Posted on 10/11/2005 5:00:12 PM PDT by YaYa123
In two appearances before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's name, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, did not disclose a crucial conversation that he had with New York Times reporter Judith Miller in June 2003 about the operative, Valerie Plame, according to sources with firsthand knowledge of his sworn testimony.
The new revelations regarding Libby come as Fitzgerald has indicated that he is wrapping up his investigation and making final decisions as to whether criminal charges will be brought in the case.
Libby also did not disclose the June 23 conversation when he was twice interviewed by FBI agents working on the Plame leak investigation, the sources said.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald apparently learned about the June 23 conversation for the first time just days ago, after attorneys for Miller and The New York Times informed prosecutors that Miller had discovered a set of notes on the conversation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
Keith Olberman opens his show with, "The Plot Thickens", and sounds as if he will pick up where Matthews left off.
Waas has been around for years - during the Clinton era he wrote a fairly exhaustive piece surmising his opinion as to the author of Monica's infamous "talking points" memo - he was wrong but fairly thorough.
I'm not sure Murray Waas qualifies as MSM. He has a website
http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/
and is called an "investigative journalist" in a Slate article I found.
It's just soooo strange Waas is the only one reporting this stuff. Of course not so strange Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman would lap it up.
Doesn't anybody notice - this purported conversation was held weeks before Joe Wilson's article was even published!
ping
So when do we get the final column from Novak naming names?
ping!
What the article does NOT say is whether Libby was ASKED by FBI agents or the Grand Jury about conversations he had PRIOR to the publication of Wilson's July 6 NYT Op-ed piece.
Since Miller's original subpoena was limited to the July period, it appears that the investigation has until recently focused narrowly on only the period AFTER Wilson's op-ed was published.
In other words, it may not be the case that Libby was untruthful in his earlier testimony, but rather that the earlier period was simply not a focus of questioning.
If true, that further supports my theory that at least until recently Fitzgerald's investigation has narrowly focused on the question of whether White House people did or did not violate any laws in their conversations with journalists in the period after the publication of Wilson's piece on July 6, and he has not tried to aggressively go after HOW journalists who knew about Plame before those conversations came by that knowledge. However, the recent contact of Wilson by Fitzgerald and the focus on the June conversation may indicate that Fitzgerald is now trying to actually get back to the source of what happened; we'll see. I still tend to the view that once he clears (if in fact he does) the White House people, that the conflict that gave rise to the use of a Special Counsel goes away, and Fitzgerald will hand the investigation back to the Justice Department proper, which can decide whether to follow up on any other investigatory threads.
As to the discussions between Abrams and Tate, even if Abrams is telling the truth about the substance of their conversation, i.e., that Tate's opinion as a matter of what the law is is that a general waiver requested by an employer is analogous to the effective bar on a White House employee asserting the Fifth Amendment, I don't believe that merely stating his view of what the law is, without more, could be held to be obstruction, if Tate did not otherwise discourage Abrams and Miller from taking the next step and asking for a personal waiver.
That is BS. Any "news" article with such language is a demonstration that I can't trust the source.
Bush cited a British report, that the British stand behind to this day. That Wilson, a leading Dem political hack, actually had any useful information after spending a few days going to parties in Niger is doubtful. I trust the British over Wilson in this matter, and for the article to site Bush's mention of yellowcake in the SOTUA is partisan propaganda.
Perhaps Libby was not asked the question and therefore, not obligated to answer.
Joe Wilson hadn't been "published"...but he had been leaking "anonymously" for two months.
Nicholas Kristof's column of May 6, 2003 provides a description of his source that would effectively finger Wilson -- if anybody was interested enough to do a little digging.
Indeed, Cheney and Libby probably were aware of Wilson by this date. After all, the "anonymous source" was claiming that he had been "sent by the Vice President". Damn right, Cheney would want to know who this fool was.
I have a hard time believing Waas' article, because his main premise is Libby/Tate discouraged Miller from testifying and Libby, supposedly, was not clear on his initial waiver. However, on CNN Reliable Sources, Miller's prior attorney, Abrams, said to the interviewer, Kurtz:
"KURTZ: I talked to people at the "New York Times" who are angry and confused about this. They say, understanding -- look, many journalists have used confidential sources. Most of us have not gone to jail. They say you could have had something approaching the same deal before she went to jail. You and Judy Miller took an absolutist position -- we cannot possibly betray the source -- by going to jail and what happens at the end? She takes the waiver and testifies before the grand jury.
ABRAMS: We couldn't have had the same deal. Indeed, in one respect I tried to get a deal a year ago. I spoke to Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and he did not agree at that time to something that he later did agree to, which was to limit the scope of the questions he would ask, so as to assure that the only source he would effectively be asking about was Mr. Libby. She has other sources and was very concerned about the possibility of having to reveal those sources, or going back to jail because of them."
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011865.php
So Abrams said it was the "other sources" issue. Why does Waas leave out key facts?
Is this a set-up?
"Perhaps Libby was not asked the question and therefore, not obligated to answer."
Perhaps its the other way around. Libby told about it, Miller didn't. "Now" she discovers the notes.
Sound familiar? Rove said Cooper called about welfare reform. Cooper denied it. Later, he checked his notes and voila, he might have talked about welfare reform.
"not to worry about Miller's testimony. It's nada, loose ends at this point."
My usual source.
And Wilson has problems.
If I am wrong, I will never post here again...at least under this name!! ;)
Good Point!..
I don't think that signifies. Okie01 says that Wilson had been leaking for months. I would add that these coordinated attacks on the Bush administration usually involve planning sessions among the instigators--in this case certainly Wilson, but also the NY Times OpEd page editor, various reporters who were in it from the start, and probably a few senior editors and publishers.
Major MSM propaganda campaigns--in this case, the "Bush lied about WMDs," which then morphed into Plamegate--are usually orchestrated by a number of players in the media and the political world, working together.
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