Posted on 10/09/2005 8:55:28 PM PDT by Fedora
Regarding the second paragraph in my reply #57 to your #53, please see my follow-up explanation in #60; sorry I accidentally combined my reply to two posts there, and I apologize for any confusion.
Hopefully there is some means to determine when that was originally posted. The natural assumption would be it was posted shortly after the lecture, but in a court of law in this type of case I'd want something solid to substantiate that if I were Fitzgerald. I'd probably subpoena records from EPIC's server and Google's cache, as well as all participants in and all printed materials from the lecture to determine whether Plame's name was disclosed either orally or in print.
While I understand your argument, I'm not sure I agree. If she was covert, nothing Wilson would do would justify "outing" her, by anyone. If the media was looking for confirmation that they believed her to be CIA, anyone up as high as Rove and Libby knows that you can't even take a chance. The CIA will never confirm.
If you're out, you're out--it's like being pregnant --you are or you aren't.In any event the only report that she was "undercover" is from David Corn who wrote (The Nation) of the first articles. Wilson was obviously his anonymous source, and if he told that to Corn, he "outed" his wife. If he didn't, COrn is a liar.
As to what Fitz is going after--DOJ has very strict rules relating to ths issuance and substance of subpoenas to reporters. He can't go beyond the subpoena. And by agreement he can only go into those things named in the subpoena which relate to Libby.
She was not covert. Plame was working at Langley and according to Vainty Fair, most of the folks in the neighborhood seemed to know it. She drove every day to work. She also made political contributions using her cover company.
If the media was looking for confirmation that they believed her to be CIA, anyone up as high as Rove and Libby knows that you can't even take a chance. The CIA will never confirm.
It is my contention that the media was not interested in Wilson's wife, except to confirm Wilson's story that the VP and the CIA sent him to Niger to investigate the sale of uranium to Iraq. The fact that she was involved in the selection process was germane to the Wilson story. The VP's office stated, after the NYT story, that they had not requested the CIA to investigate and had no knowledge of it. Tenet said the same thing, i.e., he didn't direct it nor did he learn of the results.
On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wondered why Mr. Wilson, who had no intelligence background and strong anti-Bush views, had been selected for the Niger mission. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report," he wrote. That set off the Plame name game.
Wilson and the Dems claim that the WH "outed" Plame as retribution for Wilson's NYT article. In point of fact, it was Wilson who invited the media attention on his wife. He made false claims and made the connection to the CIA in his NYT article. He should have never mentioned in a newspaper article that he was acting on behalf of the CIA.
In his NYT article, Wilson stated, "The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government." And he added, "In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau." So the CIA paid his expenses and as soon as he arrived back in DC, the first thing he did was to provide a detailed briefing to the CIA.
We now know that Wilson's NYT article was full of false information, including his conclusions, which actually supported to contention that Iraq and Niger were discussing uranium purchases.
Libby and Rove were rebutting Wilson's story. The fact that Wilson's wife sent him to Niger is a critical element in that rebuttal.
A while back I read that Corn had not been subpoenaed which I find especially curious given that his was the first article to raise the issue over Novak's column. Royce and Phelps who wrote the second article that I know of, were subpoenaed.
I have always found this mysterious friend intriguing. I didn't get the sense it was mutual friend in Wilson's description though:
He had been walking down Pennsylvania Avenue toward my office near the White House when he came upon Novak, who, my friend assumed, was en route to the George Washington University auditorium for the daily taping of CNN’s Crossfire. He asked Novak if he could walk a block or two with him, as they were headed in the same direction; Novak acquiesced. Striking up a conversation, my friend, without revealing that he knew me, asked Novak about the uranium controversy. It was a minor problem, Novak replied, and opined that the administration should have dealt with it weeks before.
Heck, this walking a block with someone is straight out of Whittaker Chamber's Witness. This is how I remember Chambers describing meetings with fellow communists in NYC.
I know! I've always thought that paragraph sounded too cliche like! What reporter (Novak) talks about their story to a stranger before its written?
Wilson had better start practicing his frog-march...
Totally agree. The concern I have is that Judge Tetel in his ruling denying Miller's appeal writes: "Yet the article had that effect precisely because the leaked information—Plame’s covert status—lacked significant news value...Had Cooper based his report on leaks about the leaks—say, from a whistleblower who revealed the plot against Wilson— the situation would be different."
So the judge refers to her as "covert" and then refers to "the plot against Wilson"???? Could it be something in those 8 redacted pages or this just legal talk and meaningless?
Joe Wilson was called by Fitzgerald last week. Somewhere in Freeperworld is an excerpt from an article where he brags of not being called to testify.
The inference of course, is since SP did not call him or contact him in any way, he was as clean as a whistle.
Do we know if he is set to testify?
Why would the SP contact him, unless it was to testify? He would have to be under oath for anything to be relevant, correct?
Of course he would - and would't you like to be a fly on the wall for that?!? If he didn't call him in to testify, the only other reason I can think Fitz would call him would be to ask him something in regards to Miller's upcoming visit today?
Correct. This is the reason why I stated that the reporters already knew the Wilson/Plame connection and were just trying to confirm the story of Wilson's trip. It was not a matter of Libby/Rove outing Plame or confirming that she worked for the CIA. That was really a given. The question was who sent Wilson to Niger and why. The reporters wanted to nail Cheney and Bush for putting out false information in the State of the Union address and manipulating the intelligence.
