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CIA Leak Case Watch: Valerie Plame Wilson Sheds Little Light in Congressional Appearance
AP: Plame Sheds Little Light in Leak Case
Valerie Plame put a glamorous face and a personal story to Democrats’ criticism of the Bush administration Friday, telling a House committee that White House and State Department officials “carelessly and recklessly” blew her CIA cover in a politically motivated smear of her husband.
Plame, the operative at the center of the leak scandal that resulted in last week’s criminal conviction of a former top White House official, created more of a stir by her presence on Capitol Hill than by her testimony.
Hell, Waxman wants to IMPEACH Bush (note the Code Pinko behind Plame) and Plame wants to sell books.
Political theater?
NOPE
Political disgrace.
The President MUST pardon Scooter Libby.
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Is it About Something Bigger?
Michael Ramirez on Scooter Libby and Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Libby Found Guilty in 4 of 5 Counts
Technorati Tags: CIA, CIALeakCase, ValeriePlame, JoeWilson, PatrickFitzgerald
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The Ryskind Sketchbook: Patrick Fitzgerald Turns a Big Screwdriver
Patrick Fitzgerald Turns a Big Screwdriver
It takes a dedicated prosecutor to find the target of his investigation, Richard Armitage (the man who exposed Valerie Plame), discover no crime was committed because Valerie Plame was not a covert CIA agent — and then keep investigating.
Lewis Libby was somehow able to perjure himself for a non-crime he didn’t commit. It’s like an Encyclopedia Brown mystery penned by Kafka.
Indeed…..
Technorati Tags: Ryskind, PatrickFitzgerald, ScoterLibby
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Is it About Something Bigger?
Former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband Joseph Wilson leave a news conference in Washington, July 14, 2006.
Mark Steyn: Perverse Libby trial was revealing
In his closing remarks, Patrick Fitzgerald invited the jury to view a narrow perjury case as something epic: ”What is this case about?” the special counsel mused. ”Is it about something bigger?” Fortunately, he was musing rhetorically, and he had the answer on hand: ”There is a cloud over the vice president. . . . There is a cloud over the White House.”
Indeed. And what exactly is the cloud? Is it that the name of a covert agent was intentionally leaked in breach of the relevant law on non-disclosure?
No. On the alleged violation of Valerie Plame’s identity, Fitzgerald was unable to produce not only a perpetrator but any crime.
Is the cloud then a more general murk? A politically motivated attempt to damage the white knight Joe Wilson as he sallied forth against the Bush dragon?
No. The man who leaked Valerie Plame’s name was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s deputy at the State Department and a man who dislikes Rove, Cheney and all their neocon warmongering works. The journalist he leaked it to — Bob Novak — was also opposed to the Iraq war. Neither Armitage nor Novak had any animus against Joe Wilson. On the contrary, they broadly share Wilson’s skepticism on the threat posed by Saddam. There was no conspiracy, just Armitage gossiping like the gravelly voiced schoolgirl he’s been for years.
So, the answer is YES. It is about something bigger.
It is about POLITICS and not an area where a special prosecutor has purview.
President Bush should and WILL PARDON Scooter Libby.
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Michael Ramirez on Scooter Libby and Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Libby Found Guilty in 4 of 5 Counts
Technorati Tags: CIA, CIALeakCase, ValeriePlame, JoeWilson, PatrickFitzgerald, MarkSteyn
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Michael Ramirez on Scooter Libby and Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Libby Found Guilty in 4 of 5 Counts
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Technorati Tags: MichaelRamirezScooterLibby, PatrickFitzgerald
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Libby Found Guilty in 4 of 5 Counts
AP: Libby found guilty in CIA leak case
Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters.
He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.
Well, you have to tell the truth. But, this is a politically contrived and complicated case.
First, the appeal which will drag on for years and then a pardon if the appeal fails.
Flap doubts Libby will ever see the inside of a jail cell.
Technorati Tags: ScooterLibby, CIALeakCase
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Michael Ramirez on Federal Prosceutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the Scooter Libby Trial
New York Times: Libby and Cheney Won’t Testify, Lawyers Say
How do you spell NOT GUILTY?
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Technorati Tags: MichaelRamirez
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Richard Armitage Comes “CLEAN”
Washington Post: Armitage Says He Was Source of CIA Leak
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said yesterday that he believes he was the initial source for a 2003 newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that disclosed the CIA’s previously secret employment of Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent critic of the U.S. war in Iraq.
Armitage said that he learned about Plame’s employment from a State Department memo that did not mention her covert status, and that he had no knowledge of it at the time. In 40 years of reading classified materials, Armitage said in a telephone interview, “I have never seen in a memo . . . a covert agent’s name.”
