Plame Leak Investigation

[Balta1701]

FLASHBACK!!! 60 minutes cancelled show on forged Niger documents for Rathergate episode!!!

 

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/24/133038/24

more at links

 

What in the f***!!!!

What, you didn't hear about that before the election? Yeah, CBS didn't want to run a stoyr about forged documents after being caught using forged documents. It was damn pathetic, but from CBS's business point of view...it was the right decision. It hurt the country by helping Bush stay in office of course, just as the forged documents fiasco on 60 minutes did, but that story's been out there for a long while. People @ Daily Kos have been emailing CBS for a year now, to no avail.

[Balta1701]

OK the banner ads about reliving McCarthyism were enough to make me not able to finish that load of crap, so I'll just ask you this instead.  If leaking to the press that Lee had given the Chinese secrets for a nuclear bomb, wasn't true, what was bad enough to be worse than that, which needed to be hidden from the public?

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I just can't understand what you're asking me there...could you rephrase the question?

 

(The Nation btw is a fairly well respected journal, albiet left-of-center, and probably holds itself to a higher standard than the Washington Times, for examlpe, no matter who's advertising on it, and thanks to Firefox plugins I'm not seeing those ads anyway so I don't have a clue what they even look like).

[KipWellsFan]

What, you didn't hear about that before the election?  Yeah, CBS didn't want to run a stoyr about forged documents after being caught using forged documents.  It was damn pathetic, but from CBS's business point of view...it was the right decision.  It hurt the country by helping Bush stay in office of course, just as the forged documents fiasco on 60 minutes did, but that story's been out there for a long while.  People @ Daily Kos have been emailing CBS for a year now, to no avail.

 

No I never heard specifically about the Niger story being bumped for that, it's really an incredible occurence. It's even more important now that Fitzgeral looked into the forged documents.

[southsider2k5]

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I just can't understand what you're asking me there...could you rephrase the question?

 

(The Nation btw is a fairly well respected journal, albiet left-of-center, and probably holds itself to a higher standard than the Washington Times, for examlpe, no matter who's advertising on it, and thanks to Firefox plugins I'm not seeing those ads anyway so I don't have a clue what they even look like).

 

What were the secrets that the Clinton administration hiding? It had to be something incredibly bad if making up a story about a guy working in Los Alamos spying for the Chinese to steal secrets for China was better than the real truth. You don't just make up a story and sacrifice a guys career and life for no reason. Also in the one article you posted, it said the source of the information had to be from higher up than Lee, which is what exonerated him, and that directly contradicts that last piece you put up which basically saids that the Chinese stole the secret years ago, from anyone of 548 people who had the info.

 

Usually the advertising on a site goes to say a lot about who they are targeting as readers of the site. Banner ads about reliving McCarthyism tells me a lot about how respectable they are in my eyes.

[KipWellsFan]

I just spent way too much time failing to find this McCarthy banner.

[Balta1701]

What were the secrets that the Clinton administration hiding?  It had to be something incredibly bad if making up a story about a guy working in Los Alamos spying for the Chinese to steal secrets for China was better than the real truth.  You don't just make up a story and sacrifice a guys career and life for no reason.  Also in the one article you posted, it said the source of the information had to be from higher up than Lee, which is what exonerated him, and that directly contradicts that last piece you put up which basically saids that the Chinese stole the secret years ago, from anyone of 548 people who had the info.

 

Usually the advertising on a site goes to say a lot about who they are targeting as readers of the site.  Banner ads about reliving McCarthyism tells me a lot about how respectable they are in my eyes.

Here' I think the block of text from that same article that covers the question you're asking.

 

But once I was outside in the bright heat of an early desert afternoon, it seemed outrageous that yet again the media were leaving out their own responsibility in the creation of this wicked tale. The torment of Wen Ho Lee did not begin in December of 1999, with his indictment and arrest, but rather the previous March, when the New York Times, the most respected media outlet in the country, laid out a tale of atomic spying that has been proved wrong on virtually every count, but that launched a witch hunt ending in Lee's incarceration [see Bill Mesler, "The Spy Who Wasn't," August 9/16, 1999].

