Posted on 10/25/2005 9:45:02 PM PDT by Saynotosocialism
With former Olympic Peninsula carpenter Joseph Wilson in town and news about to break in D.C., here’s a rundown of blossoming GOP scandals and what he thinks. By Rick Anderson MORE • Wilson's credibility is debated as the leak probe nears an end. (Washington Post) MORE • A blogger claims "target letters" have been sent. (The Washington Note) MORE
Where's that bunny with the pancake on its head when you need it?
Did Press Lie About Iraq During 90s?
October 25, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, now, an interesting question here, folks. If the media today is lying in their reporting, what else is there to conclude? No, no, I'm serious. Some of you might think it's a very strong word. But if we have the record from 1998 on, that they reported identically what George Bush said in 2002 and 2003, how, then, can Bush be lying? The media would have to have been lying in 1998. Bill Clinton would have had to have been lying in 1998 for all those stories to have been written back then by the New York Times and the Washington Post. So there's lying somewhere. Either it occurred in '98 or it's occurring now. Now, if the media is lying today in reporting then, what is to say that everything they wrote in 1998 that Bob Kagan outlines in the Washington Post was also not a lie? The bottom line is we can't believe what they wrote in '98 if we don't believe what they write today. They were covering Clinton's rear end back then. Perhaps 1998 was all a lie. Perhaps they knew it was a lie. Perhaps they knew we weren't going to go to war so they didn't care. They knew they were just covering up for Bill Clinton and tried to divert everybody. My question, how can we believe what these people write, after Katrina, after falling in line with Dan Rather and Bill Burkett and the forged documents, and I'm sure I'm leaving out some recent examples here of things that have been totally untrue. How can we believe anything they say? But especially today when they're willing to ignore their own body of work and to pretend that this story never existed until Bush got to the White House. I don't know how you believe them, folks, I don't. I don't know how you put one ounce of trust in them. Let's grab some phone calls here before we move on to something else. Robert in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, hello, sir. I'm glad you called.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Good, fine.
CALLER: Rush, in '98 and back then I don't think anybody was saying that there were nuclear threats, aluminum tubes, uranium, fake documents, that all came out now. There wasn't this imminent threat that we were going to get blown up the next day especially by these little drone planes, that happened now. Now, I don't think Bush intentionally told us a lie. There's two sides to this story. One side is, the bigger side is there's no proof that there's any danger coming from Iraq. The other side, the slim side, is we're going to get blown to bits. He did not tell us both sides so we can come to a decision. I think he was tricked into this by Cheney. Cheney and his crew led him in this direction, and that's where we're in a situation where we are now.
RUSH: Nice try. That's really good spin, and you should call George Lakoff (rhymes with), and I'm serious, because they're looking for somebody like you, Robert. I know you've called the program before, and I know you have a good heart, and I know that you believe in your heart what you say, but it's just spin. Because with every bit of evidence that we can dredge up here to demonstrate that what's being written today is a lie, your retort was just perfect. "Well, back then it didn't talk about nuclear. Cheney was leading Bush toward nuclear, and so Wilson has to be protected. Wilson was working on nuclear, yellow cake, and Niger, so you gotta protect Joe Wilson." To me, that misses the whole point, because it was not nuclear. In fact, it wasn't just weapons of mass destruction that led us into war with Iraq. It was a whole host of things, plus the belief that Iraq is tied together intimately in the war on terror, which is something that you and others on the American left simply refuse to admit, recognize, because it doesn't fit your world view. But to me, to try to say, "Well, there's a difference, and Bush didn't give both sides." You know, the way it looks to me, it looks to me that Bush not only relied on his own intelligence people, but he relied on what the intelligence people from around the world were saying plus the intelligence people in this country in '98. It seems to me that Bush relied on his government; he relied on his people. He relied on previous administrations. He didn't rely on the state department. That's true, thank God, but he did rely on previous people. He even trusted the United Nations. He tried to get the United Nations on board with this. He went to the UN for 14 months to the Security Council. The idea that there was some kind of cabal that was doing all this in secret is just patently absurd. But as I say, nice try. They'll love it at the Huffington Post. John in Washington, DC, welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, long-time listener, first-time caller.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: You know, the press has been reporting how considerate and pragmatic Fitzgerald has been. My question is once the indictments come, and they will come, how considerate and pragmatic are the defense attorneys going to be? How is it when Joe Wilson has to get on the stand for two or three days and answer the questions of a real hard-nosed defense attorney or what's Walter Pincus going to cry when he has to start revealing his sources in the state department and CIA, and I'd love to see Seymour Hirsch on the stand.
