By DAVID HAMMER, Associated Press Writer
A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff's firm show.
Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday.
The government of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands extended the invitations to Jackson and other high-level GOP House leadership staff while Congress was considering legislation to control immigration and labor practices in the remote Pacific island territory.
Abramoff, the central figure in a wide-ranging Justice Department investigation of influence peddling in Congress, lobbied for the Marianas in Washington. The commonwealth's government was accused of permitting egregiously low wages and poor conditions for immigrants working in sweatshops.
According to bills from Abramoff's former lobbying firm to the Marianas government, Abramoff's staff contacted Boehner's office about island issues at least 10 times in the first four months of 1996. Copies of the billing records were obtained by The Associated Press through open-records requests to the territorial government.
Typically, the contact was made by David Safavian, who later became the Bush administration's chief procurement official in the Office of Management and Budget. Safavian recently was indicted on charges of obstructing investigations of his ties to Abramoff. Safavian was the first administration official indicted in the Abramoff scandal.
On March 15, 1996, two weeks before the Saipan trip, Abramoff's lobbying records show Safavian went over trip plans with Jackson and Mimi Simoneaux, then spokeswoman for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. On April 1, the day the congressional aides flew to the Marianas, Safavian called Boehner's office "to ascertain the location of B. Jackson." Abramoff's employee called about Jackson again the following day.
Jackson does not recall why he decided not to make the trip, given that it occurred 10 years ago, Healy said.
Since Boehner started campaigning early this year to replace DeLay as the No. 2-ranked House leader, he has denied having any relationship with Abramoff. Boehner has promised reforms to shake the GOP's Abramoff-related troubles.
When asked about the contacts between his office and Abramoff's, including a dinner Boehner attended in May 1996, Boehner told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday: "Some of his (Abramoff's) underlings worked with some low-level employees of my office. I'm telling you I never met the man."
Boehner spokesman Don Seymour said Tuesday that Boehner now does recall meeting Abramoff once, in "a brief, incidental conversation at a widely attended event that he estimates was about five years ago."
In an e-mail to the AP, Seymour also said Boehner did not intentionally downplay Jackson's role on his staff.
Boehner has declined to give up more than $30,000 he got from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, saying his own work on tribal issues justifies the contributions. He did not receive any money from the tribes until Abramoff represented them.
LINK
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Abramoff's Evangelical Soldiers
Max Blumenthal
Gambling might not rank as high as homosexuality or abortion on the list of social evils monitored by Focus on the Family found er James Dobson, but its growth has provided many occasions for his jeremiads. The indictment of Indian casino lobbyist and influential GOP activist Jack Abramoff was one such occasion. In a January 6 press release issued three days after Abramoff's indictment, Dobson declared, "If the nation's politicians don't fix this national disaster, then the oceans of gambling money with which Jack Abramoff tried to buy influence on Capitol Hill will only be the beginning of the corruption we'll see." He concluded with a denunciation of vice: "Gambling--all types of gambling--is driven by greed and subsists on greed."
What Dobson neglected to mention--and has yet to discuss publicly--is his own pivotal role in one of Abramoff's schemes. In 2002 Dobson joined a coterie of Christian-right activists, including Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, to spearhead Abramoff's campaigns against the establishment of several Louisiana casinos that infringed on the turf of Abramoff's tribal clients. Dobson and his allies recorded messages for phone banking, lobbied high-level Bush Administration officials and took to the airwaves. Whether they knew it or not, these Christian soldiers' crusade to protect families in the "Sportsmen's Paradise" from the side effects of chronic slot-pulling and dice-rolling was funded by the gambling industry and planned by the lobbyist known even to his friends as "Casino Jack."
The only Christian-right activist confirmed to be completely aware of Abramoff's rip-off was Ralph Reed. He and Abramoff have a long and storied history together. When Abramoff chaired the College Republican National Committee in the early 1980s, Reed served as the organization's executive director. They reunited in 1989, when Abramoff helped Reed organize the remains of Pat Robertson's failed 1988 presidential bid into the Christian Coalition. In 1997, with the Christian Coalition under IRS investigation and Reed facing accusations of cronyism from the group's chief financial officer, he left to start his own consulting firm, Century Strategies. Reed contacted Abramoff right away. "I need to start humping in corporate accounts," Reed told him in 1998. "I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts."
Though Abramoff apparently was not fond of Reed, he viewed him as useful. "I know you (we!) hate him [Reed], but it does give us good cover and patter to have him doing stuff," he wrote in a February 14, 2002, e-mail to his business partner, Michael Scanlon. "Let's give him a list of things we want...and give him some chump change to get it done." Reed thus became Abramoff and Scanlon's liaison to the Christian right, enlisting his evangelical allies into a web of shadowy casino hustles for "chump change."
Reed's first sleight of hand was enticing Perkins, Falwell and Robertson to try to block a 2001 bill in the Louisiana legislature loosening restrictions on riverboat casinos, which would have posed a competitive threat to Abramoff's clients, the Coushattas. At the time, Perkins was a right-wing State Representative hailed by Reed as the legislature's "anti-gambling leader."
As Perkins lobbied his colleagues against the riverboat bill, he pushed Reed to pour money into an aggressive phone-banking campaign to rally conservative Christian voters.
With a steady supply of gambling industry cash, Abramoff dumped a phone-bank budget of more than $60,000 into Reed's war chest for PR efforts against his clients' rivals, the Jena Choctaws (Reed had asked for $150,000)--supplementing the $10,000 in tribal gambling money he directed to Reed's 2001 campaign for chair of the Georgia GOP and the nearly $4 million he ultimately funneled into Reed's personal account. Reed then recruited Falwell to record a phone message against the bill. He also solicited the help of his former boss at the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, thanking him for his "leadership for our values." Like the answering of a prayer, tens of thousands of Louisiana Republicans suddenly were bombarded with the voice of God against vice, played by Robertson and Falwell.
On March 22, 2001, the bill was resoundingly defeated in the legislature. "You are the greatest!!!" an ecstatic Abramoff wrote to Reed.
More here
Gambling might not rank as high as homosexuality or abortion on the list of social evils monitored by Focus on the Family found er James Dobson, but its growth has provided many occasions for his jeremiads. The indictment of Indian casino lobbyist and influential GOP activist Jack Abramoff was one such occasion. In a January 6 press release issued three days after Abramoff's indictment, Dobson declared, "If the nation's politicians don't fix this national disaster, then the oceans of gambling money with which Jack Abramoff tried to buy influence on Capitol Hill will only be the beginning of the corruption we'll see." He concluded with a denunciation of vice: "Gambling--all types of gambling--is driven by greed and subsists on greed."
What Dobson neglected to mention--and has yet to discuss publicly--is his own pivotal role in one of Abramoff's schemes. In 2002 Dobson joined a coterie of Christian-right activists, including Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, to spearhead Abramoff's campaigns against the establishment of several Louisiana casinos that infringed on the turf of Abramoff's tribal clients. Dobson and his allies recorded messages for phone banking, lobbied high-level Bush Administration officials and took to the airwaves. Whether they knew it or not, these Christian soldiers' crusade to protect families in the "Sportsmen's Paradise" from the side effects of chronic slot-pulling and dice-rolling was funded by the gambling industry and planned by the lobbyist known even to his friends as "Casino Jack."
The only Christian-right activist confirmed to be completely aware of Abramoff's rip-off was Ralph Reed. He and Abramoff have a long and storied history together. When Abramoff chaired the College Republican National Committee in the early 1980s, Reed served as the organization's executive director. They reunited in 1989, when Abramoff helped Reed organize the remains of Pat Robertson's failed 1988 presidential bid into the Christian Coalition. In 1997, with the Christian Coalition under IRS investigation and Reed facing accusations of cronyism from the group's chief financial officer, he left to start his own consulting firm, Century Strategies. Reed contacted Abramoff right away. "I need to start humping in corporate accounts," Reed told him in 1998. "I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts."
Though Abramoff apparently was not fond of Reed, he viewed him as useful. "I know you (we!) hate him [Reed], but it does give us good cover and patter to have him doing stuff," he wrote in a February 14, 2002, e-mail to his business partner, Michael Scanlon. "Let's give him a list of things we want...and give him some chump change to get it done." Reed thus became Abramoff and Scanlon's liaison to the Christian right, enlisting his evangelical allies into a web of shadowy casino hustles for "chump change."
Reed's first sleight of hand was enticing Perkins, Falwell and Robertson to try to block a 2001 bill in the Louisiana legislature loosening restrictions on riverboat casinos, which would have posed a competitive threat to Abramoff's clients, the Coushattas. At the time, Perkins was a right-wing State Representative hailed by Reed as the legislature's "anti-gambling leader."
As Perkins lobbied his colleagues against the riverboat bill, he pushed Reed to pour money into an aggressive phone-banking campaign to rally conservative Christian voters.
With a steady supply of gambling industry cash, Abramoff dumped a phone-bank budget of more than $60,000 into Reed's war chest for PR efforts against his clients' rivals, the Jena Choctaws (Reed had asked for $150,000)--supplementing the $10,000 in tribal gambling money he directed to Reed's 2001 campaign for chair of the Georgia GOP and the nearly $4 million he ultimately funneled into Reed's personal account. Reed then recruited Falwell to record a phone message against the bill. He also solicited the help of his former boss at the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, thanking him for his "leadership for our values." Like the answering of a prayer, tens of thousands of Louisiana Republicans suddenly were bombarded with the voice of God against vice, played by Robertson and Falwell.
On March 22, 2001, the bill was resoundingly defeated in the legislature. "You are the greatest!!!" an ecstatic Abramoff wrote to Reed.
More here
Heat continues: Wall Street Journal says Bush, Abramoff woes persist
RAW STORY
Published: February 7, 2006
"The scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has shaken up Capitol Hill. But it still poses significant problems for the Bush White House," the Wall Street Journal's Jeanne Cummings writes in a story for Wednesday editions. The story leads the Journal's politics and policy section. Excerpts:
#
A court hearing scheduled later this month may bring fresh attention to the case of former White House aide David Safavian, who is charged with lying in connection with a golf trip Mr. Abramoff arranged. Justice Department officials haven't closed their review of actions by former Interior Department official J. Steven Griles, who disputes claims that he favored Abramoff clients, such as Native American tribes involved in casinos. Calls for the White House to release photos of Mr. Abramoff with the president -- and details of his contacts with presidential aides including Karl Rove -- haven't abated.
"Their refusal to release information is inexcusable," says Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal organization Judicial Watch. As a result, the scandal "is now in the White House."
Mr. Abramoff was an early backer of the president, having been listed as a co-chairman pledged to raise $25,000 for Mr. Bush at a 1999 Washington reception. He gave money to the president's recount committee in 2000 and was in the elite tier of fund-raisers for the president's 2004 re-election committee. An Abramoff aide, Susan Ralston, later went to work as Mr. Rove's executive assistant at the White House.
Mr. Abramoff bragged of his "contact" with Mr. Rove when Tyco International Ltd. sought action on tax legislation in 2002, according to Senate testimony by Tim Flanigan, a former Tyco official. A White House spokesman says Mr. Rove doesn't remember talking to Mr. Abramoff about Tyco.
Mr. Safavian lobbied alongside Mr. Abramoff before applying for a job with the General Services Administration. On his GSA job application, Mr. Safavian listed Mr. Rove as a reference. Barbara Van Gelder, Mr. Safavian's attorney, dismisses the inside information that prosecutors have seized upon as irrelevant.
LINK
Published: February 7, 2006
"The scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has shaken up Capitol Hill. But it still poses significant problems for the Bush White House," the Wall Street Journal's Jeanne Cummings writes in a story for Wednesday editions. The story leads the Journal's politics and policy section. Excerpts:
#
A court hearing scheduled later this month may bring fresh attention to the case of former White House aide David Safavian, who is charged with lying in connection with a golf trip Mr. Abramoff arranged. Justice Department officials haven't closed their review of actions by former Interior Department official J. Steven Griles, who disputes claims that he favored Abramoff clients, such as Native American tribes involved in casinos. Calls for the White House to release photos of Mr. Abramoff with the president -- and details of his contacts with presidential aides including Karl Rove -- haven't abated.
"Their refusal to release information is inexcusable," says Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal organization Judicial Watch. As a result, the scandal "is now in the White House."
Mr. Abramoff was an early backer of the president, having been listed as a co-chairman pledged to raise $25,000 for Mr. Bush at a 1999 Washington reception. He gave money to the president's recount committee in 2000 and was in the elite tier of fund-raisers for the president's 2004 re-election committee. An Abramoff aide, Susan Ralston, later went to work as Mr. Rove's executive assistant at the White House.
Mr. Abramoff bragged of his "contact" with Mr. Rove when Tyco International Ltd. sought action on tax legislation in 2002, according to Senate testimony by Tim Flanigan, a former Tyco official. A White House spokesman says Mr. Rove doesn't remember talking to Mr. Abramoff about Tyco.
Mr. Safavian lobbied alongside Mr. Abramoff before applying for a job with the General Services Administration. On his GSA job application, Mr. Safavian listed Mr. Rove as a reference. Barbara Van Gelder, Mr. Safavian's attorney, dismisses the inside information that prosecutors have seized upon as irrelevant.
LINK
Dickerson Speaks...And Drops Some Bombshells
Well, well, well...can you say concerted effort to discredit Wilson, planned carefully by folks at the White House, executed with precision planning, and...conspiracy? John Dickerson, formerly of Time Magazine, has a doozy of a two-part story on Slate. He lays out the timeline of his involvement in Administration leaks on Joe and Valerie Wilson. And it isn't pretty.
If Fitz was trying to flush something out of the underbrush with his letter to Libby's lawyers, he's gotten a whole brace of fat pigeons with this missive. And if I were representing Karl Rove, I'd be puckering this morning...along with several other Administration officials. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First of all, Dickerson is snide. You have to like that in a correspondant, don't you? And his detailed narrative suggests a man who takes copious notes or records things to a mini-cassette -- or who just has a great memory for details, which makes for some great reading. Would that everyone involved in this had such a great memory...*cough* Judy *cough*...but I guess we can't expect miracles or anything. (Especially when certain journalists might be protecting their pals or their own asses. Amazing how a real journalist can actually report facts and details and stuff, isn't it?)
Second, how can you not love a reporter who gives a hat tip to FDL for reporting on Traitorgate and catching Dickerson's name in the Libby docu-dump in the first place? Thanks, and back at ya.
Dickerson does a good job of describing the Libby strategy in Part I, and then systematically pokes holes in it through his re-telling of events as he lived them in Part II. And in doing so, Dickerson paints a portrait of an Administration in full-out damage control mode -- willing to throw the CIA and George Tenet under a bus to save the President's butt -- and willing to toss out the name of a covert CIA operative without a thought to the consequences (Rove, Libby, anyone?), hoping to discredit her husband, whose criticisms could not be allowed to gain any more traction with the public, and shut up critics in the CIA who weren't comfortable taking the blame for the President's and other Administration officials' false public statements.
A whole lot of people in the Administration, including the President himself, tossing the CIA out the window...in a coordinated, press-forward effort.
That this was a planned, coordinated effort is obvious in reading Dickerson's two-part piece. And when you read it in concert with everything else we know about the Traitorgate case, you have to think that Fitzgerald is sitting on a whole lot of information we have yet to see. (If you are sensing a Cheshire cat grin on my face, you would be on the mark.)
In this time frame, the President himself cast blame on the CIA for "the 16 words" in the SOTU, and Condi went back to the press cabin on her own to throw the CIA under the bus. At no time did any of these Administration officials reveal that Stephen Hadley had been warned that the Niger yellowcake bit was crap and that the CIA had previously asked that this information be removed from the President's speech in Ohio -- nope, it was blame Joe Wilson full-on damage mode. That lots of people at the CIA were involved in the decision to send Wilson? Nope -- let's just blame the missus and all will be well. Liars.
Here's what I see from reading Dickerson: He spoke with two "senior Administration officials" during his trip to Africa, on two completely separate occasions, but each within an hour of the other's conversation with Dickerson -- both of whom fed him the exact same line on questioning Joe Wilson's credibility and that Dickerson ought to look into who sent Amb. Wilson to Africa in the first place. He finished talking with them around 10:30 am DC time.
During that same time period, Rove contacted Matt Cooper and planted the same seeds -- with one addition, that Joe Wilson's wife was the one who sent him on the trip. (Never mind that this was false, but that's a whole n'other post.) And Scooter Libby served as the confirming source for Cooper on this fact. (Can you say WHIG damage control group? I sure as hell can.)
