovna, Bush administration (43), Elisabetta Burba, US Department of State, Stephen J. Hadley, Panorama, Michael Ledeen, US Department of Defense
January 23, 2006: Cheney Authorized Classified Information Leaks, Prosecution Says
In a letter to Lewis Libby's defense lawyers, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald says that Libby passed classified information from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (NIE—see October 1, 2002) to reporters. According to Fitzgerald, Libby did so at the behest of his then-boss, Vice President Dick Cheney. Fitzgerald says the information comes from secret grand jury testimony given by Libby (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). He says Libby testified that he caused at least one other government official to discuss an intelligence estimate with reporters in July 2003. "We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors," Fitzgerald writes. Libby's lawyer William Jeffress says that regardless of what evidence Fitzgerald may or may not have, his client has no intention of blaming Cheney or other senior White House officials for his actions. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) says Cheney should take responsibility if he indeed authorized Libby to share classified information with reporters. "These charges, if true, represent a new low in the already sordid case of partisan interests being placed above national security," Kennedy says. "The vice president's vindictiveness in defending the misguided war in Iraq is obvious. If he used classified information to defend it, he should be prepared to take full responsibility." Fitzgerald says he intends to use Libby's grand jury testimony to support evidence pertaining to Libby's meeting with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). [Office of Special Counsel, 1/23/2006 ; Associated Press, 2/10/2006] The press learns of Libby's testimony days later (see February 2, 2006).
Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Edward M. ("Ted") Kennedy
January 26, 2006: Libby's Defense Team Requests Documents Related to Journalists
Lewis Libby's defense team files a motion with the US District Court to compel the discovery of documents and materials relating to a number of journalists in Libby's upcoming trial (see January 20, 2006). The filing includes a request for the prosecution to turn over all the information it obtained from reporters about their confidential conversations with Bush administration sources in the course of its investigation. "There can be no information more material to the defense of a perjury case than information tending to show that the alleged false statements are, in fact, true or that they could be the result of mistake or confusion," the lawyers argue. "Libby is entitled to know what the government knows." After complaining that the prosecution has refused to provide numerous classified documents the defense has requested (see January 23, 2006), and reiterating its requests for a huge number of White House and CIA documents (see December 14, 2005), the motion asks that documents relating to NBC bureau chief Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003), Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003 and 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003), New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), and Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see November 14, 2005) be released to the defense. The defense also indicates its interest in information about NBC's Andrea Mitchell and the Post's Walter Pincus. [Washington Post, 1/27/2006; New York Times, 1/27/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 1/26/2009 ] Washington lawyer Charles Tobin says that the Libby defense move was expected, and is a result of the prosecution's aggressive insistence on deposing journalists and forcing them to reveal confidential sources. "I think we could have expected that, when the prosecutor went on a fishing expedition, that the fish he caught would want to look back in the pail," Tobin says. "The more this case develops, the further we seem to be getting from the core issues of the indictment—and more into the business of journalism and how news gets put out in this town." [Washington Post, 1/27/2006]
Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Andrea Mitchell, Bob Woodward, Charles Tobin, Tim Russert, Bush administration (43), Walter Pincus, Matthew Cooper, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
January 31, 2006: Libby's Team Demands Disclosure of Highly Classified Presidential Briefings
Lewis Libby's defense team reiterates its demand for the disclosure of 10 months' worth of Presidential Daily Briefings, or PDBs, some of the most highly classified of government documents (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, and January 23, 2006). Defense lawyer John Cline has said he wants the information in part to compensate for what he says is Libby's imperfect recollection of conversations he had with Vice President Dick Cheney and other government officials regarding CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). In documents filed with the court, Libby's lawyers argue, "Mr. Libby will show that, in the constant rush of more pressing matters, any errors he made in FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake, faulty memory, rather than a willful intent to deceive" (see January 31, 2006). Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has already informed Cline that his office has only "received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs" and "never requested copies of PDBs" themselves, in part because "they are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified." Furthermore, Fitzgerald wrote that only a relatively small number of the PDB information he has received refers to Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Cline is considered an expert in using "graymail" techniques—demanding the broad release of classified documents from the government, and, when those requests are denied, demanding dismissal of charges against his client. He was successful at having the most serious charges dismissed against an earlier client, former Colonel Oliver North, in the Iran-Contra trials (see May-June, 1989). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 1/31/2006 ; National Journal, 2/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, John Cline, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
February 2, 2006: Libby Will Claim Authorization by Cheney, Others for Intelligence Disclosures
According to sources with firsthand knowledge, alleged perjurer Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, has given indications of the nature of his defense in his upcoming trial (see January 16-23, 2007). Libby will tell the court that he was authorized by Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials to leak classified information to reporters to build public support for the Iraq invasion and rebut criticism of the war. Prosecutors believe that other White House officials involved in authorizing the leak of classified information may include former Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and White House political strategist Karl Rove. Libby has already made this claim to the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak (see March 24, 2004). As he told the grand jury, Libby will claim that he was authorized to leak classified information to rebut claims from former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson's husband, that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war. Libby allegedly outed Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent, as part of the White House's effort to discredit Wilson. Libby is not charged with the crime of revealing a covert CIA agent, but some of the perjury charges center on his denials of outing Plame Wilson to the FBI and to the grand jury. Libby has admitted revealing Plame Wilson's identity to reporter Judith Miller (see August 6, 2005); he also revealed classified information to Miller.
Risk of Implicating Cheney - Law professor Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor, says it is surprising that Libby would use such a defense strategy. "One certainly would not expect Libby, as part of his defense, to claim some sort of clear authorization from Cheney where none existed, because that would clearly risk the government's calling Cheney to rebut that claim." Reporter Murray Waas writes that Libby's defense strategy would further implicate Cheney in the White House's efforts to discredit and besmirch Wilson's credibility (see October 1, 2003), and link him to the leaks of classified information and Plame Wilson's CIA identity. It is already established that Libby learned of Plame Wilson's CIA status from Cheney and at least three other government officials (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and (June 12, 2003)).