Novak’s disclosure of Plame’s CIA employment ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the leak. In October of last year, a grand jury indicted vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on charges of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about Plame, forcing his resignation and embarrassing the White House.
Richard Armitage is a SELF-SERVING DUMBASS.
Patrick Fitzgerald should end the prosecution of Scooter Libby and/or the President should pardon him.
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Karl Rove Owed an Apology
CIA Leak Case Watch: Unfortunate That So Many People Took Joseph Wilson Seriously
Michael Ramirez on CIA Leak Case – Plame Out
CIA Leak Case Watch: Witch Hunt by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Was it Richard Armitage?
CIA Leak Case Watch: Karl Rove Won’t Be Charged in CIA Leak Case
Plamegate Watch: Valerie Plame Cashes IN
CIA Leak Case Watch: Bob Novak – “President Knows Leak Sourceâ€
Technorati Tags: RichardArmitage, BobWoodward, ValeriePlame, JosephWilson, CIA, CIALeakCase, PatrickFitzgerald, RobertNovak, ScooterLibby
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Karl Rove Owed an Apology
David Broder of the Washington Post: One Leak and a Flood of Silliness
Conspiracy theories flourish in politics, and most of them have no more basis than spring training hopes for the Chicago Cubs.
Whenever things turn dicey for Republicans, they complain about the “liberal media” sabotaging them. And when Democrats get in a jam, they take up Hillary Clinton’s warnings about a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
For much of the past five years, dark suspicions have been voiced about the Bush White House undermining its critics, and Karl Rove has been fingered as the chief culprit in this supposed plot to suppress the opposition.
Now at least one count in that indictment has been substantially weakened — the charge that Rove masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph Wilson by “outing” his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame.
I have written almost nothing about the Wilson-Plame case, because it seemed overblown to me from the start. Wilson’s claim in a New York Times op-ed about his memo on the supposed Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger; the Robert D. Novak column naming Plame as the person who had recommended Wilson to check up on the reported sale; the call for a special prosecutor and the lengthy interrogation that led to the jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times and the deposition of several other reporters; and, finally, the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff — all of this struck me as being a tempest in a teapot.
No one behaved well in the whole mess — not Wilson, not Libby, not special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and not the reporters involved.
The only time I commented on the case was to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources’ names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.
But caution has been notably lacking in some of the press treatment of this subject — especially when it comes to Karl Rove. And it behooves us in the media to examine that behavior, not just sweep it under the rug.
Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton and now a columnist for several publications, has just published a book titled, “How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime.” It is a collection of his columns for Salon, including one originally published on July 14, 2005, titled “Rove’s War.”
It was occasioned by the disclosure of a memo from Time magazine’s Matt Cooper, saying that Rove had confirmed to him the identity of Valerie Plame. To Blumenthal, that was proof that this “was political payback against Wilson by a White House that wanted to shift the public focus from the Iraq War to Wilson’s motives.”
Then Blumenthal went off on a rant: “While the White House stonewalls, Rove has license to run his own damage control operation. His surrogates argue that if Rove did anything, it wasn’t a crime. . . . Rove is fighting his war as though it will be settled in a court of Washington pundits. Brandishing his formidable political weapons, he seeks to demonstrate his prowess once again. His corps of agents raises a din in which their voices drown out individual dissidents. His frantic massing of forces dominates the capital by winning the communications battle. Indeed, Rove may succeed momentarily in quelling the storm. But the stillness may be illusory. Before the prosecutor, Rove’s arsenal is useless.”
In fact, the prosecutor concluded that there was no crime; hence, no indictment. And we now know that the original “leak,” in casual conversations with reporters Novak and Bob Woodward, came not from the conspiracy theorists’ target in the White House but from the deputy secretary of state at the time, Richard Armitage, an esteemed member of the Washington establishment and no pal of Rove or President Bush.
Blumenthal’s example is far from unique. Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove’s lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: “But this isn’t just about the Facts, it’s about what Rove’s foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil.”
And in the American Prospect’s cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove “is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability — until now.”
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
AMEN
Too much agenda driven advocacy posing as journalism. David Broder has it RIGHT.
Michelle Malkin calls out a few more:
Broder specifically name-checks Sidney Blumenthal, Newsweek (for this Howard Fineman piece), and Joe Conason and The American Prospect.
Mirabile dictu! Good for Broder. Still waiting for the New York Times…
New York Times will probably IGNORE the story – since it does NOT fit their agenda – HATE BUSH.
