By Murray Waas, NationalJournal.com
Friday, April 28, 2006
Appearing for a fifth time before the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case, White House adviser Karl Rove on Wednesday was questioned extensively about contradictions between his sworn testimony and that of Time magazine writer Matthew Cooper on the substance of their July 2003 conversation regarding then-agency operative Valerie Plame, according to attorneys involved in the case.
In several hours of testimony, Rove was again asked how he learned three years ago that Plame worked for the CIA, and the circumstances of how he relayed that information to Cooper, according to people familiar with his testimony.
Rove also testified to the grand jury that when he told Cooper that Plame worked at the agency, he was only passing along unverified gossip.
In contrast, Cooper has testified that Rove told him in a phone conversation on July 11, 2003, that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in having the agency select her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, to make a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002.
Cooper has also testified that Rove, as well as a second source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney -- portrayed the information about Plame as accurate and authoritative. Cooper has testified that based on his conversations with Rove and Libby, he felt confident enough about the information to identify Plame as a CIA officer in a July 17 Time story.
It has been widely reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fizgerald has been trying to determine whether Rove tried to mislead the FBI and the grand jury in the early stages of the leak probe when he failed to disclose that he had talked to Cooper about Plame three days before she was outed as a CIA officer. But it has not been previously known that much of the questioning of Rove on Wednesday also focused on the contradictions between Cooper's and Rove's accounts of their crucial July 11 conversation.
Rove did not disclose the conversation with Cooper when he was first interviewed in the early stages of the leak probe by the FBI in October 2003, and again during his first appearance before the grand jury in February 2004. Later, Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury and testified about the Cooper conversation, saying he had forgotten about it in his earlier statements to the FBI and in his first grand jury appearance.
The outing of Plame was part of a broad effort by the Bush administration in the first half of 2003 to discredit Wilson, a vocal administration critic who charged that the president and others in his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.
Wilson had been dispatched in 2002 on a CIA-sponsored overseas mission to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase weapons-grade uranium from Niger. Wilson reported back to the agency that the allegation was mostly likely unfounded; however, in his State of the Union address in January 2003, President Bush stated the British government had information that Hussein did try to buy the uranium from the African nation.
To blunt the criticism, Rove and other senior administration officials mounted an intensive effort against Wilson, alleging that he had been sent to Niger only on the recommendation of his wife, Plame, an agency officer.
Last October, Libby was indicted by the grand jury in the leak case on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice as part of an alleged effort to conceal his own role, and perhaps that of other Bush administration officials, in outing Plame as a covert officer.
Plame's identity was blown on July 14, 2003 in a column by nationally syndicated writer Robert Novak. Novak and Rove have since said that Rove was one of two sources for that column. Both men have also said they did not know of Plame's covert status.
Three days later, on July 17, Time published Cooper's article on its Web site identifying Plame as a CIA officer. Cooper has since testified and written in the magazine that it was Rove and Libby who told him that Plame worked for the CIA.
After initially not telling the FBI and federal grand jury of his conversation with Plame, Rove formally revised his testimony during a grand jury appearance on October 15, 2004. In that testimony, Rove said he believed that he had spoken to Cooper about Plame, but still had little independent recollection of what was said.
Rove's new testimony came as a result of the discovery of a July 11 White House email that Rove had written to then-deputy National Security advisor Stephen J. Hadley in which Rove said he had spoken to Cooper about the Niger controversy.
Rove has insisted that he did not initially volunteer information to the FBI and the grand jury about his July 11 conversation with Cooper because of a faulty memory. He has said that he has so many conversations and phone calls in the course of the work day that he simply had forgotten about that conversation until the email surfaced.
Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, have also argued that it would have been foolhardy for Rove to lie, knowing that Cooper might someday testify against him, and that other evidence might surface showing that the two had talked about Plame.
Central to Fitzgerald's decision on whether to bring charges against Rove is whether Rove's failure to disclose his conversation with Cooper early in the investigation was because of a faulty memory, or whether he was trying to conceal the conversation.
Fordham University law school professor Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said that Fitzgerald's decision to summon Rove before the grand jury repeatedly "reflects the importance that prosecutors-and ultimately juries-place on motive in [potential] perjury or obstruction cases."
Such cases are typically difficult to bring, Richman said, because "in many instances you almost have to literally take the jury inside a defendant's head... to demonstrate their intent."
The fact that Rove voluntarily returned to the grand jury to testify about his conversation with Cooper 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 said.
But if Rove only revised his earlier statements when faced with the likelihood that he was going to be found out anyway, Richman said, that would demonstrate the crucial element of intent to a jury. "You do score points for coming in and retracting or clarifying your previous false testimony," Richman said. "But it is an entirely different case if you are doing so only out of fear that you are about to be caught."
More recently, Luskin provided evidence to prosecutors about his own contacts with another Time reporter, Viveca Novak, in an attempt to show that Rove has testified as honestly as he could to the federal grand jury.
Luskin told prosecutors that Novak told him prior to Rove's first grand jury appearance that she had heard from colleagues at Time that Rove was one of the sources for Cooper's story about Plame. Luskin in turn said that he told Rove about this, but Rove still did not disclose to the grand jury that he had ever spoken to Cooper about Plame.
On Wednesday, Rove reportedly testified to the federal grand jury that earlier he had no reason to hide that he had spoken to Cooper, if indeed he recalled the conversation, because he already knew from Luskin that Novak and others at Time were saying they had been told that Rove had been a source for Cooper. Another reason, Rove said, is that he knew Cooper might himself one day testify in the case.
In her own sworn testimony in the case, however, Novak could not pinpoint the date that she had her conversation with Luskin, telling prosecutors that she was not sure wheter it was before or after the first time Rove testified before the grand jury. In a highly unusual move, Rove waived attorney-client privilege in a limited way, so that Luskin could testify that he remembered the conversation with Novak having occurred earlier than she had.
According to legal sources familiar with Rove's testimony, Rove said that prior to talking with Cooper on July 11, 2003, he believed that he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a person who was a journalist, although he has also testified that he could not recall the name of the person or the circumstances of the conversation.
Rove also has testified that he spoke with Robert Novak about Plame on July 9, 2003. During that conversation, Rove has testified, Novak told him that he had heard that Plame -- referred to during the conversation only as Wilson's wife -- worked for the CIA. Because of that conversation with Novak, Rove has testified to the grand jury, he believed that Plame worked for the CIA.
Novak and Rove have both testified that in their July 9 conversation Rove briefly said that he had heard the same information about Plame that Novak had heard. But Novak has also testified that as a result of the July 9 conversation, he used Rove as a second source for his July 14 column outing Plame as an "agency operative."
"If you believe both of them, Novak was saying that Rove was his source, and Rove was saying that Novak was his source," said one person with first-hand knowlege of the grand jury accounts of both men.
Rove also testified to the grand jury that he had heard from Libby that Plame worked for the CIA. But Rove testified that Libby told him that he only heard the information as rumors being passed on to him by journalists.
Cooper has said he told the grand jury that Libby was a second source for his July 17 story reporting that Plame worked for the CIA. Libby spoke to him on July 12, one day after his conversation with Rove.
Libby testified to the grand jury, in contradiction to Cooper's testimony, that when he told Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA he was careful to say that the information was only an unsubstantiated rumor that Libby himself had first heard from others.
Regarding his conversation with Cooper, according to the indictment of Libby, he told the grand jury: "I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still don't know it as fact. Later, Libby added: "And I said [to Cooper] reporters are telling us that, I don't know if it's true."
If Rove's and Libby's accounts to the grand jury are correct, journalists wrote about Plame's CIA employment even though both White House aides said the information was unsubstantiated gossip. Both reporters have said that the information was not qualified in any way, and that they believed it authoritative enough to publish.
Some journalism professors say that, in Washington, there is often a rush to print information.
"Much of what passes for news in Washington is very hurried leaks from officials in power, whether in a corridor conversation or a thirty second phone call," said Mark Feldstein, a former investigative correspondent for CNN, who is currently a professor of journalism at George Washington University. "And the media is far too credulous of accepting the word of Washington officialdom when it comes to self-serving leaks or publishing self-serving information."
Geneva Overholser, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, and former editor of the Des Moines Register, went even further, questioning whether columnist Novak should have used Karl Rove as a source that Plame worked for the CIA based on brief comments that Rove made that he simply heard the same information that Novak did.
LINK
Friday, April 28, 2006
Fitzgerald to Seek Indictment of Rove
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 28 April 2006
Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was in Chicago Friday and did not meet with the grand jury.
Luskin was informed via a target letter that Fitzgerald is prepared to charge Rove for perjury and lying to investigators during Rove’s appearances before the grand jury in 2004 and in interviews with investigators in 2003 when he was asked how and when he discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, and whether he shared that information with the media.
If the grand jury returns an indictment Rove would become the second White House official - and one of the most powerful political operatives in the country - charged in the case since the leak investigation began in the fall of 2003.
In the event that an indictment is handed up by the grand jury it would be filed under seal. A press release would then be issued by Fitzgerald’s press office indicating that the special prosecutor will hold a news conference, likely on a Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said. The media would be given more than 24 hours notice of a press conference, sources added.
Luskin was at his office when called for comment but his assistant said he would not take the call or comment on this story.
In recent weeks, sources close to the case said, Fitzgerald's staff has met with Rove's legal team several times to discuss a change in Rove's status in the case - from subject to target - based on numerous inconsistencies in Rove's testimony, whether he discussed Plame Wilson with reporters before her name and CIA status were published in newspaper reports, and whether he participated in a smear campaign against her husband.
The meetings between Luskin and Fitzgerald which took place on several occasions a few weeks ago were called to discuss a timeframe to schedule a return to the grand jury by Rove to testify about, among other things, 250 pages of emails that resurfaced February 6 from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Office of President Bush in which Rove wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about strategizing an attack against Wilson, sources familiar with the case said.
An earlier date for Rove's testimony was scheduled, but Fitzgerald canceled the appearance because of matters related to another high-profile case that was coming to close in Chicago, sources said.
The rescheduled grand jury appearance by Rove took place Wednesday afternoon and hinges on whether Rove's testimony about the reasons he did not disclose the emails during his previous testimony will convince Fitzgerald not to add obstruction of justice to the list of charges he intends to file against Rove, sources said.
As of Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said, it appeared likely that charges of obstruction of justice would be added to the prepared list of charges.
Rove testified that he first found out about Plame Wilson from reading a newspaper report in July 2003, and only after the story was published did he share the information about her CIA status with other reporters.
In fact, evidence has surfaced during the course of the two-year-old investigation that shows Rove spoke with at least two reporters about Plame Wilson prior to the publication of the column that first unmasked her identity and exposed her covert CIA status.
The explanation Rove provided to the grand jury - that he was dealing with more urgent White House matters and therefore forgot - has not convinced Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Rove has been truthful in his testimony.
Rove has been questioned by FBI investigators and grand jurors on ten different occasions since October 2003. The time he has spent under oath exceeds 20 hours, sources said, adding that he answered a wide-range of questions about intelligence the White House used to win support for the Iraq war.
But it was during Rove's request to appear before the grand jury for a fourth time that he suddenly changed his testimony to explain the circumstances of his conversation with at least one reporter, and how his attorney, Robert Luskin, helped Rove jog his memory.
Fitzgerald has been suspicious that Rove altered his previous testimony once it became clear that the reporter he spoke to, Matt Cooper of Time magazine, would be forced to testify and reveal his sources for a story he wrote about Plame Wilson in July 2003. One of those sources has turned out to be Rove.
Moreover, Rove has testified that he and other White House officials were not involved in a coordinated effort to attack the credibility of Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who in mid-2003 questioned the veracity of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.
However, grand jury testimony by at least a dozen administration officials have portrayed Rove as a key player in a campaign to destroy Ambassador Wilson's credibility in Washington, DC, sources familiar with several of the witnesses' testimony said.
LINK
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 28 April 2006
Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was in Chicago Friday and did not meet with the grand jury.
Luskin was informed via a target letter that Fitzgerald is prepared to charge Rove for perjury and lying to investigators during Rove’s appearances before the grand jury in 2004 and in interviews with investigators in 2003 when he was asked how and when he discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, and whether he shared that information with the media.
If the grand jury returns an indictment Rove would become the second White House official - and one of the most powerful political operatives in the country - charged in the case since the leak investigation began in the fall of 2003.
In the event that an indictment is handed up by the grand jury it would be filed under seal. A press release would then be issued by Fitzgerald’s press office indicating that the special prosecutor will hold a news conference, likely on a Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said. The media would be given more than 24 hours notice of a press conference, sources added.
Luskin was at his office when called for comment but his assistant said he would not take the call or comment on this story.
In recent weeks, sources close to the case said, Fitzgerald's staff has met with Rove's legal team several times to discuss a change in Rove's status in the case - from subject to target - based on numerous inconsistencies in Rove's testimony, whether he discussed Plame Wilson with reporters before her name and CIA status were published in newspaper reports, and whether he participated in a smear campaign against her husband.
The meetings between Luskin and Fitzgerald which took place on several occasions a few weeks ago were called to discuss a timeframe to schedule a return to the grand jury by Rove to testify about, among other things, 250 pages of emails that resurfaced February 6 from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Office of President Bush in which Rove wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about strategizing an attack against Wilson, sources familiar with the case said.
An earlier date for Rove's testimony was scheduled, but Fitzgerald canceled the appearance because of matters related to another high-profile case that was coming to close in Chicago, sources said.
The rescheduled grand jury appearance by Rove took place Wednesday afternoon and hinges on whether Rove's testimony about the reasons he did not disclose the emails during his previous testimony will convince Fitzgerald not to add obstruction of justice to the list of charges he intends to file against Rove, sources said.
As of Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said, it appeared likely that charges of obstruction of justice would be added to the prepared list of charges.
Rove testified that he first found out about Plame Wilson from reading a newspaper report in July 2003, and only after the story was published did he share the information about her CIA status with other reporters.
In fact, evidence has surfaced during the course of the two-year-old investigation that shows Rove spoke with at least two reporters about Plame Wilson prior to the publication of the column that first unmasked her identity and exposed her covert CIA status.
The explanation Rove provided to the grand jury - that he was dealing with more urgent White House matters and therefore forgot - has not convinced Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Rove has been truthful in his testimony.
Rove has been questioned by FBI investigators and grand jurors on ten different occasions since October 2003. The time he has spent under oath exceeds 20 hours, sources said, adding that he answered a wide-range of questions about intelligence the White House used to win support for the Iraq war.
But it was during Rove's request to appear before the grand jury for a fourth time that he suddenly changed his testimony to explain the circumstances of his conversation with at least one reporter, and how his attorney, Robert Luskin, helped Rove jog his memory.
Fitzgerald has been suspicious that Rove altered his previous testimony once it became clear that the reporter he spoke to, Matt Cooper of Time magazine, would be forced to testify and reveal his sources for a story he wrote about Plame Wilson in July 2003. One of those sources has turned out to be Rove.
Moreover, Rove has testified that he and other White House officials were not involved in a coordinated effort to attack the credibility of Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who in mid-2003 questioned the veracity of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.
However, grand jury testimony by at least a dozen administration officials have portrayed Rove as a key player in a campaign to destroy Ambassador Wilson's credibility in Washington, DC, sources familiar with several of the witnesses' testimony said.
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MSNBC: No decision on Rove for at least a week; 'Did Rove coordinate testimony with Libby?'
RAW STORY
Published: Friday April 28, 2006
The latest Rove update, which ran at 5pm on MSNBC Friday evening, confirms RAW STORY's earlier report that Rove's lawyers have been told no decision will be made for at least another week on whether Rove will face indictment over potential perjury.
The report, filed by Hardball's David Shuster, follows.
To read yesterday's report, in which Rove was quoted as saying his three and a half hour interrogation by the grand jury was "hell," click here.