Similarities to North's Iran-Contra Defense Strategy - Waas compares Libby's defense strategy to that of former Colonel Oliver North, charged with a variety of crimes arising from the Iran-Contra scandal (see February 1989). Libby's defense team includes John Cline, who represented North during his trial. Critics call Cline a "graymail" specialist, who demands the government disclose classified information during a trial, and uses potential refusals to ask for dismissal of charges. Cline won the dismissal of many of the most serious charges against North when Reagan administration officials refused to declassify documents he said were necessary for North's defense. The special counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation, Lawrence Walsh, believed that Reagan officials refused to declassify the documents because they were sympathetic to North, and trying North on the dismissed charges would have exposed further crimes committed by more senior Reagan officials. It is likely that Cline is using a similar strategy with Libby, according to Waas. Cline has already demanded the disclosure of 10 months' worth of Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), some of the most highly classified documents in government (see January 31, 2006). The Bush administration has routinely denied requests for PDB disclosures. A former Iran-Contra prosecutor says: "It was a backdoor way of shutting us down. It was a cover-up by means of an administrative action, and it was an effective cover-up at that.… The intelligence agencies do not declassify things on the pretext that they are protecting state secrets, but the truth is that we were investigating and prosecuting their own. The same was true for the Reagan administration. Cline was particularly adept at working the system." Michael Bromwich, a former associate Iran-Contra independent counsel and a former Justice Department inspector general, says it might be more difficult for the Bush administration to use a similar strategy to undercut special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, because Fitzgerald was appointed by the attorney general, not a panel of judges as were Walsh and Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Both Walsh and Starr alleged that they were impeded by interference from political appointees in the Justice Department. Bromwich's fellow associate Iran-Contra counsel William Treanor, now the dean of Fordham University's Law School, agrees: "With Walsh or Starr, the president and his supporters could more easily argue that a prosecutor was overzealous or irresponsible, because there had been a three-judge panel that appointed him," Treanor says. "With Fitzgerald, you have a prosecutor who was appointed by the deputy attorney general [at the direction of the attorney general]. The administration almost has to stand behind him because this is someone they selected themselves. It is harder to criticize someone you yourself put into play." [National Journal, 2/6/2006]
'This Is Major' - Progressive author and columnist Arianna Huffington writes: "This proves just how far the White House was willing to go to back up its deceptive claims about why we needed to go to war in Iraq. The great protectors of our country were so concerned about covering their lies they were willing to pass out highly classified information to reporters. And remember—and this is the key—it's not partisan Democrats making this claim; it's not Bush-bashing conspiracy theorists, or bloggers reading the Aspen roots (see September 15, 2005). This information is coming from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as filed in court papers. This is major." [Huffington Post, 2/9/2006]
Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Dan Richman, Bush administration (43), Arianna Huffington, Stephen J. Hadley, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, William Treanor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lawrence E. Walsh, Kenneth Starr, Karl C. Rove, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Reagan administration, Murray Waas, John Cline, Michael Bromwich
February 6, 2006: Columnist: Libby Team 'Graymailing' Government?
Author and columnist David Corn, who was the first member of the media to speculate that Valerie Plame Wilson's exposure as a CIA official may have been a crime (see July 16, 2003), now speculates that the Lewis Libby defense team may resort to "graymail" to derail Libby's criminal prosecution (see After October 28, 2005 and January 31, 2006). Corn writes: "[Y]ears ago defense attorneys representing clients connected to the national security establishment—say, a former CIA employee gone bad—figured out a way to squeeze the government in order to win the case: Claim you need access to loads of classified information in order to mount a defense—more than might truly be necessary. Of course, the government is going to put up a fight. It may release some information—but not everything a thorough defense attorney will say is needed. The goal is to get the government to say no to the informant. Then the defense attorney can attempt to convince the judge that without access to this material he or she cannot put up an adequate defense. If the lawyer succeeds, it's case dismissed. In such situations, the defendant is essentially saying, 'Prosecute me and I'll blow whatever government secrets I can.'" Corn notes the defense's requests for 10 months of highly classified Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), a request that may yet be granted (see February 24, 2006) and as such, will set up a battle with the Bush White House, which is almost certain to refuse to release any PDBs. Corn also notes defense requests for information surrounding Plame Wilson's covert CIA status (see Fall 1992 - 1996 and April 2001 and After), another request that, if granted, will likely be refused by the CIA. Both scenarios are openings for the defense to ask for the dismissal of all charges against their client. And Libby's team may ask for further classified information, from the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Office of the President. [Nation, 2/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Bush administration (43), Central Intelligence Agency, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, David Corn
February 7, 2006: Former Time Reporter Writes of His Learning of Plame Wilson's Identity
Slate reporter John Dickerson, who formerly worked for Time magazine during the initial Plame Wilson identity leak investigation coverage, writes of his knowledge of, and participation in, the investigation, including his knowledge that White House official Karl Rove leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity to Dickerson's colleague, Matthew Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Dickerson co-wrote a July 2003 Time article with Cooper (see July 17, 2003) that led to Cooper's subpoena from the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation (see August 9, 2004 and September 13, 2004), his being held in contempt of court (see October 13, 2004), and his eventual testimony (see July 13, 2005). However, Dickerson was never subpoenaed to testify before the Fitzgerald grand jury. He writes that he accompanied the gaggle of reporters with President Bush on his trip to Africa in July 2003, and of the extensive time spent by two "senior administration official[s]" telling him how partisan and unreliable Plame Wilson's husband Joseph Wilson is, and how he should investigate what "low-level" CIA official sent Wilson to Niger (see July 11, 2003). "I thought I got the point," Dickerson writes. "He'd been sent by someone around the rank of deputy assistant undersecretary or janitor." Dickerson goes on to observe, "What struck me was how hard both officials were working to knock down Wilson" (see October 1, 2003). After returning from the trip, Cooper told Dickerson that Rove had informed him of Plame Wilson's CIA identity. "So, that explained the wink-wink nudge-nudge I was getting about who sent Wilson," Dickerson writes. Cooper and Dickerson were careful, Dickerson writes, to ensure that other reporters would not learn of Plame Wilson's CIA identity from either of them. And Dickerson did not want to encroach on Cooper's arrangement with Rove. Dickerson writes: "At this point the information about Valerie Plame was not the radioactive material it is today. No one knew she might have been a protected agent—and for whatever reason, the possibility didn't occur to us or anyone else at the time. But it was still newsworthy that the White House was using her to make its case. That Scooter Libby and Karl Rove mentioned Plame to Matt was an example of how they were attempting to undermine Wilson. They were trying to make his trip look like a special family side deal not officially sanctioned by the agency." [Slate, 2/7/2006; Slate, 2/7/2006] In 2007, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer will testify that he informed Dickerson of Plame Wilson's identity (see 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), a statement that Dickerson will dispute. [Slate, 1/29/2007]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, George W. Bush, Bush administration (43), Ari Fleischer, John Dickerson, Karl C. Rove, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Time magazine, Valerie Plame Wilson, Matthew Cooper, Joseph C. Wilson
