Rush Prediction - CIA Leak Will Blow Up in Democrat Faces (time to investigate Wilson)

RUSH: As many of you know, I have been suspicious of this whole Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Niger CIA story for a long time, and I wouldn't be surprised -- I can't make the allegation but I wouldn't be surprised -- if before this is all over we learn that the whole thing was an attempted coup, if you will, to send this guy Wilson over to Niger to purposely undermine the Bush war on terror and the Bush administration and hopefully have an effect on the 2004 elections. There are many reasons to suspect this, not the least of which is that the president has ideological enemies in the CIA and the State Department and he's trying to clean both of these places up. Now, Victoria Toensing who wrote the law that was the subject of the original investigation by the independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has written a piece today in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Investigate the CIA – In a surprise, closed-door debate, Senate Democrats demanded an investigation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. Here's an issue for them: Assess the validity of the claim that Valerie Plame's status was 'covert,' or even properly classified, given the wretched tradecraft by the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the entire episode. It was, after all, the CIA that requested the 'leak' investigation, alleging that one of its agents had been outed in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003, column.

"Yet it was the CIA's bizarre conduct that led inexorably to Ms. Plame's unveiling. When the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was being negotiated, Senate Select Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater was adamant: If the CIA desired a law making it illegal to expose one of its deep cover employees, then the agency must do a much better job of protecting their cover. That is why a criterion for any prosecution under the act is that the government was taking 'affirmative measures' to conceal the protected person's relationship to the intelligence agency. Two decades later, the CIA, either purposely or with gross negligence, made a series of decisions that led to Ms. Plame becoming a household name. First: The CIA sent her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger on a sensitive mission regarding WMD. He was to determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake, an essential ingredient for nonconventional weapons. However, it was Ms. Plame, not Mr. Wilson, who was the WMD expert. Moreover, Mr. Wilson had no intelligence background, was never a senior person in Niger when he was in the State Department, and was opposed to the administration's Iraq policy. The assignment was given, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at Ms. Plame's suggestion.

"Second: Mr. Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement, a mandatory act for the rest of us who either carry out any similar CIA assignment or who represent CIA clients," yet he didn't have to. If he didn't have a confidentiality agreement, he was free to come back and say whatever he wanted to say about it! "Third: When he returned from Niger, Mr. Wilson was not required to write a report, but rather merely to provide an oral briefing. That information was not sent to the White House. If this mission to Niger were so important, wouldn't a competent intelligence agency want a thoughtful written assessment from the 'missionary,' if for no other reason than to establish a record to refute any subsequent misrepresentation of that assessment? Because it was the vice president who initially inquired about Niger and the yellowcake (although he had nothing to do with Mr. Wilson being sent), it is curious that neither his office nor the president's were privy to the fruits of Mr. Wilson's oral report," and we know this is true. Cheney did ask the CIA to find out about this, and Wilson gets the trip. Wilson comes back without a confidentiality agreement, submits no written report -- and Cheney and Bush are not told anything about his report, and then he started lying about it all over the place as well! There's a little bit more here to this piece and I want to touch on a couple elements of the piece at the AmericanThinker.com on the same subject today.

RUSH: Anyway, back to this Joe Wilson thing, Victoria Toensing and the fourth point here that would raise eyebrows: "Although Mr. Wilson did not have to write even one word for the agency that sent him on the mission at taxpayer's expense, over a year later he was permitted to tell all about this sensitive assignment in the New York Times. For the rest of us, writing about such an assignment would mean we'd have to bring our proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board and spend countless hours arguing over every word to be published. Congressional oversight committees should want to know who at the CIA permitted the publication of the article, which, it has been reported, did not jibe with the thrust of Mr. Wilson's oral briefing." She's being polite. He told two different stories! "For starters, if the piece had been properly vetted at the CIA, someone should have known that the agency never briefed the vice president on the trip, as claimed by Mr. Wilson in his op-ed. Fifth: More important than the inaccuracies is the fact that, if the CIA truly, truly, truly had wanted Ms. Plame's identity to be secret, it never would have permitted her spouse to write the op-ed. Did no one at Langley think that her identity could be compromised if her spouse wrote a piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise [weapons of mass destruction]? The obvious question a sophisticated journalist such as Mr. Novak asked after 'Why did the CIA send Wilson?' was 'Who is Wilson?'" Why did they send him and who is he!