Dickerson and Cooper spoke around 1:00 pm DC time, and compared notes -- remarkably similar notes, but for the Rove addition of Wilson's wife. Strange how so many people in the Administration scattered across the four corners of the globe -- from DC to far-flung, difficult communication areas on the African continent -- all had the same story line to feed to the press, isn't it? Almost as though there was substantial coordination of message and facts, or something. (Can you say conpiracy? I thought you could.)
Cooper got confirmation on this story about Wilson from Libby, after speaking with Dickerson. (Again, hello WHIG media confirmation circle jerks.)
And, based on what Dickerson writes in Part II, the "senior government officials" with whom he spoke are likely to have testified before the grand jury or at least have been interviewed by investigators -- because he references conversations with them about e-mails he had exchanged on the subject and their testimony, along with Coopers.
At the end of the article, Dickerson leaves us with this quite interesting tidbit:
I came back from the trip harboring a suspicion that only fully made sense when I learned Plame's CIA cover had been blown. It seemed obvious that the people pushing me to look into who sent Wilson knew exactly the answer I'd find. Yet they were really careful not to let the information slip, which suggested that they knew at the time Plame's identity was radioactive.
You know, you would be awfully careful not to let a name slip if you knew you'd be committing a felony and treason to do so, wouldn't you?
But, say, you want the name out there in the public domain, and you plant a kernel of "seek and ye shall find" with a journalist that you know will do his job to sniff out a story...and then you can sit back and let someone else reveal the name of the CIA NOC, and pretend your conscience is clear. Except for one thing: if you are the official who set the journalist on the story in the first place, along with a whole lot of other adminsitration officials who are trying to set the same scent trail for the journalistic hounds to follow, then you are, at best, part of a conspiracy to attempt to reveal classified information.
And if, say, one of the members of the conspiracy reveals the name or the identity of that covert CIA operative (you know, by saying something like "Wilson's wife"), then every single member of that conspiracy can be charged as if they all revealed her identity. Because that's what it means to be part of a conspiracy -- you all get tagged with the worst conduct of any one of your members, because you were all working toward the same common goal and purpose -- so long as each member took some step in futherance of the conspiracy, they are all chargeable with the same bad conduct.
In this case, it would be to silence an Administration critic before his words did lasting damage and to bring the CIA to heel before the public learned that the Bush Administration had lied all along about there being any threat from Saddam Hussein and yellowcake, and Condi's big old lying mushroom cloud analogies.
Oh, and those "senior administration officials" who spoke to Dickerson? I sure hope they were fully forthcoming in their interviews with the FBI and their testimony to the grand jury. If not, I'm thinking John Dickerson can expect his subpoena any day...because those officials might be staring down the length of a potential obstruction/perjury/false statements indictment of their own.
Which lends intself to these questions: who might be ripe for the flipping? Who else is Rove willing to throw under the bus to save his sorry ass? And how long does Libby have before the Administration considers him the sacrificial lamb and cuts him loose to the wolves -- and how will he and his family feel about being thrown out like yesterday's stale trash?
Another day, another piece of the puzzle. This time, the pieces come with flashing warning signs: "Beyond this point, there be dragons."
I'm working on some timelines on this, and will try to flesh this out further as time permits today -- but read the Dickerson piece and see if you can spot all the bombshells. It's been an intriguing coupla weeks in the Traitorgate saga, hasn't it? The more I think about it, the more I wonder about Team Libby's release of that letter -- and who might have been the intended recipient of some pretty heavy smoke signals.
LINK
If Fitz was trying to flush something out of the underbrush with his letter to Libby's lawyers, he's gotten a whole brace of fat pigeons with this missive. And if I were representing Karl Rove, I'd be puckering this morning...along with several other Administration officials. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First of all, Dickerson is snide. You have to like that in a correspondant, don't you? And his detailed narrative suggests a man who takes copious notes or records things to a mini-cassette -- or who just has a great memory for details, which makes for some great reading. Would that everyone involved in this had such a great memory...*cough* Judy *cough*...but I guess we can't expect miracles or anything. (Especially when certain journalists might be protecting their pals or their own asses. Amazing how a real journalist can actually report facts and details and stuff, isn't it?)
Second, how can you not love a reporter who gives a hat tip to FDL for reporting on Traitorgate and catching Dickerson's name in the Libby docu-dump in the first place? Thanks, and back at ya.
Dickerson does a good job of describing the Libby strategy in Part I, and then systematically pokes holes in it through his re-telling of events as he lived them in Part II. And in doing so, Dickerson paints a portrait of an Administration in full-out damage control mode -- willing to throw the CIA and George Tenet under a bus to save the President's butt -- and willing to toss out the name of a covert CIA operative without a thought to the consequences (Rove, Libby, anyone?), hoping to discredit her husband, whose criticisms could not be allowed to gain any more traction with the public, and shut up critics in the CIA who weren't comfortable taking the blame for the President's and other Administration officials' false public statements.
A whole lot of people in the Administration, including the President himself, tossing the CIA out the window...in a coordinated, press-forward effort.
That this was a planned, coordinated effort is obvious in reading Dickerson's two-part piece. And when you read it in concert with everything else we know about the Traitorgate case, you have to think that Fitzgerald is sitting on a whole lot of information we have yet to see. (If you are sensing a Cheshire cat grin on my face, you would be on the mark.)
In this time frame, the President himself cast blame on the CIA for "the 16 words" in the SOTU, and Condi went back to the press cabin on her own to throw the CIA under the bus. At no time did any of these Administration officials reveal that Stephen Hadley had been warned that the Niger yellowcake bit was crap and that the CIA had previously asked that this information be removed from the President's speech in Ohio -- nope, it was blame Joe Wilson full-on damage mode. That lots of people at the CIA were involved in the decision to send Wilson? Nope -- let's just blame the missus and all will be well. Liars.
Here's what I see from reading Dickerson: He spoke with two "senior Administration officials" during his trip to Africa, on two completely separate occasions, but each within an hour of the other's conversation with Dickerson -- both of whom fed him the exact same line on questioning Joe Wilson's credibility and that Dickerson ought to look into who sent Amb. Wilson to Africa in the first place. He finished talking with them around 10:30 am DC time.
During that same time period, Rove contacted Matt Cooper and planted the same seeds -- with one addition, that Joe Wilson's wife was the one who sent him on the trip. (Never mind that this was false, but that's a whole n'other post.) And Scooter Libby served as the confirming source for Cooper on this fact. (Can you say WHIG damage control group? I sure as hell can.)
Dickerson and Cooper spoke around 1:00 pm DC time, and compared notes -- remarkably similar notes, but for the Rove addition of Wilson's wife. Strange how so many people in the Administration scattered across the four corners of the globe -- from DC to far-flung, difficult communication areas on the African continent -- all had the same story line to feed to the press, isn't it? Almost as though there was substantial coordination of message and facts, or something. (Can you say conpiracy? I thought you could.)
Cooper got confirmation on this story about Wilson from Libby, after speaking with Dickerson. (Again, hello WHIG media confirmation circle jerks.)
And, based on what Dickerson writes in Part II, the "senior government officials" with whom he spoke are likely to have testified before the grand jury or at least have been interviewed by investigators -- because he references conversations with them about e-mails he had exchanged on the subject and their testimony, along with Coopers.
At the end of the article, Dickerson leaves us with this quite interesting tidbit:
I came back from the trip harboring a suspicion that only fully made sense when I learned Plame's CIA cover had been blown. It seemed obvious that the people pushing me to look into who sent Wilson knew exactly the answer I'd find. Yet they were really careful not to let the information slip, which suggested that they knew at the time Plame's identity was radioactive.
You know, you would be awfully careful not to let a name slip if you knew you'd be committing a felony and treason to do so, wouldn't you?
But, say, you want the name out there in the public domain, and you plant a kernel of "seek and ye shall find" with a journalist that you know will do his job to sniff out a story...and then you can sit back and let someone else reveal the name of the CIA NOC, and pretend your conscience is clear. Except for one thing: if you are the official who set the journalist on the story in the first place, along with a whole lot of other adminsitration officials who are trying to set the same scent trail for the journalistic hounds to follow, then you are, at best, part of a conspiracy to attempt to reveal classified information.
And if, say, one of the members of the conspiracy reveals the name or the identity of that covert CIA operative (you know, by saying something like "Wilson's wife"), then every single member of that conspiracy can be charged as if they all revealed her identity. Because that's what it means to be part of a conspiracy -- you all get tagged with the worst conduct of any one of your members, because you were all working toward the same common goal and purpose -- so long as each member took some step in futherance of the conspiracy, they are all chargeable with the same bad conduct.
In this case, it would be to silence an Administration critic before his words did lasting damage and to bring the CIA to heel before the public learned that the Bush Administration had lied all along about there being any threat from Saddam Hussein and yellowcake, and Condi's big old lying mushroom cloud analogies.
Oh, and those "senior administration officials" who spoke to Dickerson? I sure hope they were fully forthcoming in their interviews with the FBI and their testimony to the grand jury. If not, I'm thinking John Dickerson can expect his subpoena any day...because those officials might be staring down the length of a potential obstruction/perjury/false statements indictment of their own.
Which lends intself to these questions: who might be ripe for the flipping? Who else is Rove willing to throw under the bus to save his sorry ass? And how long does Libby have before the Administration considers him the sacrificial lamb and cuts him loose to the wolves -- and how will he and his family feel about being thrown out like yesterday's stale trash?
Another day, another piece of the puzzle. This time, the pieces come with flashing warning signs: "Beyond this point, there be dragons."
I'm working on some timelines on this, and will try to flesh this out further as time permits today -- but read the Dickerson piece and see if you can spot all the bombshells. It's been an intriguing coupla weeks in the Traitorgate saga, hasn't it? The more I think about it, the more I wonder about Team Libby's release of that letter -- and who might have been the intended recipient of some pretty heavy smoke signals.
LINK
Will Scooter Libby Graymail the CIA?
David Corn
Mon Feb 6, 2:06 PM ET
The Nation -- Will Scooter Libby, a neocon who helped orchestrate the war in Iraq, end up graymailing the U.S. government?
That seems to be one of the strategies being considered by the lawyers defending Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case for lying to FBI investigators and grand jurors to cover up his (and possibly Cheney's) participation in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Wilson (nee Plame).
Graymail is a defense gambit not available to most criminal suspects. But years ago defense attorneys representing clients connected to the national security establishment--say, a former CIA employee gone bad--figured out a way to squeeze the government in order to win the case: claim you need access to loads of classified information in order to mount a defense--more than might truly be necessary. Of course, the government is going to put up a fight. It may release some information--but not everything a thorough defense attorney will say is needed. The goal is to get the government to say no to the informant. Then the defense attorney can attempt to convince the judge that without access to this material he or she cannot put up an adequate defense. If the lawyer succeeds, it's case dismissed. In such situations, the defendant is essentially saying, prosecute me and I'll blow whatever government secrets I can. Isn't that the act of a patriot?
Judges tend to dislike graymailers and shoot them down whenever possible. Still, Libby seems close to making this sort of push. Last week, his attorneys asked for access to ten months' worth of the President's Daily Brief, the highly classified report the president receives each morning from the CIA. (The Bush White House is ferociously possessive about PDBs and has refused to hand them over to congressional investigations.) Libby's lawyers say that Libby "was immersed throughout the relevant period in urgent and sensitive matters, some literally matters of life and death" and that because of his involvement in "the constant rush of more pressing matters, any errors he made in his FBI interviews or grand jury testimony" were unintentional slips. Libby, a lawyer himself, has to realize that (a) Fitzgerald does not have it within his power to provide the requested PDBs and (b) the overly secretive, presidential-prerogative-is-us White House in which Libby served will never cough up nearly a year of PDBs. But in a display of chutzpah, Libby's attorneys said that Fitzgerald should obtain copies of the PDB from the CIA and Cheney's office and then turn them over to Libby's lawyers.
Libby's defense team also requested information proving that Valerie Wilson was a classified CIA employee (asserting that the classified nature of her employment at the CIA has not yet been established), and they demanded any CIA damage assessment of the Plame leak. A damage assessment is not the sort of material the agency would supply without a titanic fight. A damage assessment would presumably cover operations and activities the CIA does not want damaged any further by additional disclosure.
These requests seem part of a try-everything defense. How effective will it be for Libby to argue, I didn't tell the truth because I was really busy with affairs of state? (Perhaps Libby is trying to blaze a legal trail for others.) After all, according to Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby, he did not merely get the facts wrong once or twice. It happened in the course of several different interviews--during which Libby consistently told the same (cover?) story: that he did not know that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA until reporters told him and then he merely passed along this unconfirmed gossip to other reporters. Fitzgerald's indictment cites several instances in which Libby obtained or sought information on Valerie Wilson in official channels before he spoke to reporters about her. And the damage assessment issue is no slam-dunk for the defense. Can Libby's defense be that if there was not much damage, then it was okay for him to make false statements purposefully to the FBI and the grand jury?
But Libby may not stop at PDBs, the CIA damage assessment and information pertaining to Valerie Wilson. His lawyer said they might seek other classified records from the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the President. And last week, Ted Wells, one of Libby's attorneys, said that "thousand and thousands and thousands" of pages of evidence have been withheld by Fitzgerald. The special counsel disagreed. By the way, Fitzgerald recently sent a letter to Libby's defense team noting, "In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system." Hmmmm. The White House has lost chunks of email from Cheney's and Bush's offices for 2003, the year Bush invaded Iraq, the year of the CIA leak. Must just be an accident, right?
Meanwhile, on other fronts, Libby and the White House received good news and bad news. Libby and GOPers had reason to be pleased when Judge Reggie Walton set a trial date for next January--which would push the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff beyond the congressional elections. Walton had originally wanted the trial--which could include the spectacle of Dick Cheney taking the stand--in September, but Libby's team asked to push it back, claiming one of his attorneys had a scheduling conflict. (Other good news for Libby and his legal warriors: a Libby defense fund, chaired by Mel Sembler, a former finance chairman of the Republican Party, has raised $2 million for Libby's legal bills. Members of the fund's steering committee include former GOP Senators Fred Thompson and Alan Simpson, former CIA director R. James Woolsey. and former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross.)
The bad news for Libby and Republicans was the release of previously withheld court records that indicate the case against Libby may be stronger than Fitzgerald's indictment suggested. These records, referring to grand jury testimony, reveal more details of Libby's alleged lying to investigators and a grand jury. They also suggest that Cheney may play a significant role in the trial. In his grand jury testimony, Libby said that when news accounts of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger first emerged, it was Cheney who told Libby "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA's Counterproliferation Division, which is part of the agency's clandestine service. Libby's use of this clumsy term--an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion--is intriguing. Is it credible that when Cheney was talking to his chief of staff about a fellow who was telling reporters that he could prove that the Bush administration had misled the nation about the case for war in Iraq that Cheney would do so in an offhand manner?
These newly released records disclose that former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer told Fitzgerald's grand jury that he had a lunch with Libby during which Libby told him that Wilson's wife did counterproliferation work at the CIA and that this information was "hush-hush." Fleischer described the lunch as "kind of weird." Usually, Libby "operated in a very closed-lip fashion," Fleischer said. But in this instance, it seems, he was trying to spread information that could be used against a White House critic.
The court records also show that Fitzgerald--despite what Libby's attorney have claimed--have already demonstrated to the courts overseeing the case that Valerie Wilson was an undercover CIA officer. In a filing to the court, Fitzgerald reported that Valerie Wilson is "a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years."
Libby is certainly not doing all he can to help Fitzgerald get to the bottom of the leak case, as Bush once ordered all White House aides to do so. In fact, Libby is fighting back, as is his right, as hard as he can, and his friends are supportive--and perhaps grateful. After all, Libby is not rolling over on Cheney, Rove or anyone else. No wonder he was a welcomed guest at Cheney's Christmas party in December.
LINK
Mon Feb 6, 2:06 PM ET
The Nation -- Will Scooter Libby, a neocon who helped orchestrate the war in Iraq, end up graymailing the U.S. government?
That seems to be one of the strategies being considered by the lawyers defending Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case for lying to FBI investigators and grand jurors to cover up his (and possibly Cheney's) participation in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Wilson (nee Plame).