February 10, 2006: Democrat Asks White House to Confirm Whether Cheney Authorized Leak of Classified Information
John Conyers (D-MI), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sends a letter to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney asking about recent revelations that Cheney authorized the leak of classified information to reporters (see January 23, 2006 and February 2, 2006). Conyers writes that such an authorization, if true, would constitute "an abuse of power at best, and may be outright unlawful at worst.… [I]t would appear that neither classified nuclear information nor Valerie Plame's status as a covert agent or the name of her employer warranted declassification." Conyers asks whether the report is true, and whether Bush, Cheney, or any of their staff members authorized former Cheney aide Lewis Libby or anyone else "to declassify and leak information to the media relating to the Iraq war and the use of pre-war intelligence on any occasions," and if so, what the legal basis for such declassifications would be. He also asks if Bush intends to stand by his promise to "take the appropriate action" against anyone who leaked classified information" (see September 30, 2003). [Jeralyn Merritt, 2/10/2006]
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George W. Bush, House Judiciary Committee, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, John Conyers
February 13, 2006: Wilson's Report on Nigerien Uranium Claims May Have Indicated Iran, Not Iraq, Tried to Buy Uranium
The progressive Internet news site Washington Note writes a follow-up to the day's revelation that the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA agent caused heavy damage to the CIA's ability to monitor Iran's nuclear weapons program (see February 13, 2006). The Note reports that, according to its source, Plame Wilson's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, included information about Iran's nuclear program in the report from his 2002 trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and March 4-5, 2002). Note reporter Steve Clemons says he cannot be sure of the accuracy of the claim, "so please take the following with a grain of salt until further sourced." Clemons describes his source as "[s]omeone with knowledge of the classified report that Joe Wilson 'orally' filed after his now famed investigative trip to Niger." Wilson allegedly included two notes in his debriefing that related to Iran and its possible activities in Niger. Clemons writes that "various intelligence sources" speculate that if Iran was indeed attempting to acquire Nigerien uranium, it would be to avoid "the international intelligence monitoring of Iran's domestic mining operations." Wilson, according to the source, may have reported that Iran, not Iraq, tried to acquire 400 to 500 tons of Nigerien uranium (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001). Clemons writes that the notes from Wilson's Niger debriefing have been destroyed, making it much harder to verify the claims. [Washington Note, 2/13/2006]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency, Steve Clemons, Joseph C. Wilson
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
(February 16, 2006): Fitzgerald Accuses Libby Defense of 'Graymail' Attempt
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald makes a filing to the court in opposition to the Lewis Libby defense team's requests for highly classified information (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 31, 2006, and February 21, 2006), requests that some have characterized as an attempt to "graymail" the government (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, and February 6, 2006) by threatening to reveal national security secrets. In his brief, Fitzgerald calls the defense request for almost 11 months of Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) "breathtaking" and unnecessary for a perjury defense. "The defendant's effort to make history in this case by seeking 277 PDBs in discovery—for the sole purpose of showing that he was 'preoccupied' with other matters when he gave testimony to the grand jury—is a transparent effort at 'greymail.'" [Nation, 2/17/2006]
February 21, 2006: Libby Team Files Motion to Compel Release of All Requested Documents
The Lewis Libby defense team files a rejoinder to the special counsel's request that the team not be granted access to classified White House documents (see February 16, 2006). Libby's lawyers call the request "entirely unconvincing" and based on "phantom concerns" over executive privilege, "graymail" (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, and (February 16, 2006)), and "illusory grand jury secrecy interests." The motion requests that all documents previously requested be provided to the defense by the special counsel. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/21/2006 ; Jurist, 2/22/2006] "Denying Mr. Libby's requests because they pertain to 'extraordinarily sensitive' documents would have the effect of penalizing Mr. Libby for serving in a position that required him to address urgent national security matters every day," Libby's lawyers write. Responding to the accusations of "graymail," they write, "The government's 'greymail' accusation is not only false, but insulting." [Associated Press, 2/22/2006] One of Libby's lawyers, Theodore Wells, files a separate affidavit in support of the team's motion. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/21/2006 ]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Theodore Wells
February 24, 2006: Fitzgerald: Libby Trial Hinges on Perjury Charges, Not Plame Wilson's Classified Status
In a court hearing, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald argues that Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA official (see Fall 1992 - 1996) is irrelevant to the perjury charges pending against former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005). "We're trying a perjury case," Fitzgerald tells Judge Reggie Walton. Even if Plame Wilson had never worked for the CIA at all, Fitzgerald continues, even if she had been simply mistaken for a CIA agent, the charges against Libby would still stand. Furthermore, Fitzgerald tells Walton, he does not intend to offer "any proof of actual damage" caused by the disclosure of Plame Wilson's identity. Libby's defense lawyer Theodore Wells objects to Fitzgerald's statement, saying that in the actual trial, Fitzgerald will likely tell the jury that the leak of Plame Wilson's identity either damaged or could have damaged the CIA's ability to gather critical intelligence (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, and February 13, 2006). Wells says he may call either Plame Wilson, her husband Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), or both to testify in the case, as well as CIA employees. "I might call Ms. Wilson" to testify, he says. "I might call her husband. There are going to be CIA employees as witnesses in this.… Was she just classified because some bureaucracy didn't declassify her five years ago when they should have?" Wells asks if Plame Wilson may have been "classified based on a piece of paper." One anonymous source tells a National Review columnist: "She was definitely undercover by agency standards at the time in question. That was a classified bit of information, and is sufficient as far as the agency is concerned to bring it to the attention of the Justice Department. You can argue whether she should have been, but as far as the agency was concerned it was classified." [National Review, 2/27/2006] In his statement to the court, Fitzgerald notes: "[T]he issue is whether [Libby] knowingly lied or not. And if there is information about actual damage, whatever was caused or not caused that isn't in his mind, it is not a defense. If she turned out to be a postal driver mistaken for a CIA employee, it's not a defense if you lie in a grand jury under oath about what you said and you told people, 'I didn't know he had a wife.' That is what this case is about. It is about perjury, if he knowingly lied or not." [Truthout (.org), 3/18/2006]
Entity Tags: Reggie B. Walton, Joseph C. Wilson, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Theodore Wells, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame Wilson
February 25, 2006: Libby's Lawyers Will Subpoena Journalists, News Organizations
Lawyers for indicted former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) say they intend to subpoena news reporters and organizations in defense of their client. Judge Reggie Walton, presiding over the upcoming trial, has yet to rule whether he will allow such subpoenas. Libby's lawyers say they want to question journalists who have testified that they were the recipients of classified information from Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Walton has set a deadline of April 7, 2006 for any subpoenaed journalists and news organizations to respond as to their intentions to testify in Libby's trial. [NewsMax, 2/25/2006]
February 27, 2006: Judge May Allow Some, Not All, Classified Materials into Libby Trial