#
David Shuster: "For Karl Rove, the drama is going to continue for a while. Sources close to Rove say his legal team has been told by prosecutors that no indictment decision will be made for at least another week. It means that even though Rove on Wednesday answered questions for three and a half hours, prosecutors are still unwilling to clear him or signal that his answers satisifed the grand jury.
Scott Fredericksen, former independent counsel: "The fact is, this is high risk strategy. But if Mr. Rove had said, I'm not going in there for a 5th time, I think that would have been a guarantee of an indictment."
Rove's own lawyers say the key issue is Rove's failure, for the first ten months of the investigation, to acknowledge that he spoke with Time magazine's Matt Cooper about former CIA operative Valerie Wilson. Rove sources tell MSNBC the presidential advisor testified again this week he has little memory of the Cooper conversation and argued that any mis-statements the last two years were not intentional. Last summer, following an appearance where Rove testified that most of their conversation was about welfare reform, Matt Cooper testified the entire discussesion was about the Wilsons and that Rove ended the call by saying, I've already said too much.
Matt Cooper: "I thought maybe he meant, I've been indiscreet, but then as I thought about it, I thought it might just be more benign like, I've said too much, I've got to get to a meeting. I don't know exactly what he meant, but I do know the memory of that line has stayed in my head for two years."
Last fall, when prosecutors indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby, they held off indicting Rove because his attorney said there was evidence that would prove Rove did not intend to mislead investigators. But based on the apparent scope of Wednesday's grand jury session, there are still questions about what prompted Rove to update his testimony.
That testimony came more than seven months after Rove's lawyer got a tip from Time magazine's Viveca Novak about what Cooper might say. On the other hand, Rove's testimony came just three days after prosecutors first ordered Cooper to testify. Legal experts suggest prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be returning to the theory that Rove held off disclosing information until he realized there would be reporter testimony against him under oath.
Sol Wisenberg, former federal prosecutor: "Any time your client has been identified as a subject and has gone to the grand jury five times, and the last time is three-and-a-half hours, you have a lot to worry about."
Another area of potential concern for Karl Rove involves an issue raised by pleadings in the Scooter Libby case. Prosecutors allege that Libby coordinated some of his actions with other white house officials including Rove. Rove is part of the prosecution narrative against Libby. And one document alleges Libby tried to mislead or confuse investigators by testifying he had a conversation with a reporter when the evidence shows it was Rove who had the conversation with the reporter.
Did Libby and Rove coordinate their testimony? And what does it mean for the overall investigation? In court documents, Fitzgerald says the investigation remains active.
And legal experts point out the big danger for Karl Rove is that the grand jury may have evidence Rove is not aware of. The only player in this drama who knows for sure is Fitzgerald -- who declined to clear Rove following his testimony and would only tell Rove's legal team that a decision on the presidential advisor will take at least ten days. I'm David Shuster, for Hardball, in Washington.
LINK
Published: Friday April 28, 2006
The latest Rove update, which ran at 5pm on MSNBC Friday evening, confirms RAW STORY's earlier report that Rove's lawyers have been told no decision will be made for at least another week on whether Rove will face indictment over potential perjury.
The report, filed by Hardball's David Shuster, follows.
To read yesterday's report, in which Rove was quoted as saying his three and a half hour interrogation by the grand jury was "hell," click here.
#
David Shuster: "For Karl Rove, the drama is going to continue for a while. Sources close to Rove say his legal team has been told by prosecutors that no indictment decision will be made for at least another week. It means that even though Rove on Wednesday answered questions for three and a half hours, prosecutors are still unwilling to clear him or signal that his answers satisifed the grand jury.
Scott Fredericksen, former independent counsel: "The fact is, this is high risk strategy. But if Mr. Rove had said, I'm not going in there for a 5th time, I think that would have been a guarantee of an indictment."
Rove's own lawyers say the key issue is Rove's failure, for the first ten months of the investigation, to acknowledge that he spoke with Time magazine's Matt Cooper about former CIA operative Valerie Wilson. Rove sources tell MSNBC the presidential advisor testified again this week he has little memory of the Cooper conversation and argued that any mis-statements the last two years were not intentional. Last summer, following an appearance where Rove testified that most of their conversation was about welfare reform, Matt Cooper testified the entire discussesion was about the Wilsons and that Rove ended the call by saying, I've already said too much.
Matt Cooper: "I thought maybe he meant, I've been indiscreet, but then as I thought about it, I thought it might just be more benign like, I've said too much, I've got to get to a meeting. I don't know exactly what he meant, but I do know the memory of that line has stayed in my head for two years."
Last fall, when prosecutors indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby, they held off indicting Rove because his attorney said there was evidence that would prove Rove did not intend to mislead investigators. But based on the apparent scope of Wednesday's grand jury session, there are still questions about what prompted Rove to update his testimony.
That testimony came more than seven months after Rove's lawyer got a tip from Time magazine's Viveca Novak about what Cooper might say. On the other hand, Rove's testimony came just three days after prosecutors first ordered Cooper to testify. Legal experts suggest prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be returning to the theory that Rove held off disclosing information until he realized there would be reporter testimony against him under oath.
Sol Wisenberg, former federal prosecutor: "Any time your client has been identified as a subject and has gone to the grand jury five times, and the last time is three-and-a-half hours, you have a lot to worry about."
Another area of potential concern for Karl Rove involves an issue raised by pleadings in the Scooter Libby case. Prosecutors allege that Libby coordinated some of his actions with other white house officials including Rove. Rove is part of the prosecution narrative against Libby. And one document alleges Libby tried to mislead or confuse investigators by testifying he had a conversation with a reporter when the evidence shows it was Rove who had the conversation with the reporter.
Did Libby and Rove coordinate their testimony? And what does it mean for the overall investigation? In court documents, Fitzgerald says the investigation remains active.
And legal experts point out the big danger for Karl Rove is that the grand jury may have evidence Rove is not aware of. The only player in this drama who knows for sure is Fitzgerald -- who declined to clear Rove following his testimony and would only tell Rove's legal team that a decision on the presidential advisor will take at least ten days. I'm David Shuster, for Hardball, in Washington.
LINK
Rove's lawyers have been told there will be 'no announcement' in the next ten days
RAW STORY
Published: Thursday April 27, 2006
The attorneys for senior presidential adviser Karl Rove have been told there will be no decision in the case for at least ten days, MSNBC is slated to report today, sources tell RAW STORY.
The announcement that Rove will recieve no decision in the next ten days assures that Rove won't face indictment today or even next week. His lawyers say Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has told them there will be "no announcement" in the next ten days.
MSNBC's David Shuster is expected to report more this evening.
Details of Shuster's report yesterday -- both for Hardball and for Keith Olbermann -- follow.
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Karl Rove has described his three and a half hour meeting with a grand jury as grueling, and is more worried about being prosecuted than ever, MSNBC is reporting.
An MSNBC report tonight revealed that one of Rove's lawyers said the presidential adviser described his fifth grand jury appearance as "hell." MSNBC's David Shuster appeared live on Keith Olbermann's 8pm show this evening and stated that Rove was surprised by the tone of the questions as well as the length of time he was required to testify.
Shuster agreed with Brian Unger, sitting in for Keith Olbermann, that it was "easy to imagine" that Rove's legal situation was the cause of his recent reduction of responsibilities. However, he added, "I don't see there's any chance that Karl Rove's going to resign, barring an indictment."
The three and a half hour duration is considered highly unusual for a fifth appearance before a grand jury, Shuster reported. Shuster also reported that the grand jury would meet today, though there is no indication of that on the wires.
One MSNBC commentator claimed that the fifth appearance also ties the record held by Betty Currie, former President Bill Clinton's personal secretary.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT FROM DAVID SHUSTER'S REPORT:
WHILE HIS SUPPORTERS CONTINUE TO PUT ON A GOOD FACE, SOURCES CLOSE TO KARL ROVE SAY THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR IS NOW MORE WORRIED, NOT LESS, THAT HE IS GOING TO GET INDICTED. THE SOURCES SAY ROVE WAS SURPRISED BY SOME OF THE QUESTIONS HE WAS ASKED AND BY THE FACT THE SESSION STRETCHED ON FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS.
MINUTES AFTER ROVE LEFT THE GRAND JURY, HIS LEGAL TEAM ISSUED A WRITTEN STATEMENT SAYING PROSECUTORS HAD, QUOTE, "WANTED TO EXPLORE A MATTER RAISED SINCE MR. ROVE'S LAST APPEARANCE IN OCTOBER 2005."
BUT THE GRAND JURY, ACCORDING TO SOURCES, ALSO PRESSED ROVE ABOUT HIS TESTIMONY IN 2004 WHEN HE FAILED TO REVEAL HE SPOKE TO TIME MAGAZINE'S MATT COOPER ABOUT VALERIE PLAME -- THE FORMER CIA OPERATIVE AT THE HEART OF THE INVESTIGATION.
Scott Fredericksen, former independent counsel: "Grand jurors asking about why he didn't recall his conversation in the original grand jury means they are focusing on the charge itself: Did he perjure himself? And they are not yet convinced of his explanations, that's why they are asking those questions."
LAST OCTOBER, JUST BEFORE VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY'S CHIEF OF STAFF SCOOTER LIBBY WAS INDICTED... ROVE STAVED OFF CHARGES WHEN HIS LAWYER TOLD INVESTIGATORS HE COULD PROVE ROVE'S EARLY MIS-STATEMENTS WERE NOT INTENTIONAL.
ROBERT LUSKIN SPOKE OF A CONVERSATION WITH TIME REPORTER VIVECA NOVAK AND A TIP ABOUT WHAT HER COLLEAGUE MATT COOPER MIGHT TESTIFY TO. LUSKIN AND ROVE THEN SEARCHED FOR WHITE HOUSE INFORMATION TO REFRESH ROVE'S MEMORY AND FOUND A WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL ABOUT THE ROVE-COOPER CONVERSATION. THEN, ACCORDING TO LUSKIN, ROVE CHANGED HIS TESTIMONY.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE TIME LAPSE FROM THE NOVAK TIP TO THE NEW ROVE TESTIMONY... WAS 7 MONTHS.
AND FROM THE DATE WHEN PROSECUTOR PATRICK FITZGERALD FIRST ORDERED MATT COOPER TO TESTIFY TO WHEN ROVE CHANGED HIS TESTIMONY WAS JUST DAYS.
Fredericksen: "Mr. Fitzgerald is a straight shooter, I have no doubt in my mind he has told them very clearly why he has Rove in there. It's because he wants to determine whether Mr. Rove was telling the truth when he first appeared before the grand jury."
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, VOLUNTEERING TO TESTIFY TO A GRAND JURY IS A RISKY PROPOSITION... LAWYERS SAY IT IS USUALLY DONE WHEN THERE IS NOTHING ELSE THAT MAY STOP AN INDICTMENT. AND THE SIGNS FOR ROVE HAVE BEEN OMINOUS FOR MONTHS. IN THE LIBBY INDICTMENT, ROVE WAS REFERRED TO AS "OFFICIAL A." THAT'S A DESIGNATION PROSECUTORS ARE REQUIRED TO GIVE WHEN THEY ARE REVEALING PERJORATIVE INFORMATION ABOUT A PERSON NOT YET CHARGED.
Fredericksen: "When your client is identified in that manner, it's a cause of great concern."
THAT'S BECAUSE PROSECUTORS ALMOST ALWAYS END UP INDICTING SOMEBODY IDENTIFIED AS OFFICIAL A. AND IN LOOKING THROUGH THE RECORD OF PATRICK FITZGERALD, HIS OFFICE HAS EVENTUALLY INDICTED OFFICIAL A IN EVERY CASE.
STILL, GRAND JURY TESTIMONY CAN BE DIFFICULT TO JUDGE. THE SESSIONS, BY THEIR NATURE, ARE ADVERSARIAL. AND EVEN IF KARL ROVE FELT HIS APPEARANCE WAS "HELL," A ROVE LAWYER DISPUTES THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR HAS NEW REASONS TO BE FEARFUL. THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY, OF COURSE, BELONGS TO PROSECUTOR FITZGERALD... WHOSE GRAND JURY IS SCHEDULED TO MEET AGAIN TOMORROW. I'M DAVID SHUSTER, FOR HARDBALL, IN WASHINGTON.
DEVELOPING..........
LINK
Published: Thursday April 27, 2006
The attorneys for senior presidential adviser Karl Rove have been told there will be no decision in the case for at least ten days, MSNBC is slated to report today, sources tell RAW STORY.
The announcement that Rove will recieve no decision in the next ten days assures that Rove won't face indictment today or even next week. His lawyers say Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has told them there will be "no announcement" in the next ten days.
MSNBC's David Shuster is expected to report more this evening.
Details of Shuster's report yesterday -- both for Hardball and for Keith Olbermann -- follow.
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Karl Rove has described his three and a half hour meeting with a grand jury as grueling, and is more worried about being prosecuted than ever, MSNBC is reporting.
An MSNBC report tonight revealed that one of Rove's lawyers said the presidential adviser described his fifth grand jury appearance as "hell." MSNBC's David Shuster appeared live on Keith Olbermann's 8pm show this evening and stated that Rove was surprised by the tone of the questions as well as the length of time he was required to testify.
Shuster agreed with Brian Unger, sitting in for Keith Olbermann, that it was "easy to imagine" that Rove's legal situation was the cause of his recent reduction of responsibilities. However, he added, "I don't see there's any chance that Karl Rove's going to resign, barring an indictment."
The three and a half hour duration is considered highly unusual for a fifth appearance before a grand jury, Shuster reported. Shuster also reported that the grand jury would meet today, though there is no indication of that on the wires.
One MSNBC commentator claimed that the fifth appearance also ties the record held by Betty Currie, former President Bill Clinton's personal secretary.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT FROM DAVID SHUSTER'S REPORT:
WHILE HIS SUPPORTERS CONTINUE TO PUT ON A GOOD FACE, SOURCES CLOSE TO KARL ROVE SAY THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR IS NOW MORE WORRIED, NOT LESS, THAT HE IS GOING TO GET INDICTED. THE SOURCES SAY ROVE WAS SURPRISED BY SOME OF THE QUESTIONS HE WAS ASKED AND BY THE FACT THE SESSION STRETCHED ON FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS.
MINUTES AFTER ROVE LEFT THE GRAND JURY, HIS LEGAL TEAM ISSUED A WRITTEN STATEMENT SAYING PROSECUTORS HAD, QUOTE, "WANTED TO EXPLORE A MATTER RAISED SINCE MR. ROVE'S LAST APPEARANCE IN OCTOBER 2005."
BUT THE GRAND JURY, ACCORDING TO SOURCES, ALSO PRESSED ROVE ABOUT HIS TESTIMONY IN 2004 WHEN HE FAILED TO REVEAL HE SPOKE TO TIME MAGAZINE'S MATT COOPER ABOUT VALERIE PLAME -- THE FORMER CIA OPERATIVE AT THE HEART OF THE INVESTIGATION.
Scott Fredericksen, former independent counsel: "Grand jurors asking about why he didn't recall his conversation in the original grand jury means they are focusing on the charge itself: Did he perjure himself? And they are not yet convinced of his explanations, that's why they are asking those questions."
LAST OCTOBER, JUST BEFORE VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY'S CHIEF OF STAFF SCOOTER LIBBY WAS INDICTED... ROVE STAVED OFF CHARGES WHEN HIS LAWYER TOLD INVESTIGATORS HE COULD PROVE ROVE'S EARLY MIS-STATEMENTS WERE NOT INTENTIONAL.