Graymail is a defense gambit not available to most criminal suspects. But years ago defense attorneys representing clients connected to the national security establishment--say, a former CIA employee gone bad--figured out a way to squeeze the government in order to win the case: claim you need access to loads of classified information in order to mount a defense--more than might truly be necessary. Of course, the government is going to put up a fight. It may release some information--but not everything a thorough defense attorney will say is needed. The goal is to get the government to say no to the informant. Then the defense attorney can attempt to convince the judge that without access to this material he or she cannot put up an adequate defense. If the lawyer succeeds, it's case dismissed. In such situations, the defendant is essentially saying, prosecute me and I'll blow whatever government secrets I can. Isn't that the act of a patriot?
Judges tend to dislike graymailers and shoot them down whenever possible. Still, Libby seems close to making this sort of push. Last week, his attorneys asked for access to ten months' worth of the President's Daily Brief, the highly classified report the president receives each morning from the CIA. (The Bush White House is ferociously possessive about PDBs and has refused to hand them over to congressional investigations.) Libby's lawyers say that Libby "was immersed throughout the relevant period in urgent and sensitive matters, some literally matters of life and death" and that because of his involvement in "the constant rush of more pressing matters, any errors he made in his FBI interviews or grand jury testimony" were unintentional slips. Libby, a lawyer himself, has to realize that (a) Fitzgerald does not have it within his power to provide the requested PDBs and (b) the overly secretive, presidential-prerogative-is-us White House in which Libby served will never cough up nearly a year of PDBs. But in a display of chutzpah, Libby's attorneys said that Fitzgerald should obtain copies of the PDB from the CIA and Cheney's office and then turn them over to Libby's lawyers.
Libby's defense team also requested information proving that Valerie Wilson was a classified CIA employee (asserting that the classified nature of her employment at the CIA has not yet been established), and they demanded any CIA damage assessment of the Plame leak. A damage assessment is not the sort of material the agency would supply without a titanic fight. A damage assessment would presumably cover operations and activities the CIA does not want damaged any further by additional disclosure.
These requests seem part of a try-everything defense. How effective will it be for Libby to argue, I didn't tell the truth because I was really busy with affairs of state? (Perhaps Libby is trying to blaze a legal trail for others.) After all, according to Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby, he did not merely get the facts wrong once or twice. It happened in the course of several different interviews--during which Libby consistently told the same (cover?) story: that he did not know that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA until reporters told him and then he merely passed along this unconfirmed gossip to other reporters. Fitzgerald's indictment cites several instances in which Libby obtained or sought information on Valerie Wilson in official channels before he spoke to reporters about her. And the damage assessment issue is no slam-dunk for the defense. Can Libby's defense be that if there was not much damage, then it was okay for him to make false statements purposefully to the FBI and the grand jury?
But Libby may not stop at PDBs, the CIA damage assessment and information pertaining to Valerie Wilson. His lawyer said they might seek other classified records from the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the President. And last week, Ted Wells, one of Libby's attorneys, said that "thousand and thousands and thousands" of pages of evidence have been withheld by Fitzgerald. The special counsel disagreed. By the way, Fitzgerald recently sent a letter to Libby's defense team noting, "In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system." Hmmmm. The White House has lost chunks of email from Cheney's and Bush's offices for 2003, the year Bush invaded Iraq, the year of the CIA leak. Must just be an accident, right?
Meanwhile, on other fronts, Libby and the White House received good news and bad news. Libby and GOPers had reason to be pleased when Judge Reggie Walton set a trial date for next January--which would push the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff beyond the congressional elections. Walton had originally wanted the trial--which could include the spectacle of Dick Cheney taking the stand--in September, but Libby's team asked to push it back, claiming one of his attorneys had a scheduling conflict. (Other good news for Libby and his legal warriors: a Libby defense fund, chaired by Mel Sembler, a former finance chairman of the Republican Party, has raised $2 million for Libby's legal bills. Members of the fund's steering committee include former GOP Senators Fred Thompson and Alan Simpson, former CIA director R. James Woolsey. and former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross.)
The bad news for Libby and Republicans was the release of previously withheld court records that indicate the case against Libby may be stronger than Fitzgerald's indictment suggested. These records, referring to grand jury testimony, reveal more details of Libby's alleged lying to investigators and a grand jury. They also suggest that Cheney may play a significant role in the trial. In his grand jury testimony, Libby said that when news accounts of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger first emerged, it was Cheney who told Libby "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA's Counterproliferation Division, which is part of the agency's clandestine service. Libby's use of this clumsy term--an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion--is intriguing. Is it credible that when Cheney was talking to his chief of staff about a fellow who was telling reporters that he could prove that the Bush administration had misled the nation about the case for war in Iraq that Cheney would do so in an offhand manner?
These newly released records disclose that former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer told Fitzgerald's grand jury that he had a lunch with Libby during which Libby told him that Wilson's wife did counterproliferation work at the CIA and that this information was "hush-hush." Fleischer described the lunch as "kind of weird." Usually, Libby "operated in a very closed-lip fashion," Fleischer said. But in this instance, it seems, he was trying to spread information that could be used against a White House critic.
The court records also show that Fitzgerald--despite what Libby's attorney have claimed--have already demonstrated to the courts overseeing the case that Valerie Wilson was an undercover CIA officer. In a filing to the court, Fitzgerald reported that Valerie Wilson is "a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years."
Libby is certainly not doing all he can to help Fitzgerald get to the bottom of the leak case, as Bush once ordered all White House aides to do so. In fact, Libby is fighting back, as is his right, as hard as he can, and his friends are supportive--and perhaps grateful. After all, Libby is not rolling over on Cheney, Rove or anyone else. No wonder he was a welcomed guest at Cheney's Christmas party in December.
LINK
Another Smoking Gun from Dick Cheney David Fiderer
David Fiderer
Sun Feb 5, 7:29 PM ET
Murray Waas' excellent reporting, showing that Cheney knew full well that the smear campaign against Joe Wilson was intended to promote a lie, should remind us what happened over 13 days in March 2003:
March 3, 2003: International Atomic Energy Agency ("IAEA") tells U.S. Mission in Vienna that Niger-Iraq uranium documents are forgeries.
Senate committee report on Iraq's pre-war intelligence, p. 70
March 7, 2003: IAEA reveals that the documents are "inauthentic" to the U.N.
[T]hese documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. Director General of IAEA, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, to the U.N. Security Council
"The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away -- including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said." The Washington Post March 8, 2003
There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
...
After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. Dr. ElBaradei to the U.N. Security Council
March 11, 2003: CIA concedes the documents are "inauthentic".
"[W]e do not dispute the IAEA Director general's conclusion...that documents on Iraq's agreement to buy uranium from Niger are not authentic." Stated both in a CIA[REDACTED]assessment sent for limited distrribution and a current intelligence piece sent to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Senate committee report, p. 71
March 16, 2003: Dick Cheney says the CIA disputes the IAEA.
Tim Russert: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have nuclear program, we disagree?
Dick Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you'll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community disagree. ... [W]e know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
Was Cheney referring to a disagreement over the aluminum tubes, versus the purported uranium sale? Cheney is a very slippery guy. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war Iraq intelligence recounts nothing on aluminum tubes after December 2002; though it does give 20 conclusions asserting that the CIA was wrong every step of the way. But nothing, from any of the intelligence agencies, ever claimed that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons, only the possibility of a nuclear weapons development program.
When will a journalist or public figure, outside the blogosphere, ever have enough balls to say flat out that Dick Cheney is a liar?
LINK
And here is the link to Murray Waas's column:
LINK
Sun Feb 5, 7:29 PM ET
Murray Waas' excellent reporting, showing that Cheney knew full well that the smear campaign against Joe Wilson was intended to promote a lie, should remind us what happened over 13 days in March 2003:
March 3, 2003: International Atomic Energy Agency ("IAEA") tells U.S. Mission in Vienna that Niger-Iraq uranium documents are forgeries.
Senate committee report on Iraq's pre-war intelligence, p. 70
March 7, 2003: IAEA reveals that the documents are "inauthentic" to the U.N.
[T]hese documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. Director General of IAEA, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, to the U.N. Security Council
"The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away -- including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said." The Washington Post March 8, 2003
There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
...
After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. Dr. ElBaradei to the U.N. Security Council
March 11, 2003: CIA concedes the documents are "inauthentic".
"[W]e do not dispute the IAEA Director general's conclusion...that documents on Iraq's agreement to buy uranium from Niger are not authentic." Stated both in a CIA[REDACTED]assessment sent for limited distrribution and a current intelligence piece sent to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Senate committee report, p. 71
March 16, 2003: Dick Cheney says the CIA disputes the IAEA.
Tim Russert: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have nuclear program, we disagree?
Dick Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you'll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community disagree. ... [W]e know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
Was Cheney referring to a disagreement over the aluminum tubes, versus the purported uranium sale? Cheney is a very slippery guy. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war Iraq intelligence recounts nothing on aluminum tubes after December 2002; though it does give 20 conclusions asserting that the CIA was wrong every step of the way. But nothing, from any of the intelligence agencies, ever claimed that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons, only the possibility of a nuclear weapons development program.
When will a journalist or public figure, outside the blogosphere, ever have enough balls to say flat out that Dick Cheney is a liar?
LINK
And here is the link to Murray Waas's column:
LINK
Monday, February 06, 2006
A Credibility 'Gap'
By Steve Benen, AlterNet
Posted on February 6, 2006, Printed on February 6, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/31796/
On the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, then-White House Chief Counsel Alberto Gonzales had a choice. He had just received formal notice from the Department of Justice that the White House was the subject of a criminal investigation as a result of White House officials' leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, as part of an effort to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Gonzales did not immediately alert the White House staff to the investigation, explaining the need to safeguard germane documents. Instead, he asked Justice Department lawyers if he could notify the staff in the morning. Because the call came in after 8:00 p.m. on a weekday, and most of the personnel had left the building, the attorneys agreed. Gonzales, before wrapping up his day, called White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to notify him of the start of the probe. Twelve hours later, Gonzales informed his colleagues that they must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation.
For some of Bush's more imaginative critics, the 12-hour delay generates images of Card, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby holding a late-night document-destruction party in the West Wing. Indeed, in questioning Gonzales' handling of the issue, Bob Schieffer, host of CBS's Face the Nation, noted that the half-day gap would have "give[n] people time to shred documents and do any number of things."
This delay took on renewed significance last week. The New York Daily News reported that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Plame scandal, told lawyers representing Libby that "many emails from [Vice President] Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy." The computer system at the White House is supposed to automatically archive emails sent by the president and his aides. For reasons that are still unclear, these emails -- which may or may not be relevant to the Plame investigation -- were not preserved.
Could aides have used the 12-hour gap to conceal incriminating emails that pointed to staffers' role in exposing the identity of an undercover CIA agent? Prosecutors will no doubt explore this in some detail as the investigation continues, but it's important to note that political observers have understated the length of the delay itself -- by a factor of seven.
Indeed, the timeline of events over the five-day period between Friday, Sept. 26, 2003, and Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003, highlights the fact that the 12-hour head start Gonzales gave Card is largely irrelevant. There was no reason for Card to call back Bush's top lieutenants to start concealing possible wrongdoing after the heads-up from Gonzales. If suppression was their plan, Rove, Libby and others could have begun covering their tracks several days in advance.
When Gonzales received formal notification about the investigation late on Monday, Sept. 29, the Justice Department was only making official what all of Washington already knew. A full three days before the counsel's office received notice, MSNBC reported that the CIA had directed the Justice Department to launch a criminal probe into the leak. In other words, White House aides with internet access learned on Friday night that they were being investigated but weren't told to start securing relevant materials until Tuesday morning, literally 84 hours later.
Perhaps, Bush supporters might argue, the MSNBC report went unnoticed at the White House. Maybe no one on the staff saw the report or any discussion of it on the many political websites that highlighted its significance at the time. Even assuming this is true, it's significantly harder for Bush aides to claim that they also missed a front-page article published in the Washington Post on Sunday, Sept. 28.
The Post's Mike Allen and Dana Priest explained, "At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday." The same article quoted a senior administration official saying that "two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of [undercover agent Plame]." Referring to the leak, the official told the Post, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge."
This front-page, above-the-fold article hit doorsteps in D.C. a full 48 hours before Gonzales instructed the staff to preserve materials relevant to the investigation. Considering the news about the investigation, and the provocative quotes from a top administration official, it stands to reason the article caught the attention of some White House employees.
As such, it strained credulity when Alberto Gonzales told a national television audience last summer that "no one [on the White House staff] knew about the investigation" until he received word from the Justice Department. Gonzales may have promptly called Card on the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, but neither Card nor anyone else in the West Wing needed word from the White House counsel's office to know that an investigation was under way. Like anyone with access to the national media that weekend, they learned about the probe days beforehand.
More here:
LINK
Posted on February 6, 2006, Printed on February 6, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/31796/
On the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, then-White House Chief Counsel Alberto Gonzales had a choice. He had just received formal notice from the Department of Justice that the White House was the subject of a criminal investigation as a result of White House officials' leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, as part of an effort to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Gonzales did not immediately alert the White House staff to the investigation, explaining the need to safeguard germane documents. Instead, he asked Justice Department lawyers if he could notify the staff in the morning. Because the call came in after 8:00 p.m. on a weekday, and most of the personnel had left the building, the attorneys agreed. Gonzales, before wrapping up his day, called White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to notify him of the start of the probe. Twelve hours later, Gonzales informed his colleagues that they must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation.
For some of Bush's more imaginative critics, the 12-hour delay generates images of Card, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby holding a late-night document-destruction party in the West Wing. Indeed, in questioning Gonzales' handling of the issue, Bob Schieffer, host of CBS's Face the Nation, noted that the half-day gap would have "give[n] people time to shred documents and do any number of things."
This delay took on renewed significance last week. The New York Daily News reported that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Plame scandal, told lawyers representing Libby that "many emails from [Vice President] Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy." The computer system at the White House is supposed to automatically archive emails sent by the president and his aides. For reasons that are still unclear, these emails -- which may or may not be relevant to the Plame investigation -- were not preserved.
Could aides have used the 12-hour gap to conceal incriminating emails that pointed to staffers' role in exposing the identity of an undercover CIA agent? Prosecutors will no doubt explore this in some detail as the investigation continues, but it's important to note that political observers have understated the length of the delay itself -- by a factor of seven.
Indeed, the timeline of events over the five-day period between Friday, Sept. 26, 2003, and Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003, highlights the fact that the 12-hour head start Gonzales gave Card is largely irrelevant. There was no reason for Card to call back Bush's top lieutenants to start concealing possible wrongdoing after the heads-up from Gonzales. If suppression was their plan, Rove, Libby and others could have begun covering their tracks several days in advance.
When Gonzales received formal notification about the investigation late on Monday, Sept. 29, the Justice Department was only making official what all of Washington already knew. A full three days before the counsel's office received notice, MSNBC reported that the CIA had directed the Justice Department to launch a criminal probe into the leak. In other words, White House aides with internet access learned on Friday night that they were being investigated but weren't told to start securing relevant materials until Tuesday morning, literally 84 hours later.
Perhaps, Bush supporters might argue, the MSNBC report went unnoticed at the White House. Maybe no one on the staff saw the report or any discussion of it on the many political websites that highlighted its significance at the time. Even assuming this is true, it's significantly harder for Bush aides to claim that they also missed a front-page article published in the Washington Post on Sunday, Sept. 28.
The Post's Mike Allen and Dana Priest explained, "At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday." The same article quoted a senior administration official saying that "two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of [undercover agent Plame]." Referring to the leak, the official told the Post, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge."
This front-page, above-the-fold article hit doorsteps in D.C. a full 48 hours before Gonzales instructed the staff to preserve materials relevant to the investigation. Considering the news about the investigation, and the provocative quotes from a top administration official, it stands to reason the article caught the attention of some White House employees.
As such, it strained credulity when Alberto Gonzales told a national television audience last summer that "no one [on the White House staff] knew about the investigation" until he received word from the Justice Department. Gonzales may have promptly called Card on the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, but neither Card nor anyone else in the West Wing needed word from the White House counsel's office to know that an investigation was under way. Like anyone with access to the national media that weekend, they learned about the probe days beforehand.
More here:
LINK
Can Justice Be Trusted?
by ARI BERMAN
[from the February 20, 2006 issue of the Nation]
Now that Jack Abramoff's dealings with members of Congress have drawn criminal indictments, the disgraced lobbyist's ties to the Bush Administration are starting to get attention. Reporters are peppering press secretary Scott McClellan with questions about "staff-level meetings" with Abramoff in the White House. Photographs of him with President Bush and other high-level officials are surfacing. Little notice has been paid, however, to the Justice Department, charged with prosecuting Abramoff. Evidence has emerged that the department played an active role in shutting down an investigation of Abramoff's dubious lobbying activities in Guam in November 2002. The story raises questions about whether Justice can be trusted with this historic investigation--and whether top White House officials actively abetted Abramoff's shady dealings as early as 2001.