Exactly. Do you have any links to where Wilson says Cheney sent him..I'm trying to bookmark some of some of this stuff. Thanks!
After reading the article I mentioned, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that phone call.
(swear & crass alert-not for the offfended)
I bet he sh!t his pants.
This whole story keeps my head spinning.
The initial issue is a no brainer-the spin offs confuse me.
Now there are others, even on FR, who think the President may be indicted. Go figure.
I can only speculate. Here's my hypothesis. If Fitz wants to call him as a witness and no lawyer has formally entered an appearance on his behalf, he may be calling to get the name of his counsel, if any.He was had someone speaking for him but that lawyer is not a criminal lawyer, and I do not know if he was present when Wilson and Plame were initially interviewed. He could just issue a subpoena to Wilson in the case that no lawyer has indicated being his counsel but time is running short.
That's my hypothesis.
This blogger (see below) 'Macsmind' writes of a scenario that several of us have thought about, that the reason Joe Wilson knew about the forged Niger uranium documents is that he had access to them through Valerie (or others in and around the CIA) and that his careless reference to them in relation to his 'report' unveiled that he was playing a dirty game with those such as the VIPS clowns to attack the administration. Details such as whether or not he saw them before his trip or how coordinated the entire plot may have been are less significant than the general point that whoever forged those documents is obviously playing a similar game to Joe Wilson; whether they worked together from the start or converged at some point is a separate issue from the fact that Wilson made an egregious blunder when he referred to the forged documents in explaining his report. Some interesting thoughts here:
___________________________________________________________
http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2005/10/plame-game-end-game.html
Plame Game - End Game
The noose around Joe Wilson and his co-horts necks in the most elaborate scheme ever devised against an Administration, is in fact tightening.
More will be coming in the next couple of days. The key is a familiar part of the story that has been before us all along:
From the Washington Post story recounting the Senate Report that began to knock down Wilson's house of cards last year:
"The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."
"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."
No one has missed this, it is a bombshell admission (you can't "misspeak this"). The question I have been working on since that time is "How did Joe ...know?"
The fact - the inescapable fact - is that there is no way for Amb. Wilson to have known that UNLESS he KNEW that before he even made the trip because:
1. The docs were forged by rogue CIA (of which his wife played a part).
2. Joe went to Niger in an elaborate plan not to check the story, but provide cover for the story. (a trip his wife arraigned)
The only problem. Wilson and his own ego - and his big mouth.
UPDATE: In a previous post wherein I mentioned VIPS member Ray McGovern, here is some information, from 2003 on Ray and on VIPS connections you may not have heard of. Like walking in waste management plant, there is an unmistakeable stink in all this - you only have to follow the scent to get to the Plame Truth.
Here is an exerpt:
"VIPS does not seem to have a website, but its email is vips@counterpunch.org, and their open letter appears to have been published at CounterPunch (run by Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist), an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler. VIPS also published an open letter in opposition to the war at Common Dreams back in February. The spokesman for VIPS is Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA analyst. McGovern's email is also at CounterPunch. He is giving a briefing today with Rep. Dennis Kucinich. McGovern has compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, even saying that it could lead to nuclear war. He has charged that if WMDs are found in Iraq, they may well have been planted. He believes Tenet's job is safe because if Tenet were fired, he would reveal that the White House ignored intelligence warnings pre-9/11. McGovern has urged CIA analysts to illegally release (leak) classified documents to show what he believes to be true, specifically citing Daniel Ellsberg.
Another member of the VIPS steering committee is William Christison, who among other things believes that the Bush administration is attempting to colonize the Middle East, jointly with Israel. He believes that the war on terror is being used to turn the US into a military dictatorship. He is also a backer of the left-wing Urgent Call, along with people such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Julian Bond, and Jonathan Schell."
If you don't know some of those names, Google them to have the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
I have been "data-mining" Able Danger style, all day long running links between names familiar in this "story". So far I find it amazing, at how many of the names - linked to this case, run back to a very familiar Billionaire financier, George Soros.
The dots aren't completed yet, but the picture is becoming very clear. Again, within the agency, and even now outside there are people who know what happened and don't like it.
UPDATE II: This post explains my preliminary take on the very important link between the two Wilson visits to Niger and how they might relate to the forgeries. Sorry to keep having to add older posts, search features on this "blogger blog" are a lot to be desired.
On an earlier post 'Macsmind' seems to think that Joe Wilson himself was involved in a kind of cover operation since the 1999 trip he made to Niger and may even have obtained the Niger government letterhead used in the forgeries, etc. I don't see a reason for thinking people like Wilson would have set out on such a course before the Bush administration came into office. Maybe I'm missing something but his motivation seems to be rage at the Bush administration for what he views as a wrong-headed set of policies in the Middle East.
Thanks for the ping and the data from the blogger.
Lets hope that the truth comes out and exposes, Wilson, Foley, Plame, the NY Slimes, Martin and others involved in this attempted electronic coup of our president. It the truth does get out on this mess, it will make Rather/Mapes gate look like a walk in the park.
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