"After being told by a still-unnamed administration source that Mr. Wilson's 'wife' suggested him for the assignment, Mr. Novak went to Who's Who, which reveals 'Valerie Plame' as Mr. Wilson's spouse." It's In Who's Who! He was just a curious journalist. The CIA sends this guy. "Well, who is this guy? Who is this guy, and why did they send him?" and then you find out in asking those questions, "Oh, his wife works for the CIA? His wife arranged for him to go. Who is she? Why would she do it? Oh, she works on weapons of mass destruction? He never has; she does? She's not covert, hasn't been covert for six years, but she works at the WMD desk? She gets her husband sent over there on a trip for something he's not shown any expertise in at all?" Sixth Point: "CIA incompetence did not end there. When Mr. Novak called the agency to verify Ms. Plame's employment, it not only [verified her employment], but failed to go beyond the perfunctory request not to publish!" They didn't ask Novak, "Hey, don't publish this." They told him: Yup, she works here. Yup, she's Wilson's wife. Yup, you ahead and print it if you want. "Every experienced Washington journalist knows that when the CIA really does not want something public, there are serious requests from the top, usually the director. Only the press office talked to Mr. Novak," and if they don't want something public the odds are it won't be made public, unless somebody in there leaks it or wants it leaked. "Seventh: Although high-ranking Justice Department officials are prohibited from political activity, the CIA had no problem permitting its deep cover or classified employee from making political contributions under the name 'Wilson, Valerie E.,' information publicly available at the FEC," and she did so in the name of the CIA front company she worked for! She made political contributions for Al Gore and Americans Coming Together.

"The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft. It is up to Congress to decide which." That means it's up on the Republicans, and that's why I said yesterday: If Dingy Harry wants to act like a spoiled little kid and rehash stuff that's already been investigated and we already have the answers to, somebody at the Senate -- somebody, just one time -- stand up and say, "All right, you want to play it this way? What we're going to do, we're going to fine out who Joe Wilson is. We're going to find out how he went on this trip and we're going to explore the lies that he has told about this and we're going to find out what the CIA's involvement in this is and what the CIA's purpose was." I guess Republicans just don't play that game, but it's time -- and you would think that if they're going to get irritated and agitated, that it would be about now with all that's happened. Now, there's another similar piece today, coincidentally, at the AmericanThinker.com, and it's by Clarice Feldman, who is an attorney in Washington, DC. "Senate Democrats employed a stealthy maneuver the other day to reinforce their demand into an affair they like to call Plamegate. They're right that an investigation is required, but they've gotten the subject matter wrong. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the real scandal is the genesis, not the unmasking of the irregular and highly questionable mission: the Wilson gambit. It's time for serious examination, equipped with the tools of subpoena and testimony under oath into the genesis and conduct of this anomalous operation."

That's damn right. It's time to. We don't know that anybody's put Wilson under oath, but it's about damn time and Congress could do it. He's out there running his mouth off and creating all these new realities and telling lies and so forth, and the Democrats have glommed onto him. He is the guy they're basing their whole procedure on. So bring him in and find out who he is and hut him under oath. "The mainstream media, of course, is entirely uninterested in determining why the Wilson gambit was undertaken. One upon a time the New York Times and the rest of the American liberal establishment worried about CIA dirty tricks aimed at influencing domestic politics. The more effervescent leftists fulminated about a 'secret government.' They muttered darkly about a 'threat to democracy itself' emanating from Langley. How times and the New York Times have changed. Today, the darlings of the American left and its house organic are a CIA employee and her husband who set up and implemented a highly irregular operation, which if not explicitly designed to do so, has had the net effect of discrediting an elected leader and his foreign policy. The Wilson gambit was a stealth operation undertaken outside normal procedures and supervision used as a political weapon, complete with lies, spread by a cooperative media establishment interested in bringing down a leader and his policies which they detest. Former Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat, a man of enormous stature, has done the nation a great service in publicly raising questions about the intent behind the Wilson gambit. This was what Zell Miller wrote in his piece that I saw yesterday. He said:

"'It's like a spy thriller. Institutional rivalries and political loyalties have fostered an intelligence officer's resentment against the government.' This would be Plame. 'Suddenly, an opportunity appears for the agent -- Plame -- to undercut the national leadership. A vital question of intelligence forms the core justification for controversial military actions by the current leaders, Bush. If this agent, Plame, can get in the middle after question, distort that information, and then make it public, the agent, Plame, might foster regime change in the upcoming election. But the rules on agents are clear. They can't purposely distort gathered intelligence; they cannot go public with secret information; or they cannot use their position or information to manipulate domestic elections or matters without risking their job or jail. But their spouse can. Joe Wilson can.'" What Zell Miller is saying here is the focus needs to be on her. She's at the weapons of mass destruction desk. She's had her identity outed and the CIA did very little to keep her identity secret. She is the one who recommended her husband; she is the one contributing to Gore and Americans Coming Together, as working at the weapons of mass destruction desk. She's no fan of the president. That's obviously by her political affiliations. Here comes this bit of news about yellow cake from Niger (Africa). Bush puts it in the State of the Union speech, says that the British say that the Iraqis "tried" to buy -- and all of a sudden we get a guy who's not got any experience whatsoever in this kind of thing being sent over there.

His wife engineers the trip; he comes back. He doesn't have to sign a confidentiality agreement, is allowed to write an op-ed by the CIA. He doesn't have to file a written report. The people who are interested in this whole story, the president and vice president, are never told of what he has told the CIA, Wilson, when he comes back. This guy is allowed to totally distort, in the New York Times, and tell a different story there from what he told the CIA. The story is that when he told the CIA his original oral report that pretty much confirmed what everybody thought, that there had been an attempt to purchase this stuff. Just an "attempt." Nobody ever said that they actually made the buy; they were just looking around. The intelligence that Wilson brought back, "Yeah, looked like it might have happened," but when he wrote the New York Times op-ed and it was a 180 from what his oral report was, but there was no way to check because he was not required to fill out or write a report. Then it all blows up when people say, "Who is this guy? Who is Joe Wilson?" They find out: "Ooooh, his wife works in the CIA," and, by the way, our buddies at Newsmax today have an interesting story. They've gone back in the past, and they have found a transcript of Andrea Mitchell of NBC News -- I'll find this in the stack here during the break -- saying in the 2003 that among all the reporters covering the intelligence community was widely known that Valerie Plame, Valerie Wilson, worked at the CIA, among reporters.

I'll make you another prediction: By the time this Libby case gets to trial, if it does, you're going to see a bunch of reporters being called by his defense lawyers, and that's going to be fun, folks, because the trial, if it happens -- we may really ferret out how all this did start. We will see. I'm telling you that this whole sordid tale involving Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson. These two people have gotten away with being prepared as injured patriots, damaged, great, courageous patriots when they may in fact being the people who originated this scam along with people in the CIA who are opposed to President Bush and they had as their express purpose to undermine the war in Iraq and thus the Bush presidency, and it's at least worthy of official investigation. If we're going to look for two years -- an independent counsel investigation for two years! -- that turns up no evidence that anybody outed a covert agent, and now we've got an indictment of offenses that occurred during the investigation, I think an investigation into where this all started and who it really may be at the genesis of it is clearly justified. I think Victoria Toensing is right, and I think that Clarice Feldman is as well.

RUSH: Here's the Newsmax story from today. They posted it at about ten o'clock this morning. "NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert told Leakgate probers that he had no idea Joe Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIA employee before her name surfaced in Robert Novak's fateful July 14, 2003 column, and that he was stunned upon learning that Lewis 'Scooter' Libby claimed he got that information from him [Russert]. But an account by senior NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell raises questions... On Oct. 3, 2003, Mitchell was a guest on CNBC's now-defunct 'Capital Report,' where she was asked by host Alan Murray: 'Do we have any idea how widely known it was in Washington that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?' Mitchell replied: 'It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger. So a number of us began to pick up on that.' Mitchell's 'widely known' characterization flatly contradicts assertions last Friday by Leakgate Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who repeatedly insisted that Plame's association with the CIA 'was not widely known.'" So, Andrea Mitchell covers the State Department. She covers national security issues, and she said, yes! "It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the Foreign Service community was the envoy to Niger."