RUSH: See, what he's saying here is actually a great point because people ask, "Okay, what can we do about these prosecutors?" You deal with them in court. Now, what you just said is why some people are speculating that, "Hey, this Fitzgerald guy is not a dummy." He really is not a dummy, folks. He's a pretty... His past record is he comes out of the New York United States attorney's office, southern district of Manhattan. He has worked diligently going after Al-Qaeda. He's got a lot of defenders out there who know him intimately and say he's a great guy and if all that's true he knows as much as you and I can figure out. He can read the papers like we do. He knows more than we do but he can also figure out that, okay, it's one thing to say that somebody lied somewhere, but now he's got to bring in some people and prove it. If Judy Miller is going to be a star witness or some of these other people that you say, Joe Wilson, he's got to think about that and that's where the defense attorneys for whoever it is that's indicted, if they are, are going to score some big points, because I'm telling you: There is not a Mr. Clean in this story on the other side of it, because this is a pure political story, and you bring a political case into the courtroom and start trying it, hell's bells! Katie, bar the door! Anything can happen as you point out. It's for that reason that I am not convinced indictments are coming -- and, folks, I'm going to tell you another reason I'm not convinced indictments are coming is because the only people telling me are people we have documented as out-and-out liars.
Is that too strong a word? Maybe it's too strong a word, because, you know, that word has almost become like "Nazi." Call somebody a Nazi, and they just discount you. "Oh, come on. Let's get serious." But what the press is doing here is unconscionable, trying to pretend the history of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq began when Bush took office? It's just patently untrue. So if they're not lying about this, they're certainly on an agenda. They've got an agenda that they're trying to further. They've got a product that they're trying to market, and I am not buying it, for one, and those are the people telling me that there are indictments coming. Now, who are their sources? "Lawyers close to the investigation." Well, that could be any number of people. It could be "Uncle Bob" who's Judy Miller's lawyer. It could be Tate who is Scooter Libby's lawyer. Who knows who's talking? It could be Fitzgerald, but I don't know. But the only thing I read is indictments are likely to come, indictments are sure to come, but nobody is quoting a source. Nobody can say for sure the indictment is coming. Folks, let me tell you, I could come to this microphone. I could say, "Hey, guess what? You know what I think? I talked to some lawyers on it. I know lawyers, and they tell me that Joe Wilson could be indicted." If I said that, that's just as irresponsible as whatever else is being reported out there. Oh, yeah, you can say that Cheney gave the information to Scooter Libby.
Well, hell's bells, folks! Cheney is the vice president. He's entitled to know everything going on in the United States government. He's entitled to know everything and he's entitled to tell his chief of staff -- and I'll tell you something. Michael Barone had a piece yesterday, too, and you know what else they're entitled to? They are entitled to discredit Joe Wilson. Joe Wilson was lying about his trip to Niger. They're entitled to do what they can to discredit Joe Wilson. They're entitled to get hold of the press and say this guy is not being square with you. They're trying to turn all this into a crime. They're trying to say that Cheney knowing of Joe Wilson's wife's name or -- it's not even clear that he knew that she was a covert agent, but they're saying that whatever he knew, that's a crime, then when he told Scooter Libby, that was a crime. None of this is criminal -- and then to go after Joe Wilson, that's a crime. Now, I'm telling you, if you are the mainstream press or the American left, and you have thrown in with Joe Wilson as your meal ticket to reelection in 2006 and 2008, you deserve the landslide defeat that's headed your way. You deserve it. So I don't know whether it's accurate to say that they're lying or they're just being irresponsible or they themselves are in the midst of a scandal of their own making, and they have quite a bit of explaining to do. At least they do to me, because you people who think that indictments are imminent, tell me how you know this. You don't know it from the independent counsel. In fact, Andy McCarthy has a great piece on National Review Online. I should read parts of that to you. How do you know this? Why do you think it? You don't think it from any of the... You don't think it from Rove. You don't think from from Libby. They're not thinking they're going to be indicted, or saying so. You don't know it from Novak. You don't know it from any of the lawyers for any of these people. How do you know this, "the indictments are imminent"? You know it because you're reading it in the mainstream press.
END TRANSCRIPT
The law Karl Rove is accused of violating was written to protect CIA station chiefs and their operatives abroad from leftist agitators like Philip Agee who intentionally revealed their names to foreign adversaries.
It was not meant to criminalize private conversations with reporters on "double supersecret background" in which the desk jockey wife of an op-ed writer for the Times was mentioned but not identified.
Joe Wilson blew Valerie Plame's cover. Anyone who wanted to know where she worked only had to follow her to her desk job in Langley, Va.
http://tinyurl.com/dj4vu
If you think that Wilson is getting indicted for anything, you have more than a screw lose.