The Guam story begins in February 2001, when there was legislation before Congress to create a Supreme Court on the island territory, to be above the existing Superior Court. Judges on that court, who wanted to retain the powers of the island's traditional highest court, asked Howard Hills, a lawyer from California, to hire Abramoff to fight the bill. Abramoff's success in blocking higher wage standards in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI)--where workers are paid $3.05 an hour to make clothes bearing "Made in USA" insignia--had given him a reputation there as an influential lobbyist. Hills, Abramoff and Superior Court Judge Alberto Lamorean subsequently reached an agreement at Abramoff's Capitol Hill restaurant, Signatures. At the time Abramoff, a former member of George W. Bush's transition team, was a $750-an-hour lobbyist with access to the highest levels of the Republican Party.
Between February 2001 and July 2002, the Superior Court paid Abramoff $324,000 in lobbying fees, funneling the money in $9,000 increments through Hills to avoid disclosing that Abramoff was the beneficiary. The arrangement caught the eye of Frederick Black, the acting US Attorney on Guam since 1991. "He'd been there a long time," said Lee Radek, former head of Justice's Public Integrity Section, of Black. "I liked him. He had a good reputation." A retired district court judge appointed Black on a temporary basis, but lack of a replacement, his reputation for integrity and his high conviction rate kept him in the post.
At that time Black was leading a larger corruption investigation into Guam Governor Carl Gutierrez's office for diverting government funds for personal gain. To get Black off his back, Gutierrez hired Abramoff through a contract with the Guam International Airport Authority. "Abramoff claimed he had a top political guy at DOJ he could go to, to get rid of Black," says a source close to the investigation. The two met in DC in late 2001 or early 2002, around the time that Abramoff was employed by the Superior Court. Their strategy was to paint Black as a Clintonite, although he'd been named by the first President Bush and Gutierrez himself was a Democrat. "Gutierrez's role was to get Republicans to go to DOJ and the White House and say, Why have you not replaced that Democrat who's been acting US Attorney?" the source says. Before employing Abramoff, Gutierrez also retained Mark Touhey, a high-profile Washington lawyer who's cur rently defending Representative Bob Ney, repeatedly named in Abramoff's guilty plea for taking bribes from the lobbyist in return for official favors. Touhey reportedly met with Justice on at least one occasion to force Black's removal.
Sources confirm that in early November 2002 Black contacted the Public Integrity Section, the unit currently heading the department's Abramoff task force, and asked for assistance in investigating Abramoff's lobbying activities. Black didn't have the resources to conduct investigations of both Gutierrez and Abramoff, and wanted Washington to help on the Abramoff part. Senior officials working closely under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft were also notified of Black's request. Since Black's communication happened to raise serious questions about the integrity of a high-level federal official who was being renominated to his post, Justice forwarded the information to the Deputy Attorney General's office and the Office of Legal Policy (OLP), which generally handles such concerns.
Sources close to the probe say the information was likely passed on to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who worked closely with Justice on such matters. "Those heads of OLP who are pretty well connected deal directly with the White House counsel," says Lee Casey, a former OLP aide under Reagan and Bush I. (Black declined to comment and Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra refused to provide details about an "ongoing criminal investigation.")
Up to this point Abramoff had lobbied to replace Black because Governor Gutierrez had hired him to do so. Now he had a personal stake in Black's investigation--he was a target of it. It's not known whether Abramoff tried to stop Black's investigation of him, but such interference would have been in character. Earlier in the year Abramoff had persuaded Justice to kill a risk-assessment report on Guam and the CNMI, which Black had ordered. The report might have jeopardized the influx of cheap labor to CNMI, where Abramoff had $1.6 million in lobbying contracts. In an e-mail dated October 1, 2001, Abramoff told CNMI officials he learned of the results of the security review from Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres, whom he hosted at a Washington Redskins game. Abramoff mentioned an upcoming meeting with Ashcroft and another meeting, at a pickup basketball game, between the Attorney General and an Ashcroft aide who'd become an Abramoff staffer. "We'll hope that higher ups will take some time to squash this on their own," Abramoff wrote. Sure enough, the report never came out and Justice demoted its author, regional security specialist Robert Meissner. Did Abramoff use the same Justice channels to quash Black's inquiry?
Despite Justice's refusal to help him, Black convened a grand jury, which subpoenaed the Abramoff contract with the Superior Court on November 18, 2002. The next day the Bush Administration announced that Black would be replaced as US Attorney and demoted him to Assistant US Attorney, after twelve years on the job. His replacement was Guam's Assistant Attorney General, Leonardo Rapadas. "Fred was removed because he asked to indict Abramoff," says one of Black's colleagues at Justice. "I don't believe it was a coincidence."
Rapadas's conduit to the White House, veteran Washington lobbyist Fred Radewagen, "had access all the way up to Karl Rove," says David Sablan, former head of the Guam Republican Party. At the time of Black's demotion, former Abramoff aide Susan Ralston was working as a top assistant to Rove, a post she still holds.
Before Rapadas's confirmation, in May 2003, law-enforcement officials in Guam had supplied extensive information to Ashcroft and senior Justice officials indicating that he would have to recuse himself from the Gutierrez investigation because he was related to two people implicated in the scandal. Also in May, Guam's new Governor, Felix Camacho, a former Black ally, met with Abramoff in Washington. That same month, Jus tice dispatched Assistant US Attorney Russ Stoddard to Guam. Stoddard proceeded to bar Black from working on any public corruption cases and demanded that all new cases be approved through him, rather than the criminal division--a highly unorthodox procedure. Black's investigation into Abramoff's activities was forceably halted. Reportedly, the FBI and the DOJ Inspector General have begun looking into Black's demotion. Sources close to the IG investigation say its findings will be released soon. But the way Justice silenced Black and Meissner in part prompted Senators Chuck Schumer and Ken Salazar to call for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Abramoff investigation. The circumstances of Black's removal raise several questions. Did the White House interfere to stop Black's investigation? Was Gonzales involved? Was Ashcroft?
More broadly, how can Justice be trusted to investigate a matter in which it is so deeply implicated? Despite the Public Integrity Section's reputation for impartiality, there are few institutional checks to prevent further political meddling into its current investigation of Abramoff. On January 25 Bush nominated the current Public Integrity Section head, Noel Hillman, to a federal judgeship in New Jersey and named a temporary replacement mid-investigation. Justice can prosecute the case without any political pressure "as long as the targets are members of Congress," says former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. "If, however, you start to develop ties between Congress, Abramoff and people in the White House, it becomes problematic, especially from an appearance perspective. Because of the Deputy Attorney Gen eral's and the Attorney General's ties to the President, the need for an outside counsel becomes greater."
Otherwise, how can the public be sure that the President's man, Alberto Gonzales, will conduct an honest, thorough investigation of Abramoff when the targets might include his top deputies, his former White House colleagues, his predecessor, his boss--indeed, himself?
LINK
[from the February 20, 2006 issue of the Nation]
Now that Jack Abramoff's dealings with members of Congress have drawn criminal indictments, the disgraced lobbyist's ties to the Bush Administration are starting to get attention. Reporters are peppering press secretary Scott McClellan with questions about "staff-level meetings" with Abramoff in the White House. Photographs of him with President Bush and other high-level officials are surfacing. Little notice has been paid, however, to the Justice Department, charged with prosecuting Abramoff. Evidence has emerged that the department played an active role in shutting down an investigation of Abramoff's dubious lobbying activities in Guam in November 2002. The story raises questions about whether Justice can be trusted with this historic investigation--and whether top White House officials actively abetted Abramoff's shady dealings as early as 2001.
The Guam story begins in February 2001, when there was legislation before Congress to create a Supreme Court on the island territory, to be above the existing Superior Court. Judges on that court, who wanted to retain the powers of the island's traditional highest court, asked Howard Hills, a lawyer from California, to hire Abramoff to fight the bill. Abramoff's success in blocking higher wage standards in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI)--where workers are paid $3.05 an hour to make clothes bearing "Made in USA" insignia--had given him a reputation there as an influential lobbyist. Hills, Abramoff and Superior Court Judge Alberto Lamorean subsequently reached an agreement at Abramoff's Capitol Hill restaurant, Signatures. At the time Abramoff, a former member of George W. Bush's transition team, was a $750-an-hour lobbyist with access to the highest levels of the Republican Party.
Between February 2001 and July 2002, the Superior Court paid Abramoff $324,000 in lobbying fees, funneling the money in $9,000 increments through Hills to avoid disclosing that Abramoff was the beneficiary. The arrangement caught the eye of Frederick Black, the acting US Attorney on Guam since 1991. "He'd been there a long time," said Lee Radek, former head of Justice's Public Integrity Section, of Black. "I liked him. He had a good reputation." A retired district court judge appointed Black on a temporary basis, but lack of a replacement, his reputation for integrity and his high conviction rate kept him in the post.
At that time Black was leading a larger corruption investigation into Guam Governor Carl Gutierrez's office for diverting government funds for personal gain. To get Black off his back, Gutierrez hired Abramoff through a contract with the Guam International Airport Authority. "Abramoff claimed he had a top political guy at DOJ he could go to, to get rid of Black," says a source close to the investigation. The two met in DC in late 2001 or early 2002, around the time that Abramoff was employed by the Superior Court. Their strategy was to paint Black as a Clintonite, although he'd been named by the first President Bush and Gutierrez himself was a Democrat. "Gutierrez's role was to get Republicans to go to DOJ and the White House and say, Why have you not replaced that Democrat who's been acting US Attorney?" the source says. Before employing Abramoff, Gutierrez also retained Mark Touhey, a high-profile Washington lawyer who's cur rently defending Representative Bob Ney, repeatedly named in Abramoff's guilty plea for taking bribes from the lobbyist in return for official favors. Touhey reportedly met with Justice on at least one occasion to force Black's removal.
Sources confirm that in early November 2002 Black contacted the Public Integrity Section, the unit currently heading the department's Abramoff task force, and asked for assistance in investigating Abramoff's lobbying activities. Black didn't have the resources to conduct investigations of both Gutierrez and Abramoff, and wanted Washington to help on the Abramoff part. Senior officials working closely under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft were also notified of Black's request. Since Black's communication happened to raise serious questions about the integrity of a high-level federal official who was being renominated to his post, Justice forwarded the information to the Deputy Attorney General's office and the Office of Legal Policy (OLP), which generally handles such concerns.
Sources close to the probe say the information was likely passed on to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who worked closely with Justice on such matters. "Those heads of OLP who are pretty well connected deal directly with the White House counsel," says Lee Casey, a former OLP aide under Reagan and Bush I. (Black declined to comment and Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra refused to provide details about an "ongoing criminal investigation.")
Up to this point Abramoff had lobbied to replace Black because Governor Gutierrez had hired him to do so. Now he had a personal stake in Black's investigation--he was a target of it. It's not known whether Abramoff tried to stop Black's investigation of him, but such interference would have been in character. Earlier in the year Abramoff had persuaded Justice to kill a risk-assessment report on Guam and the CNMI, which Black had ordered. The report might have jeopardized the influx of cheap labor to CNMI, where Abramoff had $1.6 million in lobbying contracts. In an e-mail dated October 1, 2001, Abramoff told CNMI officials he learned of the results of the security review from Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres, whom he hosted at a Washington Redskins game. Abramoff mentioned an upcoming meeting with Ashcroft and another meeting, at a pickup basketball game, between the Attorney General and an Ashcroft aide who'd become an Abramoff staffer. "We'll hope that higher ups will take some time to squash this on their own," Abramoff wrote. Sure enough, the report never came out and Justice demoted its author, regional security specialist Robert Meissner. Did Abramoff use the same Justice channels to quash Black's inquiry?
Despite Justice's refusal to help him, Black convened a grand jury, which subpoenaed the Abramoff contract with the Superior Court on November 18, 2002. The next day the Bush Administration announced that Black would be replaced as US Attorney and demoted him to Assistant US Attorney, after twelve years on the job. His replacement was Guam's Assistant Attorney General, Leonardo Rapadas. "Fred was removed because he asked to indict Abramoff," says one of Black's colleagues at Justice. "I don't believe it was a coincidence."
Rapadas's conduit to the White House, veteran Washington lobbyist Fred Radewagen, "had access all the way up to Karl Rove," says David Sablan, former head of the Guam Republican Party. At the time of Black's demotion, former Abramoff aide Susan Ralston was working as a top assistant to Rove, a post she still holds.
Before Rapadas's confirmation, in May 2003, law-enforcement officials in Guam had supplied extensive information to Ashcroft and senior Justice officials indicating that he would have to recuse himself from the Gutierrez investigation because he was related to two people implicated in the scandal. Also in May, Guam's new Governor, Felix Camacho, a former Black ally, met with Abramoff in Washington. That same month, Jus tice dispatched Assistant US Attorney Russ Stoddard to Guam. Stoddard proceeded to bar Black from working on any public corruption cases and demanded that all new cases be approved through him, rather than the criminal division--a highly unorthodox procedure. Black's investigation into Abramoff's activities was forceably halted. Reportedly, the FBI and the DOJ Inspector General have begun looking into Black's demotion. Sources close to the IG investigation say its findings will be released soon. But the way Justice silenced Black and Meissner in part prompted Senators Chuck Schumer and Ken Salazar to call for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Abramoff investigation. The circumstances of Black's removal raise several questions. Did the White House interfere to stop Black's investigation? Was Gonzales involved? Was Ashcroft?
More broadly, how can Justice be trusted to investigate a matter in which it is so deeply implicated? Despite the Public Integrity Section's reputation for impartiality, there are few institutional checks to prevent further political meddling into its current investigation of Abramoff. On January 25 Bush nominated the current Public Integrity Section head, Noel Hillman, to a federal judgeship in New Jersey and named a temporary replacement mid-investigation. Justice can prosecute the case without any political pressure "as long as the targets are members of Congress," says former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. "If, however, you start to develop ties between Congress, Abramoff and people in the White House, it becomes problematic, especially from an appearance perspective. Because of the Deputy Attorney Gen eral's and the Attorney General's ties to the President, the need for an outside counsel becomes greater."
Otherwise, how can the public be sure that the President's man, Alberto Gonzales, will conduct an honest, thorough investigation of Abramoff when the targets might include his top deputies, his former White House colleagues, his predecessor, his boss--indeed, himself?
LINK
Fitzgerald court papers: Bush was briefed on Joe Wilson
Friday, February 03, 2006
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has indicated in correspondence unsealed in federal court in recent days that President Bush might have been briefed regarding former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s February 2002 CIA-sponsored mission to Niger during regular morning intelligence briefing.
The information provided to Bush occurred in the form of one of the “President’s Daily Briefs,” a typically 30-to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. They are a compiliation of that day's most closely held and highly classified intelligence-- and written specifically for the "First Customer", meaning the President of the United States. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services.
The information about Bush having been briefed about Wilson’s mission to Niger is contained in court papers filed in federal court. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, President Bush’s former chief of staff and national security advisors, were seeking information about presidential PDBs from the special prosecutor, as part of a discovery effort to defend their client.
Libby was forced to resign his White House positions last Oct. 28, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, for outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer. The indictment alleged that Libby provided information to a reporter about Plame’s CIA employment because in an effort to retaliate against her husband for criticizing the Bush administration’s use of intelligence during the run up to war in Iraq.
Libby appeared this morning in federal court, during which the trial judge, Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton, set a trial date for Jan.8, 2007. Walton wanted to try the case this next September—which could have had political consequences had Libby been tried so close to the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. But one of Libby’s attorneys, Theodore Wells, says that he was going to be tied up with another case.
In court papers made public late last week, Fitzgerald revealed that there was information regarding Wilson’s mission to Niger contained in at least one PDB, or possibly more, although the special prosecutor provided no specifics of the specific intelligence information that was contained in the ordinarily highly classified briefing materials.
In a letter that Fitzgerald sent Libby’s attorneys on January 9, 2006, and filed in federal court late last week, Fitzgerald wrote: “As you are well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002... from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same item.... relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in the files regarding Valerie Plame and Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
An attorney representing Libby did not return a phone call from reporters seeking comment regarding their discovery request. A White House spokesperson said they would have no comment because Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation is still an ongoing matter.