 

There are too many low points in the history of this nation's journalism to permit one easily to employ superlatives about the Times's startling transgression. I don't know if it makes the all-time Top Ten list, but the trial and conviction of Lee in the pages of the Times--both in its news columns and on its editorial page--is certainly right up there. A leak from a Congressional committee chaired by California Republican Christopher Cox regarding the alleged theft of secrets about the W-88 nuclear warhead (a sophisticated, miniaturized bomb that fits on a MIRVed launcher) by Chinese spies--a nonevent that was never substantiated and was scoffed at by most experts--along with the contentions of a controversial and much-disputed source, was used by the newspaper to smear a Taiwan-born US citizen singled out for vilification simply because of his ethnic background.

 

Of course, the Times couldn't have done it alone. But what makes this primarily a media story is that without the backing of the Times, whose stories set the tone for TV journalism, not much of anything would have happened. If properly vetted through the normal channels, the case, based largely on the zealous pursuit of Lee by one disgruntled former government security sleuth and amplified by the ambitions of a right-wing Congressman, would have come to naught. Instead, the Clinton Administration, recovering from impeachment and mired in a campaign finance scandal linked to Asian funds--including the charge that Beijing had secretly funneled money to the Democrats--panicked. Cowed by its fear that the China issue could be used effectively against Gore in the election, the Administration was willing to play along, and it did so through its Energy and Justice departments.

[Mercy!]

After you're through arguing about Clinton, could we go back and rehash Pres. Carter, maybe Gerald Ford, Johnson and Nixon and the Vietnam War, too? Much more fruitful than dealing with our present problems.

[kapkomet]

After you're through arguing about Clinton, could we go back and rehash Pres. Carter, maybe Gerald Ford, Johnson and Nixon and the Vietnam War, too? Much more fruitful than dealing with our present problems.

Wow. That's pretty short sighted.

[Balta1701]

After you're through arguing about Clinton, could we go back and rehash Pres. Carter, maybe Gerald Ford, Johnson and Nixon and the Vietnam War, too? Much more fruitful than dealing with our present problems.

I think we've been rehashing the Vietnam war for the last 2.5 years. It hasn't turned out any better.

[southsider2k5]

Here' I think the block of text from that same article that covers the question you're asking.

 

So it all was a Republicans fault, and the Clinton administration went along with it just because. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[Balta1701]

So it all was a Republicans fault, and the Clinton administration went along with it just because.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Wow, I so didn't read that in that block I excerpted. Not in the least.

[KipWellsFan]

Notes reveal Cheney told Libby about Wilson's wife

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

 

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

 

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics...artner=homepage

more at link

 

In my estimation Libby is most likely to be indicted.

[southsider2k5]

Wow, I so didn't read that in that block I excerpted.  Not in the least.

 

Well according to what you quoted all of the problems traced back to a Republician as usual and the Clintons framed some innocent man and went with some incredible lie about our national weapons technology and nuclear labs being compromised by Chinese nationals when they had the truth all along to hang the people who were actually responsible for it, but didn't because, well I still haven't figured that part out... There was no bigger secret that they were trying to hide, what they said wasn't true at all, and yet an administration figure most likely leaked out the name and story behind this guy, which turned out to supposedly be false. So basically the framed and procecuted a guy for no reason at all.

 

And you expect me to believe that? Especially after the sites you quoted coudln't even agree on the details of what happened! Come on dude, I hope you don't think I am that stupid.

[KipWellsFan]

In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo reveal how Niccolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002.

 

Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.

 

The La Repubblica article quotes a Bush administration official saying, "I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, general Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley."