Judge Reggie Walton issues an order significantly curtailing the Lewis Libby defense team's requests for highly classified White House materials (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, (February 16, 2006), and February 21, 2006). Walton's orders indicate that he may accept the defense team's requests for some, but not all, of the highly classified Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), requests that have become a source of conflict between the defense and the prosecution. "Upon closer reflection, it is becoming apparent to this court that what is possibly material to the defendant's ability to develop his defense" is not every detail from the briefings that Libby received as Cheney's national security adviser, Walton says. The defense says it needs the PDBs to establish how busy Libby was with national security matters and therefore bolster their expected defense of Libby's failure to remember his conversations about outed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson when he allegedly lied to the FBI and to the grand jury (Libby's so-called "memory defense"—see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, March 24, 2004, and January 31, 2006). General descriptions of the briefings from specific time periods might be sufficient, Walton continues. Walton also asks the CIA to tell him what, if any, documents the Libby team has requested from it might be available. Washington attorney Lawrence Barcella says Walton's efforts would hamper Libby's defense strategy. "What makes the defense so viable is for him to show the enormity of what he dealt with on a daily basis," Barcella says. "If you sanitize it just so you can get past the classified information issue, you significantly lessen the potential impact of it." [Associated Press, 2/27/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/27/2006 ] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, states: "I think Libby has boxed himself in on his memory defense. He now has a huge burden to show that he was so preoccupied with other matters on six or seven different occasions that he couldn't accurately remember what he told or was told by [reporters Judith] Miller, [Matthew] Cooper, and [Tim] Russert. It's almost like using the space cadet defense many drug defendants offer, rarely sucessfully." [Jeralyn Merritt, 2/27/2006]
Entity Tags: Reggie B. Walton, Bush administration (43), Jeralyn Merritt, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lawrence Barcella
March 2, 2006: Evangelical Tells Wilson He Has Support in US Religious Communities
Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, still embroiled in controversy over his attempts to disprove the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003), attends the National Day festivities in Morocco. While standing alone, he is approached by an American who identifies himself as a "leading member of the Washington evangelical movement." Wilson expects to be reviled and lambasted, as has happened so many times before during his encounters with members of the Christian right. Instead, the man grasps his hand and whispers, "You should know that there are many of us that support you." A surprised Wilson asks why, and the man replies, "[B]ecause we believe in truth, and we know that this government has lied." [Wilson, 2007, pp. 174-175] Wilson will not identify the evangelical; it is not clear that he knows the man's identity.
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson
March 14, 2006: Libby Team Subpoenas Reporters, News Organizations
Several news organizations are subpoenaed by the Lewis Libby defense team (see February 27, 2006). The New York Times, NBC News, and Time magazine all say they have been subpoenaed for documents and records pertaining to Libby's involvement in the Plame Wilson CIA identity leak. The Washington Post says it expects a subpoena as well. Libby's lawyers want to use reporters to prove that Libby did not intentionally lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about disclosing Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to the press. Instead, they intend to argue that Libby failed to remember important details about his conversations with reporters regarding Plame Wilson's identity. The New York Times acknowledges that it has been asked to provide notes, e-mail messages, draft news articles, and all other documents that refer to Plame Wilson before July 14, 2003, when her identity was made public (see July 14, 2003), and information regarding its columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote an article featuring Plame Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson (see May 6, 2003). Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis says the newspaper has not yet decided whether to comply with the subpoena. She says former Times reporter Judith Miller has received a separate subpoena (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). NBC's Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003) and Time's Matt Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003) have also been subpoenaed. The Post anticipates receiving a subpoena for its managing editor Bob Woodward (see November 14, 2005 and November 16-17, 2005). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/14/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/14/2006 ; Reuters, 3/16/2006; New York Times, 3/16/2006] Robert Bennett, a lawyer for Miller, says she will most likely fight the subpoena. "It's entirely too broad," he says. "It's highly likely we'll be filing something with the court." [New York Times, 3/16/2006]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Judith Miller, Catherine Mathis, Bob Woodward, Washington Post, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tim Russert, Joseph C. Wilson, New York Times, NBC News, Matthew Cooper, Nicholas Kristof, Robert T. Bennett, Time magazine
March 15, 2006: Libby Team Opposes Prosecution's Attempt to Share Classified Information with Judge
The Libby defense team files a motion asking the court to disallow the prosecution to present classified information to Judge Reggie Walton without the defense's presence. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald intends to argue that certain classified information is not pertinent to the defense of accused perjurer Lewis Libby, and wants to share that information with Walton, but not with Libby's lawyers. Fitzgerald has argued that the information must be kept secret in order to protect national security, an argument that Libby's lawyers say "rings hollow." They tout Libby, who leaked classified information to reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), as someone who "has diligently protected some of this country's most sensitive secrets throughout his many years of public service." Fitzgerald has noted that an underlying criminal charge against Libby is the failure to adequately safeguard sensitive classified information. Walton has already ordered the government to turn over some classified information to the defense (see March 10, 2006). [Associated Press, 3/15/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/15/2006 ] Former state prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith observes that Libby has already violated his nondisclosure agreement against revealing classified information, and writes: "By breaking the law and releasing sensitive national security information, Scooter Libby forfeited his privilege of clearance—any presumption that he had the integrity to protect the nation's secrets is gone. He is being treated like any other defendant in this situation—and who he worked for and how high his friends go in the government ought not matter one whit." [Christy Hardin Smith, 3/16/2006]
Entity Tags: Reggie B. Walton, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Christy Hardin Smith, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
March 17, 2006: Libby Defense Team Lists Intended Witnesses
A court filing by Lewis Libby's defense team lists the witnesses the lawyers say they intend to put on the stand in their client's defense. The list includes:
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see June 13, 2003, After October 28, 2005, and November 14, 2005);
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (see July 7, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, and 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003);
Former Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman (see June 10, 2003);
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell (see July 16, 2004);
White House political strategist Karl Rove (see July 8, 2003, July 8 or 9, 2003, and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003);
Former CIA Director George Tenet (see June 11 or 12, 2003, July 11, 2003 and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003);
Former US ambassador Joseph Wilson (see July 6, 2003);
Former CIA covert operative Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003);
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley (see July 21, 2003 and November 14, 2005);
CIA briefers Craig Schmall (see 7:00 a.m. June 14, 2003), Peter Clement, and/or Matt Barrett;
Former CIA officials Robert Grenier (see 4:30 p.m. June 10, 2003, 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, and 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003) and/or John McLaughlin (see June 11 or 12, 2003);
Former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow (see 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), and Before July 14, 2003);
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington (see July 8, 2003);
Former Cheney press secretary Cathie Martin (see 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003); and
Cheney himself (see July 12, 2003 and Late September or Early October, 2003).