That would be Joe Wilson. (paraphrased) "Yeah, we knew she worked there, and then we found out Wilson went. Oh, yeah, we knew." This is, again, October of 2003. Novak's piece was July 14th of 2003. So the point here in all of this, folks, to me is that this indictment of Scooter Libby -- and I'm not denying that perjury and all that, that's bad stuff, and you don't want to ever do that, and it is very, very problematic. But I'm telling you, we're not getting at the real source of this. Whatever we get here with the lies that Scooter Libby told the media, which is basically what this is about, is not going to get us anywhere near what we really need to know about this, and that's how Wilson got sent over there, who told Novak her name, and what involvement did she have in all of this? Because there's too much of this that occurs without the usual CIA policies in effect -- such as a confidentiality agreement. He didn't have one. He was allowed to write an op-ed. He didn't have to file a written report, so there was no way that anybody could go back and say he was changing his story. You know, the words vanish into the ether. Everything about this is a huge, huge question mark -- and I'll tell you, during this whole two years of the special counsel investigation we weren't getting any leaks, and I kept hearing about how upstanding and brilliant Fitzgerald was. I kept telling myself, "Okay, then he reads the papers, too. He's a smart guy. He's got to know there's something odd, here. He's got to know that Joe Wilson's not this man, a paragon of virtue and neither is his wife." But yet they survive in all this as the aggrieved, damaged, brave, courageous patriots who gave everything -- including risking their lives for their country!

Am I jumping into the "tinfoil" crowd by wondering aloud at the possiblity that "folks smarter than me" have figured out that changes for the CIA/State/Etc can only come from outside? That this entire episode will result in bypassing the "normal" route for change (that could take years if ever completed) and rip the cancer out through maximum exposure in an unconventional manner?

Mr. Wilson... said he has more recently been called a "commie liberal sympathizer." [Got that right!]

When asked by the CIA to investigate the possible exchange of 500 tons of Niger-mined uranium into Iraqi hands, Mr. Wilson said it was his vast experience in dealing with both West African and Iraqi issues that recommended him for the job -- not his wife, as government documents have claimed. [Probably half-vast experience!].

He had "enormous credibility" with Niger's leaders; "I had met their families, I had kissed their babies," he said. It was also his experience that led him to conclude there was "nothing to the story" of an African uranium exchange
http://news.newspress.com/topsports/110105wilson.htm

Mr. Wilson, a 1972 graduate of UCSB, where he once said he majored in "history, volleyball and surfing," said the indictment and two-year investigation support what he has said all along.

Mr. Wilson's confrontation with the administration over the past two years is a far cry from his time at UCSB, where he said he kept a "gentleman's C average."
http://news.newspress.com/toplocal/102905wilson.htm?now=76415&tref=1

OK, that's enough investigation. Send this clown over to Barnum & Bailey.

Porter J. Goss was nominated by Bush for CIA Director and assumed duties in April of 05. Goss, a republican of course, was formerly Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

It is difficult to think that Goss, as Director, would not be quite interested in the genesis and promulgation of the Palme-Wilson-CIA conspiracy - and it is a criminal conspiracy, having the effect of putting the security of our nation directly at risk.

One of the biggest myths is that a CIA cover is blown when the column is published, which is like saying you are not dead until your obituary is in the Washington Post. If many in the Washington press corp knew Plame was a CIA official, that in itself meant her cover was blown. The first thing a defense lawyer is going to do is put Plame and the CIA employees in her department on trial and ask if they were ever the source of a newspaper story about WMD. If so, it will support Liddy's argument that he was in fact on the receiving end and that many reporters did know. And the defense will also show all the CIA leaks in the media and ask how exactly did the reporters find these CIA employees to use as a source?