Although Fitzgerald did not provide any information as to what President Bush might have been told during his morning intelligence briefing about Wilson’s Niger mission, what is told the President is often similar or parallel to what is provided to Vice President Cheney during his own intelligence briefings. Information contained in PDBs also areoften times similar to that in a highly classified intelligence report known as a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, or SEIB. Those reports are provided to the Vice President, National Security Council, cabinet Secretaries, and other senior national advisers to the President.
On October 18, 2001, only five weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the CIA circulated a particularly alarming intelligence SEIB raising the specter that Iraq was attempting to covertly uranium from the African nation of Niger to build an atomic weapon.
“According to a foreign government service,” said the report, “Niger as of early this year planned to send several tones of uranium to Iraq under an agreement concluded late this year. Iraq and Niger have been negotiating the shipment since at least 1999, but the state court of Niger only this year approved of it, according to the service."
More here
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has indicated in correspondence unsealed in federal court in recent days that President Bush might have been briefed regarding former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s February 2002 CIA-sponsored mission to Niger during regular morning intelligence briefing.
The information provided to Bush occurred in the form of one of the “President’s Daily Briefs,” a typically 30-to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. They are a compiliation of that day's most closely held and highly classified intelligence-- and written specifically for the "First Customer", meaning the President of the United States. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services.
The information about Bush having been briefed about Wilson’s mission to Niger is contained in court papers filed in federal court. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, President Bush’s former chief of staff and national security advisors, were seeking information about presidential PDBs from the special prosecutor, as part of a discovery effort to defend their client.
Libby was forced to resign his White House positions last Oct. 28, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, for outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer. The indictment alleged that Libby provided information to a reporter about Plame’s CIA employment because in an effort to retaliate against her husband for criticizing the Bush administration’s use of intelligence during the run up to war in Iraq.
Libby appeared this morning in federal court, during which the trial judge, Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton, set a trial date for Jan.8, 2007. Walton wanted to try the case this next September—which could have had political consequences had Libby been tried so close to the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. But one of Libby’s attorneys, Theodore Wells, says that he was going to be tied up with another case.
In court papers made public late last week, Fitzgerald revealed that there was information regarding Wilson’s mission to Niger contained in at least one PDB, or possibly more, although the special prosecutor provided no specifics of the specific intelligence information that was contained in the ordinarily highly classified briefing materials.
In a letter that Fitzgerald sent Libby’s attorneys on January 9, 2006, and filed in federal court late last week, Fitzgerald wrote: “As you are well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002... from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same item.... relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in the files regarding Valerie Plame and Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
An attorney representing Libby did not return a phone call from reporters seeking comment regarding their discovery request. A White House spokesperson said they would have no comment because Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation is still an ongoing matter.
Although Fitzgerald did not provide any information as to what President Bush might have been told during his morning intelligence briefing about Wilson’s Niger mission, what is told the President is often similar or parallel to what is provided to Vice President Cheney during his own intelligence briefings. Information contained in PDBs also areoften times similar to that in a highly classified intelligence report known as a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, or SEIB. Those reports are provided to the Vice President, National Security Council, cabinet Secretaries, and other senior national advisers to the President.
On October 18, 2001, only five weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the CIA circulated a particularly alarming intelligence SEIB raising the specter that Iraq was attempting to covertly uranium from the African nation of Niger to build an atomic weapon.
“According to a foreign government service,” said the report, “Niger as of early this year planned to send several tones of uranium to Iraq under an agreement concluded late this year. Iraq and Niger have been negotiating the shipment since at least 1999, but the state court of Niger only this year approved of it, according to the service."
More here
Sunday, February 05, 2006
The CIA Leak: Plame Was Still Covert
Newsweek
Feb. 13, 2006 issue - Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was "unlikely" to take further trips overseas, though.) Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Fitzgerald did consider charging Libby with violating the so-called Espionage Act, which prohibits the disclosure of "national defense information," the papers show; he ended up indicting Libby for lying about when and from whom he learned about Plame.
The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June—before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper. Libby's trial has been put off until January 2007, keeping Cheney off the witness stand until after the elections. A spokeswoman for Libby's lawyers declined to comment on Plame's status.
—Michael Isikoff
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
LINK
Feb. 13, 2006 issue - Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was "unlikely" to take further trips overseas, though.) Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Fitzgerald did consider charging Libby with violating the so-called Espionage Act, which prohibits the disclosure of "national defense information," the papers show; he ended up indicting Libby for lying about when and from whom he learned about Plame.
The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June—before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper. Libby's trial has been put off until January 2007, keeping Cheney off the witness stand until after the elections. A spokeswoman for Libby's lawyers declined to comment on Plame's status.
—Michael Isikoff
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
LINK
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Those Eight Pages
February 03, 2006
Those Eight Pages
by emptywheel
Geez, here I was, getting ready for the Super Bowl, having a great conversation about football, scratching my crotch, and drinking a beer. But obsessed and Sebastian Dangerfield say I've got to get back on the Plame beat and talk about the 8 pages of Judge Tatel's opinion that the court has unredacted (go to pages 31 through 39.
Ah well. Can't wait for Sunday. Go Steelers!
The Eight Pages include a lot of things we already know from Libby's indictment. They lay out the case for perjury, including details of Cheney telling Libby of Plame's employ, Libby mentioning Valerie Wilson to his CIA briefer, the conversation with Russert, and the conversation with Ari.
Conversation with Ari
I gotta say, far and away the most interesting part of this newly unredacted information is the passage on Ari's conversation with Libby:
For example, then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer recalls that over lunch on July 7, the day before Libby’s meeting with Miller, Libby told him, “[T]he Vice-President did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger . . . the CIA sent Ambassador Wilson to Niger. . . . [H]e was sent by his wife. . . . [S]he works in . . . the Counterproliferation area of the CIA.” (II-545-47.) Describing the lunch as “kind of weird” (II-590-91), and noting that Libby typically “operated in a very closed-lip fashion” (II-592), Fleischer recalled that Libby “added something along the lines of, you know, this is hush-hush, nobody knows about this. This is on the q.t.” (II-546-47.) Though Libby remembers the lunch meeting, and even says he thanked Fleischer for making a statement about the Niger issue, he denies discussing Wilson’s wife. (I-108-09, 156, 226-27.)
The passage resolves any notion that Libby explicitly told Ari to leak this information (Swopa, I hope you're reading this too). But the "weirdness" about it suggests that Libby may have hoped that Ari would leak it, or at least given some hints, which may be all that John Dickerson got. Note, too, that Libby didn't just tell Ari that Plame was CIA (as the indictment states), but that she was in Counterproliferation, which would have made it clear that Plame was covert. And the whole conversation attests to the fact that Libby was blabbing about classified information, something he didn't usually do. Ari will say, that is, that Libby's sharing of this information was not typical behavior.
Libby, of course, denies he ever mentioned Plame. Guess that explains why he spent last summer trying to impugn Ari as a witness.
Conversation with Russert
WRT the Russert information, we learn something the blogosphere had already figured out: Libby called Russert to complain about Tweety's coverage (recall that Tweety had said Libby was responsible for the uranium claims).
Nevertheless, Libby maintains that he believed he was learning about Wilson’s wife’s identity for the first time when he spoke with NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert on July 10 or 11 regarding coverage of the Niger issue by MSNBC correspondent Chris Matthews. (I-162-69; 8/27/04 Aff. at 9-10.)
And, finally, we get an account of Russert's side of the conversation. Reading through the Russert, we might get a sense of why he hasn't been more forthcoming himself.
Russert recalls this conversation very differently. In his deposition, describing Plame’s employment as a fact that would have been “[v]ery” significant to him—one he would have discussed with NBC management and potentially sought to broadcast—Russert stated, “I have no recollection of knowing that [Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA], so it was impossible for me to have [told Libby] that.” (I-43, 32.) Asked to describe his
“reaction” to Novak’s July 14 column, Russert said, “Wow. When I read that—it was the first time I knew who Joe Wilson’s wife was and that she was a CIA operative. . . . [I]t was news to me.” (I-433.) [my emphasis]
First, look at those two brackets. They may very well be innocuous. The first bracket may just be an explanation. and the second may have just explained the reference behind an unclear word. So it may have read like this in Russert's statement:
“I have no recollection of knowing that, so it was impossible for me to have said that.”
This is probably the most likely. But look at the next passage I've bolded:
Wow. When I read that—it was the first time I knew who Joe Wilson’s wife was and that she was a CIA operative.
Again, this could be innocuous, something along the lines of "I knew who Joe Wilson was, but never knew he had a wife." But it could also mean, "I knew Joe Wilson and but I never knew Valerie Plame, noted energy analyst, was Wilson's wife." No way of telling, but if the second is true, it might explain what Andrea Mitchell has been babbling about all these months. It also might explain why Russert would have responded with the lame, "wow." Is it possible that the security reporters all knew Valerie Plame? In any case, if this second possibility is true, it also suggests the brackets may obscure information, such as:
“I have no recollection of knowing Plame was married to Wilson, so it was impossible for me to have said that.”
Like I said, we have no way of knowing one way or another. Let's hope someone thinks of asking Russert some questions for a change. I nominate Barack Obama.
Judy's Version
******There is much more...read it here:
LINK
Those Eight Pages
by emptywheel
Geez, here I was, getting ready for the Super Bowl, having a great conversation about football, scratching my crotch, and drinking a beer. But obsessed and Sebastian Dangerfield say I've got to get back on the Plame beat and talk about the 8 pages of Judge Tatel's opinion that the court has unredacted (go to pages 31 through 39.
Ah well. Can't wait for Sunday. Go Steelers!
The Eight Pages include a lot of things we already know from Libby's indictment. They lay out the case for perjury, including details of Cheney telling Libby of Plame's employ, Libby mentioning Valerie Wilson to his CIA briefer, the conversation with Russert, and the conversation with Ari.
Conversation with Ari
I gotta say, far and away the most interesting part of this newly unredacted information is the passage on Ari's conversation with Libby:
For example, then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer recalls that over lunch on July 7, the day before Libby’s meeting with Miller, Libby told him, “[T]he Vice-President did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger . . . the CIA sent Ambassador Wilson to Niger. . . . [H]e was sent by his wife. . . . [S]he works in . . . the Counterproliferation area of the CIA.” (II-545-47.) Describing the lunch as “kind of weird” (II-590-91), and noting that Libby typically “operated in a very closed-lip fashion” (II-592), Fleischer recalled that Libby “added something along the lines of, you know, this is hush-hush, nobody knows about this. This is on the q.t.” (II-546-47.) Though Libby remembers the lunch meeting, and even says he thanked Fleischer for making a statement about the Niger issue, he denies discussing Wilson’s wife. (I-108-09, 156, 226-27.)
The passage resolves any notion that Libby explicitly told Ari to leak this information (Swopa, I hope you're reading this too). But the "weirdness" about it suggests that Libby may have hoped that Ari would leak it, or at least given some hints, which may be all that John Dickerson got. Note, too, that Libby didn't just tell Ari that Plame was CIA (as the indictment states), but that she was in Counterproliferation, which would have made it clear that Plame was covert. And the whole conversation attests to the fact that Libby was blabbing about classified information, something he didn't usually do. Ari will say, that is, that Libby's sharing of this information was not typical behavior.
Libby, of course, denies he ever mentioned Plame. Guess that explains why he spent last summer trying to impugn Ari as a witness.
Conversation with Russert
WRT the Russert information, we learn something the blogosphere had already figured out: Libby called Russert to complain about Tweety's coverage (recall that Tweety had said Libby was responsible for the uranium claims).
Nevertheless, Libby maintains that he believed he was learning about Wilson’s wife’s identity for the first time when he spoke with NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert on July 10 or 11 regarding coverage of the Niger issue by MSNBC correspondent Chris Matthews. (I-162-69; 8/27/04 Aff. at 9-10.)
And, finally, we get an account of Russert's side of the conversation. Reading through the Russert, we might get a sense of why he hasn't been more forthcoming himself.
Russert recalls this conversation very differently. In his deposition, describing Plame’s employment as a fact that would have been “[v]ery” significant to him—one he would have discussed with NBC management and potentially sought to broadcast—Russert stated, “I have no recollection of knowing that [Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA], so it was impossible for me to have [told Libby] that.” (I-43, 32.) Asked to describe his
“reaction” to Novak’s July 14 column, Russert said, “Wow. When I read that—it was the first time I knew who Joe Wilson’s wife was and that she was a CIA operative. . . . [I]t was news to me.” (I-433.) [my emphasis]
First, look at those two brackets. They may very well be innocuous. The first bracket may just be an explanation. and the second may have just explained the reference behind an unclear word. So it may have read like this in Russert's statement:
“I have no recollection of knowing that, so it was impossible for me to have said that.”
This is probably the most likely. But look at the next passage I've bolded:
Wow. When I read that—it was the first time I knew who Joe Wilson’s wife was and that she was a CIA operative.
Again, this could be innocuous, something along the lines of "I knew who Joe Wilson was, but never knew he had a wife." But it could also mean, "I knew Joe Wilson and but I never knew Valerie Plame, noted energy analyst, was Wilson's wife." No way of telling, but if the second is true, it might explain what Andrea Mitchell has been babbling about all these months. It also might explain why Russert would have responded with the lame, "wow." Is it possible that the security reporters all knew Valerie Plame? In any case, if this second possibility is true, it also suggests the brackets may obscure information, such as:
“I have no recollection of knowing Plame was married to Wilson, so it was impossible for me to have said that.”
Like I said, we have no way of knowing one way or another. Let's hope someone thinks of asking Russert some questions for a change. I nominate Barack Obama.
Judy's Version
******There is much more...read it here:
LINK
More Allegations of Libby Lies Revealed
Judge's Report Shows Cheney Aide Is Accused Of Broad Deception
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 4, 2006; A03
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case alleged that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff was engaged in a broader web of deception than was previously known and repeatedly lied to conceal that he had been a key source for reporters about undercover operative Valerie Plame, according to court records released yesterday.
The records also show that by August 2004, early in his investigation of the disclosure of Plame's identity, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald had concluded that he did not have much of a case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for illegally leaking classified information. Instead, Fitzgerald was focused on charging Cheney's top aide with perjury and making false statements, and knew he needed to question reporters to prove it.
The court records show that Libby denied to a grand jury that he ever mentioned Plame or her CIA job to then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer or then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller in separate conversations he had with each of them in early July 2003. The records also suggest that Libby did not disclose to investigators that he first spoke to Miller about Plame in June 2003, and that prosecutors learned of the nature of the conversation only when Miller finally testified late in the fall of 2005.
All three specific allegations are contained in previously redacted sections of a U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that were released yesterday. The opinion analyzed Fitzgerald's secret evidence to determine whether his case warranted ordering reporters to testify about their confidential conversations with sources.
Fitzgerald revealed none of these specifics when he publicly announced Libby's indictment in October on charges of making false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice.
The once-sealed portions of the federal court opinion were written in February 2005 by U.S. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel, who was a member of a three-judge panel that agreed with Fitzgerald that the testimony of two reporters, Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, was crucial to his investigation.
Yesterday, the same panel concluded that because Libby was indicted and now faced public charges, the court no longer had to keep secret many of the details of the grand jury investigation that Tatel analyzed. Dow Jones Inc., parent company of the Wall Street Journal, had petitioned the court to release the eight-page Tatel opinion. Three of the pages were redacted.
Attorneys for Libby and Fleischer and a spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday.
Since January 2004, Fitzgerald has been investigating whether senior Bush administration officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity to discredit allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Plame's name and her CIA role were first mentioned publicly in a column by syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003, eight days after Wilson publicly accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq.
According to Tatel's summary of the evidence that Fitzgerald presented in the court's chambers in August 2004, the prosecutor had at least a good circumstantial case on perjury but charging Libby with intentionally leaking classified information was "currently off the table," though it could be "viable" if he gained new evidence.
Tatel wrote that interviewing Miller would be crucial to making that decision, because Libby might have mentioned to her that he knew Plame's status was covert. He concluded that simply lying about a national security matter was serious enough to warrant ordering the reporters to testify about their conversations with Libby.
"While it is true that on the current record the special counsel's strongest charges are for perjury and false statements rather than security-related crimes ... perjury in this context is itself a crime with national security implications," he wrote.
The information gives a fuller picture of the case that Fitzgerald will likely put on against Libby. Yesterday, a federal judge scheduled his trial to start on Jan. 8, 2007.
In public remarks about the indictment, Fitzgerald has accused Libby of lying when he said that he believed he first learned of Plame from NBC reporter Tim Russert and passed along that information strictly as unverified gossip to Miller and Cooper.