The defense also:
Wants notes from a September 2003 White House briefing where Powell reportedly claimed that many people knew of Plame Wilson's CIA identity before it became public knowledge;
Implies that Grossman may not be an unbiased witness;
Suspects Fleischer may have already cooperated with the investigation (see June 10, 2004);
Intends to argue that Libby had no motive to lie to either the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) or the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004); and
Intends to argue that columnist Robert Novak's primary source for his column exposing Plame Wilson as a CIA official was not Libby, but "a source outside the White House" (see July 8, 2003). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/17/2006 ; Jeralyn Merritt, 3/18/2006]
Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt believes Libby's team may be preparing to lay blame for the Plame Wilson leak on Grossman. She writes that, in her view, "Libby's lawyers are publicly laying out how they intend to impeach him: by claiming he is not to be believed because (either or both) his true loyalty is to Richard Armitage rather than to the truth, or he is a self-aggrandizing government employee who thinks of himself a true patriot whose duty it is to save the integrity of the State Department." [Jeralyn Merritt, 4/4/2006] Libby's lawyers indicate that they will challenge Plame Wilson's significance as a covert CIA official (see Fall 1992 - 1996, April 2001 and After, Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, and February 13, 2006). "The prosecution has an interest in continuing to overstate the significance of Ms. Wilson's affiliation with the CIA," the court filing states. They also intend to attempt to blame Armitage, Grossman, Grenier, McLaughlin, Schmall, and/or other officials outside the White House proper as the real sources for the Plame Wilson identity leak. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/17/2006 ; Truthout (.org), 3/18/2006]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Robert Novak, Robert Grenier, Catherine ("Cathie") Martin, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration (43), Bill Harlow, Richard Armitage, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Stephen J. Hadley, Matt Barrett, George J. Tenet, Peter Clement, Craig Schmall, Jeralyn Merritt, John E. McLaughlin, David S. Addington, Karl C. Rove, Joseph C. Wilson, Marc Grossman, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
March 29, 2006: Cheney Finally Concedes that Alleged Atta-Iraqi Agent Meeting 'Has Been Pretty Well Knocked Down Now'
In an interview, Vice President Cheney says, "We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow [Saddam Hussein] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there—that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al-Qaeda organization." [White House, 3/29/2006] This is a reversal for Cheney, who strongly argued that the meeting took place, even after most experts concluded that it did not (see June 17, 2004).
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney
April 5, 2006: Fitzgerald Moves to Deny Document Request from Libby Defense
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald responds to the Lewis Libby defense team's third motion to compel the discovery of a huge number of classified documents (see March 17, 2006), including Presidential Daily Briefings, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002), and a raft of CIA documents. Judge Reggie Walton has already allowed the discovery of some of the requested documents (see March 10, 2006). Fitzgerald writes that Libby is seeking "nearly every document generated by four large executive branch entities relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger" (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and notes that such a request is overly broad, unnecessary for a perjury defense, and relies on an incorrect reading of the law. The request, Fitzgerald writes, "is premised on relevance arguments which overlook the fact that defendant is charged with perjury, not a conspiracy to commit various other crimes." Hence the requsted documents go "far beyond the scope of what is relevant to the charges contained in the indictment." [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; New York Sun, 4/7/2006]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, Reggie B. Walton, Patrick J. Fitzgerald
April 7, 2006: Democrats Ask Bush to Reveal Extent of Involvement in Plame Wilson Leak
Democratic Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and 14 of his colleagues send a letter to President Bush asking for the truth about "the troubling revelation that you authorized I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, to attempt to discredit a critic of your administration through the selective leaking of classified information." Conyers and his colleagues are referring to the White House's attempts to discredit war critic Joseph Wilson (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, and April 5, 2006), which included the exposure of his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson's, CIA identity (see June 13, 2003, June 23, 2003, July 7, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003, and July 12, 2003). They write, "We ask that, once and for all, you publicly admit the extent of your role in authorizing the selective leaking of information to discredit your critics and detail what other leaks you have authorized that are relevant to the war in Iraq." [Huffington Post, 4/7/2006]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, John Conyers
April 9, 2006: Fitzgerald: 'Multiple' White House Officials Involved in Leak
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald accuses "multiple people in the White House" of engaging in a "concerted action" to smear the character of war critic Joseph Wilson (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, and April 5, 2006), using classified information (see April 5, 2006) to do so. Fitzgerald places Vice President Dick Cheney at the heart of the smear campaign. He uses grand jury testimony from Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis Libby (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), to substantiate his charges. Libby's efforts to spread false rumors via classified information include his June 2003 meeting with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see June 27, 2003), his two conversations with New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003 and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), and his conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald says that White House officials besides Cheney, Libby, and White House political strategist Karl Rove are involved in the Wilson smear campaign. According to Fitzgerald, the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson." [Washington Post, 4/9/2006]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Bush administration (43), Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Karl C. Rove, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
April 10, 2006: Powell: Cheney, Not Bush, Responsible for Pressing Argument that Iraq an Imminent Nuclear Threat
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell tells reporter Robert Scheer that neither he nor any of the State Department's top experts believed that Iraq ever posed an imminent nuclear threat, contrary to the statements of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other top White House officials. Powell says that Bush followed the advice of Cheney and the CIA (see October 1, 2002) in making the claim (see Mid-January 2003 and 9:01 pm January 28, 2003) and taking the country to war in Iraq. Scheer asks Powell why, in light of the State Department's own intelligence bureau correctly concluding that the claims that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger were false (see March 1, 2002, March 4, 2002, Mid-October 2002, and January 12, 2003), Bush ignored that information in making his case for war? Powell responds: "The CIA was pushing the aluminum tube argument heavily (see March 7, 2003) and Cheney went with that instead of what our guys wrote. That was a big mistake. It should never have been in the speech. I didn't need [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson to tell me that there wasn't a Niger connection. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I never believed it" (see January 26, 2003). Powell adds that the responsibility for pressing the argument that Iraq was a nuclear threat was not Bush's; rather, "That was all Cheney." In his article, Scheer asks, "Why was this doubt, on the part of the secretary of state and others, about the salient facts justifying the invasion of Iraq kept from the public until we heard the truth from whistle-blower Wilson, whose credibility the president then sought to destroy?" [Truthdig, 4/11/2006]
Entity Tags: Robert Scheer, Bush administration (43), Central Intelligence Agency, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Colin Powell, US Department of State, Joseph C. Wilson, George W. Bush
April 11, 2006: Selective Declassification, Wilson Smear Part of Same White House Effort to Manage Perception of War, Former Government Official Says
A former senior government official says that President Bush's selective declassification of portions of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE—see October 1, 2002) for political purposes (see April 5, 2006), as testified to by Lewis Libby (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), was a misuse of the classification process for political reasons. Bush and his top officials released certain sections of the NIE to journalists (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003) in an attempt to bolster their arguments in favor of invading Iraq, yet concealed other sections that showed how they misrepresented intelligence to suit their arguments. The former senior official says that the selective declassification was intertwined with the attempts to besmirch the reputation of war critic Joseph Wilson: "It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don't see it in that context yet." The identify of the official is unstated. [National Journal, 4/6/2006] In 2007, Wilson's wife, current senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, will write that she experiences "a rush of relief" upon reading a New York Times story that reveals the "selective declassification" and the Times's conclusion that "[i]t is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to punish Wilson" (see April 5, 2006). [Wilson, 2007, pp. 244]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, George W. Bush
April 12, 2006: Libby Team Indicates It May Call Wilson, Rove, Others to Testify
Lewis Libby's defense team files a response to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's rejection of its demands for more classified documents (see April 5, 2006).
