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The media’s in a tizzy over Colin Powell’s Meet the Press endorsement of Barack Obama this morning. It’s not a surprise to anyone who’s paid attention to his pro-Obama murmurings over the last four months. How will people outside the Beltway bubble respond? Yawn.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney chose someone in his own likeness to be his new chief of staff. Like Cheney, David Addington shuns the limelight. And like Cheney, Addington already has made a large imprint on the Bush White House. At Cheney's side since the 1980s, Addington has been a behind-the-scenes player in one after another of the hot-button controversies the Bush administration has faced: _The CIA leak probe. _The fight to disclose which corporations advised the White House on energy policy. _The dispute over the treatment of suspected terrorists. _The White House disagreements with the Sept. 11 commission...

Here is an english translation from french. http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/12/1/12030/8816#2 Paris - The Direction Générale de la Sécurité extériéure (Dgse) is the French counter-espionage abroad. Alain Chouet was Vice-Director. Today he is enjoying his retirement in the country but - up to the summer 2002 - he was the man who handled the `Nigergate' on behalf of Paris. He says: "I know what happened. When it happened. How it happened. I guided the French intelligence in this affair. I made the decisions. I communicated and exchanged with the Americans all information concerning this case. At the time I was head of the...

Everyone else in the media is pounding Hillary Clinton for her tale, now shown to be fanciful, of dodging bullets on a Bosnian tarmac as first lady. But if you're looking for the best recent example of the lengths Mrs. Clinton will go to win the Democratic Presidential nod, consider that last week in Philadelphia she used Joe and Valerie Wilson as campaign props. Was George Galloway not available? Mr. Wilson and his wife are darlings of the antiwar crowd for their roles as self-styled martyrs in the CIA "leak" fiasco. The former ambassador is still cashing in on his...

Bush's War Monday, March 24 and Tuesday, March 25, 2008 9 P.M. (check local listings) From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge-for six years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence. Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush's War, airing Monday, March...

Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to jail. “He was not terribly exercised about it,” Novak said. Instead, Wilson focused on not being portrayed as simply an opponent of the Iraq war. Wilson also stressed that his wife went by his last name, Wilson, rather than Plame, Novak said. Novak forcefully defended his handling of the column...

Link references article which can't be posted here. ~~~~~ As always in the liberal Beltway, no one's ever questioned Fitzgerald's unsupervised free ride and tenure as Special Prosecutor in the Plame/Libby case by his college summer roommate, James Comey, now legal counsel for the giant, Lockheed Martin.

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.

Saddam's Shadow Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 Copyright 1997 Indigo Publications Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 SECTION: MINING; DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO; N. 207 LENGTH: 787 words HEADLINE: Saddam's Shadow BODY: It's not only diamonds and base metals that interest big mining companies and the latter are not alone in being interested in Katanga. In the delegation that the United States sent to Kinshasa on June 2 under its ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, the state department's African affairs department was represented by Marc Baas, director for Central Africa. (Susan Rice, director for African...

When I went to my office Monday, July 7, 2003, Joe Wilson was not in the forefront of my mind. Frances Fragos Townsend was. She had just been named deputy national security adviser at the White House though her background was in liberal Democratic politics, including Attorney General Janet Reno's inner circle during the Clinton administration. Her appointment was a political mystery of the kind I had been exploring for forty years in my column. I wrote the Townsend column Tuesday morning because I had a busy schedule the rest of the day, including a 3 p.m. appointment with Richard...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court said Friday it would release some of the documents it reviewed when deciding to force journalists to testify in the CIA leak investigation. The ruling followed a request by The Associated Press and Dow Jones, which asked for the release of the sworn statements Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald gave to justify subpoenas for New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2005. Fitzgerald wanted the reporters' help in his investigation of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. The news organizations argued...

A London accountant has described how Pakistan's disgraced nuclear hero Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan visited the West African state of Mali on three occasions between 1998 and 2000. Abdul Ma'bood Siddiqui accompanied A.Q. Khan on three mystery trips  between 1998 and 2000. Their final destination was Timbuktu, a remote outpost in the desert that has always been a magnet for explorers and adventurers from around the world. The mystery behind the visits has deepened following recent revelations that Khan is also the owner of a small hotel in the town that he has named after Hendrina, his Dutch-born wife and...

Fitzgerald's Cover-Up It's time to hold the special prosecutor accountable. Wednesday, April 4, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT For a prosecutor who claims to be a truth-seeker, Patrick Fitzgerald sure can be secretive. Even now that the Scooter Libby trial is over and his "leak" investigation is all but closed, the unaccountable special counsel wants to keep his arguments for creating a Constitutional showdown over reporters and their sources under lock and key. Mr. Fitzgerald is fighting release of the affidavits he filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to justify compelling two reporters to testify about their conversations with...