Tatel's opinion also includes previously unknown details about testimony by Libby and other officials. For example, Libby acknowledged to investigators that Cheney told him in mid-June 2003 about Plame's CIA role and said she helped send her husband on a mission to Niger to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear material from the African nation.
That was soon after a Washington Post article on Wilson's Niger trip appeared. Libby emphasized in his testimony that Cheney only said it "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion."
Fitzgerald also contended that Libby lied to the grand jury when he said he never mentioned Plame or her CIA job to Fleischer when they had lunch on July 7. Fleischer recalled before the grand jury that Libby did mention Plame and said she worked in the "counterproliferation area of the CIA." Fleischer said Libby stressed that "the vice president did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger . . . the CIA sent Ambassador Wilson to Niger . . . he was sent by his wife."
Fleischer added that he thought the lunch was "kind of weird" because the normally "closed-lip" Libby was sharing confidences and remarking that the information was "hush-hush" and "on the q.t."
Libby was also asked about two July conversations he had with Miller. He said he never mentioned Wilson's wife to Miller in the first conversation but passed along some information another reporter told him about Plame in the second, according to the documents.
Miller testified last year, however, that she thought Libby was the first government official to mention Wilson's wife to her and that he did so in three conversations: on June 23, when she visited his office in the Executive Office Building, and on July 8 and 12.
LINK
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 4, 2006; A03
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case alleged that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff was engaged in a broader web of deception than was previously known and repeatedly lied to conceal that he had been a key source for reporters about undercover operative Valerie Plame, according to court records released yesterday.
The records also show that by August 2004, early in his investigation of the disclosure of Plame's identity, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald had concluded that he did not have much of a case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for illegally leaking classified information. Instead, Fitzgerald was focused on charging Cheney's top aide with perjury and making false statements, and knew he needed to question reporters to prove it.
The court records show that Libby denied to a grand jury that he ever mentioned Plame or her CIA job to then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer or then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller in separate conversations he had with each of them in early July 2003. The records also suggest that Libby did not disclose to investigators that he first spoke to Miller about Plame in June 2003, and that prosecutors learned of the nature of the conversation only when Miller finally testified late in the fall of 2005.
All three specific allegations are contained in previously redacted sections of a U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that were released yesterday. The opinion analyzed Fitzgerald's secret evidence to determine whether his case warranted ordering reporters to testify about their confidential conversations with sources.
Fitzgerald revealed none of these specifics when he publicly announced Libby's indictment in October on charges of making false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice.
The once-sealed portions of the federal court opinion were written in February 2005 by U.S. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel, who was a member of a three-judge panel that agreed with Fitzgerald that the testimony of two reporters, Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, was crucial to his investigation.
Yesterday, the same panel concluded that because Libby was indicted and now faced public charges, the court no longer had to keep secret many of the details of the grand jury investigation that Tatel analyzed. Dow Jones Inc., parent company of the Wall Street Journal, had petitioned the court to release the eight-page Tatel opinion. Three of the pages were redacted.
Attorneys for Libby and Fleischer and a spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday.
Since January 2004, Fitzgerald has been investigating whether senior Bush administration officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity to discredit allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Plame's name and her CIA role were first mentioned publicly in a column by syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003, eight days after Wilson publicly accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq.
According to Tatel's summary of the evidence that Fitzgerald presented in the court's chambers in August 2004, the prosecutor had at least a good circumstantial case on perjury but charging Libby with intentionally leaking classified information was "currently off the table," though it could be "viable" if he gained new evidence.
Tatel wrote that interviewing Miller would be crucial to making that decision, because Libby might have mentioned to her that he knew Plame's status was covert. He concluded that simply lying about a national security matter was serious enough to warrant ordering the reporters to testify about their conversations with Libby.
"While it is true that on the current record the special counsel's strongest charges are for perjury and false statements rather than security-related crimes ... perjury in this context is itself a crime with national security implications," he wrote.
The information gives a fuller picture of the case that Fitzgerald will likely put on against Libby. Yesterday, a federal judge scheduled his trial to start on Jan. 8, 2007.
In public remarks about the indictment, Fitzgerald has accused Libby of lying when he said that he believed he first learned of Plame from NBC reporter Tim Russert and passed along that information strictly as unverified gossip to Miller and Cooper.
Tatel's opinion also includes previously unknown details about testimony by Libby and other officials. For example, Libby acknowledged to investigators that Cheney told him in mid-June 2003 about Plame's CIA role and said she helped send her husband on a mission to Niger to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear material from the African nation.
That was soon after a Washington Post article on Wilson's Niger trip appeared. Libby emphasized in his testimony that Cheney only said it "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion."
Fitzgerald also contended that Libby lied to the grand jury when he said he never mentioned Plame or her CIA job to Fleischer when they had lunch on July 7. Fleischer recalled before the grand jury that Libby did mention Plame and said she worked in the "counterproliferation area of the CIA." Fleischer said Libby stressed that "the vice president did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger . . . the CIA sent Ambassador Wilson to Niger . . . he was sent by his wife."
Fleischer added that he thought the lunch was "kind of weird" because the normally "closed-lip" Libby was sharing confidences and remarking that the information was "hush-hush" and "on the q.t."
Libby was also asked about two July conversations he had with Miller. He said he never mentioned Wilson's wife to Miller in the first conversation but passed along some information another reporter told him about Plame in the second, according to the documents.
Miller testified last year, however, that she thought Libby was the first government official to mention Wilson's wife to her and that he did so in three conversations: on June 23, when she visited his office in the Executive Office Building, and on July 8 and 12.
LINK
Friday, February 03, 2006
Documents Reveal New Details of Libby Conversations
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 3, 2006; 3:51 PM
Court documents released today provide new details about the testimony that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff gave to a grand jury investigating his conversations with reporters and administration officials about a CIA operative.
The documents say I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby denied in his testimony ever mentioning CIA operative Valerie Plame to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer or former New York Times reporter Judith Miller in separate conversations he had with them in July 2003, and further never disclosed talking to Miller about Plame in June 2003.
Libby was indicted in October on five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice in the course of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of Plame's identity to the media. The indictment charges that Libby lied to investigators when he said he did not provide information about Plame to two reporters and when he said he learned about Plame from a third, NBC's Tim Russert.
Libby has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a judge today set his trial for next January.
The information about Libby and other individuals' secret grand jury testimony is included in sections of a once-sealed federal court opinion, portions of which the court made public today. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that because Libby had been indicted, much of the material in the opinion that dealt with the grand jury investigation no longer needed to be kept secret.
However, some of the details of the testimony reveal many more insights into the case than Fitzgerald shared in his formal indictment of Libby or in a news conference announcing the charges.
Miller testified last year that Libby first mentioned Plame to her in a conversation in late June 2003 when she visited his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and they discussed her again on July 8 and July 12.
Fleischer testified that at a lunch with Libby in July 2003, Libby relayed to him "on the q.t." that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and sent him on the trip to Niger. Fleisher told the grand jury that he thought the lunch was "kinda weird" because Libby was normally "tight-lipped" and not so chummy that he would share such confidences with the press secretary.
The papers reveal that Libby said he never discussed Wilson's wife with Fleischer.
Also, Fitzgerald thought in February 2005 -- about a year into his investigation of the leak of Plame's name -- that charging Libby with a leak was "off the table" without other evidence, the court record says. He stressed to the circuit court that it was essential, however, to question journalists such as Miller before concluding whether Libby had violated federal laws barring the release of the identity of intelligence agents.
Fitzgerald began investigating in early 2004 whether administration officials broke the law and leaked information about Plame as retaliation. Her name and CIA role appeared in a July 2003 syndicated column by Robert D. Novak -- eight days after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly criticized the Bush administration's justification for waging war with Iraq.
LINK
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 3, 2006; 3:51 PM
Court documents released today provide new details about the testimony that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff gave to a grand jury investigating his conversations with reporters and administration officials about a CIA operative.
The documents say I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby denied in his testimony ever mentioning CIA operative Valerie Plame to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer or former New York Times reporter Judith Miller in separate conversations he had with them in July 2003, and further never disclosed talking to Miller about Plame in June 2003.
Libby was indicted in October on five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice in the course of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of Plame's identity to the media. The indictment charges that Libby lied to investigators when he said he did not provide information about Plame to two reporters and when he said he learned about Plame from a third, NBC's Tim Russert.
Libby has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a judge today set his trial for next January.
The information about Libby and other individuals' secret grand jury testimony is included in sections of a once-sealed federal court opinion, portions of which the court made public today. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that because Libby had been indicted, much of the material in the opinion that dealt with the grand jury investigation no longer needed to be kept secret.
However, some of the details of the testimony reveal many more insights into the case than Fitzgerald shared in his formal indictment of Libby or in a news conference announcing the charges.
Miller testified last year that Libby first mentioned Plame to her in a conversation in late June 2003 when she visited his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and they discussed her again on July 8 and July 12.
Fleischer testified that at a lunch with Libby in July 2003, Libby relayed to him "on the q.t." that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and sent him on the trip to Niger. Fleisher told the grand jury that he thought the lunch was "kinda weird" because Libby was normally "tight-lipped" and not so chummy that he would share such confidences with the press secretary.
The papers reveal that Libby said he never discussed Wilson's wife with Fleischer.
Also, Fitzgerald thought in February 2005 -- about a year into his investigation of the leak of Plame's name -- that charging Libby with a leak was "off the table" without other evidence, the court record says. He stressed to the circuit court that it was essential, however, to question journalists such as Miller before concluding whether Libby had violated federal laws barring the release of the identity of intelligence agents.
Fitzgerald began investigating in early 2004 whether administration officials broke the law and leaked information about Plame as retaliation. Her name and CIA role appeared in a July 2003 syndicated column by Robert D. Novak -- eight days after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly criticized the Bush administration's justification for waging war with Iraq.
LINK
Democrats Call for Special Prosecutor in Lobbying Case
By Philip Shenon
The New York Times
Thursday 02 February 2006
Washington - Most Senate Democrats called on the Justice Department today to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the criminal investigation centered on the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt members of Congress and other public officials.
The 35 Democrats and Senator James Jeffords of Vermont, an independent, said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that an outside prosecutor was needed because of "Mr. Abramoff's significant ties to Republican leadership in Congress and allegations of improper activity involving administration officials."
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said he signed the letter because "we need an independent investigation, not a whitewash led by Attorney General Gonzales, President Bush's best friend." He added in a statement, "President Bush has worn out his credibility with the American people yet he continues to stonewall an investigation into his involvement with Jack Abramoff, asking him to trust him without explaining why."
He was referring to President Bush's comments at a news conference last week in which he said he could not recall ever meeting Mr. Abramoff, a major fund-raiser in Mr. Bush's presidential campaign.
The Justice Department had no immediate response to the senators' request but in the past has rebuffed calls for a special prosecutor, saying that the department had demonstrated that it is pursuing the investigation aggressively. The call for a special prosecutor was first made last week by two of the Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Ken Salazar of Colorado.
The letter today noted that the chief investigator in the case, Noel Hillman, the head of the department's Public Integrity division, was stepping down after the announcement last week that he was being nominated by the White House to a federal judgeship in New Jersey.
His departure, which creates a vacancy at the top of the inquiry less than a month after Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea, means that the "appointment of a special counsel at this point in time is made even more appropriate," the letter said.
The calls for a special prosecutor came as Democrats made a separate effort on the Senate floor today to bring attention to Mr. Abramoff and his ties to the White House. They introduced an amendment to a budget bill that called on the White House to provide a public account of meetings that Mr. Abramoff may have had with Mr. Bush, his staff or others in the executive branch.
Democratic Congressional aides, speaking on condition of anonymity because of staff rules that bar them from commenting publicly, said they had little expectation that the amendment would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. But they said Democrats were still eager to bring attention to the issue.
"If the president has nothing to hide, there shouldn't be a problem," said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and one of the amendment's sponsors. Another sponsor, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, said that "the claim that the president doesn't know Mr. Abramoff doesn't seem to hold water."
Senator Lautenberg, who also signed the letter seeking a special prosecutor, had supported Mr. Hillman for the judicial appointment in New Jersey, and discussions about the nomination have been under way since last year.
The senator's chief counsel, Dan Katz, said that Senator Lautenberg "has supported Noel Hillman for a judgeship for almost a year and didn't think he should be denied the opportunity because he is doing a good job in his current position." But with Mr. Hillman gone, he said, the senator supports a special prosecutor because he "believes this case has become too politically sensitive to continue within the administration."
LINK
The New York Times
Thursday 02 February 2006
Washington - Most Senate Democrats called on the Justice Department today to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the criminal investigation centered on the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt members of Congress and other public officials.
The 35 Democrats and Senator James Jeffords of Vermont, an independent, said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that an outside prosecutor was needed because of "Mr. Abramoff's significant ties to Republican leadership in Congress and allegations of improper activity involving administration officials."
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said he signed the letter because "we need an independent investigation, not a whitewash led by Attorney General Gonzales, President Bush's best friend." He added in a statement, "President Bush has worn out his credibility with the American people yet he continues to stonewall an investigation into his involvement with Jack Abramoff, asking him to trust him without explaining why."
He was referring to President Bush's comments at a news conference last week in which he said he could not recall ever meeting Mr. Abramoff, a major fund-raiser in Mr. Bush's presidential campaign.
The Justice Department had no immediate response to the senators' request but in the past has rebuffed calls for a special prosecutor, saying that the department had demonstrated that it is pursuing the investigation aggressively. The call for a special prosecutor was first made last week by two of the Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Ken Salazar of Colorado.
The letter today noted that the chief investigator in the case, Noel Hillman, the head of the department's Public Integrity division, was stepping down after the announcement last week that he was being nominated by the White House to a federal judgeship in New Jersey.
His departure, which creates a vacancy at the top of the inquiry less than a month after Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea, means that the "appointment of a special counsel at this point in time is made even more appropriate," the letter said.
The calls for a special prosecutor came as Democrats made a separate effort on the Senate floor today to bring attention to Mr. Abramoff and his ties to the White House. They introduced an amendment to a budget bill that called on the White House to provide a public account of meetings that Mr. Abramoff may have had with Mr. Bush, his staff or others in the executive branch.
Democratic Congressional aides, speaking on condition of anonymity because of staff rules that bar them from commenting publicly, said they had little expectation that the amendment would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. But they said Democrats were still eager to bring attention to the issue.
"If the president has nothing to hide, there shouldn't be a problem," said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and one of the amendment's sponsors. Another sponsor, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, said that "the claim that the president doesn't know Mr. Abramoff doesn't seem to hold water."
Senator Lautenberg, who also signed the letter seeking a special prosecutor, had supported Mr. Hillman for the judicial appointment in New Jersey, and discussions about the nomination have been under way since last year.
The senator's chief counsel, Dan Katz, said that Senator Lautenberg "has supported Noel Hillman for a judgeship for almost a year and didn't think he should be denied the opportunity because he is doing a good job in his current position." But with Mr. Hillman gone, he said, the senator supports a special prosecutor because he "believes this case has become too politically sensitive to continue within the administration."
LINK
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Court filings shed more light on CIA leak investigation
02/02/2006 @ 12:28 pm
Filed by John Byrne and Ron Brynaert
Third Time reporter, named in filings, says he has not testified in case
A series of striking revelations have emerged after the release of dozens of pages of court files in the CIA leak investigation that have gone unnoticed by the mainstream media, RAW STORY has found.
Some of them have been uncovered by astute bloggers – including the fact that the outed agent’s husband will not testify at a trial, and that a third Time reporter has been fingered as having information potentially relevant to some aspects of the case.
Moreover, the documents reveal that no formal damage assessment has been done with regard to how the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame affected the agency’s operations worldwide. They also hint that Vice President Cheney’s former Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby may have outed Plame on the orders of his “superiors.”
Fitzgerald’s Jan. 23 letter was penned in response to a series of telephone conversations, letters, and motions filed by Libby, who was indicted for obstructing justice in the Plame investigation. Libby has sought to force the prosecutor to turn over more information about his case to bolster his defense.
In the letter, Fitzgerald notes that a third Time Magazine reporter – who now serves as Slate’s chief political correspondent – had conversations with Administration officials about a trip conducted by Plame’s husband to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger.
"We also advise you that we understand that reporter John Dickerson of Time magazine discussed the trip by Mr. Wilson with government officials at some time on July 11 or after, subsequent to Mr. Cooper learning about Mr. Wilson’s wife," Fitzgerald writes. "Any conversations involving Mr. Dickerson likely took place in Africa and occurred after July 11."