ROBERT LUSKIN SPOKE OF A CONVERSATION WITH TIME REPORTER VIVECA NOVAK AND A TIP ABOUT WHAT HER COLLEAGUE MATT COOPER MIGHT TESTIFY TO. LUSKIN AND ROVE THEN SEARCHED FOR WHITE HOUSE INFORMATION TO REFRESH ROVE'S MEMORY AND FOUND A WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL ABOUT THE ROVE-COOPER CONVERSATION. THEN, ACCORDING TO LUSKIN, ROVE CHANGED HIS TESTIMONY.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE TIME LAPSE FROM THE NOVAK TIP TO THE NEW ROVE TESTIMONY... WAS 7 MONTHS.
AND FROM THE DATE WHEN PROSECUTOR PATRICK FITZGERALD FIRST ORDERED MATT COOPER TO TESTIFY TO WHEN ROVE CHANGED HIS TESTIMONY WAS JUST DAYS.
Fredericksen: "Mr. Fitzgerald is a straight shooter, I have no doubt in my mind he has told them very clearly why he has Rove in there. It's because he wants to determine whether Mr. Rove was telling the truth when he first appeared before the grand jury."
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, VOLUNTEERING TO TESTIFY TO A GRAND JURY IS A RISKY PROPOSITION... LAWYERS SAY IT IS USUALLY DONE WHEN THERE IS NOTHING ELSE THAT MAY STOP AN INDICTMENT. AND THE SIGNS FOR ROVE HAVE BEEN OMINOUS FOR MONTHS. IN THE LIBBY INDICTMENT, ROVE WAS REFERRED TO AS "OFFICIAL A." THAT'S A DESIGNATION PROSECUTORS ARE REQUIRED TO GIVE WHEN THEY ARE REVEALING PERJORATIVE INFORMATION ABOUT A PERSON NOT YET CHARGED.
Fredericksen: "When your client is identified in that manner, it's a cause of great concern."
THAT'S BECAUSE PROSECUTORS ALMOST ALWAYS END UP INDICTING SOMEBODY IDENTIFIED AS OFFICIAL A. AND IN LOOKING THROUGH THE RECORD OF PATRICK FITZGERALD, HIS OFFICE HAS EVENTUALLY INDICTED OFFICIAL A IN EVERY CASE.
STILL, GRAND JURY TESTIMONY CAN BE DIFFICULT TO JUDGE. THE SESSIONS, BY THEIR NATURE, ARE ADVERSARIAL. AND EVEN IF KARL ROVE FELT HIS APPEARANCE WAS "HELL," A ROVE LAWYER DISPUTES THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR HAS NEW REASONS TO BE FEARFUL. THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY, OF COURSE, BELONGS TO PROSECUTOR FITZGERALD... WHOSE GRAND JURY IS SCHEDULED TO MEET AGAIN TOMORROW. I'M DAVID SHUSTER, FOR HARDBALL, IN WASHINGTON.
DEVELOPING..........
LINK
Bloggers Unite and Take Fight to the Hill
April 28th, 2006 by tkarr
As of this morning, more than 1,500 blogs have taken up the cause, posting links to SavetheInternet.com or urging their readers to take action by calling on members of Congress to stand firm in defense of Internet freedom. And the Hill is hearing it.
“We would not have turned the corner in this fight without your blogs, your voices,” Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass) said yesterday during a teleconference with a handful of bloggers. “We need to put every members of Congress on record on where they stand on the future of the Internet,” Markey said. That momentum has shifted in Congress, “is a reflection of the rumbling in cyberspace about what’s going on with this bill.”
Markey is now rallying colleagues on the left and the right to support the introduction of his Network Neutrality Amendment onto the full floor next week. But it’s an uphill battle. In order for the amendment to be voted upon by all members, it has to first get approval from the House’s own gatekeepers within the Rules Committee — which Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi calls “the free world’s outstanding bureaucratic abomination — a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capitol where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days cleaning democracy like a fish.”
This 13 member committee (9-Reps; 4-Dems) holds the congressional agenda in its grip. If Rules votes down your amendment, your amendment is DOA. Bloggers are banding together to ensure that no Member of Congress gets off the hook this easily.
“There’s a white hot firestorm on the issue on Capitol Hill,” Matt Stoller said in a post at MYDD. “No one wants to see the telcos make a radical change to the Internet and screw this medium up, except, well, the telcos.”
Politicians get scared when they realize the public is paying attention. As the blogosphere catches fire, momentum is shifting for our cause. Whereas before, the big telephone companies and their well greased lobbyists were confident that Congress would simply roll over and do their bidding, today, no member of Congress can in good conscience vote with the telecom cartel.
The public is now watching and we will not stand for any law that threatens Internet freedom.
Click here to sign up
As of this morning, more than 1,500 blogs have taken up the cause, posting links to SavetheInternet.com or urging their readers to take action by calling on members of Congress to stand firm in defense of Internet freedom. And the Hill is hearing it.
“We would not have turned the corner in this fight without your blogs, your voices,” Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass) said yesterday during a teleconference with a handful of bloggers. “We need to put every members of Congress on record on where they stand on the future of the Internet,” Markey said. That momentum has shifted in Congress, “is a reflection of the rumbling in cyberspace about what’s going on with this bill.”
Markey is now rallying colleagues on the left and the right to support the introduction of his Network Neutrality Amendment onto the full floor next week. But it’s an uphill battle. In order for the amendment to be voted upon by all members, it has to first get approval from the House’s own gatekeepers within the Rules Committee — which Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi calls “the free world’s outstanding bureaucratic abomination — a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capitol where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days cleaning democracy like a fish.”
This 13 member committee (9-Reps; 4-Dems) holds the congressional agenda in its grip. If Rules votes down your amendment, your amendment is DOA. Bloggers are banding together to ensure that no Member of Congress gets off the hook this easily.
“There’s a white hot firestorm on the issue on Capitol Hill,” Matt Stoller said in a post at MYDD. “No one wants to see the telcos make a radical change to the Internet and screw this medium up, except, well, the telcos.”
Politicians get scared when they realize the public is paying attention. As the blogosphere catches fire, momentum is shifting for our cause. Whereas before, the big telephone companies and their well greased lobbyists were confident that Congress would simply roll over and do their bidding, today, no member of Congress can in good conscience vote with the telecom cartel.
The public is now watching and we will not stand for any law that threatens Internet freedom.
Click here to sign up
Thursday, April 27, 2006
The Spin That Won’t Die
By Christy Hardin Smith
I’m trying to wade through the mountain of articles that Rove’s Grand Jury appearance has generated since yesterday, but the same piece of spin keeps popping up article after article — unchallenged and unquestioned by any of the reporters who have dutifully copied down the dulcet tones of Gold Bars Luskin and committed them to paper. Here is just one example from the LATimes:
Robert D. Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, said Wednesday that Fitzgerald had made no decision on whether to bring charges against Rove.
Some legal experts said the timing and circumstances of Rove’s latest testimony, which Luskin said was given "voluntarily and unconditionally," suggested that an indictment might not be imminent and that the development could be viewed as positive for Rove.
The thing about being a prosecutor working with a grand jury is this: as a prosecutor, you present information to the grand jury, you recommend particular charges for particular people — but you are not the person who indicts. The members of the grand jury do that — and it would be incredibly presumptuous, not to mention potentially rude and irritating to the grand jury, for a prosecutor to just step out and say he was going to indict someone when that is the job of the jurors themselves.
You never, ever do this, unless you are a moron or a press hog — and Patrick Fitzgerald does not strike me as either, frankly.
You know when you decide that someone is going to be indicted? As you are handed the true bill from the foreperson of the grand jury and you are about to ink off on the prosecutor’s signature line along with the presiding judge. Any speculation about it beforehand is irrelevent.
Sure, you can provide a heads up to opposing counsel (if there is one) that you are going to request an indictment from the jury for a particular client — but considering the loose lips, all PR alla time, strategy that Gold Bars Luskin has employed in defending his client thus far — would you be rushing to the phone to do him any favors? (It’s not a requirement, its a courtesy call, just so you all know.)
I covered the general workings of a grand jury here, and refined the analysis further here, in case anyone needs a refresher.
As to the second paragraph, well no one really knows what Fitzgerald has in his pockets or what he and his team are thinking except him and his team. They are not the leaky sieve that the Starr investigation was (thank goodness, because that was an embarassment to prosecutors — you aren’t a PR operation, you are there to do the people’s business.). It bears repeating over and over that every piece of information we are hearing (with the exception of some of Murray Waas’ pieces, which have that ring of "not from Luskin" to them) are all coming from the Libby, Rove and/or their cronies spin meister machinery. (I’m looking at you, Babs. Nice throw to Byron York yesterday, albeit not very convincing.)
If I were a betting woman, I’d put my money on Ben Ginsberg being one of the "legal experts" referred to in the second paragraph, since he was also on the talking head circuit yesterday to explain away any questions that Rove might be feeling some heat. Yes, my friends, the Wurlitzer is being revved up again — which only makes me wonder how much more there may be to come, or why Rove has to try so hard to make people look the other way.
I’m going back to my reading now, but I just had to get that off my chest. Uncritical repeating of spin is a personal peeve of mine, and the fact that this particular bit of spin is making the rounds — again — is particularly irritating. Now, on to more coffee, more spin, and more speculation…
LINK
I’m trying to wade through the mountain of articles that Rove’s Grand Jury appearance has generated since yesterday, but the same piece of spin keeps popping up article after article — unchallenged and unquestioned by any of the reporters who have dutifully copied down the dulcet tones of Gold Bars Luskin and committed them to paper. Here is just one example from the LATimes:
Robert D. Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, said Wednesday that Fitzgerald had made no decision on whether to bring charges against Rove.
Some legal experts said the timing and circumstances of Rove’s latest testimony, which Luskin said was given "voluntarily and unconditionally," suggested that an indictment might not be imminent and that the development could be viewed as positive for Rove.
The thing about being a prosecutor working with a grand jury is this: as a prosecutor, you present information to the grand jury, you recommend particular charges for particular people — but you are not the person who indicts. The members of the grand jury do that — and it would be incredibly presumptuous, not to mention potentially rude and irritating to the grand jury, for a prosecutor to just step out and say he was going to indict someone when that is the job of the jurors themselves.
You never, ever do this, unless you are a moron or a press hog — and Patrick Fitzgerald does not strike me as either, frankly.
You know when you decide that someone is going to be indicted? As you are handed the true bill from the foreperson of the grand jury and you are about to ink off on the prosecutor’s signature line along with the presiding judge. Any speculation about it beforehand is irrelevent.
Sure, you can provide a heads up to opposing counsel (if there is one) that you are going to request an indictment from the jury for a particular client — but considering the loose lips, all PR alla time, strategy that Gold Bars Luskin has employed in defending his client thus far — would you be rushing to the phone to do him any favors? (It’s not a requirement, its a courtesy call, just so you all know.)
I covered the general workings of a grand jury here, and refined the analysis further here, in case anyone needs a refresher.
As to the second paragraph, well no one really knows what Fitzgerald has in his pockets or what he and his team are thinking except him and his team. They are not the leaky sieve that the Starr investigation was (thank goodness, because that was an embarassment to prosecutors — you aren’t a PR operation, you are there to do the people’s business.). It bears repeating over and over that every piece of information we are hearing (with the exception of some of Murray Waas’ pieces, which have that ring of "not from Luskin" to them) are all coming from the Libby, Rove and/or their cronies spin meister machinery. (I’m looking at you, Babs. Nice throw to Byron York yesterday, albeit not very convincing.)
If I were a betting woman, I’d put my money on Ben Ginsberg being one of the "legal experts" referred to in the second paragraph, since he was also on the talking head circuit yesterday to explain away any questions that Rove might be feeling some heat. Yes, my friends, the Wurlitzer is being revved up again — which only makes me wonder how much more there may be to come, or why Rove has to try so hard to make people look the other way.
I’m going back to my reading now, but I just had to get that off my chest. Uncritical repeating of spin is a personal peeve of mine, and the fact that this particular bit of spin is making the rounds — again — is particularly irritating. Now, on to more coffee, more spin, and more speculation…
LINK
Judge Won't Dismiss Case Against Libby
By TONI LOCY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 19 minutes ago
A federal judge refused Thursday to dismiss charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top White House aide who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges last year in the CIA leak scandal.
In a 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton turned down a motion by lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's one-time top assistant, who challenged the authority of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to handle the case.
Libby's lawyers had argued that Fitzgerald was given too much power — more than the attorney general — and that the appointment should have been made by the president with the Senate's approval.
Walton said Thursday he did not need to "look far" in the law to reject the claim by Libby's defense team. The judge said there is no question the attorney general can delegate any of his functions.
"There was no wholesale abdication of the attorney general's duty to direct and supervise litigation," he wrote.
Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had recused himself from the investigation because of his White House contacts. James Comey, who was deputy attorney general at the time, appointed Fitzgerald, giving him wide berth to conduct the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters in 2003.
"This case provides the clearest example of why such broad discretion is necessary," Walton wrote. "Here, the attorney general believed there was a conflict of interest ... It was, therefore, entirely appropriate for the attorney general to remove himself completely from the investigation."
Walton said there must be a way to appoint special prosecutors to ensure that "the perception of fairness withstands the scrutiny of the American public" when high-level government officials are investigated for alleged wrongdoing.
Libby, 55, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, accused of lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about Plame and what he subsequently told reporters about her.
Conservative columnist Robert Novak named her in a column July 14, 2003, eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.
The CIA sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports. But the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
Walton said Comey made the legal analysis more difficult by failing to appoint Fitzgerald under Justice Department rules for special prosecutors. As a result, the judge said he had to rely on a series of letters Comey wrote to Fitzgerald outlining the CIA leak investigation.
The judge concluded that Fitzgerald's powers are limited because he can be removed by the Justice Department. Walton also said Fitzgerald's authority will expire when the CIA leak investigation and resulting prosecutions are concluded.
"The integrity of the rule of law ... is challenged to the greatest degree when high-level government officials come under suspicion for violating the law," Walton wrote. "And a criminal investigation of any individuals, prominent or not ... must be above reproach to preserve respect for the fairness of our system of justice."
LINK
1 hour, 19 minutes ago
A federal judge refused Thursday to dismiss charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top White House aide who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges last year in the CIA leak scandal.
In a 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton turned down a motion by lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's one-time top assistant, who challenged the authority of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to handle the case.
Libby's lawyers had argued that Fitzgerald was given too much power — more than the attorney general — and that the appointment should have been made by the president with the Senate's approval.
Walton said Thursday he did not need to "look far" in the law to reject the claim by Libby's defense team. The judge said there is no question the attorney general can delegate any of his functions.
"There was no wholesale abdication of the attorney general's duty to direct and supervise litigation," he wrote.
Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had recused himself from the investigation because of his White House contacts. James Comey, who was deputy attorney general at the time, appointed Fitzgerald, giving him wide berth to conduct the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters in 2003.
"This case provides the clearest example of why such broad discretion is necessary," Walton wrote. "Here, the attorney general believed there was a conflict of interest ... It was, therefore, entirely appropriate for the attorney general to remove himself completely from the investigation."
Walton said there must be a way to appoint special prosecutors to ensure that "the perception of fairness withstands the scrutiny of the American public" when high-level government officials are investigated for alleged wrongdoing.
Libby, 55, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, accused of lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about Plame and what he subsequently told reporters about her.
Conservative columnist Robert Novak named her in a column July 14, 2003, eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.
The CIA sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports. But the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
Walton said Comey made the legal analysis more difficult by failing to appoint Fitzgerald under Justice Department rules for special prosecutors. As a result, the judge said he had to rely on a series of letters Comey wrote to Fitzgerald outlining the CIA leak investigation.
The judge concluded that Fitzgerald's powers are limited because he can be removed by the Justice Department. Walton also said Fitzgerald's authority will expire when the CIA leak investigation and resulting prosecutions are concluded.