Defense Lawyers Intend to Subpoena Wilson, White House Officials - In the filing, Libby's lawyers indicate that they intend to call for testimony a number of people involved in the Plame Wilson leak, including former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003), White House political strategist Karl Rove (see July 8, 2003, July 8 or 9, 2003, and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), State Department official Marc Grossman (see June 10, 2003), former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (see July 7, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, and 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003), and former CIA Director George Tenet (see June 11 or 12, 2003, July 11, 2003 and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). The defense would consider Wilson a "hostile witness" if they indeed subpoena his testimony. Many of these potential witnesses were also disclosed by the Libby team a month earlier (see March 17, 2006).
Limiting Document Requests - The defense also agrees to limit its future document requests "to documents that are currently in the actual possession of the OSC [Office of Special Counsel] or which the OSC knows to exist."
Libby Claims No Memory of Key Conversation - Libby's lawyers also assert that Libby remembers nothing of conversations he had with Grossman, in which Grossman has testified that he told Libby of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA status (see May 29, 2003, June 10, 2003, 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, and October 17, 2003). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/12/2006 ; Truthout (.org), 4/14/2006] However, sources close to the case say that "a half-dozen witnesses" have testified as to the accuracy of Grossman's claims. A former State Department colleague of Grossman's says: "It's not just Mr. Grossman's word against Mr. Libby's. There were other people present at the meeting at the time when Mr. Grossman provided Mr. Libby with details about Ms. Plame's employment with the agency. There is an abundance of evidence Mr. Fitzgerald has that will prove this." Investigative reporter Jason Leopold observes: "The meeting between Libby and Grossman is a crucial part of the government's case against Libby. It demonstrates that Libby knew about Plame Wilson a month or so before her name was published in a newspaper column and proves that Libby lied to the grand jury when he testified that he found out about Plame Wilson from reporters in July 2003." [Truthout (.org), 4/14/2006]
Entity Tags: Karl C. Rove, Ari Fleischer, Joseph C. Wilson, George J. Tenet, Jason Leopold, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Marc Grossman
April 13, 2006: Libby's Lawyers Say Libby Never Revealed Plame Wilson's Name
Lawyers for indicted White House official Lewis "Scooter" Libby tell reporters that their client did not testify that either President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney authorized him to disclose the identify of then-CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters. After recent court filings by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed that Libby had testified about being authorized to disclose classified information to reporters by Bush and Cheney (see April 5, 2006), many reporters, pundits, and Internet bloggers have speculated that Libby was authorized by Bush and Cheney to reveal Plame Wilson's identity. Libby's lawyers say he never mentioned Plame Wilson's name in conversations with reporters, and therefore never took part in a campaign to besmirch the reputation of her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). The assertion is contradicted by several reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald has asserted that Libby revealed Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA agent in order to allege that she sent her husband to Niger to debunk the tales of Iraqi attempts to buy Nigerien uranium "on account of nepotism" (see April 5, 2006). [Washington Post, 4/13/2006]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, George W. Bush, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Valerie Plame Wilson
April 18, 2006: News Organizations File Quash Motions
Lawyers for NBC News, the New York Times, Time magazine, and Time reporter Matt Cooper file motions to quash the Lewis Libby defense team's subpoenas (see March 14, 2006). Lawyers for the Times argue that the newspaper "has a substantial First Amendment interest, and common law qualified privilege against compelled production of unpublished information of the kind sought by Libby." Time magazine notes Libby's argument that since he believed Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity was well known within the Washington press corps, he needs to show that her employment was discussed by reporters in June and July 2003, when he was meeting with reporters. Time says that the Libby argument should not allow his lawyers to conduct a broad search for potentially helpful evidence. "Although Mr. Libby has claimed a right to know what information the press corps in general possessed concerning Mrs. Wilson's affiliation with the CIA, under that theory he would be entitled to subpoena all reporters in Washington to learn what they knew, and when they knew it," Time argues in its motion. "There is no stopping point to this approach." Other lawyers for the news organizations call the Libby subpoenas "fishing expeditions." NBC News argues that it has no documents that show that any network employee, including reporters Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert, knew that Plame Wilson was employed by the CIA before her public exposure (see July 14, 2003). Through his lawyers, Cooper argues that the subpoena from Libby is "materially the same as the subpoena issued to Time Inc." by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and is "overbroad, unreasonable, and burdensome… and seeks information protected by the reporter's privilege that exists under the First Amendment." [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/18/2006 ; New York Times, 4/19/2006; Washington Post, 4/19/2006]
Entity Tags: New York Times, Andrea Mitchell, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, NBC News, Tim Russert, Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Matthew Cooper, Time magazine
April 19, 2006: Post Acknowledges Turning Over Notes from Woodward-Libby Conversation
The Washington Post acknowledges that it has recently turned over notes and materials to the Lewis Libby defense team in response to a subpoena it had received (see March 14, 2006). In a statement, the Post says it has turned over "the complete version of [reporter] Bob Woodward's memo of his interview with Mr. Libby on June 27, 2003 (see June 27, 2003). This action did not pose legal or journalistic concerns to the Post or Mr. Woodward." [New York Times, 4/19/2006]
Entity Tags: Bob Woodward, Washington Post, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby
April 20, 2006: Columnist: Motions to Quash Miller Subpoena Raises New Questions
