By GottaLaff
Thank you, David Shuster, for tweeting the link to this. I've been looking everywhere for it:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
"Failed"? What a worthless p.o.s. More at the link.
(AP) Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice president." Last week's release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney's answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.
On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy.
(snip)
Among the most basic questions for Cheney in the Plame probe: How did Libby find out that the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson worked at the CIA?
Libby's own handwritten notes suggest Libby found out from Cheney. When Libby discovered Cheney's reference to Plame and the CIA in his notes - notes that Libby knew he would soon have to turn over to the FBI - the chief of staff went to the vice president, probably in late September or early October 2003.
Sharing the information with Cheney was in itself an unusual step at the outset of a criminal investigation in which potential White House witnesses were being ordered by their superiors not to talk to each other about the Plame matter.
"It turns out that I have a note that I had heard about" Plame's CIA identity "from you," Libby says he told the vice president.
And what did Cheney say in response? Fitzgerald asked Libby in front of a federal grand jury six months later.
"He didn't say much," Libby replied. "You know, he said something about 'From me?' something like that, and tilted his head, something he does commonly, and that was that."
Cheney's version of the conversation, as related in the FBI interview summary?
Cheney "cannot recall Scooter Libby telling him how he first heard of Valerie Wilson. It is possible Libby may have learned about Valerie Wilson's employment from the vice president ... but the vice president has no specific recollection of such a conversation."
On another basic point, Cheney simply refused to answer.
By GottaLaff
My pal Jason Leopold is not only the go-to guy for all things Plame/Rove/Cheney, he also conducts interviews with newsmakers.
Here's a Q and A from 2007 that he had with Valerie Plame Wilson herself that deserves more attention, especially in light of the newest revelations about what a big fat liar Dickless McHeartstent is:
Valerie Plame Still Wants to Know ...
By Jason Leopold t r u t h o u t | Report Tuesday 13 November 2007
Former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson would still like to know the identity of the CIA official who passed her name to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney in the spring of 2003, and 'under what circumstances.' That's just one of several unanswered questions Plame Wilson has been trying to figure out in the years since several senior officials in the Bush administration leaked her name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and a handful of other journalists.
That leak ended her two-decade CIA career. 'I'd like to know, why did Novak go with my maiden name, Plame, in his original article?' Plame Wilson said during an hour-long, two-part interview with Truthout. 'I always thought that was strange. When I married, I took my married name. And then he [Novak] used Valerie Plame [in his column]. It was only the CIA who knew that I worked for them, and my maiden name.' Plame Wilson is promoting her book, 'Fair Game,' a memoir she wrote about the leak, her job as an intelligence operative working on counterproliferation issues, and the fallout that ensued when she became a public figure after her identity and CIA status were published in newspapers and magazines.
Her book landed on The New York Times bestseller list two weeks ago and has more than 350,000 copies in print. Perhaps the most important question yet to be answered for Plame Wilson is whether President Bush had prior knowledge about the leak of her identity. "I'd love to know, what did President Bush know about all of this?" Plame Wilson said.
Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran.
By GottaLaff
That's just a nibble. Go devour the whole piece here.A month before Valerie Plame Wilson's covert status as a CIA operative was revealed, Vice President Dick Cheney told his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and his press secretary, Cathie Martin, that Plame Wilson worked at the spy agency.
But according to a 28-page summary of Cheney’s May 8, 2004 interview with the special prosecutor probing the leak, Cheney did not recall having that conversation.
"Cheney has no recollection of Cathie Martin entering his office at some point while Scooter Libby was present and advising both of them that [Plame Wilson] was employed by the CIA," states the interview summary, released late Friday by the FBI after a lengthy court battle between the Bush and Obama administrations and the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). [...]
Cheney described the CIA's decision to dispatch Ambassador Wilson to Niger as "amateur-hour" and he disparaged the CIA's handling of Iraq intelligence, which Cheney, Libby and others in the Office of the Vice President pressured agency analysts to manipulate in an attempt to portray Iraq as posing an immediate threat.
Cheney said he could not recall playing any role in the campaign to attack Wilson. But former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan wrote in his memoir, What Happened: Inside The Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, that the White House’s behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit Wilson heated up in June 2003. “The vice president and Libby were quietly stepping up their efforts to counter the allegations of the anonymous envoy to Niger...," McClellan wrote. [...]
In fact, Cheney stated that he did not recall more than two-dozen key events he was involved in [...]
