Friday, February 10th, 2006
Three months ago Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby resigned after being charged with obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI and committing perjury before a federal grand jury in connection to the Plame case.
So far Libby is the only White House official to be charged in the case. He is schedule to go on trial next January - two months after the mid-term elections.
But newly released court documents raise new questions about the role of the Vice President in the affair. Investigative journalist Murray Waas has revealed in the National Journal that Libby testified before federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq.
Waas bases his article in part on a recent letter written by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's to Libby's attorney.
Fitzgerald writes, "Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) ... in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003.
Fitzgerald went on to write, "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."
Although Fitzgerald does not identify Cheney by name, sources have told Waas that Fitzgerald is in fact referring to the Vice President.
Murray Waas, investigative journalist who writes for a number of publications. Among them, American Prospect magazine and Salon.com. He has broken a number of stories on the saga of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. He maintains a blog at WhateverAlready.blogspot.com.
AMY GOODMAN: I reached Murray Waas yesterday and asked him to outline his expose.
MURRAY WAAS: Well, the story today says that Vice President Cheney, according to recent court filings, was authorized – actually authorized and directed “Scooter” Libby to provide classified information to the press, among the people, Judy Miller of the New York Times, to make the Bush administration’s case that they hadn’t misused pre-war intelligence to make the case to go to war with Iraq. So even though Libby’s not saying Cheney directed him to release the Plame information, Libby is essentially claiming he was authorized in a broader way by Cheney to go out and discredit Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is based on documents you have seen?
MURRAY WAAS: There’s actually a public court filing in the case, which is correspondence between Pat Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor, and Libby’s attorney, in which Fitzgerald makes reference to the fact that Libby said that he had been – he had claimed in the grand jury to have been, quote/unquote, “authorized” – that’s Libby’s word – by superiors to disclose the classified information. Libby and Fitzgerald don’t disclose who the superiors are, but I’ve talked to other people with first-hand knowledge of the matter who say that it was indeed – Cheney was the key person there.
AMY GOODMAN: And how does this help Libby’s case?
MURRAY WAAS: It’s unclear if it’s going to help Libby’s case. You know, it’s kind of – some people I’ve talked to have said that Libby wants to just pressure people – pressure the government to drop the case by demanding the declassification of documents. And so, he might not actually even use this defense at trial. So – and there’s always the possibility that he might think it would create sympathy for the jury if he was portrayed as a fall-guy, like Oliver North had been in Iran-Contra, or like other people have to some degree of success used in national security cases in the past.
AMY GOODMAN: Does this indicate that Vice President Cheney committed a crime?
MURRAY WAAS: No, the Vice President apparently can, or the President can declassify on their whim. It’s perfectly legal. They have control of the information. But what I think is of concern to the average person is while they’re clamping down on leaks, while there’s been these extraordinary attacks on reporters’ credibility by friends of the administration, while there’s been unprecedented leak investigations, when there’s been -- with the example of the N.S.A. story or whatever – the Attorney General has decided to focus on the leaker, not the potential misconduct. You have the selective leaking by the administration to make the case to go to war, to defend themselves against allegations of wrongdoing after the fact – you know, and after the war has started. And so, it allows the government, allows the administration to control the information, you know, which in a democracy is kind of a dangerous thing. All presidents like to do it, but we’ve had kind of a perfect storm where it’s easier now than ever before
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