Posted on 04/05/2004 9:58:13 AM PDT by tcuoohjohn
WASHINGTON — Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a CIA officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers and government officials said.
The inquiry's original focus centered on a statute that makes it a felony to intentionally reveal the identity of an undercover intelligence officer, but prosecutors have now widened the range of conduct under scrutiny and raised the possibility of bringing charges peripheral to the leak itself.
The expanded inquiry comes as prosecutors appear to be preparing to seek additional testimony before a federal grand jury, said lawyers with clients in the case.
The probe's broadened scope is a potentially significant development that represents exactly what allies of the White House feared when Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the case in December and turned it over to Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago.
Republican lawyers worried that the leak case might grow into a time-consuming and politically charged inquiry, like the sprawling independent counsel inquiries of the 1990s that distracted and damaged the Clinton administration.
Lawyers involved in the case and government officials say Fitzgerald is examining possible discrepancies between documents and statements made by current or former White House officials during a three-month preliminary investigation conducted last fall by the FBI and Justice Department.
The White House last year took the unusual step of denying any involvement in the leak on the part of several top administration officials, including Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said repeatedly that no one wants to get to the bottom of the case more than Bush.
But Bush himself has said he does not know if investigators will ever be able to determine who disclosed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to Robert Novak, who wrote in his syndicated column last July that Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA employee.
Wilson was a critic of the administration's Iraq policies. Democrats have accused the White House of leaking his wife's name out of revenge. Wilson, in a July 2003 opinion piece in the New York Times, disputed Bush's statement in his State of the Union address that January that Iraq was trying to develop a nuclear bomb and had sought to buy uranium in Africa.
Fitzgerald also is reportedly investigating whether the disclosure of Plame's identity came after someone discovered her name among classified documents circulating at the upper echelons of the White House. It could be a crime to disclose information from such a document.
In his new book "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, "I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy."
John Dean's book Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush just came out this month and Joe Wilson's book comes out this summer. This makes the "Watergate-like" burglary of Nicosi's records look suspicious. If you will remember, Kerry's brother Cameron was accused of a break in like that in 1972. Merely conjecture on my part, but it looks like a concerted effort to me. I have not been able to connect John Dean to the Kerry campaign yet.
It sounds like Dean was interviewed recently by Kerry's biographer Douglas Brinkley, judging by this passage in Brinkley's book:
It seemed as if a brutal showdown between the Nixon White House and VVAW would take place. But two White House advisors, Counsel John Dean and speechwriter Patrick Buchanan, wisely prevailed on the President to ease up on the hard-nosed tactics. As Dean wrote in an April 21 memorandum to Haldeman and John Ehrlichmann, Nixon's domestic policy advisor: "The policy--which the VVAW are totally unaware of--is that there will be no arrests made of VVAW who violate the order and it has been clearly and unequivocally given to the appropriate authorities. Decades later, Dean recalled that Nixon was "worried to death" about the VVAW. "He tried to pretend that the protests didn't bother him," Dean said. "But every half an hour--literally--he wanted an update."
(Douglas Brinkley, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, 365-366)
On a related note, while looking into a possible Kerry-Watergate connection last night, I noted that Daniel Ellsberg appeared with Kerry at a VVAW event back in 1971:
The rest of 1971 was one of nonstop locomotion for Kerry. . .he appeared at a winter soldier event held at Faneuil Hall in Boston, where Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, and Daniel Ellsberg participated.
(Brinkley, 404)
Brinkley also mentions that Ellsberg was originally planning to leak the Pentagon Papers to Senator Fulbright for use by George McGovern, but McGovern changed his mind before publication (391-2); meanwhile in April 1971, "VVAW had received fifty thousand dollars from United States Senators McGovern and Hatfield, who... obtained the money from an unknown New York source." (www.wintersoldier.com: Time Line); and that same April, Fulbright showed up at a VVAW fundraiser where he met Kerry, whom he had "already heard good things about from his colleague Ted Kennedy", and the next day Fulbright's aide called Kerry to ask him to testify to the Senate (Brinkley, 366-367). Also, Kerry's pre-VVAW political ally Fr. Robert Drinan (cf. Brinkley, 342: "It was while serving as chairman of Drinan's congressional campaign that Kerry first came to the attention of VVAW") was the Congressman who initiated the call for Nixon's impeachment (""I was the first to file the resolution of impeachment against Nixon," said Fr. Robert F. Drinan, SJ, former dean of Boston College Law School 1956-70 and current Georgetown law professor.": Remembering Watergate: BC alumnus and former law school dean started Nixon accusations in Senate 30 years ago). It sure looks like Kerry was pretty close to Nixon's enemies during Watergate. This raises my suspicion that it may be more than coincidence that Dean has recently crawled out of the woodwork to climb on the Kerry bandwagon.