Don't be so sure
can't we just bomb seattle and get it over with
Fitzgerald, who is the U.S. attorney in Chicago, spent the day in Washington and summoned his team, including his chief FBI investigator, Jack Eckenrode, for what appeared to be a final round of discussions about how to proceed. Lawyers involved in the case have said that Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, face the possibility of indictment for perjury or other charges related to covering up their actions.
http://tinyurl.com/9foju
Oh, now. We all know Joey wouldn't lie. He wouldn't say that Cheney sent his liberal butt to Niger, would he? And he wouldn't misrepresent the contents of his own feeble report, now would he? And his dear wife? We all know she would never use the CIA as a means to illegally carry out a propaganda campaign against the president.
Oh, no. Little liberals never lie.
works for me.
If Rove or Libby get indicted, Wilson will think he's in the dock when he gets grilled by some hard-ass defense lawyer like Roy Black.
And he won't be able to take the 5th, either.
Why does Eckenrode's name sound so familiar to me? In context with someone else.
This is getting more interesting by the minute!!!
"Eckenrode also is lead agent on the investigation into who leaked classified National Security Agency intercepts related to 9/11"
Jack Eckenrode, assistant special agent in charge of the New Haven division of the FBI
FBI agent heading Fitzgerald's investigation
In late June, just days before Live 8, Jack Eckenrode, the senior FBI agent in Philadelphia, wrapped up a news conference about the free concert with a question of his own.
"Did you notice the Supreme Court decision about the reporters?" Eckenrode said, smiling broadly. "They're not going to hear the case."
Eckenrode, the FBI agent-in-charge in Philadelphia, is also lead agent in the CIA-leak case, the one that later triggered a New York Times reporter's jailing and, most recently, front-page scrutiny of White House aide Karl Rove.
Eckenrode said he could not comment on the case, but others involved said he has interrogated most of the central players, including Rove; Valerie Plame, the CIA officer whose cover was blown; and her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson. He has also participated in interviews of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
It could not be determined whether Eckenrode has also interviewed syndicated columnist Robert Novak, whose July 2003 column sparked the controversy. Novak's column, naming Plame as a CIA operative who worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues, appeared shortly after Plame's husband had written an op-ed column accusing Bush of exaggerating the WMD threat.
Shortly afterward, FBI Director Robert Mueller tapped Eckenrode to lead the investigation into who leaked Plame's name.
The case stalled last fall after Times reporter Judith Miller declined to reveal her sources to a grand jury. After the Supreme Court's decision last month not to take the case, a judge ordered Miller jailed on contempt charges. As a U.S. marshal took Miller into custody in Washington last week, Eckenrode watched from a seat at the prosecution table.
Wilson, in a telephone interview from his home in Washington this week, recalled several interviews with Eckenrode and said the agent also interviewed his wife. Plame, a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, grew up in Huntingdon Valley.
"He's serious, he's committed, he's thoughtful and he's thorough," Wilson said. "He's also extraordinarily discreet. He took all my information and gave nothing back, which is, of course, totally appropriate. I have great respect for him."
Efforts by Eckenrode and other officials to force the reporters to disclose their sources have troubled many journalists, but Wilson noted that public interest in the case had escalated since Time magazine complied with the court order and disclosed an e-mail that suggests reporter Matthew Cooper and Rove discussed the matter.
It represents a "significant change in people's understanding of how this thing happened," Wilson said.
Both Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, and Miller's attorney, Saul M. Pilchen, declined to comment.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who is the special counsel in the case, has a policy of not commenting on it. But through a spokeswoman, Fitzgerald said Eckenrode "defines what it is to be an FBI agent... . Jack is honest, smart and hardworking and plays it straight at all times."
"When I met with him I found him to be trustworthy, vigorous and very professional," said Joseph A. Tate, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.
Patrick Meehan, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, noted that Eckenrode was promoted to Philadelphia just as the City Hall corruption indictments came down.
"He was juggling a tremendous responsibility in Washington as well as walking into the midst of a very challenging period here," Meehan said.
Kevin O'Connor, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, where Eckenrode worked from 1999 to 2002, said, "The consensus is that Jack is a rising star in the bureau."
Eckenrode, who grew up in the Lehigh Valley and attended Bethlehem Catholic High School, joined the FBI as a budget analyst in 1974, the same year he graduated from St. Francis College in Loretto, Pa. He became a special agent in 1983 and specialized in white-collar and public-corruption cases.
In the last decade, the FBI has assigned Eckenrode to several significant posts. He led an FBI task force on campaign-finance infractions from the 1996 presidential election, a case that resulted in more than a dozen indictments. He also commanded the FBI's operations center in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks wiped out the bureau's headquarters there.