Progressive columnist, author, and blogger Arianna Huffington writes that the recent motions by the New York Times, Time magazine, and other news organizations to quash subpoenas issued by the Lewis Libby defense team (see April 18, 2006) raise more questions than the organizations may be willing to answer. Huffington says that lawyers for the New York Times and its reporter Judith Miller are correct in calling Libby's subpoenas a "fishing expedition" and accusing the lawyers of casting an overly "wide net." However, the Times motion, in conjunction with the original Libby subpoena (see March 14, 2006), reveals that Libby's lawyers want to know more about the situation surrounding Miller's July 2003 conversation with Libby, in which he divulged classified information to her in order to influence her reporting on Iraq (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). Specifically, Libby's lawyers, as well as Huffington and others, want to know if Miller proposed writing a story based on Libby's disclosures. As Huffington writes: "If she did pitch the story, which Times editor did she pitch it to? What was their reaction? Why did no story result? Had the editors become so suspect of Miller's sources and reporting that they refused to sign off on the story? Was she officially barred from writing about Iraq/WMD?" Huffington observes that it is obvious the Libby team intends to impugn Miller's integrity as a journalist, and writes that such a defense tactic "mak[es] it all the more important for the paper to stop operating behind a veil of secrecy when it comes to Miller." Huffington also notes that Miller has spoken to Times in-house lawyer George Freeman and to Vanity Fair reporter Marie Brenner about Valerie Plame Wilson; Brenner wrote an article saying that Miller had talked to numerous government officials about Plame Wilson's identity both before and after her outing by columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003). [Huffington Post, 4/20/2006] Lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive legal blog TalkLeft, notes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is likely very interested in determining which government officials Miller may have spoken to about Plame Wilson, but goes on to write that Miller may have already disclosed that information to Fitzgerald. [Jeralyn Merritt, 4/20/2006]
Entity Tags: New York Times, Jeralyn Merritt, George Freeman, Arianna Huffington, Judith Miller, Marie Brenner, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Time magazine, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Robert Novak
April 23, 2006: '60 Minutes' Airs Investigation into Iraq-Niger Uranium Claims Originally Scheduled for 2004
CBS's 60 Minutes airs a half-hour interview with Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba, the first reporter to obtain the now-infamous forged documents that purported to show that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). The now-defunct 60 Minutes II had planned to show the segment just before the November 2004 elections, but questions from right-wing bloggers and commentators about another 60 Minutes II segment—one that showed President Bush did not fulfill his Texas Air National Guard duties during the Vietnam War—led CBS executives to pull the segment (see Late September 2004). [Newsweek, 9/23/2004; Rich, 2006, pp. 142-143; CBS News, 4/23/2006] CBS News president Andrew Heyward refused to air the story during the last week of September 2004, saying it would be "inappropriate" to air it during the last weeks of the 2004 presidential election campaign. Media observer Mary Jacoby says the CBS report contains little new information, but "is powerfully, coherently, and credibly reported." She calls CBS "cowardly" for not airing the segment when it was originally scheduled. [Salon, 9/29/2004] Author Jane Hamsher, the owner of the progressive blog FireDogLake, writes that the 60 Minutes segment is "a simple, direct narrative that will reach millions of Americans and let them know that they have been duped." The segment does not delve into the outing of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson, staying strictly with the Iraq-Niger uranium claims, and, she writes, demonstrates that the officially sanctioned "investigations" into the claims were little more than "partisan hatchet jobs." [Jane Hamsher, 4/23/2006]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Mary Jacoby, George W. Bush, CBS News, Andrew Heyward, Jane Hamsher, Elisabetta Burba
April 26, 2006: Rove Testifies for Fifth Time to Plame Wilson Grand Jury
Karl Rove discusses his testimony with his lawyers outside the grand jury chambers. [Source: CNN / ThinkProgress]White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove testifies before special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury for a fifth time. Rove partially waives his attorney-client privilege with his attorney, Robert Luskin, to allow Luskin to testify about conversations he had with Rove concerning Rove's knowledge of the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. Rove is also questioned extensively about the contradictions between his previous testimony and the testimony of Time reporter Matthew Cooper regarding Rove and Cooper's July 2003 conversation about Plame Wilson (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), and his conversations with conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003, July 8 or 9, 2003, and July 14, 2003). [Washington Post, 4/27/2006; National Journal, 4/28/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] According to Luskin, Rove "indirectly" confirmed Plame Wilson's CIA status to Novak. [Washington Post, 7/15/2006]
Changing Stories - Rove is asked how he learned of Plame Wilson's CIA status, and the circumstances surrounding his leaking of that information to Cooper. Rove tells the jury that when he told Cooper that Plame Wilson was a CIA agent, he was merely passing along unverified gossip. Cooper has testified that Rove told him that Plame Wilson was a CIA agent, and that she played a role in sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, on a fact-finding mission to Niger in 2002 (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Cooper has testified that both Rove and Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, portrayed the information about Plame Wilson as definitive. It was because of their definitive statements, Cooper testified, that he identified Plame Wilson in a July 2003 story for Time (see July 17, 2003). In his first interview by the FBI, Rove failed to tell the investigators that he had talked to Cooper at all (see October 8, 2003); he again failed to disclose the conversation during his early appearances before the grand jury (see February 2004). Later, Rove testified that he did indeed speak with Cooper, and that his earlier failures to disclose the information were due to lapses in his memory (see October 15, 2004). In his fourth appearance before the grand jury, Rove testified that he revealed Plame Wilson's identity to the reporter (see October 14, 2005), a recollection prompted by the discovery of an e-mail Rove sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley soon after his leak to Cooper (see March 1, 2004). Rove has also testified that he learned of Plame Wilson's CIA status from a journalist or journalists, a claim strongly contradicted by evidence. He has said in previous testimony that he may have learned of Plame Wilson's identity from Novak, who outed Plame Wilson in a July 2003 column (see July 14, 2003). Novak, however, has testified that he learned of Plame Wilson's identity from Libby and Rove. A person with first-hand knowledge of the grand jury proceedings will later comment, "If you believe both of them, Novak was saying that Rove was his source, and Rove was saying that Novak was his source." [Washington Post, 4/27/2006; National Journal, 4/28/2006] Rove says that he still doesn't remember talking to Cooper, though he does not dispute the e-mail he sent to Hadley. [Bloomberg, 4/28/2006] He argues that it would have been foolish for him to attempt to lie to the FBI and to the grand jury, because he knew that whatever lies he might have chosen to tell would have eventually been exposed, and he would then risk going to jail. [Washington Post, 4/27/2006] It is difficult to reconcile Rove's "indirect" confirmation of Plame Wilson's identity for Novak with his earlier claims that he learned of Plame Wilson's CIA status from Novak.