"The integrity of the rule of law ... is challenged to the greatest degree when high-level government officials come under suspicion for violating the law," Walton wrote. "And a criminal investigation of any individuals, prominent or not ... must be above reproach to preserve respect for the fairness of our system of justice."
LINK
Times reveals new scoop: Time reporter took buyout after 'dispute' over role in leak case
RAW STORY
Published: Thursday April 27, 2006
A single sentence in Thursday's New York Times reveals a new facet of the journalism angle of the CIA leak case -- that the Time reporter who Karl Rove's lawyer thought would help save his client from indictment departed Time Magazine and took a "buyout package."
"In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Ms. Novak, who no longer works for Time, said she had not had any contact with Mr. Fitzgerald since her deposition in December," the Times reported. "She left the magazine after a dispute over her role in the case, taking a buyout package last month."
The Times also said that Matt Cooper, formerly the magazine's White House correspondent, has left the beat to become Time.com's political editor.
LINK
Published: Thursday April 27, 2006
A single sentence in Thursday's New York Times reveals a new facet of the journalism angle of the CIA leak case -- that the Time reporter who Karl Rove's lawyer thought would help save his client from indictment departed Time Magazine and took a "buyout package."
"In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Ms. Novak, who no longer works for Time, said she had not had any contact with Mr. Fitzgerald since her deposition in December," the Times reported. "She left the magazine after a dispute over her role in the case, taking a buyout package last month."
The Times also said that Matt Cooper, formerly the magazine's White House correspondent, has left the beat to become Time.com's political editor.
LINK
Paper: Fitzgerald considering perjury, obstruction charges against Rove
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday April 26, 2006
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is said to be mulling perjury or obstruction of justice charges according to Thursday's Los Angeles Times, RAW STORY can report. Excerpts follow.
Also, according to the Washington Post, Rove is said to be 'unsure' if he will be indicted and spent three hours before the grand jury.
Rove for the first time partly waived his attorney-client privilege to detail conversations he had with his attorney, Robert Luskin, about the leak and his knowledge of it, a source told the Post.
The Post: "Rove's testimony focused almost exclusively on his conversation about Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2003 and whether the top aide later tried to conceal it, the source said. Rove testified, in essence, that "it would have been a suicide mission" to "deliberately lie" about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed, the source said. Lawyers said yesterday that they expect a decision on Rove's fate soon."
The LA Times:
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White House political advisor Karl Rove today went to a courthouse where he testified for the fifth time before a federal grand jury investigating his role in the CIA leak case.
"He's testifying now, and is doing so voluntarily," Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, told Bloomberg news service.
After several hours, Rove was photographed leaving the courthouse. It was not known whether he would return.
Rove has been under scrutiny over whether he promptly disclosed to investigators and the grand jury conversations he had with journalists about CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked to the media in the summer of 2003. It is a crime to disclose the identity of a covert CIA agent.
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is believed to be considering perjury or obstruction charges against Rove or charges that he offered misstatements to investigators.
FULL STORY HERE
Published: Wednesday April 26, 2006
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is said to be mulling perjury or obstruction of justice charges according to Thursday's Los Angeles Times, RAW STORY can report. Excerpts follow.
Also, according to the Washington Post, Rove is said to be 'unsure' if he will be indicted and spent three hours before the grand jury.
Rove for the first time partly waived his attorney-client privilege to detail conversations he had with his attorney, Robert Luskin, about the leak and his knowledge of it, a source told the Post.
The Post: "Rove's testimony focused almost exclusively on his conversation about Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2003 and whether the top aide later tried to conceal it, the source said. Rove testified, in essence, that "it would have been a suicide mission" to "deliberately lie" about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed, the source said. Lawyers said yesterday that they expect a decision on Rove's fate soon."
The LA Times:
#
White House political advisor Karl Rove today went to a courthouse where he testified for the fifth time before a federal grand jury investigating his role in the CIA leak case.
"He's testifying now, and is doing so voluntarily," Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, told Bloomberg news service.
After several hours, Rove was photographed leaving the courthouse. It was not known whether he would return.
Rove has been under scrutiny over whether he promptly disclosed to investigators and the grand jury conversations he had with journalists about CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked to the media in the summer of 2003. It is a crime to disclose the identity of a covert CIA agent.
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is believed to be considering perjury or obstruction charges against Rove or charges that he offered misstatements to investigators.
FULL STORY HERE
ROVE'S FIFTH!!
Bush's Brain, Karl Rove, made his fifth appearance before the Grand Jury yesterday. There are so many great articles about this, so I decided to just post the links here.
The CIA Leak Case or "Plamegate" has become a huge story very much attached to the Bush Administration. This brings to question weather it is alright for the admin to leak info to the press to further their lies and agenda, but when whistle-blowers leak info to the press about gulag type prisons in Europe, all of a sudden it becomes a huge crime for the whistle-blowers and the press. The same press that was courted to leak the name of Valerie Plame by the Admin.
Here are several good links about Rove's Fifth...
Target Letter Drives Rove Back to Grand Jury
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 26 April 2006
Karl Rove's appearance before a grand jury in the CIA leak case Wednesday comes on the heels of a "target letter" sent to his attorney recently by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, signaling that the Deputy White House Chief of Staff may face imminent indictment, sources that are knowledgeable about the probe said Wednesday. LINK
Rove spokesman says he didn't receive target letter
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday April 26, 2006
Asked about a Truthout report which asserted that Karl Rove had received a so-called "target letter," a spokesman for Rove told Salon's Michael Scherer that the report is "utterly false."
The section of the United States Attorney manual pertaining to target notification does not specify the form in which the notice is to be delivered. In other words, the spokesman's assertion that Rove did not receive a target letter does not resolve whether Rove received notice of any kind. LINK
Rove and Fitzgerald: A Recap
By Jane Hamsher
Update: David Shuster is reporting that Rove was questioned extensively today regarding Viveca Novak’s supposedly exculpatory conversation with Robert Luskin.
Karl Rove’s history of appearing before the Grand Jury was largely unknown until he testified for what is believed to be the third time in October of 2004.
Fitzgerald took over the case in January of 2004 and immediately issued a number of subpoenas for documents pertaining to the case. He also specifically subpoenaed Matt Cooper regarding his July 2003 article, A War on Wilson. But since Rove had not issued a waiver for Cooper to speak to Fitzgerald, he obviously thought he was in the clear when he initially spoke to the FBI (recap here) and the grand jury, and that Cooper would be the firewall between him and Fitzgerald. LINK
FIFTH TIME to Grand Jury for Karl Rove
Karl Rove is back before the Valerie Plame case grand jury this morning -- being reported everywhere.
What would a Rove indictment be worth in terms of Bush approval rating points -- now at 32%.
Lots of folks have already jumped out of the Bush Kool-Aid ring (Tony Snow actually said that he would work for Bush but wouldn't "drink the kool-aid"), so the hard core Bush advocates are getting condensed.
My bet is that if a Rove indictment comes down, we'll see Bush lose 4 points, down to 28%, all other things remaining equal. LINK
I can already imagine the movies that will be made about this! Happy reading.
The CIA Leak Case or "Plamegate" has become a huge story very much attached to the Bush Administration. This brings to question weather it is alright for the admin to leak info to the press to further their lies and agenda, but when whistle-blowers leak info to the press about gulag type prisons in Europe, all of a sudden it becomes a huge crime for the whistle-blowers and the press. The same press that was courted to leak the name of Valerie Plame by the Admin.
Here are several good links about Rove's Fifth...
Target Letter Drives Rove Back to Grand Jury
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 26 April 2006
Karl Rove's appearance before a grand jury in the CIA leak case Wednesday comes on the heels of a "target letter" sent to his attorney recently by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, signaling that the Deputy White House Chief of Staff may face imminent indictment, sources that are knowledgeable about the probe said Wednesday. LINK
Rove spokesman says he didn't receive target letter
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday April 26, 2006
Asked about a Truthout report which asserted that Karl Rove had received a so-called "target letter," a spokesman for Rove told Salon's Michael Scherer that the report is "utterly false."
The section of the United States Attorney manual pertaining to target notification does not specify the form in which the notice is to be delivered. In other words, the spokesman's assertion that Rove did not receive a target letter does not resolve whether Rove received notice of any kind. LINK
Rove and Fitzgerald: A Recap
By Jane Hamsher
Update: David Shuster is reporting that Rove was questioned extensively today regarding Viveca Novak’s supposedly exculpatory conversation with Robert Luskin.
Karl Rove’s history of appearing before the Grand Jury was largely unknown until he testified for what is believed to be the third time in October of 2004.
Fitzgerald took over the case in January of 2004 and immediately issued a number of subpoenas for documents pertaining to the case. He also specifically subpoenaed Matt Cooper regarding his July 2003 article, A War on Wilson. But since Rove had not issued a waiver for Cooper to speak to Fitzgerald, he obviously thought he was in the clear when he initially spoke to the FBI (recap here) and the grand jury, and that Cooper would be the firewall between him and Fitzgerald. LINK
FIFTH TIME to Grand Jury for Karl Rove
Karl Rove is back before the Valerie Plame case grand jury this morning -- being reported everywhere.
What would a Rove indictment be worth in terms of Bush approval rating points -- now at 32%.
Lots of folks have already jumped out of the Bush Kool-Aid ring (Tony Snow actually said that he would work for Bush but wouldn't "drink the kool-aid"), so the hard core Bush advocates are getting condensed.
My bet is that if a Rove indictment comes down, we'll see Bush lose 4 points, down to 28%, all other things remaining equal. LINK
I can already imagine the movies that will be made about this! Happy reading.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
MSNBC/CNN Reports: Rove to testify
From Crooks & Liars:
"Norah O'Donnell reports on MSNBC that Rove will be testifying today before the G/J for a fifth time in the CIA leak case. I have to say that in my experience, this is really unprecedented - I can't ever remember any witness who was also potentially a subject in an investigation giving a prosecutor this many under oath opportunities to skewer them.
Video-WMP
Video-QT
"O'Donnell reports that there are serious questions about how forthcoming/honest Rove has been-and that there are potential questions of more legal jeopardy."
Norah does say that there will be a statement issued by Rove later today for what that is worth.
(h/t David Edwards for putting both clips together)
LINK
"Norah O'Donnell reports on MSNBC that Rove will be testifying today before the G/J for a fifth time in the CIA leak case. I have to say that in my experience, this is really unprecedented - I can't ever remember any witness who was also potentially a subject in an investigation giving a prosecutor this many under oath opportunities to skewer them.
Video-WMP
Video-QT
"O'Donnell reports that there are serious questions about how forthcoming/honest Rove has been-and that there are potential questions of more legal jeopardy."
Norah does say that there will be a statement issued by Rove later today for what that is worth.
(h/t David Edwards for putting both clips together)
LINK
Breaking: Rove Meeting With Special Prosecutor About Leak Case
John King, CNN’s political correspondent, just reported:
CNN is told by three force sources familiar with the investigation that this morning Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and top political adviser, is meeting with his attorney and is to meet this morning — if it is not already under way — with the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. According to sources, the goal of the meeting is for Karl to clear up some lingering questions about his role in a White House campaign to undermine Ambassador Joe Wilson — remember he was the the critic of the Bush administration case ever going to war in Iraq, his wife the CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose name was Outed.
It’s a complicated legal investigation and it has become a complicated political problem for the White House. Our understanding, Karl Rove is meeting with his attorney this morning, meeting with the special prosecutor this morning and the hope from Rove’s camp is that he can answer the few remaining questions about his involvement, his back and forth with reporters, during that time frame, his comments to the FBI and other investigators including the grand jury that is investigating this for quite some time now. And the hope from the Rove camp, all can be resolved and Karl Rove cleared of wrongdoing in the relatively near future.
The AP is also reporting that Fitzgerald went before the the grand jury this morning.
LINK
CNN is told by three force sources familiar with the investigation that this morning Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and top political adviser, is meeting with his attorney and is to meet this morning — if it is not already under way — with the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. According to sources, the goal of the meeting is for Karl to clear up some lingering questions about his role in a White House campaign to undermine Ambassador Joe Wilson — remember he was the the critic of the Bush administration case ever going to war in Iraq, his wife the CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose name was Outed.
It’s a complicated legal investigation and it has become a complicated political problem for the White House. Our understanding, Karl Rove is meeting with his attorney this morning, meeting with the special prosecutor this morning and the hope from Rove’s camp is that he can answer the few remaining questions about his involvement, his back and forth with reporters, during that time frame, his comments to the FBI and other investigators including the grand jury that is investigating this for quite some time now. And the hope from the Rove camp, all can be resolved and Karl Rove cleared of wrongdoing in the relatively near future.
The AP is also reporting that Fitzgerald went before the the grand jury this morning.
LINK
Rove back before grand jury in CIA leak case
I can't hardly believe I beat Toni with this .. but here it is!
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune ...
Top White House aide Karl Rove prepared to testify Wednesday for a fifth time before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity, two people familiar with the case said.
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune ...
Top White House aide Karl Rove prepared to testify Wednesday for a fifth time before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity, two people familiar with the case said.
Rove consulted with his private lawyers before a scheduled afternoon court appearance and was to answer questions about evidence that emerged since his last grand jury appearance last fall, the people said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy rules.
That new evidence includes information that emerged late last year that Rove's attorney had conversations with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak during a critical time in the case.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury Wednesday. Among other things he is investigating why Rove originally failed to disclose to prosecutors that he had talked to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about the outed CIA operative, Valerie Plame, back in 2003.
Months before Rove acknowledged speaking to Cooper about the CIA status of Plame, Novak told Rove's lawyer the White House aide might have disclosed Plame's CIA work to Cooper.
Fitzgerald has told Rove's legal team recently that he has not made any decision on whether to charge the presidential aide and Rove hasn't received a target notification that would indicate he is likely to be indicted, the people said.
His grand jury appearance comes a week after Rove, the architect of Bush's election victories, gave up his policy duties at the White House as part of an administration remake to return him to a fulltime focus on politics.
Wednesday's session is believed to be only the second time Fitzgerald has met with the grand jury which is examining questions left unanswered in the Plame affair. The only other time Fitzgerald was seen going before the new panel was Dec. 7.
An earlier grand jury expired Oct. 28, the day it handed up an indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI. Libby is scheduled to go on trial next January.
Rove's legal problems stem from the fact that it was not until more than a year into Fitzgerald's criminal investigation that the White House adviser told the prosecutor about his contact with Cooper about Plame.
Rove says he had forgotten the Cooper conversation, which occurred several days before Plame's identity was revealed in a column by Robert Novak.
Rove and Novak, who is not related to Viveca Novak, also had discussed the CIA status of Wilson's wife.
Other unfinished business in the probe focuses on the source who provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward information about Plame, whose CIA identity was leaked to Novak in July 2003.
Plame's identity was exposed eight days after her husband, Bush administration critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged that the U.S. government had manipulated prewar intelligence to exaggerate an Iraqi nuclear threat.
Woodward says his source, who he has not publicly identified, provided the information about Wilson's wife, several weeks before Novak learned of Plame's identity. The Post reporter, who never wrote a story, was interviewed by Fitzgerald late last year.
Friday, April 21, 2006
MSNBC’s Shuster: Signs Point To Rove Indictment
Last night, MSNBC’s David Shuster took a look at recent court filings by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and suggests that Karl Rove is likely to be indicted. Watch it:
Three key points made by Shuster:
1. The latest court documents, for the first time, name Rove as a subject of the investigation.
2. The court documents go out of their way to say that Rove will not be called as a witness in Scooter Libby’s trial, even though Rove is a key part of the narrative. Shuster notes that this is done when prosecutors want to “leave open the possibility of later charging that particular subject in a separate case.”