It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous -- later retracted -- 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush's remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the...

March 26, 2007, 0:00 a.m. A GOP Congressman Asks Questions About Valerie Plame Wilson’s Testimony Georgia’s Lynn Westmoreland wants more details about the decision to send Joseph Wilson to Niger. By Byron York When Valerie Plame Wilson testified recently before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, just two Republicans — out of 17 on the committee — bothered to show up. Ranking Republican Rep. Tom Davis asked few questions and seemed largely uninterested in the matter. The only other Republican to appear, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, showed more interest but appeared not to have mastered the details...

When Valerie Plame Wilson testified recently before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, just two Republicans — out of 17 on the committee — bothered to show up. Ranking Republican Rep. Tom Davis asked few questions and seemed largely uninterested in the matter. The only other Republican to appear, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, showed more interest but appeared not to have mastered the details of the case. Now, however, Westmoreland wants to know more. In a letter to committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman Friday, he submitted more questions for Mrs. Wilson and requested that Waxman ask the...

It's really too bad that Karl Rove/Dick Cheney/Scooter Libby/Dick Armitage/whoever ruined Valerie Plame's life by destroying her priceless anonymity. Still, there's an upside: Now you can have lunch with Plame and her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson for the low, low current asking price of $950.00.The bill of fare: Includes lunch for two(2) with Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson and a signed book. We don't remember who told us, but you'll have lunch with Ambassador Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame at a "safehouse". Lost in the din of the leak scandal that has consumed Washington is the very personal impact...

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson demands that Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee set the record straight. July 16, 2004 | Editor's note: Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the U.S. intelligence community's prewar assessments on Iraq. An appendix discusses the role taken by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson in determining whether Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger. The following is Wilson's letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee pointing to errors in the Republican senators' additional comments to the report and demanding corrections. The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence The Hon. Jay...

Some fascinating details on the CIA leak affair are coming out in the courtroom of the Lewis Libby trial. This morning, for example, we got a better picture of why former ambassador Joseph Wilson decided to go public with his story, publishing an op-ed in the New York Times in July 2003. Prior to that time, Wilson had been talking to reporters on background — his name had not been linked to the whole Niger/yellowcake/16 words affair. But Wilson has said in a number of interviews that after watching the appearance of then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on "Meet the...

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage originally leaked Plame's identity. Armitage says the leak was inadvertent, and he is not being prosecuted.......Federal prosecutors are trying to show that Libby lied to investigators about conversations he had with reporters regarding Plame. Libby has denied lying and says he has a faulty memory........ Former Cheney Chief of Staff on Trial for Allegedly Lying to a Grand Jury, Not Outing CIA Agent: .Jan. 16, 2007 — Jury selection begins today in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby is charged with...

A federal judge has rejected, for now, the effort by a former ambassador, Joseph Wilson IV, to escape testifying in the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr. "Since Ambassador Wilson has yet to be actually called as a witness, he has not been inconvenienced, nor can he establish at this time that the subpoena is unreasonable or oppressive. Accordingly, his motion is premature," Judge Reggie Walton wrote in an order dated Tuesday.

An attorney for former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife, Valerie Plame, is at the center of the Plamegate scandal in Washington, was raked over the coals by a judge Thursday for remarks she made the day before on MSNBC's Hardball. During an interview on the program, Melanie Sloan said that former administration official Scooter Libby could still be convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice even though he may not have been the first person to reveal that Plame was a CIA agent. In a stinging rebuke from the bench, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said that he "would not...

WASHINGTON -- A jury that includes four critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies was seated Monday to try former White House aide "Scooter" Libby on charges of lying about what he told reporters concerning the wife of a prominent war opponent. The jury of nine women and three men was seated after a nearly hourlong court session that was as silent as a professional chess match. Prosecutors and defense attorneys consulted in whispers, then handed papers to the clerk to exercise their 20 unexplained strikes of potential jurors. The only sound was the clerk reading the number of each...

WASHINGTON - A federal judge strongly admonished an attorney for former ambassador Joseph Wilson for her appearance yesterday on MSNBC's program "Hardball" where she predicted a jury can find I Lewis "Scooter" Libby guilty of making false statements.

Inside the Beltway "Very odd," says our source. "They sat at a table in the back." Referring to the intriguing trio of Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and his wife, Valerie Plame, of CIA-leak fame,

"Or maybe the case has no merit." So suggests the latest issue of the American Lawyer, citing one theory as to why Valerie Plame of CIA-leak fame suddenly parted ways with her attorney, Proskauer Rose partner Christopher Wolf -- her next-door neighbor, no less -- shortly after her civil action was filed against senior Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and White House aide Karl Rove. "The breakup was a shock," writes the magazine's Elizabeth Goldberg, given that Mr. Wolf had filed the suit only "a month earlier." Headlined "File and run," the article quotes lawyer Victoria Toensing,...