Matt Cooper, also a Time reporter, testified that Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove had cautioned him to play down the Wilson trip. Wilson, an ardent Bush critic, said he found no evidence to support claims that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium in order to build a nuclear weapon. Such claims were a keystone in the Administration’s efforts to convince the United States and Congress to support a pre-emptive war.
Reporter says he hasn’t been contacted in case
Dickerson told RAW STORY in an email message Thursday morning that he has not been contacted by the prosecutor.
“I didn't know I was mentioned in the court filings until I saw it on the web,” he said. “I've never been contacted by anyone in Fitzgerald's office.”
From July 8 to July 12, 2003, President Bush took a five-country tour of Africa, accompanied by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. A pool of reporters, including Dickerson, accompanied the President’s retinue.
Although the White House correspondent made no mention of any such conversations in his series of articles on the trip (link), Dickerson did contribute to a Time online report published on July 17, 2003.
From A War on Wilson?: "And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices."
Dickerson left Time in May 2005 for Slate. After Libby was indicted, he wrote about conversations he had with Fleischer at the time.
"He walked reporters, including me, up to the fact, suggesting they look into who sent Wilson, but never used her name or talked about her position," Dickerson wrote.
According to Newsday, Dickerson’s name appeared in a January, 2004 subpoena sent to the White House in search of “administrative contacts” with reporters regarding Plame or other elements of the probe.
Regardless, Fitzgerald says he’ll tell Libby by tomorrow which journalists he expects to call at trial.
"We will be providing to you prior to February 3 copies of subpoenas and pertinent correspondence relating to reporters referenced in the Indictment and/or whom we expect to call at trial," Fitzgerald wrote Libby.
Prosecutor won’t call Wilson; Says no CIA damage assessment
In response to Libby's motion to gather more information on Wilson, Fitzgerald said he doesn't "expect" to call the former Ambassador to testify at trial. He advises Libby to instead refer to Wilson's many media appearances and written accounts.
Also of note is the fact that Fitzgerald asserts that the CIA has conducted no formal damage assessment with regard to Plame’s outing.
“A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document,” Fitzgerald writes. “In any event, we would not view an assessment of the damage caused by the disclosure as relevant to the issue of whether or not Mr. Libby intentionally lied when he made the statements and gave the grand jury testimony which the grand jury alleged was false.”
Finally, Fitzgerald alludes to "authorization" by Libby's "superiors" – who may include President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney – who may have allowed him to disclose information about a then-classified report on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to the media. Previous reports have indicated that Cheney and Bush are not targets of the probe.
Fitzgerald writes, "As we discussed during our telephone conversation, Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate (“NIE”) to such reporters in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003 (and caused at least one other government official to discuss the NIE with the media in July 2003). We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."
Read Fitzgerald's letter in PDF format here.
PDF format
Raw Story researcher Muriel Kane contributed to this report.
LINK
Filed by John Byrne and Ron Brynaert
Third Time reporter, named in filings, says he has not testified in case
A series of striking revelations have emerged after the release of dozens of pages of court files in the CIA leak investigation that have gone unnoticed by the mainstream media, RAW STORY has found.
Some of them have been uncovered by astute bloggers – including the fact that the outed agent’s husband will not testify at a trial, and that a third Time reporter has been fingered as having information potentially relevant to some aspects of the case.
Moreover, the documents reveal that no formal damage assessment has been done with regard to how the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame affected the agency’s operations worldwide. They also hint that Vice President Cheney’s former Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby may have outed Plame on the orders of his “superiors.”
Fitzgerald’s Jan. 23 letter was penned in response to a series of telephone conversations, letters, and motions filed by Libby, who was indicted for obstructing justice in the Plame investigation. Libby has sought to force the prosecutor to turn over more information about his case to bolster his defense.
In the letter, Fitzgerald notes that a third Time Magazine reporter – who now serves as Slate’s chief political correspondent – had conversations with Administration officials about a trip conducted by Plame’s husband to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger.
"We also advise you that we understand that reporter John Dickerson of Time magazine discussed the trip by Mr. Wilson with government officials at some time on July 11 or after, subsequent to Mr. Cooper learning about Mr. Wilson’s wife," Fitzgerald writes. "Any conversations involving Mr. Dickerson likely took place in Africa and occurred after July 11."
Matt Cooper, also a Time reporter, testified that Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove had cautioned him to play down the Wilson trip. Wilson, an ardent Bush critic, said he found no evidence to support claims that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium in order to build a nuclear weapon. Such claims were a keystone in the Administration’s efforts to convince the United States and Congress to support a pre-emptive war.
Reporter says he hasn’t been contacted in case
Dickerson told RAW STORY in an email message Thursday morning that he has not been contacted by the prosecutor.
“I didn't know I was mentioned in the court filings until I saw it on the web,” he said. “I've never been contacted by anyone in Fitzgerald's office.”
From July 8 to July 12, 2003, President Bush took a five-country tour of Africa, accompanied by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. A pool of reporters, including Dickerson, accompanied the President’s retinue.
Although the White House correspondent made no mention of any such conversations in his series of articles on the trip (link), Dickerson did contribute to a Time online report published on July 17, 2003.
From A War on Wilson?: "And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices."
Dickerson left Time in May 2005 for Slate. After Libby was indicted, he wrote about conversations he had with Fleischer at the time.
"He walked reporters, including me, up to the fact, suggesting they look into who sent Wilson, but never used her name or talked about her position," Dickerson wrote.
According to Newsday, Dickerson’s name appeared in a January, 2004 subpoena sent to the White House in search of “administrative contacts” with reporters regarding Plame or other elements of the probe.
Regardless, Fitzgerald says he’ll tell Libby by tomorrow which journalists he expects to call at trial.
"We will be providing to you prior to February 3 copies of subpoenas and pertinent correspondence relating to reporters referenced in the Indictment and/or whom we expect to call at trial," Fitzgerald wrote Libby.
Prosecutor won’t call Wilson; Says no CIA damage assessment
In response to Libby's motion to gather more information on Wilson, Fitzgerald said he doesn't "expect" to call the former Ambassador to testify at trial. He advises Libby to instead refer to Wilson's many media appearances and written accounts.
Also of note is the fact that Fitzgerald asserts that the CIA has conducted no formal damage assessment with regard to Plame’s outing.
“A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document,” Fitzgerald writes. “In any event, we would not view an assessment of the damage caused by the disclosure as relevant to the issue of whether or not Mr. Libby intentionally lied when he made the statements and gave the grand jury testimony which the grand jury alleged was false.”
Finally, Fitzgerald alludes to "authorization" by Libby's "superiors" – who may include President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney – who may have allowed him to disclose information about a then-classified report on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to the media. Previous reports have indicated that Cheney and Bush are not targets of the probe.
Fitzgerald writes, "As we discussed during our telephone conversation, Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate (“NIE”) to such reporters in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003 (and caused at least one other government official to discuss the NIE with the media in July 2003). We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."
Read Fitzgerald's letter in PDF format here.
PDF format
Raw Story researcher Muriel Kane contributed to this report.
LINK
Fitzgerald Reveals Someone's Been Tampering With Evidence?
*** From Daily Kos ***
by georgia10
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 07:17:28 PM PDT
It's only February 1st, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is already having a bad month. First, he has Feingold breathing down his neck about his apparent perjury at his confirmation hearing. Then, Senator Leahy sends him a letter challenging him to explain why the Patriot Act should be reauthorized if the President claims he already has the authority to act unilaterally in the War on Terrorism. Then, Google still refuses to hand over Americans' porn data. And just when poor Alberto thought it couldn't get any worse, Patrick Fitzgerald resurfaces with a startling revelation: someone's been having fun with the delete button at the White House.
Scooter Libby's attorney has requested access to basically all of Fitzgerald's evidence. Mind you, this is an obstruction of justice charge. Yet Libby wants access to essentially all the transcripts and evidence so he can "prove" that he really did just forget about certain conversations. Well, in denying one of Libby's requests, Fitzgerald, in an oh-so-subtle manner, drops a bombshell:
"In an abundance of caution," he writes, "we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
How does Fitzgerald know of the existence of emails which have been deleted? Speculation leads us to conclude that either someone told him about the emails, or someone has copies of them. Notice Fitzgerald refers to multiple emails in both the Vice-President's and President's office. Were the emails communications between the two offices? It's also important to note that Fitzgerald states that no evidence "pertinent to the charges against the defendant" have been destroyed. This is a beautiful move by Fitzgerald, because remember, the charges against Libby are obstruction of justice and perjury.
So how does this make the sweat glisten on Gonzales' brow? We all know about the 12 hour gap, that twilight zone between the evening of September 23, 2003 (when Gonzales was informed of the order to preserve evidence) and September 24, 2003 (when Gonzales actually gave the order to retain evidence). But it's not just a 12 hour gap that provided a chance to tamper with the evidence. It's a two week gap. Recall that Gonzales and the rest of the White House lawyers screened every communication before handing it over to Fitzgerald. Democrats at the time cried foul:
Read their reaction here:
LINK
by georgia10
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 07:17:28 PM PDT
It's only February 1st, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is already having a bad month. First, he has Feingold breathing down his neck about his apparent perjury at his confirmation hearing. Then, Senator Leahy sends him a letter challenging him to explain why the Patriot Act should be reauthorized if the President claims he already has the authority to act unilaterally in the War on Terrorism. Then, Google still refuses to hand over Americans' porn data. And just when poor Alberto thought it couldn't get any worse, Patrick Fitzgerald resurfaces with a startling revelation: someone's been having fun with the delete button at the White House.
Scooter Libby's attorney has requested access to basically all of Fitzgerald's evidence. Mind you, this is an obstruction of justice charge. Yet Libby wants access to essentially all the transcripts and evidence so he can "prove" that he really did just forget about certain conversations. Well, in denying one of Libby's requests, Fitzgerald, in an oh-so-subtle manner, drops a bombshell:
"In an abundance of caution," he writes, "we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
How does Fitzgerald know of the existence of emails which have been deleted? Speculation leads us to conclude that either someone told him about the emails, or someone has copies of them. Notice Fitzgerald refers to multiple emails in both the Vice-President's and President's office. Were the emails communications between the two offices? It's also important to note that Fitzgerald states that no evidence "pertinent to the charges against the defendant" have been destroyed. This is a beautiful move by Fitzgerald, because remember, the charges against Libby are obstruction of justice and perjury.
So how does this make the sweat glisten on Gonzales' brow? We all know about the 12 hour gap, that twilight zone between the evening of September 23, 2003 (when Gonzales was informed of the order to preserve evidence) and September 24, 2003 (when Gonzales actually gave the order to retain evidence). But it's not just a 12 hour gap that provided a chance to tamper with the evidence. It's a two week gap. Recall that Gonzales and the rest of the White House lawyers screened every communication before handing it over to Fitzgerald. Democrats at the time cried foul:
Read their reaction here:
LINK
Abramoff and gaming Indians: Just the tip of the iceberg [Updated]
by mbw
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 11:43:10 PM PDT
(From the diaries -- kos)
The story of Jack Abramoff's buying of influence goes well beyond a few Congressional players. While those relationships are key to the story, they're secondary to his cosy relationship with CREA director Italia Federici, her former boss, Sec. of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Deputy Sec. Steven Griles, and this seedy gang's take-over of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This move, however, was not just to help a few gaming tribes expand their operations - remember, Abramoff dismissed his tribal clients as morons. He was using their money to screw not only tribes in direct competition for part of the gaming pie, but, probably unwittingly, to subvert justice for nearly half the Indians in the country.
The front-burner issue in the Interior Department during this Administration has been the foot-dragging, subverting and outright sabotaging of the largest class action case in US history, Cobell v. Norton. Norton was even slapped with a contempt charge by Judge Royce Lamberth for her part in the matter. Clinton Sec. Bruce Babbitt was also charged with contempt, but the plaintiffs in Cobell assert that while Clinton's people were just incompetent and trying to drag out the clock so they could hand off the problem, Norton has been downright hostile to settling the case, willing to use extreme measures to subvert the court ordered judgment.
Why? Colorado native Norton is of the James Watt school of pillage the environment (she entered the Reagan Administration to work for him) and her entire career has been to forward the interests of oil and gas, mining and forestry industries. And in the West, that means easy access to cheap federal land leases, hundreds of millions of acres of land rich with natural resources.
A large chunk of those federal lands are Indian Trust Fund lands, taken into trust in the late 1800s via the Dawes Act, and leased out to industries, ranchers and farmers at cut-rate prices. The money was then to be managed by Interior and paid out to native landowners. Of course, that didn't happen - hence Cobell v. Norton.
The courts have ordered a full accounting of the Trust. Problem is, many of the documents were destroyed, including a slew of them under Norton. So the plaintiffs decided a few years back that the only way to get a real accounting is to audit the industries' books. That's what makes everyone so nervous, as plaintiff experts, having done some sampling, estimate we're talking over $150 billion in underpayments and fraud, along with interest, of course. Yes, $150 BILLION. And the pressure would be huge for Congress to force a repayment by the guilty. If not, then it comes out of the taxpayers' pockets, as the courts have already ordered the accounts be properly audited and brought up to date. Hence, the concern of the oil/gas, mining, ranching, forestry and agriculture interests which use/abuse the land lease process.
So Norton did what she could to subvert the case, but as the heat was turned up, and the Administration losing appeal after appeal, she started pushing for Congressional Republicans to take the case and force a settlement. A settlement for a fraction of the potential amount, but one which would prevent an audit of industry accounts. Who is the chief supporter of a Congressional settlement? None other than the puppet of the oil, gas and mining industry, Richard Pombo. Twice Pombo has written legislation ordering a settlement (both times with no settlement figures, of course), but Delay intervened. Not because he likes Indians, but because he figures that it's safer to stall than to provide even the smallest chance the industry books will be audited. (Delay and most oilmen Congressmen voted against the original Indian Trust Accountability Act back in 1994 - only 36 Reps did.) So from 2002 to 2005, Delay ordered, despite a court order, that no accounting of the trust fund occur (or at least there'd be no funding for it, which, of course, means it doesn't happen.)
More Here
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 11:43:10 PM PDT
(From the diaries -- kos)
The story of Jack Abramoff's buying of influence goes well beyond a few Congressional players. While those relationships are key to the story, they're secondary to his cosy relationship with CREA director Italia Federici, her former boss, Sec. of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Deputy Sec. Steven Griles, and this seedy gang's take-over of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This move, however, was not just to help a few gaming tribes expand their operations - remember, Abramoff dismissed his tribal clients as morons. He was using their money to screw not only tribes in direct competition for part of the gaming pie, but, probably unwittingly, to subvert justice for nearly half the Indians in the country.
The front-burner issue in the Interior Department during this Administration has been the foot-dragging, subverting and outright sabotaging of the largest class action case in US history, Cobell v. Norton. Norton was even slapped with a contempt charge by Judge Royce Lamberth for her part in the matter. Clinton Sec. Bruce Babbitt was also charged with contempt, but the plaintiffs in Cobell assert that while Clinton's people were just incompetent and trying to drag out the clock so they could hand off the problem, Norton has been downright hostile to settling the case, willing to use extreme measures to subvert the court ordered judgment.
Why? Colorado native Norton is of the James Watt school of pillage the environment (she entered the Reagan Administration to work for him) and her entire career has been to forward the interests of oil and gas, mining and forestry industries. And in the West, that means easy access to cheap federal land leases, hundreds of millions of acres of land rich with natural resources.
A large chunk of those federal lands are Indian Trust Fund lands, taken into trust in the late 1800s via the Dawes Act, and leased out to industries, ranchers and farmers at cut-rate prices. The money was then to be managed by Interior and paid out to native landowners. Of course, that didn't happen - hence Cobell v. Norton.
The courts have ordered a full accounting of the Trust. Problem is, many of the documents were destroyed, including a slew of them under Norton. So the plaintiffs decided a few years back that the only way to get a real accounting is to audit the industries' books. That's what makes everyone so nervous, as plaintiff experts, having done some sampling, estimate we're talking over $150 billion in underpayments and fraud, along with interest, of course. Yes, $150 BILLION. And the pressure would be huge for Congress to force a repayment by the guilty. If not, then it comes out of the taxpayers' pockets, as the courts have already ordered the accounts be properly audited and brought up to date. Hence, the concern of the oil/gas, mining, ranching, forestry and agriculture interests which use/abuse the land lease process.