3. Rove is referred in court documents as “Official A.” Shuster says “in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves.”
(HT: Atrios)
Transcript:
KEITH OLBERMANN: First off, the base line here. Has the status of the Fitzgerald grand jury changed? Has the status of Mr. Rove in the investigation process itself changed?
DAVID SHUSTER: Well, first on the investigation, defense lawyers say that the grand jury investigation is active again and that the panel has been meeting in recent weeks, although prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was not seen at the grand jury this week, and hasn’t been seen there for some time. Now regarding Karl Rove, according to the latest documents, the first time Rove is now described as a subject in the overall case - a subject being a technical term meaning somebody is under investigation. And the latest prosecution documents also go out of their way to suggest that Rove is not going to be a prosecution witness at the Libby trial even though Rove is part of the narrative against Scooter Libby. And the reason that’s significant is because prosecutors usually don’t put subjects on the witness stand for tactical reasons if they want to leave open the possibility of later charging that particular subject in a separate case.
The other thing that has long been intriguing about Karl Rove, and that is, we’ve known for months that in the Scooter Libby indictment when they refer to Official A, Official A is Karl Rove. And the indictment against Libby says that Official A disclosed to Scooter Libby that he had had a conversation with columnist Robert Novak. The reason prosecutors describe an official as an Official A is when there’s pejorative information about that person, and the person has not yet been indicted and had a chance to defend themselves. But we’ve looked at prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s record as far as designating people as Official A or Official B, and in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves. And that’s why I think with everything coming together there is so much intrigue tonight about Karl Rove.
LINK
Three key points made by Shuster:
1. The latest court documents, for the first time, name Rove as a subject of the investigation.
2. The court documents go out of their way to say that Rove will not be called as a witness in Scooter Libby’s trial, even though Rove is a key part of the narrative. Shuster notes that this is done when prosecutors want to “leave open the possibility of later charging that particular subject in a separate case.”
3. Rove is referred in court documents as “Official A.” Shuster says “in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves.”
(HT: Atrios)
Transcript:
KEITH OLBERMANN: First off, the base line here. Has the status of the Fitzgerald grand jury changed? Has the status of Mr. Rove in the investigation process itself changed?
DAVID SHUSTER: Well, first on the investigation, defense lawyers say that the grand jury investigation is active again and that the panel has been meeting in recent weeks, although prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was not seen at the grand jury this week, and hasn’t been seen there for some time. Now regarding Karl Rove, according to the latest documents, the first time Rove is now described as a subject in the overall case - a subject being a technical term meaning somebody is under investigation. And the latest prosecution documents also go out of their way to suggest that Rove is not going to be a prosecution witness at the Libby trial even though Rove is part of the narrative against Scooter Libby. And the reason that’s significant is because prosecutors usually don’t put subjects on the witness stand for tactical reasons if they want to leave open the possibility of later charging that particular subject in a separate case.
The other thing that has long been intriguing about Karl Rove, and that is, we’ve known for months that in the Scooter Libby indictment when they refer to Official A, Official A is Karl Rove. And the indictment against Libby says that Official A disclosed to Scooter Libby that he had had a conversation with columnist Robert Novak. The reason prosecutors describe an official as an Official A is when there’s pejorative information about that person, and the person has not yet been indicted and had a chance to defend themselves. But we’ve looked at prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s record as far as designating people as Official A or Official B, and in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves. And that’s why I think with everything coming together there is so much intrigue tonight about Karl Rove.
LINK
Court filing in case of indicted Bush official suggests Ohio congressman provided false report to Congress
John Byrne and Ron Brynaert
Published: Friday April 21, 2006
A pre-trial motion filed by federal prosecutors in the case of indicted former Bush administration official David Safavian contends that his share of the costs in a trip to play golf in Scotland and England arranged by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff should have been nearly five times more than what he paid, RAW STORY has found.
Perhaps more significantly, however, it also provides the first formal evidence that powerful Ohio Republican Bob Ney – then chairman of the House Administration Committee – provided false figures for the cost of his own trip to Scotland. Ney has been under fire for his role in allegedly helping Abramoff aid his clients in violation of House ethics rules and possibly federal laws.
Ney was referenced as “Congressman #1” in a plea agreement Abramoff made in January, in which he admitted to bribing members of Congress and their staffs.
David Safavian, chief of staff of the United States General Services Administration (GSA) at the time, paid Abramoff $3,100 for a trip that prosecutors say "was in excess of $130,000." According to The Washington Post, tax records show that a non-profit owned by Abramoff, the Capital Athletic Foundation, doled out $150,225 for the trip.
A footnote contained in the government’s motion for pretrial determination of certain evidence – which includes hundreds of emails between Safavian and Abramoff, which prosecutors allege prove a business relationship between the two – notes that “Mr. Safavian’s pro rated cost [for the trip] would have been approximately $15,000.”
Safavian’s attorney Barbara Van Gelder provided RAW STORY a copy of Safavian’s response. In it, Van Gelder asserts that Safavian has never said he paid an equal share and was in the dark about the total cost of the trip. Moreover, she argues that the government should not be able to present “evidence of offenses not charged in the indictment.”
Ney, however, was obliged under Congressional rules to provide a “good faith” estimate of his share of the trip’s actual cost. He has also come under fire for other elements of the trip.
Ney may have misrepresented the trip
In addition to likely misreporting its true cost, Ney also listed the sponsor of the trip as the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative thinktank. It later emerged that the trip was paid for by Abramoff’s Capital Athletic Foundation. Members of Congress are prohibited from taking trips paid for by lobbyists.
Ney also appears to have lied about the purpose of the trip. "In April, 2002, I was approached by Mr. Abramoff, who I believed to be a respected member of the community, and asked to go on a trip to Scotland which Mr. Abramoff said would help support a charitable organization, that he founded, through meetings he organized with Scottish Parliament officials," Ney said in a statement last November.
In his financial disclosure report to Congress, Ney listed "speech to Scottish Parliamentarians" as a purpose of the trip. The Washington Post later revealed that there was no record of Ney’s speech and that the Scottish parliament was away on recess during the time of the junket.
On September 9, 2002, a month after returning from the trip, Ney filed a form with the Clerk of the House of the Representatives which indicated that his share of the trip was $3200. He reported $1,500 for travel, $1,200 for lodging and $500 for meal expenses.
According to the prosecutors’ estimate, Ney likely should have reported the trip at $15,000. Ney's office did not respond to a call placed for comment Friday.
Ney has said he was misled by Abramoff about who paid for the trip. "I, like these Indian tribes and other Members of Congress, was duped by Jack Abramoff," Ney said in 2004. "I am absolutely outraged by the dishonest and duplicitous words and actions of Jack Abramoff. As the testimony at [Congressional] Committee hearings has revealed, Jack Abramoff repeatedly lied to advance his own financial interests. I too was misled and I regret that I put faith in the representations that he made to me."
Ney "had a great time"
This, however, also seems to be false.
According to an email written by Abramoff and released during investigation of the lobbyist’s activities, Ney had a “great time [and was] very grateful” for the Scotland outing.
“BN had a great time and is very grateful but is not going to mention the trip to Scotland for obvious reasons,” Abramoff wrote. “He said he’ll show his thanks in other ways, which is what we want.”
“We can discuss on the phone,” Abramoff added.
An itinerary included in one of the emails Abramoff sent to Safavian gives some clues to what drove up the cost of what the prosecutors refer to as an “expensive trip.”
On Aug. 3, 2002, a private Gulfstream jet transported Abramoff, Safavian, Ney, and seven others, including former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, from Baltimore on a 6-to-7 hour flight with one fuel stop to Edinburgh, Scotland. Golf and dinners were part of the “package.”
“I am in the process of finding a driver for you in London,” Abramoff wrote Safavian.
Ney has not been charged with any crime
The government’s pre-trial motion alleges that Safavian “agreed and conspired” with Abramoff to provide him with sensitive and confidential information in order to assist Abramoff in his attempt to procure government properties for his own purposes. The criminal complaint, filed by the FBI last September, asserted that Safavian obstructed the federal investigation into Abramoff’s dealings and concealed his role in helping Abramoff examine federally controlled property for potential purchase.
Ney has also faced heat for entering comments into the Congressional record which attacked an Abramoff rival in connection with a riverboat gambling fleet the lobbyist later purchased.
Ney has not been charged with any crime, and no ethics complaint has been filed against him in the House. The Ohio Republican says he welcomes any Ethics Committee inquiry, which he believes will clear his name.
Safavian’s lawyer says she believes her client will ultimately be cleared, citing numerous discrepancies in the government’s case. She notes that the prosecutors maintained in a filing that Abramoff was a lobbyist who did all his lobbying on Capitol Hill and had no business before the agency where Safavian worked.
"I think my client is innocent and that after a full and fair presentation of the relevant evidence he should be acquitted of all charges," Van Gelder said.
LINK
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Grand Jury Hears Evidence Against Rove
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 20 April 2006
Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.
In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.
"Mr. Rove is still a subject of the investigation," Luskin said. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that prediction again Wednesday.
"Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any decision on the charges and I can't speculate what the outcome will be," Luskin said. "Mr. Rove has cooperated completely with the investigation."
Fitzgerald is said to have introduced more evidence Wednesday alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was questioned about how he found out that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and whether he shared that information with the media, attorneys close to the case said.
Fitzgerald told the grand jury that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters.
Additionally, an FBI investigator reread to jurors testimony from other witnesses in the case that purportedly implicates Rove in playing a role in the leak and the campaign to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose criticism of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence lead to his wife being unmasked as a covert CIA operative.
Luskin said Rove has not discussed any plea deal with Fitzgerald.
"Mr. Rove's cooperation is not contingent on any plea agreement with the prosecutor," Luskin said. "He has always cooperated voluntarily and unconditionally."
Luskin would not discuss the substance of his most recent communication with Fitzgerald nor would he say whether Rove would testify against his former White House colleague, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted in the leak case for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Luskin wouldn't comment on whether the investigation of Rove continues to center on alleged misleading statements to which Rove testified regarding a July 2003 conversation he had about Plame Wilson with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Sources close to the investigation, however, confirmed that is exactly what Fitzgerald has continued to focus on and what he discussed with the grand jury Wednesday.
Luskin said that Rove simply forgot about his conversation with Cooper when he testified before the grand jury because Rove had been dealing with other pressing matters, such as Bush's reelection campaign.
Rove's story began to unravel when Fitzgerald discovered the existence of an email Rove sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley after he spoke with Cooper on July 11, 2003.
Rove did not disclose the existence of the email during his first two appearances before the grand jury. Rove testified that he found out about Plame Wilson after her identity was disclosed in several news stories.
"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in the email to Hadley immediately following his conversation with Cooper. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."
Hadley, sources said, is also a subject of the investigation.
In December, Luskin made a desperate attempt to keep his client out of Fitzgerald's crosshairs.
Luskin revealed to Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame Wilson case - inadvertently tipped him off in early 2004 that her colleague at the magazine, Matt Cooper, would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status.
Novak - who bears no relation to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the journalist who first published Plame Wilson's name and CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column - met Luskin in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2004, and over drinks, the two discussed Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame Wilson leak.
Luskin assured Novak that Rove learned Plame Wilson's name and CIA status after it was published in news accounts and that only then did he phone other journalists to draw their attention to it. But Novak told Luskin that everyone in the Time newsroom knew Rove was Cooper's source and that he would testify to that in an upcoming grand jury appearance, these sources said.
According to Luskin's account, after he met with Viveca Novak he contacted Rove and told him about his conversation with her. The two of them then began an exhaustive search through White House phone logs and emails for any evidence that proved that Rove had spoken with Cooper. Luskin said that during this search an email was found that Rove sent to Hadley immediately and it was subsequently turned over to Fitzgerald.
Still, Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothing like he described in his email to Hadley, according to an email Cooper sent to his editor at Time magazine following his conversation with Rove in July 2003.
"It was, KR said, [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized [Wilson's] trip," Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said.
LINK
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 20 April 2006
Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.
In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.
"Mr. Rove is still a subject of the investigation," Luskin said. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that prediction again Wednesday.
"Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any decision on the charges and I can't speculate what the outcome will be," Luskin said. "Mr. Rove has cooperated completely with the investigation."
Fitzgerald is said to have introduced more evidence Wednesday alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was questioned about how he found out that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and whether he shared that information with the media, attorneys close to the case said.
Fitzgerald told the grand jury that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters.
Additionally, an FBI investigator reread to jurors testimony from other witnesses in the case that purportedly implicates Rove in playing a role in the leak and the campaign to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose criticism of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence lead to his wife being unmasked as a covert CIA operative.
Luskin said Rove has not discussed any plea deal with Fitzgerald.
"Mr. Rove's cooperation is not contingent on any plea agreement with the prosecutor," Luskin said. "He has always cooperated voluntarily and unconditionally."
Luskin would not discuss the substance of his most recent communication with Fitzgerald nor would he say whether Rove would testify against his former White House colleague, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted in the leak case for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Luskin wouldn't comment on whether the investigation of Rove continues to center on alleged misleading statements to which Rove testified regarding a July 2003 conversation he had about Plame Wilson with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Sources close to the investigation, however, confirmed that is exactly what Fitzgerald has continued to focus on and what he discussed with the grand jury Wednesday.
Luskin said that Rove simply forgot about his conversation with Cooper when he testified before the grand jury because Rove had been dealing with other pressing matters, such as Bush's reelection campaign.
Rove's story began to unravel when Fitzgerald discovered the existence of an email Rove sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley after he spoke with Cooper on July 11, 2003.
Rove did not disclose the existence of the email during his first two appearances before the grand jury. Rove testified that he found out about Plame Wilson after her identity was disclosed in several news stories.
"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in the email to Hadley immediately following his conversation with Cooper. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."
Hadley, sources said, is also a subject of the investigation.
In December, Luskin made a desperate attempt to keep his client out of Fitzgerald's crosshairs.
Luskin revealed to Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame Wilson case - inadvertently tipped him off in early 2004 that her colleague at the magazine, Matt Cooper, would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status.
Novak - who bears no relation to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the journalist who first published Plame Wilson's name and CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column - met Luskin in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2004, and over drinks, the two discussed Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame Wilson leak.
Luskin assured Novak that Rove learned Plame Wilson's name and CIA status after it was published in news accounts and that only then did he phone other journalists to draw their attention to it. But Novak told Luskin that everyone in the Time newsroom knew Rove was Cooper's source and that he would testify to that in an upcoming grand jury appearance, these sources said.
According to Luskin's account, after he met with Viveca Novak he contacted Rove and told him about his conversation with her. The two of them then began an exhaustive search through White House phone logs and emails for any evidence that proved that Rove had spoken with Cooper. Luskin said that during this search an email was found that Rove sent to Hadley immediately and it was subsequently turned over to Fitzgerald.
Still, Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothing like he described in his email to Hadley, according to an email Cooper sent to his editor at Time magazine following his conversation with Rove in July 2003.
"It was, KR said, [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized [Wilson's] trip," Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said.
LINK
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Walking the White House plank
White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, departs as the investigation into Karl Rove enters into a serious new phase.
Sidney Blumenthal
April 19, 2006 05:53 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sidney_blumenthal/2006/04/walking_the_white_house_plank.html
The resignation of the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, is an event of almost complete insignificance except insofar as the beleaguered White House presents it as an important change. Meanwhile, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, under siege from dissenting ex-generals demanding his firing for arrogant incompetence, stays.