Lawyer's Statement - Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin says in a written statement: "Karl Rove appeared today before the grand jury investigating the disclosure of a CIA agent's identity. He testified voluntarily and unconditionally at the request of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to explore a matter raised since Mr. Rove's last appearance in October 2005 (see October 14, 2005). In connection with this appearance, the special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target of the investigation. Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges. At the request of the special counsel, Mr. Rove will not discuss the substance of his testimony." [CNN, 4/26/2006; Washington Post, 4/27/2006]
Difficulties in Proving Intent - Law professor and former federal prosecutor Dan Richman says that while Fitzgerald may well be trying to build a case against Rove for either perjury or obstruction of justice, it may be quite difficult to prove Rove intended to lie to the grand jury. Rove's subsequent appearances before the jury might "prove to be an obstacle to any [potential] obstruction or perjury case in that the person ultimately cooperated and told what he knew," Richman says. [National Journal, 4/28/2006]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Matthew Cooper, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Robert Luskin, Karl C. Rove, Valerie Plame Wilson, Dan Richman, Robert Novak, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Stephen J. Hadley
April 28, 2006: Judge Says Reporter Had No First Amendment Protection Because Crime Was Committed in Plame Wilson Leak
Judge Thomas Hogan, who jailed former New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to name her source during the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation (see October 7, 2004), defends his decision during a meeting of the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association. Hogan, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan, is the chief judge for the Washington, DC, District Court. He tells the collected listeners that Miller had no First Amendment right to protect a source in a criminal matter. While the story began as a political ruckus, Hogan says, it quickly escalated into something more than merely politics. Between the politics of the case, the media involvement, and the legal ramifications, it became "the perfect storm," he adds. War critic Joseph Wilson became a target of the White House. "Blood was spreading in the water. The sharks were gathering. It's typical Washington politics, except that this involved the commission of a crime." Hogan is referring to the public exposure of covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson after the White House leaked her identity to the press (see July 14, 2003). Hogan says of Miller: "She was an actor in the commission of a crime. She was part of the transfer of information that was a crime." [Associated Press, 4/29/2006]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Thomas Hogan, Judith Miller
May 1, 2006: Libby Moves to Enforce Reporter, News Organization Subpoenas
Lewis Libby's defense team files a motion to compel the testimonies of several reporters and news organizations whom it has already subpoenaed (see March 14, 2006). The New York Times, NBC News, Time magazine, and reporters Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper, and Andrea Mitchell have already filed motions to quash the Libby subpoenas (see April 18, 2006). Libby's lawyers argue that the subpoenas are legal and just, and Libby has a right to compel the subpoenaed testimonies. According to the lawyers' brief, reporters have "no right—under the Constitution or the common law—to deprive Mr. Libby of evidence that will help establish his innocence at trial." In return, lawyers for the various press outlets say that Libby's subpoenas are so broad that they threaten the integrity of their news gathering operations by targeting all of their employees, not just the three reporters involved in the case. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/1/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/1/2006 ; Associated Press, 5/2/2006] Author and blogger Marcy Wheeler writes that while the Libby team's arguments about Cooper and Mitchell are strong, the arguments in regards to Miller are something else entirely. Wheeler accuses Libby, through his lawyers, of "totally mischaracterizing the nature of the lie he is accused of telling to" Miller during their meetings (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). She says that in her view, Miller repeatedly hedged her grand jury testimony (see September 30, 2005 and October 12, 2005) to "protect Libby," but now Libby is using those hedges "to impugn Judy as a witness." [Marcy Wheeler, 5/2/2006] Author Jane Hamsher and former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, note with some amusement that the Libby lawyers are relying on a new word: "misrecollected," as in "whether it is Mr. Libby or the reporters who have misstated or misrecollected the facts," or "it is Mr. Russert who has misrecollected or misstated the facts." Hamsher and Smith write: "It's being employed here for the purpose of avoiding an explicit discussion of what they're really talking about, commingling under its broad tent two distinct activities: the act of remembering an event but failing to recall certain details, which would also be known as 'forgetting,' and the act of remembering things that never actually happened, which would be in effect 'fabricating.' They seem to be describing the latter while hoping for the more innocent overtones of the former." [FireDogLake, 5/2/2006]
Entity Tags: Marcy Wheeler, Christy Hardin Smith, Andrea Mitchell, Jane Hamsher, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Time magazine, Judith Miller, NBC News, Matthew Cooper, New York Times
May 3, 2006: Moussaoui Sentenced to Life in Prison for Role in 9/11 Attacks; Escapes Death Penalty by One Vote
Zacarias Moussaoui on his way to the Supermax prison. [Source: WNBC / Jonathan Deinst]Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 9/11 attacks. A jury sentences him to six consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. A single juror votes against the death penalty for one of the three counts for which Moussaoui is eligible to receive the death sentence (see March 6-May 4, 2006). For the other two counts, the vote is 10-2. According to the foreman of the jury, the lone dissenter did not identify his or herself to the other jurors during deliberations and consequently they could not discuss the person's reasons for opposing the death penalty. "But there was no yelling. It was as if a heavy cloud of doom had fallen over the deliberation room, and many of us realized that all our beliefs and our conclusions were being vetoed by one person," the foreman explains to the Washington Post. "We tried to discuss the pros and cons. But I would have to say that most of the arguments we heard around the deliberation table were [in favor of the death penalty]… Our sense was this was a done deal for that person and whoever that person is, they were consistent from the first day and their point of view didn't change." [Washington Post, 5/12/2006] As a result of the vote, Moussaoui will not be executed and instead will serve six life sentences at the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. A day after the sentencing, on May 5, Moussaoui files a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. He says that his March 27 testimony that he was supposed to have hijacked a fifth plane on September 11 and fly it into the White House "was a complete fabrication." At sentencing the judge told him, "You do not have a right to appeal your convictions, as was explained to you when you plead guilty. You waived that right." [Associated Press, 5/8/2006]
Entity Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline
May 6, 2006: Charles Koch Admits in Interview to Coordinating Funding of Large, Influential Conservative Network of Political Organizations
The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore interviews reclusive billionaire Charles Koch, the head of the Koch Brothers oil empire. Among the items of interest in the interview is Koch's admission that he, along with his brother David (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, and Late 2004), coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of some of the most influential front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets, and other such efforts through a semiannual meeting with wealthy conservative donors. (Moore himself receives Koch funding for his work, according to a Think Progress report published four years later. In return, Moore is quite laudatory in the interview, writing that Koch is a "creative forward-thinking… professorial CEO" who "is immersed in the ideas of liberty and free markets.") Koch tells Moore that his basic goal is to strengthen what he calls the "culture of prosperity" by eliminating "90 percent" of all laws and government regulations. Moore writes of the twice-yearly conference: "Mr. Koch's latest crusade to spread the ideas of liberty has been his sponsorship of a twice-yearly conference that gathers together many of the most successful American entrepreneurs, from T. Boone Pickens to former Circuit City CEO Rick Sharp. The objective is to encourage these captains of industry to help fund free-market groups devoted to protecting the fragile infrastructure of liberty. That task seems especially critical given that so many of the global superrich, like George Soros and Warren Buffett, finance institutions that undermine the very system of capitalism that made their success possible (see January - November 2004). Isn't this just the usual rich liberal guilt, I ask. 'No,' he says, 'I think they simply haven't been sufficiently exposed to the ideas of liberty.'" [Wall Street Journal, 5/6/2006; Think Progress, 10/20/2010]
Entity Tags: Think Progress (.org), Charles Koch, Wall Street Journal, David Koch, Stephen Moore