So Norton did what she could to subvert the case, but as the heat was turned up, and the Administration losing appeal after appeal, she started pushing for Congressional Republicans to take the case and force a settlement. A settlement for a fraction of the potential amount, but one which would prevent an audit of industry accounts. Who is the chief supporter of a Congressional settlement? None other than the puppet of the oil, gas and mining industry, Richard Pombo. Twice Pombo has written legislation ordering a settlement (both times with no settlement figures, of course), but Delay intervened. Not because he likes Indians, but because he figures that it's safer to stall than to provide even the smallest chance the industry books will be audited. (Delay and most oilmen Congressmen voted against the original Indian Trust Accountability Act back in 1994 - only 36 Reps did.) So from 2002 to 2005, Delay ordered, despite a court order, that no accounting of the trust fund occur (or at least there'd be no funding for it, which, of course, means it doesn't happen.)
More Here
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Indicted Lobbyist Jack Abramoff Set Up A Meeting With Bush For Five Clients In 2001...
Indicted Lobbyist Jack Abramoff Set Up A Meeting With Bush For Five Clients In 2001...
The Huffington Post
On May 9, 2001, five of lobbyist Jack Abramoff's clients met with the President at the White House. Grover Norquist, the President of Americans for Tax Reform, had invited them to a White House reception on behalf his organization.
Telling his clients they had to be event "sponsors" to attend, Mr. Abramoff convinced at least two clients to write $25,000 checks to Americans For Tax Reform (ATR). Four other of Abramoff's tribal clients also attended.
According to a Texas Observer article, Mr. Abramoff's client, Chairman of the Coushatta Tribe Lovelin Poncho came to the event after his tribe paid ATR $25,000.
Though they did not attend the event, the Choctaw Indians donated $25,000 to be a "sponsor" of the meeting, according to a June 8, 2005 Associated Press report. The same article reports another Abramoff client, the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, also attended.
Ben Fitial, then-Speaker of the House for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) showed up, too. A brochure later distributed by the Americans For Tax Reform features a picture of him shaking hands at the meeting with President Bush. Recently, Abramoff's ties to the Northern Mariana Islands have come under scrutiny: Several Congressmen have called for an investigation into whether he inappropriately influenced then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to get the US Attorney for the islands fired.
Yet another Abramoff client, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe, also attended. Last week, Time Magazine reported the existence of a photograph of Abramoff, Garza and the President from the ATR event. The White House has denied that Abramoff attended the event at all.
Finally, accounts suggest that a final Abramoff client, the Saginaw Tribe of Michigan might have been there. A May 2005 Newsweek article reported that Abramoff arranged for the tribe to meet with Bush and Rove after a $25,000 donation to ATR.
LINK
The Huffington Post
On May 9, 2001, five of lobbyist Jack Abramoff's clients met with the President at the White House. Grover Norquist, the President of Americans for Tax Reform, had invited them to a White House reception on behalf his organization.
Telling his clients they had to be event "sponsors" to attend, Mr. Abramoff convinced at least two clients to write $25,000 checks to Americans For Tax Reform (ATR). Four other of Abramoff's tribal clients also attended.
According to a Texas Observer article, Mr. Abramoff's client, Chairman of the Coushatta Tribe Lovelin Poncho came to the event after his tribe paid ATR $25,000.
Though they did not attend the event, the Choctaw Indians donated $25,000 to be a "sponsor" of the meeting, according to a June 8, 2005 Associated Press report. The same article reports another Abramoff client, the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, also attended.
Ben Fitial, then-Speaker of the House for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) showed up, too. A brochure later distributed by the Americans For Tax Reform features a picture of him shaking hands at the meeting with President Bush. Recently, Abramoff's ties to the Northern Mariana Islands have come under scrutiny: Several Congressmen have called for an investigation into whether he inappropriately influenced then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to get the US Attorney for the islands fired.
Yet another Abramoff client, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe, also attended. Last week, Time Magazine reported the existence of a photograph of Abramoff, Garza and the President from the ATR event. The White House has denied that Abramoff attended the event at all.
Finally, accounts suggest that a final Abramoff client, the Saginaw Tribe of Michigan might have been there. A May 2005 Newsweek article reported that Abramoff arranged for the tribe to meet with Bush and Rove after a $25,000 donation to ATR.
LINK
Leak prober got supersecret files
Leak prober got supersecret files
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald collected 10,000 pages of documents - including the most sensitive terrorism memos in the U.S. government - from Vice President Cheney's office, he said in court papers released yesterday.
Without serving any warrants in his probe of who outed CIA officer Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald even obtained censored copies of the President's Daily Brief, the supersecret CIA threat memo for President Bush.
Now Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney's disgraced former chief aide, is asking a court to force Fitzgerald to fork over all the documents to fight charges of perjury and lying to the FBI.
Libby will show that "any errors he made in his FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake or faulty memory rather than a willful intent to deceive," his lawyers argued.
The special counsel got the presidential briefing in his hunt for any files concerning Plame or her husband, Joe Wilson, a diplomat sent to Niger in 2002 to see whether the African regime sold uranium to Iraq.
Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby's request, said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy.
Originally published on February 1, 2006
LINK
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald collected 10,000 pages of documents - including the most sensitive terrorism memos in the U.S. government - from Vice President Cheney's office, he said in court papers released yesterday.
Without serving any warrants in his probe of who outed CIA officer Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald even obtained censored copies of the President's Daily Brief, the supersecret CIA threat memo for President Bush.
Now Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney's disgraced former chief aide, is asking a court to force Fitzgerald to fork over all the documents to fight charges of perjury and lying to the FBI.
Libby will show that "any errors he made in his FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake or faulty memory rather than a willful intent to deceive," his lawyers argued.
The special counsel got the presidential briefing in his hunt for any files concerning Plame or her husband, Joe Wilson, a diplomat sent to Niger in 2002 to see whether the African regime sold uranium to Iraq.
Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby's request, said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy.
Originally published on February 1, 2006
LINK
We are adding the Plamegate issues - Fitzgerald
I've decided to not limit this just to Abramoff. We have another investigation going on with Federal Prosecutor Fitzgerald. Plamegate. Wouldn't want to neglect that! So watch for info on that as well.
Boxer introduces amendment demanding Bush, Abramoff contacts
Boxer introduces amendment demanding Bush, Abramoff contacts
02/01/2006 @ 2:21 pmFiled by RAW STORY
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) plans to offer an amendment to the Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act of 2005 calling on the White House to disclose any and all meetings between indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House. This comes following reports that Abramoff clients were charged $25,000 each for "face time" lunches with President Bush.
Boxer is also calling out for her colleagues in the Senate to join her in co-sponsoring the amendment, writing to them that the public believes "a culture of corruption permeates Washington." In the letter, Boxer continues by quoting last night's State of the Union speech, arguing that it is the President's duty to restore public trust through government transparency.
An excerpt from the amendment here:
LINK
02/01/2006 @ 2:21 pmFiled by RAW STORY
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) plans to offer an amendment to the Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act of 2005 calling on the White House to disclose any and all meetings between indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House. This comes following reports that Abramoff clients were charged $25,000 each for "face time" lunches with President Bush.
Boxer is also calling out for her colleagues in the Senate to join her in co-sponsoring the amendment, writing to them that the public believes "a culture of corruption permeates Washington." In the letter, Boxer continues by quoting last night's State of the Union speech, arguing that it is the President's duty to restore public trust through government transparency.
An excerpt from the amendment here:
LINK
Multimillion dollar Abramoff client gave $50,000 to GOP after meeting with Bush, DeLay, Hastert and Lott
02/01/2006 @ 1:05 pmFiled by John Byrne and Ron Brynaert
Abramoff firm gave $50,000 more to GOP congressional campaigns seven months after visits.
Eleven million dollars can buy a lot of access in Washington. Especially if your lobbyist is Jack Abramoff.
Take Beningo Fitial, the current governor of the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. He and his company, along with their trade lobby and funds doled out by the islands at his prodding, spent $11.5 million dollars lobbying Washington between 1995 and 2002. Now he says he wants his money back -- but he continues to maintain that Abramoff protected his island's interests.
Fitial—who became Speaker of the Marianas House after a coup organized by Abramoff’s associates and former aides of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay—was treated like a king.
In January 2001, Fitial enjoyed the inauguration of President George W. Bush.
Three months later, in April, Fitial met Bush a second time. He also met Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). Then he stopped in for visit with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL).
In other words—Abramoff seems to have arranged for a non-head of state for a tiny island in the Pacific to meet with the three most powerful men in the United States of America. But that’s not all: Fitial also met with then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Senate Interior Department Appropriations Chairman Conrad Burns (R-MT). Fitial appears in photographs with Burns and Delay -- enlarged from tiny thumbnails in his hometown paper -- at left.
That, it seems -- along with a spate of legislative victories keeping the islands from U.S. jurisdiction -- is the value of $11 million dollars. Fitial, not surprisingly, has not been terribly critical of Abramoff since he pled guilty to myriad criminal charges, including fraud, tax evasion and bribing members of Congress.
Six months after his visit to Capitol Hill, Fitial’s family’s companies donated $50,000 to the National Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The following month, Abramoff’s firm, at the direction of former press secretary to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) Michael Scanlon, doled out $50,000 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that Scanlon secured Fitial's election by promising U.S. tax dollars as "bartering chips."
Fitial also chaired the islands' campaign to raise money for President Bush’s election. The AP reported last May that records show Abramoff’s Marianas lobbying team met members of the Bush Administration at least 195 times between February through November 2001.
A month before Bush was photographed with Fitial, he appointed Patrick Pizzella, a former Abramoff lieutenant, as Deputy Undersecretary of Labor. Pizzella worked the Marianas account with Abramoff; according to the New Republic, the former conservative lobbyist handpicked Pizzella for his Marianas lobbying team.
Asked about his meeting with Bush, Fitial told his local newspaper the Saipan Tribune, "This was a great opportunity to raise the CNMI's (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands) concerns to the president directly. Indeed, when the President discussed our military's readiness, I made it clear to him that the people of the CNMI support the military's presence and exercises in the Northern Mariana Islands."
“The president,” Fitial added, “said he was very pleased to know that the CNMI is supporting the military's presence in the islands."
Fitial also said he was pleased most by the fact that Lott recalled their meeting in a previous year. He said, "I think our efforts in Washington will continue to pay off for the CNMI people.”
And pay off they did: The Mariana’s $11.5 million, channeled through Abramoff, crushed numerous attempts to impose minimum wage and labor laws on the island territory. The tropical hotspot where Tom DeLay spent New Years in 1998 playing golf remains a haven for U.S. garment manufacturers—including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Gap—who enjoy the loosely enforced minimum wage of $3.05.
But you wouldn't know that from the labels: all products made in the Commonwealth can be stamped "Made in the USA," thanks to the U.S. Congress.
The Marianas have since accused Abramoff and his staff of overcharging the islands for some $1.2 million in unsupported expenses. The charges included travel, telephone, photocopy, computer research and outside-professional fees. Pizzella was not named by auditors, though was among the most traveled members of Abramoff’s group.
But this didn’t stop now-Governor Fitial from defending Abramoff just last week when asked if he regretted working with the lobbyist. “I will not comment about what Abramoff did outside of the commonwealth,” Fitial told the Marianas Variety Online. “But if you ask me what he did for the commonwealth, (Abramoff) protected our Covenant.”
Covenant is Fitial's political party. Fitial was elected governor of the Northern Marianas in November.
Related Raw Story: "Photograph shows Bush meeting now-Governor of Marianas Islands, who helped Abramoff get millions"
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Multimillion_dollar_Abramoff_client_who_gave_0201.html
02/01/2006 @ 1:05 pmFiled by John Byrne and Ron Brynaert
Abramoff firm gave $50,000 more to GOP congressional campaigns seven months after visits.
Eleven million dollars can buy a lot of access in Washington. Especially if your lobbyist is Jack Abramoff.
Take Beningo Fitial, the current governor of the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. He and his company, along with their trade lobby and funds doled out by the islands at his prodding, spent $11.5 million dollars lobbying Washington between 1995 and 2002. Now he says he wants his money back -- but he continues to maintain that Abramoff protected his island's interests.
Fitial—who became Speaker of the Marianas House after a coup organized by Abramoff’s associates and former aides of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay—was treated like a king.
In January 2001, Fitial enjoyed the inauguration of President George W. Bush.
Three months later, in April, Fitial met Bush a second time. He also met Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). Then he stopped in for visit with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL).
In other words—Abramoff seems to have arranged for a non-head of state for a tiny island in the Pacific to meet with the three most powerful men in the United States of America. But that’s not all: Fitial also met with then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Senate Interior Department Appropriations Chairman Conrad Burns (R-MT). Fitial appears in photographs with Burns and Delay -- enlarged from tiny thumbnails in his hometown paper -- at left.
That, it seems -- along with a spate of legislative victories keeping the islands from U.S. jurisdiction -- is the value of $11 million dollars. Fitial, not surprisingly, has not been terribly critical of Abramoff since he pled guilty to myriad criminal charges, including fraud, tax evasion and bribing members of Congress.
Six months after his visit to Capitol Hill, Fitial’s family’s companies donated $50,000 to the National Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The following month, Abramoff’s firm, at the direction of former press secretary to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) Michael Scanlon, doled out $50,000 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that Scanlon secured Fitial's election by promising U.S. tax dollars as "bartering chips."
Fitial also chaired the islands' campaign to raise money for President Bush’s election. The AP reported last May that records show Abramoff’s Marianas lobbying team met members of the Bush Administration at least 195 times between February through November 2001.
A month before Bush was photographed with Fitial, he appointed Patrick Pizzella, a former Abramoff lieutenant, as Deputy Undersecretary of Labor. Pizzella worked the Marianas account with Abramoff; according to the New Republic, the former conservative lobbyist handpicked Pizzella for his Marianas lobbying team.
Asked about his meeting with Bush, Fitial told his local newspaper the Saipan Tribune, "This was a great opportunity to raise the CNMI's (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands) concerns to the president directly. Indeed, when the President discussed our military's readiness, I made it clear to him that the people of the CNMI support the military's presence and exercises in the Northern Mariana Islands."
“The president,” Fitial added, “said he was very pleased to know that the CNMI is supporting the military's presence in the islands."
Fitial also said he was pleased most by the fact that Lott recalled their meeting in a previous year. He said, "I think our efforts in Washington will continue to pay off for the CNMI people.”
And pay off they did: The Mariana’s $11.5 million, channeled through Abramoff, crushed numerous attempts to impose minimum wage and labor laws on the island territory. The tropical hotspot where Tom DeLay spent New Years in 1998 playing golf remains a haven for U.S. garment manufacturers—including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Gap—who enjoy the loosely enforced minimum wage of $3.05.
But you wouldn't know that from the labels: all products made in the Commonwealth can be stamped "Made in the USA," thanks to the U.S. Congress.
The Marianas have since accused Abramoff and his staff of overcharging the islands for some $1.2 million in unsupported expenses. The charges included travel, telephone, photocopy, computer research and outside-professional fees. Pizzella was not named by auditors, though was among the most traveled members of Abramoff’s group.
But this didn’t stop now-Governor Fitial from defending Abramoff just last week when asked if he regretted working with the lobbyist. “I will not comment about what Abramoff did outside of the commonwealth,” Fitial told the Marianas Variety Online. “But if you ask me what he did for the commonwealth, (Abramoff) protected our Covenant.”
Covenant is Fitial's political party. Fitial was elected governor of the Northern Marianas in November.
Related Raw Story: "Photograph shows Bush meeting now-Governor of Marianas Islands, who helped Abramoff get millions"
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Multimillion_dollar_Abramoff_client_who_gave_0201.html
Who is Jack Abramoff?
Jack A. Abramoff (born February 28, 1959) is a United States political lobbyist, Republican activist, and businessman who is a central figure in a series of high-profile political scandals. He pled guilty on January 3, 2006 to three criminal felony counts in federal court related to the defrauding of Native American tribes.[1] On January 4th, Abramoff pled guilty to two criminal felony counts in a different federal court related to fraudulent dealings with SunCruz Casinos.[2] In his Indian lobbying plea bargain, Abramoff agreed to testify in related investigations, which are still ongoing. (Wikipedia)
**From today, Feb. 1, 2006, on...we will be keeping up with everything about Mr. Abramoff.
More to follow
**From today, Feb. 1, 2006, on...we will be keeping up with everything about Mr. Abramoff.
More to follow
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