In 2002, he moved to Washington to work for an FBI unit that pursues "sensitive investigations," including leaks of classified information.
In addition to the Plame case, Eckenrode also is lead agent on the investigation into who leaked classified National Security Agency intercepts related to 9/11. The Washington Post and CNN reported that the NSA overheard Arabic messages on the eve of the attacks, including "Tomorrow is zero hour," messages that were not translated until Sept. 12.
So far, no one has been charged with a crime. The matter has been referred to the Senate Ethics Committee.
Also .. this is the first I recall reading that Wilson was interviewed by the FBI ..
Wilson, in a telephone interview from his home in Washington this week, recalled several interviews with Eckenrode and said the agent also interviewed his wife. Plame, a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, grew up in Huntingdon Valley
Ashcroft Demands Records of 17 Senators
Probing Sept 11th. Attacks
August 24, 2002
The FBI has intensified its probe of a classified intelligence leak, asking 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules that would reveal their possible contact with reporters.
In an Aug. 7 memo passed to the senators through the Senate general counsel's office, the FBI asked all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to collect and turn over records from June 18 and 19, 2002. Those dates are the day of and the day after a classified hearing in which the director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, spoke to lawmakers about two highly sensitive messages that hinted at an impending action that the agency intercepted on the eve of Sept. 11 but did not translate until Sept. 12.
The request suggests that the FBI is now focusing on the handful of senior senators who are members of a Senate-House panel investigating Sept. 11 and attend most classified meetings and read all the most sensitive intelligence agency communications. A similar request did not go to House intelligence committee members.
snip
On June 19, CNN reported the contents of two messages based on NSA intercepts. The Arabic-language messages said, "The match is about to begin," and "Tomorrow is zero hour." Other news outlets, including The Washington Post, also reported on the intercepts.
The NSA, based at Fort Meade, is one of the government's most secretive intelligence agencies. Much of its information carries a higher classification than other sorts of intelligence. It is illegal to release classified information.
For that reason alone, other legal experts knowledgeable about executive-legislative branch relations said that, in a case like this, "criminal matters trump everything else."
Shelby denies intentional leak
Shelby has in the past denied that he ever "knowingly compromised classified information" and his staff told reporters on Saturday that they should refer to the previous statement on the issue he made earlier this year.
The investigation centers on the leak of highly classified intelligence related to al-Qaida communications in June 2002, primarily to CNN.
CNN reported on June 20 that in one communication intercepted by the National Security Agency on Sept. 10, 2001, an individual was overheard saying, "The match begins tomorrow" while in another that same day, a second person said, "Tomorrow is zero hour." In both, the speakers were in Afghanistan and were speaking to individuals in Saudi Arabia. The intercept was not found until Sept. 12, 2001.
The intercept was from a communications channel the United States had identified as a key communications link for al-Qaida operatives.
“Leaking the exact language would presumably tell the two ends of the conversation not to use that channel again since it had been compromised,” one senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News.
The White House and CIA were incensed by the leak and demanded an investigation. Vice President Dick Cheney was so angered by the leak that he personally called the chairs of both the House and Senate Intelligence committees, believing the leak came from inside the committees.
The committees were viewed immediately as the source of the leak because the information appeared in the media within 24 hours of a CIA briefing on the subject to the committees.
In response, the then-chairs of the committees, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chair of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), called on the Justice Department to investigate whatever role the committee may have had in the leak.
Shelby, at the time the ranking member of the Senate committee, also signed the letter, but also stated, "I do believe that the American people need to know a lot about the shortcomings of our intelligence community, but they also need to know the good things that are going on, and what we are going to do in this investigation, I believe, is bring out the best of both."
Focus narrows
Since the investigation began, both members and staff of the committee have been interviewed and at least one key Shelby aide voluntarily was administered a lie-detector test.
Shelby is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and is currently on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which on Friday was given responsibility for enacting intelligence and other reforms recommended by the 9/11 commission.
Earlier Saturday, Virginia Davis of Shelby's Alabama office told NBC's Birmingham affiliate, WVTM, that it would have no new response but instead referred the media to a statement Shelby's office released in January 2004.
"Of course, I have no knowledge as to the progress of the investigation and have had no contact with investigation officials for well over a year," Shelby said in that statement. " ... At no time during my career as a United States Senator and, more particularly, at no time during my service as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have I ever knowingly compromised classified information. To my knowledge, the same can be said about my staff. We have provided the investigation with our full cooperation in the past, and we will continue to do so."
Thanks...that was quick...
I remember that now ...
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