Richard Armitage and Valerie Plame
Now, what about Scooter Libby?
Shouldn’t a PARDON by President Bush be forthcoming?
Probably…..around Christmas….
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Unfortunate That So Many People Took Joseph Wilson Seriously
Michael Ramirez on CIA Leak Case – Plame Out
CIA Leak Case Watch: Witch Hunt by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Was it Richard Armitage?
CIA Leak Case Watch: Karl Rove Won’t Be Charged in CIA Leak Case
Plamegate Watch: Valerie Plame Cashes IN
CIA Leak Case Watch: Bob Novak – “President Knows Leak Sourceâ€
Technorati Tags: RichardArmitage, BobWoodward, ValeriePlame, JosephWilson, CIA, CIALeakCase, PatrickFitzgerald, RobertNovak, ScooterLibby
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Unfortunate That So Many People Took Joseph Wilson Seriously
Washington Post: End of an Affair
It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.
WE’RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame’s cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.
Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame’s identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak “in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip,” according to a story this week by the Post’s R. Jeffrey.
Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.
It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House — that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson — is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage’s identity been known three years ago.
That’s not to say that Mr. Libby and other White House officials are blameless. As prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has reported, when Mr. Wilson charged that intelligence about Iraq had been twisted to make a case for war, Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney reacted by inquiring about Ms. Plame’s role in recommending Mr. Wilson for a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, where he investigated reports that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium. Mr. Libby then allegedly disclosed Ms. Plame’s identity to journalists and lied to a grand jury when he said he had learned of her identity from one of those reporters. Mr. Libby and his boss, Mr. Cheney, were trying to discredit Mr. Wilson; if Mr. Fitzgerald’s account is correct, they were careless about handling information that was classified.
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame’s CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming — falsely, as it turned out — that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush’s closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
So, after many years of bashing President Bush and Karl Rove for orchestrating a political “hit job” against Joe Wilson’s wife, the Washington Post comes out with this MEA CULPA.
Flap reprinted the entire editorial piece because the MSM and the Left blogs have been reticent to highlight the fact that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are indeed self-serving LIARS whose agenda was to HIT the Bush Administration.
What a surprise the LEFT uses some sad characters to try to destroy Bush. But, the Lefty dominated MSM should at least publish APOLOGIA for their mistaken attempts to besmirch the president.
What about it New York Times?
Now, for Scooter Libby……
Blogosphere:
Captain Ed has An Exclamation Point On The Plame Denouement
Michelle Malkin has PlameOut: An Emily Litella moment
Flopping Aces: The End Is In SightÂ
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Blogosphere Scrub of PLAME OUT at Daily Kos
Michael Ramirez on CIA Leak Case – Plame Out
CIA Leak Case Watch: Witch Hunt by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Was it Richard Armitage?
CIA Leak Case Watch: Karl Rove Won’t Be Charged in CIA Leak Case
Plamegate Watch: Valerie Plame Cashes IN
Technorati Tags: RichardArmitage, BobWoodward, ValeriePlame, JosephWilson, CIA, CIALeakCase, PatrickFitzgerald, RobertNovak, ScooterLibby, DailyKos
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CIA Leak Case Watch: Blogosphere Scrub of PLAME OUT at Daily Kos
Newsbusters.org: Wilson-Plame-Yellowcake Characters Are Recent MIAs in Daily Kos Searches
Search for yourself at Daily Kos and see (all searches are set up for 30 results per page and look back over quarter; searches were done at roughly 2:45 PM):- “Bush” (to prove the search engine works) — 558 results, up to and including today
- “Wilson” — latest entry is August 24, well before the news exculpatory to the administration broke.
- “Plame” — latest entry – August 11
- “Libby” — latest – July 14
- “Fitzgerald” — August 4
- “Fitzmas” — June 24
- “Armitage” — no results
And Scotter Libby?
And the Plame/Wilson Lawsuit?
And the disgraceful silence from the lefty MSM?
The list continues……
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Michael Ramirez on CIA Leak Case – Plame Out
CIA Leak Case Watch: Witch Hunt by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
CIA Leak Case Watch: Was it Richard Armitage?
CIA Leak Case Watch: Karl Rove Won’t Be Charged in CIA Leak Case
Plamegate Watch: Valerie Plame Cashes IN
CIA Leak Case Watch: Bob Novak – “President Knows Leak Sourceâ€
Technorati Tags: RichardArmitage, BobWoodward, ValeriePlame, JosephWilson, CIA, CIALeakCase, PatrickFitzgerald, RobertNovak, ScooterLibby, DailyKos