What grand jury in Chicago? I thought this was some sort of Congressional inquiry. As far as any Grand Jury is concerned, if he's called to be a witness, I guess he'll have to go, but he could just not answer the question in order to protect a source. Other journalists have done it. He'd just have to decide whether or not he's willing to accept the consequences of that decision.
The only way you could 'logically assume' that Novak's statements are unsupported by evidence beyond his assurance is if you automatically assumed he lies when asked questions. If that's the case, then testimony under oath will be all that you'd probably accept.
That $50,000 figure reached out and slapped me right in the face...think I found the "unknown New York source" (the time frame and the $ amount are right):
The protests were set for the week of April 20. Kerry spent some of his time at the Georgetown townhouse of his longtime friend George Butler, working the phones, trying to round up veterans. But the real problem was money. Kerry, who was not financially independent despite rumors to the contrary, was supposed to raise money to pay for buses that would transport the veterans.He called his friend Walinsky, who had run unsuccessfully for New York attorney general and had excellent financial connections. Walinsky arranged a meeting of potential donors at the Seagram Building in New York City. Among those present were Seagram chief executive Edgar M. Bronfman Sr. and about 20 other New York businessmen who opposed the war. Kerry delivered a low-key speech about the importance of having veterans attend the protest. Then the businessmen were each asked to stand and declare how much they would contribute. "We raised probably $50,000," Walinsky recalled. "It took an hour."
BTW, it is a very good article with lots of info.
Through Teddy Kennedy, Kerry linked up with Adam Walinsky, a former speech writer for Robert F. Kennedy who was involved with Jane Fonda and a handful of left-wing Hollywood types who had funded an antiwar advocacy group called Vietnam Veterans Against War [VVAW].
I think you did! :) That sounds like what Brinkley might be alluding to on p. 367--this is from the paragraph right after a description of how Fulbright met Kerry after hearing good things about Kerry from Ted Kennedy. While Kerry was preparing his presentation for Fulbright's Senate committee:
Kerry spent most of the day pulling his most impassioned thoughts together. Dividing his time between VVAW headquarters, several media events, and the Mall, he made a series of afternoon telephone calls to friends, seeking advice and guidance. One such friend was Adam Walinsky, the former Robert F. Kennedy speechwriter who had inspired him to speak out when they joined the 1969 Moratorium.
Here's a few links with more background on Walinsky and his relation to the Kennedys and Kerry:
Excerpt -- B.G. Burkett, Glenna Whitley, Stolen Valor, Verity Press, 1998, Chapter 6, Atrocities: The Good War Versus the Bad War, pgs. 130 - 137 (But years later, after his election to the Senate, Kerry's medals turned up on the wall of his Capitol Hill office. When a reporter noticed them, Kerry admitted that the medals he had thrown that day were not his. And Kerry's emotional, from-the-heart speech had been carefully crafted by a speechwriter for Robert Kennedy named Adam Walinsky, who also tutored him on how to present it. )
I also find interesting the mention of Edgar Bronfman, who has long been one of Kerry's major financiers. There was a good thead on this here:
Did Democrat Fat Cats Make John Kerry Famous? [Including Seagram's Bronfman]
The Bronfman family is also linked to Teresa Heinz-Kerry's Tides Foundation:
The Bronfmans (Tides is an umbrella foundation, which dispenses the philanthropy of members of the Bronfman family and Peter Buttenweiser (listed [by] Forbes as one of the world's richest people, and the 16th largest donor to the Democratic party in 1998).)
I'm currently trying to document links between the Bronfmans and Ted Kennedy--or for that matter Joseph Kennedy, who made his fortune in partnership with associates of Sam Bronfman's partner Meyer Lansky.
Senator Edward Kennedy showed up unexpectedly, signing autographs, patting backs, and showing his complete solidarity with the Vietnam veterans. Ever since 1966, when he wrote an antiwar article for Look about his journey to Vietnam, Kerry had been a virulent critic of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. . .When trying to educate himself about Vietnam, Kerry paid close attention to what Kennedy said or did. "It was the first time I really spoke to John", Kennedy recalled about the Dewey Canyon III campout. "He peeled off to the side and we talked about the veterans' movement."
Douglas Brinkley, Tour of Duty, 369
I always kinda liked him. :-)
Liberals are not evil. They are just stunningly naive and awesomely thick headed.
When liberals conspire to populate the grade schools and universities with ignorant clones of themselves in order to render our children illogical and illiterate, susceptible to political advertising disguised as "primetime sitcoms", they become evil.
Anyone who deliberately promotes ignorance is evil, in my book.
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