McClellan is a flea on the windshield of history. On the podium, he performed his duty as a slow-flying object swatted by a frustrated and flustered press corps. Inexpressive, occasionally inarticulate and displaying a limited vocabulary, his virtue was his unwavering discipline in sticking to his uninformative talking points, fending off pesky reporters, and defending the president and all the president's men to the last full measure of his devotion. Inside the Bush White House, he was a non-player, a factotum, the instrument of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist and deputy chief of staff. McClellan played no part in the inner councils of state. He was the blank wall erected in front of the press to obstruct them from seeing what was on the other side. McClellan's stoic façade was unmatched by a stoic interior. He was a vessel for his masters, did whatever he was told, put out disinformation without objection, and was willing to defend any travesty. He is the ultimate dispensable man.
Events that could truly shake the Bush White House to its foundation, however, may be discerned elsewhere. On Monday, in Chicago, a jury found former Republican governor George Ryan guilty of 18 counts of corruption. His trial was the climax of a nine-year investigation that had yielded 75 convictions, including some of the most powerful figures in the Republican party of Illinois. The federal investigation, dubbed Operation Safe Roads, began by looking into bribery for driver's licenses. Over time, prosecutors systematically uncovered broader and deeper patterns of corruption reaching up to the governor's office. Patiently, they built their cases until they reached the top.
The United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who conducted this painstakingly thorough prosecution, Patrick Fitzgerald, is also the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation into the leaking of the identity of the covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson. So far, he has indicted I. Irving "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Two weeks ago, Fitzgerald filed a motion before the federal court in the Libby case stating that his investigation had proved that the White House engaged in "concerted action" from "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against" former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who revealed that the rationale of the Iraq war was based on false information that the White House knew was bogus. Fitzgerald declared further that he had gathered "evidence that multiple officials in the White House" had outed his wife's clandestine identity to reporters as an element of revenge.
Last week, on April 12, Libby counter-filed to demand extensive documents in the possession of the prosecutor. His filing, written by his lawyers, reveals that he intends to put Karl Rove on the stand as a witness to question him about his leaking of Plame's name to reporters and presumably his role in the "concerted action" against Wilson.
In his request for documents from Rove's files, Libby dropped mention of Rove's current legal status.
For months, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has assured the press that his client, who was believed to be vulnerable to indictment for perjury, is in the clear. But Libby insisted that he was entitled to "disclosure of such documents" in Rove's files "even if Mr. Rove remains a subject of a continuing grand jury investigation".
Karl Rove is a subject of Fitzgerald's investigation - this is the headline buried in Libby's filing.
In white-collar criminal investigations, individuals who fall under the gaze of a prosecutor fit into one of three categories: witness, subject or target. Rove's attorney has suggested that Rove is simply a witness. But that is untrue. He is a subject. A subject is someone the prosecutor believes may have committed a crime and is under investigation. If the prosecutor decides he has accumulated sufficient evidence to prove guilt, he will change the designation of that person from subject to target and then indict him or her.
Having successfully completed his most extensive investigation and prosecution, ending with the conviction of former Governor Ryan, Patrick Fitzgerald returns to the unresolved case before him. The federal grand jury considering his evidence began meeting again this morning. Karl Rove remains a subject--for now.
LINK
Sidney Blumenthal
April 19, 2006 05:53 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sidney_blumenthal/2006/04/walking_the_white_house_plank.html
The resignation of the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, is an event of almost complete insignificance except insofar as the beleaguered White House presents it as an important change. Meanwhile, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, under siege from dissenting ex-generals demanding his firing for arrogant incompetence, stays.
McClellan is a flea on the windshield of history. On the podium, he performed his duty as a slow-flying object swatted by a frustrated and flustered press corps. Inexpressive, occasionally inarticulate and displaying a limited vocabulary, his virtue was his unwavering discipline in sticking to his uninformative talking points, fending off pesky reporters, and defending the president and all the president's men to the last full measure of his devotion. Inside the Bush White House, he was a non-player, a factotum, the instrument of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist and deputy chief of staff. McClellan played no part in the inner councils of state. He was the blank wall erected in front of the press to obstruct them from seeing what was on the other side. McClellan's stoic façade was unmatched by a stoic interior. He was a vessel for his masters, did whatever he was told, put out disinformation without objection, and was willing to defend any travesty. He is the ultimate dispensable man.
Events that could truly shake the Bush White House to its foundation, however, may be discerned elsewhere. On Monday, in Chicago, a jury found former Republican governor George Ryan guilty of 18 counts of corruption. His trial was the climax of a nine-year investigation that had yielded 75 convictions, including some of the most powerful figures in the Republican party of Illinois. The federal investigation, dubbed Operation Safe Roads, began by looking into bribery for driver's licenses. Over time, prosecutors systematically uncovered broader and deeper patterns of corruption reaching up to the governor's office. Patiently, they built their cases until they reached the top.
The United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who conducted this painstakingly thorough prosecution, Patrick Fitzgerald, is also the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation into the leaking of the identity of the covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson. So far, he has indicted I. Irving "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Two weeks ago, Fitzgerald filed a motion before the federal court in the Libby case stating that his investigation had proved that the White House engaged in "concerted action" from "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against" former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who revealed that the rationale of the Iraq war was based on false information that the White House knew was bogus. Fitzgerald declared further that he had gathered "evidence that multiple officials in the White House" had outed his wife's clandestine identity to reporters as an element of revenge.
Last week, on April 12, Libby counter-filed to demand extensive documents in the possession of the prosecutor. His filing, written by his lawyers, reveals that he intends to put Karl Rove on the stand as a witness to question him about his leaking of Plame's name to reporters and presumably his role in the "concerted action" against Wilson.
In his request for documents from Rove's files, Libby dropped mention of Rove's current legal status.
For months, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has assured the press that his client, who was believed to be vulnerable to indictment for perjury, is in the clear. But Libby insisted that he was entitled to "disclosure of such documents" in Rove's files "even if Mr. Rove remains a subject of a continuing grand jury investigation".
Karl Rove is a subject of Fitzgerald's investigation - this is the headline buried in Libby's filing.
In white-collar criminal investigations, individuals who fall under the gaze of a prosecutor fit into one of three categories: witness, subject or target. Rove's attorney has suggested that Rove is simply a witness. But that is untrue. He is a subject. A subject is someone the prosecutor believes may have committed a crime and is under investigation. If the prosecutor decides he has accumulated sufficient evidence to prove guilt, he will change the designation of that person from subject to target and then indict him or her.
Having successfully completed his most extensive investigation and prosecution, ending with the conviction of former Governor Ryan, Patrick Fitzgerald returns to the unresolved case before him. The federal grand jury considering his evidence began meeting again this morning. Karl Rove remains a subject--for now.
LINK
Group files Justice Department complaint against Texas congressman
04/19/2006 @ 9:16 am
Filed by RAW STORY
A Washington watchdog called on the Justice Department today to begin an official investigation into whether Texas Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) received bribes from a San Fransisco defense firm in exchange for supporting earmarks that benefited the company, RAW STORY has learned.
Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed the complaint Wednesday. The group has "filed" repeated ethics complaints before -- but the complaint against sessions was filed with the Justice Department, instead of simply being announced publicly. Ethics complaints must be filed by a member of Congress; Justice Department complaints can be made by anyone.
The group's complaint also alleges that Rep. Sessions had substantive ties with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Their release follows, along with the complaint.
#
Abramoff Ties
CREW’s complaint alleges that Rep. Sessions co-signed two letters, one to former Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001 and another to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2002, which benefitted Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta. One month after his 2002 letter was sent, Rep. Sessions’ political action committee, PETE PAC, received $3,500 from the Louisiana Coushatta and another $3,500 from other tribes with casinos. Within 18 months, PETE PAC received $20,500 from tribes associated with Abramoff.
Rep. Sessions also traveled to Malaysia on an Abramoff-arranged trip with indicted public relations executive Michael Scanlon, two lobbyists from Abramoff’s firm Greenberg Traurig, one of which, Tony Rudy has been indicted, and two other Members of Congress, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY). Prior to the trip, Rep. Sessions had shown no public interest in Malaysia, but four months after the trip, Rep. Sessions became an advocate for Malaysia by forming the Malaysia Trade, Security and Economic Cooperation in the House with trip-mate Rep. Meeks.
Promia Ties
Additionally, Rep. Sessions promoted the interests of Promia, a firm based in San Francisco that hired Session’s former communications director, Adrian Plesha, as vice president and director of its Washington office. Mr. Plesha pleaded guilty to felony charges related to FEC offences shortly after he began working for Promia.
Promia was able to garner a nearly $800,000 Navy research and development contract in May, 2000 and Rep. Sessions, along with Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), publicly worked to get an additional $8 million to Promia through a Department of Defense grant.
In October 2000, the same month that Promia received $2 million from Trautman Wasserman & Co., a New York venture capital firm, Rep. Sessions received the maximum allowed — $1,000 each, from eight Promia executives for his re-election campaign. In 2002, Promia gave $30,000 to PETE PAC. In total Promia and its executives have contributed nearly $55,000 to Rep. Sessions since 2000 – by far the largest contribution Promia has made to any Member of Congress.
“Why would Rep. Sessions, who represents a northern Texas district, work so hard for and receive so much cash from a San Francisco firm?” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW asked today. “The Department of Justice should open a criminal investigation to determine whether the campaign contributions Rep. Sessions received from Abramoff, the tribes and from Promia executives were a quid pro quo for official actions.”
READ THE FORMAL COMPLAINT HERE
VIEW THE GROUP'S JUSTICE DEPT. 'EXHIBITS' HERE
Raw Sory Link
Filed by RAW STORY
A Washington watchdog called on the Justice Department today to begin an official investigation into whether Texas Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) received bribes from a San Fransisco defense firm in exchange for supporting earmarks that benefited the company, RAW STORY has learned.
Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed the complaint Wednesday. The group has "filed" repeated ethics complaints before -- but the complaint against sessions was filed with the Justice Department, instead of simply being announced publicly. Ethics complaints must be filed by a member of Congress; Justice Department complaints can be made by anyone.
The group's complaint also alleges that Rep. Sessions had substantive ties with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Their release follows, along with the complaint.
#
Abramoff Ties
CREW’s complaint alleges that Rep. Sessions co-signed two letters, one to former Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001 and another to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2002, which benefitted Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta. One month after his 2002 letter was sent, Rep. Sessions’ political action committee, PETE PAC, received $3,500 from the Louisiana Coushatta and another $3,500 from other tribes with casinos. Within 18 months, PETE PAC received $20,500 from tribes associated with Abramoff.
Rep. Sessions also traveled to Malaysia on an Abramoff-arranged trip with indicted public relations executive Michael Scanlon, two lobbyists from Abramoff’s firm Greenberg Traurig, one of which, Tony Rudy has been indicted, and two other Members of Congress, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY). Prior to the trip, Rep. Sessions had shown no public interest in Malaysia, but four months after the trip, Rep. Sessions became an advocate for Malaysia by forming the Malaysia Trade, Security and Economic Cooperation in the House with trip-mate Rep. Meeks.
Promia Ties
Additionally, Rep. Sessions promoted the interests of Promia, a firm based in San Francisco that hired Session’s former communications director, Adrian Plesha, as vice president and director of its Washington office. Mr. Plesha pleaded guilty to felony charges related to FEC offences shortly after he began working for Promia.
Promia was able to garner a nearly $800,000 Navy research and development contract in May, 2000 and Rep. Sessions, along with Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), publicly worked to get an additional $8 million to Promia through a Department of Defense grant.
In October 2000, the same month that Promia received $2 million from Trautman Wasserman & Co., a New York venture capital firm, Rep. Sessions received the maximum allowed — $1,000 each, from eight Promia executives for his re-election campaign. In 2002, Promia gave $30,000 to PETE PAC. In total Promia and its executives have contributed nearly $55,000 to Rep. Sessions since 2000 – by far the largest contribution Promia has made to any Member of Congress.
“Why would Rep. Sessions, who represents a northern Texas district, work so hard for and receive so much cash from a San Francisco firm?” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW asked today. “The Department of Justice should open a criminal investigation to determine whether the campaign contributions Rep. Sessions received from Abramoff, the tribes and from Promia executives were a quid pro quo for official actions.”
READ THE FORMAL COMPLAINT HERE
VIEW THE GROUP'S JUSTICE DEPT. 'EXHIBITS' HERE
Raw Sory Link
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
News outlets resist Scooter Libby subpoenas
By Andy Sullivan
1 hour, 27 minutes ago
A former White House aide fighting perjury charges should not get access to reporters' notes and other newsroom material because they have no relevance to his case, several news outlets told a U.S. judge on Tuesday.
The New York Times, NBC News and Time magazine also argued that press freedom would be damaged if they were forced to hand over the material sought by former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense team.
Libby is charged with lying to investigators as they sought to determine who leaked the identity of a CIA official after her husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for invading Iraq.
His defense team has subpoenaed four reporters and their employers in an effort to show that CIA operative Valerie Plame was widely known to be the wife of the administration critic, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, before her identity was made public by conservative columnist Robert Novak in July 2003.
The news organizations said on Tuesday that Libby does not have a right to material that goes beyond the conversations with reporters cited in his indictment.
"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 magazine said in its filing to the U.S. court in Washington.
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald relied on reporters' testimony to bring perjury charges against Libby last fall after an appeals court ordered them to cooperate. Reporter Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify.
The Times said it would provide documents or statements Miller made about her conversations with Libby if she were to be called as a government witness during the trial. But the newspaper said that material from other employees has no direct bearing on the case.
Time magazine said that the Libby defense team already has the same material that its reporter Matthew Cooper provided to the prosecution, and has no legitimate reason to demand material from other reporters at the magazine.
NBC said nobody at the company, including reporters Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell, has any documents relevant to the perjury charges.
LINK
1 hour, 27 minutes ago
A former White House aide fighting perjury charges should not get access to reporters' notes and other newsroom material because they have no relevance to his case, several news outlets told a U.S. judge on Tuesday.
The New York Times, NBC News and Time magazine also argued that press freedom would be damaged if they were forced to hand over the material sought by former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense team.
Libby is charged with lying to investigators as they sought to determine who leaked the identity of a CIA official after her husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for invading Iraq.
His defense team has subpoenaed four reporters and their employers in an effort to show that CIA operative Valerie Plame was widely known to be the wife of the administration critic, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, before her identity was made public by conservative columnist Robert Novak in July 2003.
The news organizations said on Tuesday that Libby does not have a right to material that goes beyond the conversations with reporters cited in his indictment.
"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 magazine said in its filing to the U.S. court in Washington.
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald relied on reporters' testimony to bring perjury charges against Libby last fall after an appeals court ordered them to cooperate. Reporter Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify.
The Times said it would provide documents or statements Miller made about her conversations with Libby if she were to be called as a government witness during the trial. But the newspaper said that material from other employees has no direct bearing on the case.
Time magazine said that the Libby defense team already has the same material that its reporter Matthew Cooper provided to the prosecution, and has no legitimate reason to demand material from other reporters at the magazine.
NBC said nobody at the company, including reporters Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell, has any documents relevant to the perjury charges.
LINK
Dizzying Plameology: Featuring the Mustache
by BooMan
Tue Apr 18th, 2006 at 04:53:47 PM EST
Writing about l'affaire plame is both fun and frustrating. It's frustrating because it is so hopelessly complicated. The latest controversy, instigated by a misleading article in the NY Sun, is a case in point. The Sun bases its article on a declassified State Department memo. The Sun contends the memo "appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert." Unfortunately for the Sun, they used a version of the memo that was created on July 7, 2003, not the original that was created on June 10, 2003. If you want to go mental, you can read about all the details at The Next Hurrah. Most people have criticized the Sun's article on the basis of common sense. The paragraphs that mention Valerie Plame are marked (S//NF), which means that the information is secret and should not be shared even with our allies. The memo also refers to Valerie Wilson as a 'WMD manager'. The term 'manager' is historically used to describe covert operatives (at least in the press). Therefore, the argument goes, the mention of Valerie Wilson was clearly highly classified and no explicit reference to her covert status was necessary to make it clear to anyone accustomed to reading such sensitive documents.