By GottaLaff
The Obama administration indicated in court papers it may appeal a federal judge’s ruling ordering the Justice Department to release portions of the transcribed interview between former Vice President Dick Cheney and Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor appointed to probe the roles Bush administration officials played in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson six years ago.
The resistance from the Obama administration has left some of its supporters shaking their heads. Not only does the obstruction go against President Obama’s pledge of government openness, but it is protecting the reputation of Cheney, one of Obama’s most vocal critics.
Court papers filed by Obama’s Justice Department in July revealed that Bush and Cheney were in contact about the scandal, including what is described as “a confidential conversation” and “an apparent communication between the Vice President and the President.”
That court filing also revealed that Fitzgerald questioned Cheney about his participation in the decision to declassify parts of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s alleged WMD. It ultimately fell to Bush to clear selected parts of the NIE so they could be leaked as part of the White House campaign to disparage Wilson.
About time and this could be interesting.
(AP) A federal judge ruled Thursday that the FBI must publicly reveal much of its interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative.***I just don't get this. You can opt out of testifying in a criminal case just because your words might get out?
The FBI interviewed Cheney in June 2004 as it was investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's identity after her husband publicly criticized the Bush administration. Both the Bush and Obama administrations said they wanted to keep the interview confidential because future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could became public.***
But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled there was no justification to withhold the entire 67 pages of records documenting the interview since the Plame leak investigation has concluded. He said that limited parts could be withheld to protect national security or personal privacy.
Government attorneys told Sullivan in a hearing this summer that if he ordered the documents released, they would appeal and seek to withhold the documents until the matter is resolved.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling Thursday.
By GottaLaff
The Limpest Dick gets it up long enough for some premature snarlization:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney issued a statement in the wake of a Time magazine story on his last ditch efforts to push for a presidential pardon for his chief of staff:Awww, wittle "honorable" Scooty is a victim! His Douchiness says so, so it must be true.
"Scooter Libby is an innocent man who was the victim of a severe miscarriage of justice. He was not the source of the leak of Valerie Plame's name. Former Deputy Secretary of State, Rich Armitage, leaked the name and hid that fact from most of his colleagues, including the President. Mr. Libby is an honorable man and a faithful public servant who served the President, the Vice President and the nation with distinction for many years. He deserved a presidential pardon."
By GottaLaff
Arguing before Washington, D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Smith said Tuesday that the court should not unseal Cheney’s interview with prosecutors during the Valerie Plame case because it could make future vice presidents hesitant to cooperate with investigations. He added that Cheney’s words could also be used for political embarrassment and must be kept under wraps until it can only be used in a “historical context.”
Smith has previously argued that the court should keep Cheney’s words secret because they may turn up on Comedy Central’s fake news program The Daily Show, embarrassing the former vice president.
We wouldn't want to inflict any more embarrassment on the Dick than he has to himself, now would we? So what if he committed a few felonies? Pffft.
Then again, there's nothing more unattractive than a red face in and orange uniform. Maybe this is all about fashion risks, Yeah, that must be it, because it makes about as much sense.
He asked the court to delay disclosure for 10 years from the day President George W. Bush left office.
![[banghead.gif]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtkJzGOuQWtpsM9Wfl9nirLVX2NCJJuiJggoeXR5gQ179j3DinNEj085oM3a8CR9Ph_877Y8LB8vjGjm-BIrs4DwIgcsksksoBy_bYFoVZDyiEM75rDpy_pNahfXv8vz-2aLXj-V0SY0o/s1600/banghead.gif)
“Sullivan sounded highly skeptical of the government’s arguments, but he said he had not decided how he would rule in the case [...]
The judge also complained that Obama’s Justice Department seemed to be asking him to create a vice presidential exception to the Freedom of Information Act — to legislate — “something courts can’t do,” he reportedly said.
“It sounds like Emmet Sullivan is not buying that argument–though he is also unwilling to just order the release of the interview without giving Obama’s DOJ an opportunity to waste more money protecting Cheney from embarrassment,” rattled blogger Marcy Wheeler.
Nothing worse than a "rattled blogger". I should know. I'm feeling a little rattled myself right about now.
By GottaLaff
Another day, another Supreme Court decision that makes me want to do this:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a civil lawsuit filed by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, against Bush administration officials who were responsible for leaking her covert CIA status to the media and attacking her husband for accusing the White House of twisting prewar Iraq intelligence.