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/20...dex.html#008117

 

more at link

[KipWellsFan]

SOURCES: FITZGERALD DECIDES TO SEEK INDICTMENTS: DEVELOPING...

www.rawstory.com

Edited October 25, 2005 by KipWellsFan

[KipWellsFan]

At least 1 indictment seeked by Fitzgerald, it's up to the grand jury now

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided to seek indictments in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and has submitted at least one to the grand jury, those close to the investigation tell RAW STORY.

 

Fitzgerald will seek at least two indictments, the sources say. They note that it remains to be seen whether the grand jury will approve the charges.

 

Those familiar with the case state that Fitzgerald likely will not seek indictments that assert officials leaked Plame's name illegally. Rather, they say that he will focus charges in the arena of lying to investigators. But the specifics of the charges remain unclear, and they are not final, so charges beyond lying to the grand jury could certainly be handed down.

 

Any possible indictments are now in the hands of the grand jury. They are expected to be made public later this week.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Fitzgerald_h...ments_1025.html

 

more at link

[KipWellsFan]

An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN:

 

1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.

2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.

 

3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and "filed" tomorrow.

 

4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

 

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001031.html

[Mercy!]

What's happening up there in Canada? Any news?

[KipWellsFan]

What's happening up there in Canada?  Any news?

 

Not much. Other than our Prime Minister lashing out at America's trade policies, America's current turmoil is more interesting and important.

 

Is CNN clearing up its schedule for big news tommorow?

I just got off of the phone with someone who was cancelled by CNN for tomorrow.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/25.html#a5550

 

However this conflicts with a rumored Thursday news conference.

[KipWellsFan]

CBS’ JOHN ROBERTS: Lawyers familiar with the case think Wednesday is when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make known his decision, and that there will be indictments. Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy. But they insisted today the two are secondary players, that it was an unidentified Mr. X who actually gave the name of CIA agent V alerie Plame to reporters. Fitzgerald knows who Mr. X is, they say, and if he isn’t indicted, there’s no way Rove or Libby should be. But charges may not focus on the leak at all. Obstruction of justice or perjury are real possibilities.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/25/decision-tommorow/

 

more at link

[KipWellsFan]

ABCNEWS claimed to the White House that it had double sourced how an indictment against vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis Libby was set.

 

A senior White House source quickly determined ABC was bluffing; the report did not run on the East coast feed of the program.

 

ABC NEWS spokesman Jeff Schneider tells the DRUDGE REPORT: "There is nothing at all true about us having double sourced anything" regarding indictments.

 

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash5abc.htm

more at link

[KipWellsFan]

WASHINGTON -- As his investigation nears a conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has returned his attention to White House adviser Karl Rove, interviewing a Rove colleague with detailed questions about contacts that President Bush's close aide had with reporters in the days leading up to the outing of a covert CIA officer.

 

Fitzgerald has also dispatched FBI agents to comb the CIA agent's residential neighborhood in Washington, asking neighbors again whether they were aware — before her name appeared in a syndicated column — that the agent, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,7947383.story

more at link

 

I'm spamming!

[KipWellsFan]

No announcements expected today

www.cnn.com

[KipWellsFan]

The prosecutor's visit to the chief judge could signal that Mr. Fitzgerald is seeking to extend the term of the grand jury that has been investigating the leak. Judge Hogan would need to approve any extension to the grand jury's term, which was set to expire on Friday.

http://www.nysun.com/article/22112

more at link

[KipWellsFan]

MIKE ALLEN: A lot of activity happening that we’re not seeing. A likely scenario for what happened today, Patrick Fitzgerald got some indictments from this grand jury. He is now able to go to the…

 

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You think they’re sealed right now?

 

MIKE ALLEN: Very possible. What I’m told is typically, in a case like this, he could get the indictments and now he can go to the targets and say, you can plead to these or I’ll go back Friday and get more. You have 12 to 24 hours to think about it.

 

Later on Olbermann, The Washington Post’s Jim VanDeHei (who also has “some of the best sources in Washington”) assures us the wait is almost over: “I do not think we’ll see any extension of this grand jury. We will know on Friday what’s going to happen here.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/26/allen-fitzgerald/

more at link