That debate is all very interesting, but the memo is valuable for different reasons. The original State Department (June 10th) memo was drawn up at the request of Marc Grossman, who has now been reported to be the source for the September 28, 2003 Mike Allen and Dana Priest piece that reported (about the Plame leak):
The source also claims that, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge." He stated that he was sharing the information because the disclosure was "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility."
But the July 7 version was drafted in response to Joe Wilson's infamous column in the New York Times that appeared a day earlier. This version was forwarded to Colin Powell aboard Air Force One as the Presidential entourage headed to Africa.
Niger documents Valerie Plame Joe Wilson INR John Bolton Marc Grossman Colin Powell Scooter Libby John Conyers CIA leak
Taking a look at both versions, one thing immediately leaps out. From emptywheel:
The June 10 memo includes the following passage:
What follows is based on our paper and electronic files: we are confident that these records and the recollections of person involved at the margin are basically accurate but the two INR staff members who were most involved are not here (one has been reassigned to REDACTED other is on leave) to guide us through the files and emails.
While the July 7 rewrites that passage (in the electronic file--this is more than redaction) to read (I've bolded the differences in both passages):
What follows is based on our paper and electronic files: we are confident that these records and the recollections of person involved at the margin are basically accurate but one INR staff member who was most involved is not here (he has been reassigned to REDACTED to guide us through the files and emails.
What is notable is that the July 7 version has dropped a reference to one of the people 'most involved' in analyzing the Niger documents. That analyst had been 'on leave' in June. It is not known if they were still on leave in July. emptywheel argues convincingly that the missing analyst is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) Iraq nuclear analyst referenced in Pat Roberts's whitewash of an investigation. Roberts's SSCI report noted that the Niger documents were debunked immediately upon receipt. (Refresher: the documents were transmitted from the Rome Embassy to INR through John Bolton's department of non-proliferation in October 2002).
Immediately after receiving the documents, the INR Iraq nuclear analyst e-mailed IC colleagues offering to provide the documents at a previously planned meeting of the Nuclear Interdiction Action Group (NIAG) the following day. The analyst, apparently already suspicious of the validity of the documents noted in his e-mail, "you'll note that it bears a funky Emb. of Niger stamp (to make it look official, I guess)."
You can look at the documents here and get a sense for how transparently fake they were. Despite the fact that this INR Nuclear Analyst 'immediately' pegged the documents as fake, neither of the State Department memos mentioned that fact. Instead, they said the following:
On January 12, 2003, INR "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries". The conclusion may, however, have been reached and communicated earlier: the record is not clear on this point.
So what does it all mean?
The analyst that deemed the Niger documents to be forgeries in October 2002 was conveniently 'on leave' in June and suddenly non-existent in July. The important point is that neither classified memo gave an accurate account of the facts and history of the case. An accurate account would have reflected that the INR had immediately debunked the documents upon receipt. But they didn't say that. These memos were not intended for the public or for spin. They were supposed to be for the benefit our nation's top leaders. And, yet, they were badly misleading.
And this leads me back to John Bolton. I remember when Senator Voinovich made his floor statement against the nomination of John Bolton to the United Nations:
There are several interesting theories on how Mr. Bolton got the nomination. I am not going to go into that on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but if anyone would like to talk to me about that, I am happy to discuss it with you. Otherwise, I urge you to get in touch with senior members of the Foreign Relations Committee and ask them.
I remain intrigued by Voinovich's statement. John Bolton's office was responsible for transmitting the Niger documents from Rome to the INR. He was known to attack analysts that failed to back up his worst-case scenarios on WMD. For example, Voinovich cited the testimony of another INR analyst that had disagreed with (and refused to clear) Bolton's assertions that Cuba "had a secret bioweapons program":
I would like to just read some quotes from the testimony of Christian Westermann, the analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and Tom Fingar, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, about Mr. Bolton’s patterns of losing his temper and getting angry. Mr. Westermann: “He was quite upset that I had objected and he wanted to know what right I had trying to change an Under Secretary's language. And what he would say, or not say or something like that. And I tried to explain to him a little bit of the same thing about the process of how we clear language. And I guess wasn't really in a mood to listen and he was quite angry and basically told me that I had no right to do that. And he got very red in the face and shaking his finger at me and explained to me that I was acting way beyond my position, and for someone who worked for him. I told him I didn't work for him.” Westermann interview, p. 103, line 18 through p. 104, line 4.
What we need is for the INR nuclear analyst to come forward and explain who he told that the NIger documents were forgeries, when he told them that, who sent him 'on leave', how long he was on leave, and what role, if any, John Bolton had in the whole affair. If I were Fitzgerald, I'd be running that down. And I hope John Conyers put is at the top of his to-do list for next year.
LINK
Tue Apr 18th, 2006 at 04:53:47 PM EST
Writing about l'affaire plame is both fun and frustrating. It's frustrating because it is so hopelessly complicated. The latest controversy, instigated by a misleading article in the NY Sun, is a case in point. The Sun bases its article on a declassified State Department memo. The Sun contends the memo "appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert." Unfortunately for the Sun, they used a version of the memo that was created on July 7, 2003, not the original that was created on June 10, 2003. If you want to go mental, you can read about all the details at The Next Hurrah. Most people have criticized the Sun's article on the basis of common sense. The paragraphs that mention Valerie Plame are marked (S//NF), which means that the information is secret and should not be shared even with our allies. The memo also refers to Valerie Wilson as a 'WMD manager'. The term 'manager' is historically used to describe covert operatives (at least in the press). Therefore, the argument goes, the mention of Valerie Wilson was clearly highly classified and no explicit reference to her covert status was necessary to make it clear to anyone accustomed to reading such sensitive documents.
That debate is all very interesting, but the memo is valuable for different reasons. The original State Department (June 10th) memo was drawn up at the request of Marc Grossman, who has now been reported to be the source for the September 28, 2003 Mike Allen and Dana Priest piece that reported (about the Plame leak):
The source also claims that, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge." He stated that he was sharing the information because the disclosure was "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility."
But the July 7 version was drafted in response to Joe Wilson's infamous column in the New York Times that appeared a day earlier. This version was forwarded to Colin Powell aboard Air Force One as the Presidential entourage headed to Africa.
Niger documents Valerie Plame Joe Wilson INR John Bolton Marc Grossman Colin Powell Scooter Libby John Conyers CIA leak
Taking a look at both versions, one thing immediately leaps out. From emptywheel:
The June 10 memo includes the following passage:
What follows is based on our paper and electronic files: we are confident that these records and the recollections of person involved at the margin are basically accurate but the two INR staff members who were most involved are not here (one has been reassigned to REDACTED other is on leave) to guide us through the files and emails.
While the July 7 rewrites that passage (in the electronic file--this is more than redaction) to read (I've bolded the differences in both passages):
What follows is based on our paper and electronic files: we are confident that these records and the recollections of person involved at the margin are basically accurate but one INR staff member who was most involved is not here (he has been reassigned to REDACTED to guide us through the files and emails.
What is notable is that the July 7 version has dropped a reference to one of the people 'most involved' in analyzing the Niger documents. That analyst had been 'on leave' in June. It is not known if they were still on leave in July. emptywheel argues convincingly that the missing analyst is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) Iraq nuclear analyst referenced in Pat Roberts's whitewash of an investigation. Roberts's SSCI report noted that the Niger documents were debunked immediately upon receipt. (Refresher: the documents were transmitted from the Rome Embassy to INR through John Bolton's department of non-proliferation in October 2002).
Immediately after receiving the documents, the INR Iraq nuclear analyst e-mailed IC colleagues offering to provide the documents at a previously planned meeting of the Nuclear Interdiction Action Group (NIAG) the following day. The analyst, apparently already suspicious of the validity of the documents noted in his e-mail, "you'll note that it bears a funky Emb. of Niger stamp (to make it look official, I guess)."
You can look at the documents here and get a sense for how transparently fake they were. Despite the fact that this INR Nuclear Analyst 'immediately' pegged the documents as fake, neither of the State Department memos mentioned that fact. Instead, they said the following:
On January 12, 2003, INR "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries". The conclusion may, however, have been reached and communicated earlier: the record is not clear on this point.
So what does it all mean?
The analyst that deemed the Niger documents to be forgeries in October 2002 was conveniently 'on leave' in June and suddenly non-existent in July. The important point is that neither classified memo gave an accurate account of the facts and history of the case. An accurate account would have reflected that the INR had immediately debunked the documents upon receipt. But they didn't say that. These memos were not intended for the public or for spin. They were supposed to be for the benefit our nation's top leaders. And, yet, they were badly misleading.
And this leads me back to John Bolton. I remember when Senator Voinovich made his floor statement against the nomination of John Bolton to the United Nations:
There are several interesting theories on how Mr. Bolton got the nomination. I am not going to go into that on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but if anyone would like to talk to me about that, I am happy to discuss it with you. Otherwise, I urge you to get in touch with senior members of the Foreign Relations Committee and ask them.
I remain intrigued by Voinovich's statement. John Bolton's office was responsible for transmitting the Niger documents from Rome to the INR. He was known to attack analysts that failed to back up his worst-case scenarios on WMD. For example, Voinovich cited the testimony of another INR analyst that had disagreed with (and refused to clear) Bolton's assertions that Cuba "had a secret bioweapons program":
I would like to just read some quotes from the testimony of Christian Westermann, the analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and Tom Fingar, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, about Mr. Bolton’s patterns of losing his temper and getting angry. Mr. Westermann: “He was quite upset that I had objected and he wanted to know what right I had trying to change an Under Secretary's language. And what he would say, or not say or something like that. And I tried to explain to him a little bit of the same thing about the process of how we clear language. And I guess wasn't really in a mood to listen and he was quite angry and basically told me that I had no right to do that. And he got very red in the face and shaking his finger at me and explained to me that I was acting way beyond my position, and for someone who worked for him. I told him I didn't work for him.” Westermann interview, p. 103, line 18 through p. 104, line 4.
What we need is for the INR nuclear analyst to come forward and explain who he told that the NIger documents were forgeries, when he told them that, who sent him 'on leave', how long he was on leave, and what role, if any, John Bolton had in the whole affair. If I were Fitzgerald, I'd be running that down. And I hope John Conyers put is at the top of his to-do list for next year.
LINK
Monday, April 17, 2006
No Hint Seen in Memo that Plame's Role Was Secret
BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 17, 2006
Contrary to published reports, a State Department memorandum at the center of the investigation into the leak of the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert.
The memo, drafted by the then head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and addressed to the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, was carried aboard Air Force One as President Bush departed for Africa in July 2003. A declassified version of the document was obtained by The New York Sun on Saturday.
A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is investigating whether White House officials illegally leaked Ms. Plame's CIA connection as part of a campaign to rebut or retaliate against her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled to Niger in 2002 at the CIA's request to look into reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium there. He later became an open critic of the administration.
Mr. Fitzgerald's investigators have attempted to establish a precise chain of custody for the document because it is one way some White House officials might have learned that Mr. Wilson's wife was a CIA employee, working in the agency's weapons of mass destruction division.
"In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger," the memo from the State Department intelligence chief, Carl Ford Jr., said. Mr. Ford also drafted an earlier version of the memo, addressed to an undersecretary of state, Marc Grossman. Mr. Grossman apparently sought the information about Mr. Wilson's trip after receiving inquiries from the then chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, I. Lewis Libby.
Mr. Libby was indicted last year on charges he perjured himself and obstructed justice during the investigation. He has pleaded not guilty. While the indictment alleges that he discussed Ms. Plame with reporters, neither Mr. Libby nor any other person has been charged with illegally disclosing the CIA employee's identity.
The gist of Mr. Ford's memo has been previously reported in news accounts, but it has not been quoted from directly. In addition, the early leaks about the memo were selective, perhaps deliberately so.
A Wall Street Journal article on July 19, 2005, citing an unnamed person familiar with the memo, reported that the memo "made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared." The Journal account said the paragraph discussing Ms. Plame's role in her husband's trip was marked in a way to indicate it shouldn't be disclosed.
A story the following day in the Washington Post, "Plame's Identity Marked as Secret," said correctly that the paragraph carried the mark "S," signifying the middle level of three major tiers of classification.
Not noted in the previous press reports was the fact that six of the seven paragraphs in the memo are marked "secret," while only one appears to mention Ms. Plame. In addition, virtually every paragraph in the attached supporting documents from the State Department about alleged Iraqi uranium procurement in Niger carries the "secret" designation.
With most, if not all, of the Niger-related documents marked "secret" in a host of places, there is no particular reason a reader would think the classification was derived from Ms. Plame's status or involvement.
An attorney representing a White House official under scrutiny in the investigation said yesterday that the broader context of the document undercuts the idea of a deliberate campaign to expose Ms. Plame.
"It's something that people got very excited about," the lawyer, Robert Luskin, said about the earlier reports on the memo. "The fact that the whole memo was marked this way further substantiates that nobody involved in discussions of her or her role in sending Mr. Wilson had the slightest inkling she was in classified status."
Leaking any information from a classified document is a security violation and sometimes a crime, but deliberately disclosing the identity of a covert operative is a far more grave offense, according to intelligence and legal experts.
Mr. Luskin, who represents President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, said Mr. Rove did not see the memo at the time it was issued.
One attachment to the memo consists of typewritten notes a State Department representative took at a February 19, 2002, meeting where sending Mr. Wilson to Niger was discussed. "Meeting apparently convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson, with the idea that the agency and the larger USG could dispatch Joe to Niger to use his contacts there to sort out the Niger/Iraq uranium sale question," an American diplomat serving as the west and southern Africa division chief in the State Department's intelligence and research bureau, Douglas Rohn, wrote.
Mr. Wilson told the Sun yesterday that the State Department's account of how his trip was arranged was "absolutely inaccurate."
"The meeting was not convened by my wife," the former ambassador said. "She had, as it now turns out, the misfortune of having escorted me into the building. ... She left before the meeting started." He also said that the subject of his going to Niger did not arise until halfway through the session.
Mr. Wilson acknowledged that his wife drafted a memo describing his previous involvement with Niger, but he said she did so at the request of her supervisor. A Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in July 2004 said Ms. Plame "suggested his name for the trip."
The memoranda also make clear that the State Department was eager to distance itself from Mr. Wilson after he wrote a New York Times op-ed piece attacking Mr. Bush's statement in the 2003 State of the Union address that British intelligence believed that Iraq was seeking a large quantity of uranium in Africa.
The intelligence bureau at Foggy Bottom "was not Ambassador Wilson's point of contact in either the department or the intelligence community," the memo addressed to Mr. Powell reads. It notes that Mr. Wilson's report was "disseminated throughout the intelligence and policy communities by CIA."
Mr. Rohn's notes also suggest that State Department officials opposed sending Mr. Wilson because they thought reporting from the embassy in Niamey was adequate.
A cable attached to the key memoranda indicates that on September 10, 2001, one day before the terrorist attacks on America, Prime Minister Amadou of Niger told embassy officials "that there were buyers like Iraq who would pay more for Niger's uranium than France." The cable also said American officials received "frequent leadpipe guarantees by the French ambassador here that no uranium diversion to rogue states is possible." A Senate report discussed the alleged comment from Mr. Amadou, but did not give the exact date.
The State Department documents were released to the Sun in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in July 2005. A spokeswoman for the department said no one was available to discuss the matter yesterday.
-> View the declassified July 7, 2003 memo
URL: LINK
April 17, 2006
Contrary to published reports, a State Department memorandum at the center of the investigation into the leak of the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert.