The Supreme Court’s rejection effectively brings the three-year old case to a close. The Wilson’s had sued Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Cheney’s ex-Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage for violating their civil rights.
By GottaLaff
A federal judge says he wants to look at notes from the FBI's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA officer.The ObamAdministration is saying that future administrations would hesitate before cooperating with investigations, that their foes-- and comedians-- would abuse the info. Yeah, then they'd have to picket Letterman again, and that can be such a pain.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he wants to review the documents after Obama administration lawyers said they would continue the Bush administration's fight to keep the interview from becoming public.
Sullivan the Justice Department must give him more precise reasons for keeping the information confidential.How ironic: Now the Obama lawyers will have to come up with a Top Ten List of their own.
I'm going to bet that Bush doesn't have any post-presidential hunting forays planned with Cheney.
Noting a sharp disagreement with his former boss, former Vice President Dick Cheney told the Weekly Standard that his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, deserved a presidential pardon.
Said Cheney: "Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and honorable men I've ever known. He's been an outstanding public servant throughout his career. He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush's decision."
In addition to this issue, Cheney said he disagreed with Bush just four other times: On a gay marriage ban; on firing Donald Rumsfeld; on Washington, D.C.'s gun ban; and on North Korea.
By GottaLaff
A federal judge has ordered the Bush White House to preserve its e-mails, just days before a new administration takes over.How many courts have tried to correct BushCo's thuggery? 5? 10? 20? What does it take?
Tip of the iceberg.The court's preservation notice Wednesday stems from a ongoing lawsuit by private groups over allegedly missing electronic messages, and allegations the White House failed to properly monitor its internal communications among staff.
It has been a thorny legal and political issue for outgoing Bush officials, who are in the process of transferring more than 300 million e-mail messages and 25,000 boxes of documents to the National Archives.
U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy instructed officials to search all White House workstations "and to collect and preserve all e-mails sent or received between March 2003 and October 2005."
Executive office personnel were also ordered to surrender any e-mail from that 31-month period. [...]
The time period in question includes the start of the Iraq War, as well as the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA operative. [...]
"There is nothing like a deadline to clarify the issues," said National Security Archive Director Tom Blanton. "In six days the Bush Executive Office of the President will be gone and without this order, their records may disappear with them. The White House will complain about the last-minute challenge, but this is a records crisis of the White House's own making."
By GottaLaff
The Nation of Dick, the Chimpenfuhrer, and their little band of democracy pirates have done more damage in the past eight years than we can possibly process or capture, even in an excellent year-end summary.True to its mania for secrecy, the Bush administration is leaving behind vast gaps in the most sensitive White House e-mail records, and with lawyers and public interest groups in hot pursuit of information that deserves to be part of the permanent historical record.
E-mail messages that have gone suspiciously missing are estimated to number in the millions. [...]
The deep-sixed history also includes improper business conducted by more than 50 White House appointees via e-mail at the Republican Party headquarters. Historians and archivists are suing the administration. We should be grateful for their efforts. Entire days of e-mail records have turned up conveniently blank at the offices of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Mr. Cheney, of course, retreats from sunshine with the wariness of Alucard; he is fighting to the last the transfer of his records to the National Archives, as required by law. [...]
[T]he Bush team, from day one, has flouted the requirement to preserve a truthful record, ignoring repeated warnings from the National Archives. In government agencies, the public’s freedom-of-information rights have been maliciously hobbled. [...]
It will take years to ingest before historians can truly get a handle on what is missing.
History is truly the poorer for the Bush administration. President-elect Barack Obama must quickly undo the damage by ordering that records be shielded from political interference, by repairing the freedom-of-information process, and by ending the abuse of the classification process to cloak the truths of the presidency.
By GottaLaff
By GottaLaff
Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, plan to take their civil lawsuit against Bush administration officials to the Supreme Court after a federal circuit court refused to rehear the case on Monday.Never, ever give up. Not ever.
Wilson v. Cheney, filed in 2006, charges that Bush administration officials such as Vice President Cheney, and aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, violated Plame's constitutional rights in allegedly engineering the outing Plame, who was undercover at the time, as retaliation against her husband, an Iraq war critic, who had been sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate the possible sale of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. [...]
"There must be consequences when government officials abuse their power and endanger national security for political ends," said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan on Tuesday. "This is an issue worth fighting over and we will not give up."