Sure they did! Another thing...how did Wilson get the job to go to Niger and what were his qualifications? He wasn't working for the CIA...so I want him on a witness stand telling a prosecutor how he got the job in the first place. Seems to me his travel orders/plans could easily be traced. Did he, in fact, ever even go to Niger?

So many questions...all avoided by Fitz, in an effort to bring down Rove instead.

Conservative opinion leaders have ignored this story for months. We are lucky it didn't turn out far worse than it did.

MSM outlets like the WSJ and WAPO were talking about a "raft" of indictments right up until the last minute.

Now, the WAPO, Cooper, and other outlets are still trying to get Rove indicted.

Our side should be making a big stink about how weak the case against Rove must be if Fitzgerald couldn't charge after 22 months.

I'm afraid Fitz will give the left Rove just to shut them up. He's probably afraid of their side, our side are weak sisters. Bill Frist, Trent Lott....scary

It was a great show today :). I'm wondering when Fitz is going to grill Wilson...

Here is my theory.

Miller and Libby had the same source within the CIA that was opposed to what the Plame/Wilson cabal was up to.

Libby and Miller are protecting that source.

Fitz gave up trying to ferret that source out and has no interest in going after the perps on the other side.

The Bush Admin is hestitant to take on the Plame/Wilson cabal directly for fear of having the MSM attack such as retribution.

But Goss will quietly uproot them over the next three years. That's how such things are normally handled when it comes to spooks - quietly, behind the scenes - and IMO Hoagland's column in the Wash Post yesterday was something of a green light to do such. The Plame/Wilson cabal broke that unwritten rule, and will eventually pay for it. But I doubt we'll ever have the satisfaction of finding out how.

Joe Wilson has been quoted as saying the SP called him after Rove's last appearance before the Grand Jury. He did not reveal the purpose of the call. Ftiz began what was seen as a last minute blitz in Joe's neighborhood to learn what neighborhoods knew about Valerie's employment. He was also reported to have gone to Luskin's office. As many legal minds have pointed out, if Fitz had the goods on Rove, Luskin would be in Fitzgerald's office.

Background and historical facts aside, so much of the actions of Fitzgerald before the 28th do not make sense.

Why would he call Wilson if Rove's testimony focused on Rove's conversations with Cooper?

IIRC, Rove requested the last appearance to correct the record regarding his testimony regarding Cooper. So why the need to call Joe? Did Joe make a remark to someone regarding this whole affair and that remark was conveyed to Rove?

Perhaps at church? I read yesterday that Wilson and Rove attend the same church. In the DC area, I would think most churches are attended by some of the movers and shakers in DC. If Rove and Wilson did indeed atttend the same church, they must have many mutual friends from that church. Was it common knowledge at the church that Valerie was CIA? Their wives may have had mutual friends. Valerie is also involved in a support group for Post-Partum Depression. Was something revealed in group?

Maybe Fitzgerald's decision to indict Rove was thwarted by information given to Rove. Information which would expose Wilson and his wife in a big way. Information which Rove may not have wanted to reveal unless necesary; a promise to a friend for example. Luskin may have been aware of something like this but chose to save it until he knew the intentions of Fitzgerald.

I don't know the answers to any of these questions. Just chewing the fat, so to speak.

Agree with Rush!"

I only partly agree. I don't agree that Wilson's trip was a set-up from the start. I think Wilson had business interests in Niger, and Plame suggested him for the trip so the CIA would pick up the tab for Wilson to go to Niger and explore personal business opportunities in addition to his "investigation." The CIA initially just saw this as an opportunity to comply with Cheney's request "on the cheap," so they approved it. So Wilson went to Niger, filed his half-assed report that was so insignificant that it never found its way back to Cheney, and the whole thing might have ended right there.

But a year later, the missing WMD story became a political issue, Wilson joined the Kerry campaign, and his story began to change and be embellished in ways damaging to the Bush administration. Then his wife's name came out, and both Wilson and the CIA went into full CYA mode, and it was it this point that the anti-Bush elements in the CIA began to use the story to undermine Bush and deflect criticism from their own failures.

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