The memo, drafted by the then head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and addressed to the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, was carried aboard Air Force One as President Bush departed for Africa in July 2003. A declassified version of the document was obtained by The New York Sun on Saturday.
A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is investigating whether White House officials illegally leaked Ms. Plame's CIA connection as part of a campaign to rebut or retaliate against her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled to Niger in 2002 at the CIA's request to look into reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium there. He later became an open critic of the administration.
Mr. Fitzgerald's investigators have attempted to establish a precise chain of custody for the document because it is one way some White House officials might have learned that Mr. Wilson's wife was a CIA employee, working in the agency's weapons of mass destruction division.
"In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger," the memo from the State Department intelligence chief, Carl Ford Jr., said. Mr. Ford also drafted an earlier version of the memo, addressed to an undersecretary of state, Marc Grossman. Mr. Grossman apparently sought the information about Mr. Wilson's trip after receiving inquiries from the then chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, I. Lewis Libby.
Mr. Libby was indicted last year on charges he perjured himself and obstructed justice during the investigation. He has pleaded not guilty. While the indictment alleges that he discussed Ms. Plame with reporters, neither Mr. Libby nor any other person has been charged with illegally disclosing the CIA employee's identity.
The gist of Mr. Ford's memo has been previously reported in news accounts, but it has not been quoted from directly. In addition, the early leaks about the memo were selective, perhaps deliberately so.
A Wall Street Journal article on July 19, 2005, citing an unnamed person familiar with the memo, reported that the memo "made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared." The Journal account said the paragraph discussing Ms. Plame's role in her husband's trip was marked in a way to indicate it shouldn't be disclosed.
A story the following day in the Washington Post, "Plame's Identity Marked as Secret," said correctly that the paragraph carried the mark "S," signifying the middle level of three major tiers of classification.
Not noted in the previous press reports was the fact that six of the seven paragraphs in the memo are marked "secret," while only one appears to mention Ms. Plame. In addition, virtually every paragraph in the attached supporting documents from the State Department about alleged Iraqi uranium procurement in Niger carries the "secret" designation.
With most, if not all, of the Niger-related documents marked "secret" in a host of places, there is no particular reason a reader would think the classification was derived from Ms. Plame's status or involvement.
An attorney representing a White House official under scrutiny in the investigation said yesterday that the broader context of the document undercuts the idea of a deliberate campaign to expose Ms. Plame.
"It's something that people got very excited about," the lawyer, Robert Luskin, said about the earlier reports on the memo. "The fact that the whole memo was marked this way further substantiates that nobody involved in discussions of her or her role in sending Mr. Wilson had the slightest inkling she was in classified status."
Leaking any information from a classified document is a security violation and sometimes a crime, but deliberately disclosing the identity of a covert operative is a far more grave offense, according to intelligence and legal experts.
Mr. Luskin, who represents President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, said Mr. Rove did not see the memo at the time it was issued.
One attachment to the memo consists of typewritten notes a State Department representative took at a February 19, 2002, meeting where sending Mr. Wilson to Niger was discussed. "Meeting apparently convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson, with the idea that the agency and the larger USG could dispatch Joe to Niger to use his contacts there to sort out the Niger/Iraq uranium sale question," an American diplomat serving as the west and southern Africa division chief in the State Department's intelligence and research bureau, Douglas Rohn, wrote.
Mr. Wilson told the Sun yesterday that the State Department's account of how his trip was arranged was "absolutely inaccurate."
"The meeting was not convened by my wife," the former ambassador said. "She had, as it now turns out, the misfortune of having escorted me into the building. ... She left before the meeting started." He also said that the subject of his going to Niger did not arise until halfway through the session.
Mr. Wilson acknowledged that his wife drafted a memo describing his previous involvement with Niger, but he said she did so at the request of her supervisor. A Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in July 2004 said Ms. Plame "suggested his name for the trip."
The memoranda also make clear that the State Department was eager to distance itself from Mr. Wilson after he wrote a New York Times op-ed piece attacking Mr. Bush's statement in the 2003 State of the Union address that British intelligence believed that Iraq was seeking a large quantity of uranium in Africa.
The intelligence bureau at Foggy Bottom "was not Ambassador Wilson's point of contact in either the department or the intelligence community," the memo addressed to Mr. Powell reads. It notes that Mr. Wilson's report was "disseminated throughout the intelligence and policy communities by CIA."
Mr. Rohn's notes also suggest that State Department officials opposed sending Mr. Wilson because they thought reporting from the embassy in Niamey was adequate.
A cable attached to the key memoranda indicates that on September 10, 2001, one day before the terrorist attacks on America, Prime Minister Amadou of Niger told embassy officials "that there were buyers like Iraq who would pay more for Niger's uranium than France." The cable also said American officials received "frequent leadpipe guarantees by the French ambassador here that no uranium diversion to rogue states is possible." A Senate report discussed the alleged comment from Mr. Amadou, but did not give the exact date.
The State Department documents were released to the Sun in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in July 2005. A spokeswoman for the department said no one was available to discuss the matter yesterday.
-> View the declassified July 7, 2003 memo
URL: LINK
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Cheney Said Questioned On CIA Leak
WASHINGTON, June 5, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) Vice President Dick Cheney was recently interviewed by federal prosecutors who asked whether he knew of anyone at the White House who had improperly disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer, The New York Times reports in its Saturday editions, citing people who have been involved in official discussions about the case.
"Cheney was also asked about conversations with senior aides, including his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, according to people officially informed about the case," the Times says. "In addition, those people said, Mr. Cheney was asked whether he knew of any concerted effort by White House aides to name the officer. It was not clear how Mr. Cheney responded to the prosecutors' questions."
The interview of the vice president was part of a grand jury investigation into whether anyone at the White House violated a federal law that makes it a crime to divulge the name of an undercover officer intentionally, the newspaper explains.
Cheney is not thought to be a focus of the inquiry, which is headed by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, the Times points out. Fitzgerald was appointed by the Justice Department as a special counsel in the case.
White House officials have denied that any senior aides disclosed the name of the officer, Valerie Plame, to Robert Novak, who wrote in his syndicated column in July 2003 that Ms. Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Times adds.
"It is not clear when or where Mr. Cheney was interviewed," the Times continued, "but he was not questioned under oath and he has not been asked to appear before the grand jury, people officially informed about the case said. His willingness to answer questions was voluntary and apparently followed Mr. Bush's repeated instructions to aides to cooperate with the investigation."
On Friday, a Cheney spokesman declined to comment to the Times on the case. The spokesman, Kevin Kellems, referred questions about the vice president to Fitzgerald, whose office has declined to comment on the investigation. A call by the newspaper to Terrence O'Donnell, the vice president's private lawyer, was not returned.
Mr. Bush has acknowledged that he had met with a Washington criminal lawyer, Jim Sharp, about the possibility that prosecutors might want to interview him about the case. So far, the White House has made no mention of Cheney's interview or whether it influenced the president's decision to meet with Sharp, the Times notes.
Mr. Bush is not thought to be a focus of the grand jury inquiry, the Times says. On Thursday, Mr. Bush said he did not object to the prosecutors' inquiry.
The decision by Mr. Bush and Cheney to seek private legal counsel is routine for high-level officials when they become involved, even tangentially, in legal issues unrelated to their official duties, the Times observed.
LINK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) Vice President Dick Cheney was recently interviewed by federal prosecutors who asked whether he knew of anyone at the White House who had improperly disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer, The New York Times reports in its Saturday editions, citing people who have been involved in official discussions about the case.
"Cheney was also asked about conversations with senior aides, including his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, according to people officially informed about the case," the Times says. "In addition, those people said, Mr. Cheney was asked whether he knew of any concerted effort by White House aides to name the officer. It was not clear how Mr. Cheney responded to the prosecutors' questions."
The interview of the vice president was part of a grand jury investigation into whether anyone at the White House violated a federal law that makes it a crime to divulge the name of an undercover officer intentionally, the newspaper explains.
Cheney is not thought to be a focus of the inquiry, which is headed by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, the Times points out. Fitzgerald was appointed by the Justice Department as a special counsel in the case.
White House officials have denied that any senior aides disclosed the name of the officer, Valerie Plame, to Robert Novak, who wrote in his syndicated column in July 2003 that Ms. Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Times adds.
"It is not clear when or where Mr. Cheney was interviewed," the Times continued, "but he was not questioned under oath and he has not been asked to appear before the grand jury, people officially informed about the case said. His willingness to answer questions was voluntary and apparently followed Mr. Bush's repeated instructions to aides to cooperate with the investigation."
On Friday, a Cheney spokesman declined to comment to the Times on the case. The spokesman, Kevin Kellems, referred questions about the vice president to Fitzgerald, whose office has declined to comment on the investigation. A call by the newspaper to Terrence O'Donnell, the vice president's private lawyer, was not returned.
Mr. Bush has acknowledged that he had met with a Washington criminal lawyer, Jim Sharp, about the possibility that prosecutors might want to interview him about the case. So far, the White House has made no mention of Cheney's interview or whether it influenced the president's decision to meet with Sharp, the Times notes.
Mr. Bush is not thought to be a focus of the grand jury inquiry, the Times says. On Thursday, Mr. Bush said he did not object to the prosecutors' inquiry.
The decision by Mr. Bush and Cheney to seek private legal counsel is routine for high-level officials when they become involved, even tangentially, in legal issues unrelated to their official duties, the Times observed.
LINK
Saturday, April 15, 2006
E-Mail Said to Link Abramoff, Safavian
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Apr 15, 1:20 PM ET
A batch of 278 e-mails between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a Bush administration official show a highly inappropriate relationship where gifts and business interests mixed freely and frequently, federal prosecutors said Friday.
The prosecutors hope to use the e-mails in the criminal case against David Safavian, who is accused of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with investigations of an Abramoff-sponsored golf outing to Scotland in August 2002.
The e-mails show that Abramoff and Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, were in frequent contact, played golf often and traded workplace gossip. Abramoff showered Safavian with offers of meals, invitations to parties as well as the trip to the fabled St. Andrew's golf course in Scotland.
One message from Abramoff, sent July 23, 2002, asks Safavian, "golf Friday? golf Sunday? golf Monday? golf, golf, golf!!"
At the same time, Abramoff is peppering Safavian with questions and requests for his help on a variety of projects, including obtaining parcels of federal land that were managed by GSA for Abramoff's charitable groups.
"The e-mails demonstrate that Mr. Safavian's relationship with Mr. Abramoff was highly inappropriate," prosecutors wrote in a court filing accompanying the e-mails.
Prosecutors and Safavian's attorneys are engaged in a legal fight over how much of this material should be shown to the jury during Safavian's upcoming trial, which is scheduled to begin May 22.
Barbara Van Gelder, a lawyer for Safavian, described the court filing as "a press release that allows the government to place inadmissible hearsay documents into the public record right before trial."
Van Gelder said that while Abramoff offered Safavian meals, trips and sports tickets, the "evidence shows that Mr. Safavian either declined the offers or paid for the expense with his own money. There is no conspiracy. There is no agreement. This is the government's attempt to inflate a flat case with hot air."
Sometimes Safavian responds to Abramoff with an invitation of his own, insisting in one instance that they play golf at Safavian's club in Springfield, Va. On another occasion, just after the Scotland trip, Safavian told Abramoff that he recommended the lobbyist to an architectural and engineering firm that wanted to become eligible for federal contracts. He titled his e-mail, "Client Development."
When Abramoff invited Safavian and his wife to have their anniversary dinner at Abramoff's Signatures restaurant in downtown Washington, Safavian declined, saying he was preparing veal cutlets a la suisse at home.
Van Gelder has said that the government has been trying to pressure Safavian to provide information about Abramoff and others who are part of the wide-ranging investigation of lobbying fraud and public corruption.
Abramoff is cooperating with federal investigators. He pleaded guilty in January to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud.
The e-mails also reveal that in early 2002 Safavian thought about leaving his congressional staff job for Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff strongly supported that idea, but Safavian apparently never received an offer, according to the e-mails.
"Just spoke with Fred. He asked what I am going to do. I told him I was leaning towards GSA, but was waiting to hear back from GT. Unfortunately he didn't talk any numbers," Safavian wrote Abramoff on April 30.
An hour later, Abramoff replied: "This is crap. Should I call Fred right now? you should get a ... offer!!! Idiots over here!!"
Instead, Safavian moved from Congress to the General Services Administration.
The two men also looked for opportunities to get Abramoff together with GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry. Safavian tells Abramoff the GSA July 4 party would be a good place to meet Perry. Abramoff at one point suggests bringing Perry along to Scotland. Perry was not part of that trip.
LINK
Sat Apr 15, 1:20 PM ET
A batch of 278 e-mails between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a Bush administration official show a highly inappropriate relationship where gifts and business interests mixed freely and frequently, federal prosecutors said Friday.
The prosecutors hope to use the e-mails in the criminal case against David Safavian, who is accused of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with investigations of an Abramoff-sponsored golf outing to Scotland in August 2002.
The e-mails show that Abramoff and Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, were in frequent contact, played golf often and traded workplace gossip. Abramoff showered Safavian with offers of meals, invitations to parties as well as the trip to the fabled St. Andrew's golf course in Scotland.
One message from Abramoff, sent July 23, 2002, asks Safavian, "golf Friday? golf Sunday? golf Monday? golf, golf, golf!!"
At the same time, Abramoff is peppering Safavian with questions and requests for his help on a variety of projects, including obtaining parcels of federal land that were managed by GSA for Abramoff's charitable groups.
"The e-mails demonstrate that Mr. Safavian's relationship with Mr. Abramoff was highly inappropriate," prosecutors wrote in a court filing accompanying the e-mails.
Prosecutors and Safavian's attorneys are engaged in a legal fight over how much of this material should be shown to the jury during Safavian's upcoming trial, which is scheduled to begin May 22.
Barbara Van Gelder, a lawyer for Safavian, described the court filing as "a press release that allows the government to place inadmissible hearsay documents into the public record right before trial."
Van Gelder said that while Abramoff offered Safavian meals, trips and sports tickets, the "evidence shows that Mr. Safavian either declined the offers or paid for the expense with his own money. There is no conspiracy. There is no agreement. This is the government's attempt to inflate a flat case with hot air."
Sometimes Safavian responds to Abramoff with an invitation of his own, insisting in one instance that they play golf at Safavian's club in Springfield, Va. On another occasion, just after the Scotland trip, Safavian told Abramoff that he recommended the lobbyist to an architectural and engineering firm that wanted to become eligible for federal contracts. He titled his e-mail, "Client Development."
When Abramoff invited Safavian and his wife to have their anniversary dinner at Abramoff's Signatures restaurant in downtown Washington, Safavian declined, saying he was preparing veal cutlets a la suisse at home.
Van Gelder has said that the government has been trying to pressure Safavian to provide information about Abramoff and others who are part of the wide-ranging investigation of lobbying fraud and public corruption.
Abramoff is cooperating with federal investigators. He pleaded guilty in January to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud.
The e-mails also reveal that in early 2002 Safavian thought about leaving his congressional staff job for Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff strongly supported that idea, but Safavian apparently never received an offer, according to the e-mails.
"Just spoke with Fred. He asked what I am going to do. I told him I was leaning towards GSA, but was waiting to hear back from GT. Unfortunately he didn't talk any numbers," Safavian wrote Abramoff on April 30.
An hour later, Abramoff replied: "This is crap. Should I call Fred right now? you should get a ... offer!!! Idiots over here!!"
Instead, Safavian moved from Congress to the General Services Administration.
The two men also looked for opportunities to get Abramoff together with GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry. Safavian tells Abramoff the GSA July 4 party would be a good place to meet Perry. Abramoff at one point suggests bringing Perry along to Scotland. Perry was not part of that trip.
LINK
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