Man, it all seems so long ago! The movie is finally coming out, starring Kate Beckinsale as our "heroine" Judy Miller. Greg says they made the Fitzgerald character "evil".
By GottaLaff
In a supplement to his responses to the House Judiciary Committee, Patrick Fitzgerald confirms what we've always suspected: Karl Rove was trying to have Patrick Fitzgerald fired while Fitzgerald was still investigating Rove for his role in leaking Valerie Wilson's identity--and the timing lines up perfectly with the Administration's efforts to fire a bunch of US Attorneys.Here are more pared down excerpts:
[H]ere's the allegation [...] (though I think Fitzgerald is referring to someone besides Ata, because Ata was not yet cooperating with the Rezko prosecutors): [...]The most corrupt bunch of thugs ever. Still in power, still not incarcerated."[Ata] had conversations with Mr. Rezko about the fact that Mr. Kjellander was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed," Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.[...]Note, Fitzgerald emphasizes that Rove was trying to fire him to protect Republican donor Bob Kjellander, not to protect Rove and Libby and Cheney. But that doesn't change the fact that Rove was in discussions about firing Fitzgerald while he--Rove--was under active investigation.
Also note the timing: while the discussions between this cooperating witness and (presumably) Kjellander happened earlier, the timing lines up with the effort to fire all the US Attorneys--and then, when Kyle Sampson suggested his name, Fitzgerald specifically--at the beginning of 2005.
By GottaLaff
"I think it went one step too far to say that wearing a flag lapel pin was not true patriotism," Rove said. "For a lot of people, it is true patriotism. And that kind of judgmental comment, I thought was inappropriate. I don't suggest it's un-American, but it was questioning, inherently, the patriotism of people who said, 'You know what? I'm going to put a flag on my lapel or on my sleeve or on my uniform."' Here's an idea, Mr. Guru: Accuracy. Obama never said wearing a pin wasn't true patriotism. This is the equivalent of accusing Wes Clark of besmirching McCain's military duty by correctly pointing out the being a P.O.W. is not a qualifier for being a good administrator/president.
"My attitude is, I know who I am. I'm not the myth that I've been developed into."
And he seemed unconcerned about the many shots he's taken from many quarters.
"Harry Truman said, 'If you live in Washington and want to have a friend, have a dog.' And I've got two," he said. One avoids him. The other pees on his shoes. Oh, sorry, those were his aides. The dogs ran away.
"On that one, you'll have to wait for my book, unfortunately. Which will be will be available in the fall of 2009 for $29.95," he said. Part I: Karl, you've been declining for years. Part II: Heads up: Nobody will have $29.95 by the fall of 2009. Dream on. Maybe your 2 dogs can use the books for Puppy Piddle Paper. In fact, that would be an upgrade.
By GottaLaff
Final action came as Senate Republicans narrowly blocked passage of a separate Medicare bill, which had sailed through the House only days before but fell one vote short of the 60 needed to invoke cloture.Next, Conyers wants interviews and so much more:
The stalemate means physicians with elderly patients face an automatic 10.6 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements effective July 1. Pacing the floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) angrily accused Republicans of putting the government-backed health program at risk and vowed to force a second vote on the issue as soon as the Senate returns from the Fourth of July recess.
“During the next 10 days, think how you are going to vote the next time,” Reid said, openly taunting President Bush for his weak standing in the polls.
“How in the world could anybody be afraid of him vetoing a bill?” Reid asked. “How you can go home and say, 'I voted no because this weak president, with the weakest political standing since they’ve done polling, I voted because I was afraid to override his veto.' Oh, come on.”
House Judiciary Committee John Conyers has issed a subpoena to the Justice Dept. for the unredacted interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney on former CIA operative Valerie Plame, as well as numerous other documents sought unsuccessfully by Democrats for years.
Conyers is also seeking FBI notes of interviews with some top former White House officials, including Karl Rove, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Scott McClellan, Dan Bartlett and Andrew Card.
The committee also wants unreleased memos from DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, including an Oct. 23, 2001, memo related to use of American military forces to combat terrorism within the United States.
In addition, Conyers is seeking any materials in DOJ's possession related to the 2002 New Hampshire "phone jamming" incident, the firing of a U.S. attorney in Minnesota, the department's civil rights activities, and "selective prosecution" of Democratic politicians such as former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
Whew! 'Atsa lotta wanna!
But you know what they say, ask not, want not.
By GottaLaff
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