The publication of Hubris is filled with irony for David Corn, Washington editor of the left-wing Nation magazine. He was present at the creation of the Valerie Plame "scandal," which the enemies of George W. Bush hoped could bring down a president. Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode. Yet Corn is coauthor of a book that has had the effect of killing the story. Thanks to Corn's intrepid coauthor, Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, Hubris definitively revealed then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as my source that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA and suggested her...

Early this morning on JOM we went through the cached page blog and noticed something interesting. The cached pages we examined indicate that the mother of one of the pages, Robin Katsoros, mother of Christopher Katsoros a former Pelosi page, told the pages she was working on a screen production of the lives of pages. And she gathered information from them. She is a Conyers and Kerry supporter and he is a student at Georgetown now. It looks like the kids were trying to “sex” up their experiences to get her interested. Here are some bits of it. JOM has...

(CNN) -- The family of a Louisiana teenager who reported "sick" e-mails from former Rep. Mark Foley called their son a hero Thursday and said they want reporters to go away. Foley resigned last week after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog group, posted some of the e-mails he exchanged with the former male page in 2005, who was then 16 and had worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican. The family's statement calls the e-mails "ambiguous" and expresses support for Alexander.

A former top CIA official said Thursday that despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is likely to be looking for weapons of mass destruction within the next five to 10 years. Paul Pillar, who until last year was in charge of intelligence assessments for the Middle East, said the CIA warned the Bush administration before the Iraq invasion in 2003 that a change of regimes would not necessarily solve any WMD problem. In a speech at the Middle East Institute here, Pillar said Iraqis live in "a dangerous neighborhood," with rival countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction. So the...

For months Washington’s liberal chattering class filled the airwaves and spilled barrels of ink on the always implausible conspiracy theory holding that Bush White House Pooh-Bahs intentionally leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband’s very public and largely untruthful campaign against the Bush administration’s war policy. But a new book by two decidedly not Bush-friendly reporters — David Corn of the left-wing Nation and Michael Isikoff of the Washington Post — shows the whole controversy to be a sham. No White House people were involved at all. Instead, the leaker was Deputy Secretary of...

CREW Announces Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson to Add Armitage to Civil Suit 9/13/2006 2:25:00 PM To: National Desk Contact: Naomi Seligman Steiner of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 202-588-5565 WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) announced today that it is adding former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage to the lawsuit filed by Valerie Plame Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove and Vice President Richard Cheney. CREW represents the Wilsons in the litigation. A new book by Michael Isikoff and David...

<p>WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.</p>

The Great Pumpkin is finally going to be appearing! No, really! It's TRUE. TRUTHOUT just made this grand announcement in the form of saying that Karl Rove was really REALLY indicted last May 12. Oh, and the only reason why we don't know about it is that his indictment has been sealed all this time. You can read the TruthOut Great Pumpkin announcement in this DUmmie THREAD titled, "Jason Leopold and Marc Ash|Indictment Still Sealed, Fitzgerald Still Busy." Yeah, now there are two reliable sources, a degenerate drug-addicted liar and a former fashion editor. And where is Sonny Crockett?...

A federal judge today ordered that certain "extremely sensitive" classified documents be withheld from Vice President Cheney's former top aide, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Judge Reggie Walton, writes in a court filing, that he has "carefully reviewed" the requests to withhold the documents from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and from the CIA, which were provided to him ex parte, in camera, and found that the documents should be omitted from the classified materials requested by Libby's attorneys. Judge Walton writes that the documents he has withheld are, "extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to...

The New York Times may not withhold reporters' phone records from a federal grand jury investigating an alleged leak of a pending government raid on two Islamic charities suspected of supporting terrorism, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. A three-judge panel of the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the Times has no First Amendment or other legal right to refuse a demand for the records from the grand jury in Chicago, which was empaneled by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The government's interest in rooting out a possible crime outweighs...

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. Jefferson is anxious to overturn the ruling of federal Judge Hogan of the Washington, DC federal District Court, who allowed the raid. One can only surmise that the seized documents contain material even more embarrassing than the discovery of $90,000 in cash in Jefferson’s freezer. But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to...

From Larry's very own corner of the internet, No Quarter: Sacrificing Our Troops on the Altar of Republican Politics byLarry C JohnsonLeave it to the Porcine Draft Dodger--Karl Rove--to impugn the character of combat veterans.  Can't blame him for trotting out the same playbook that worked so well in 2004 against the candidacy of John Kerry.  If it worked once it should work again.Of course I am referring to Karl's speech Tuesday night to Republicans in New Hampshire.  According to a piece in Wednesday's Washington Post: In a speech to New Hampshire Republican officials here Monday night, the White House...

News broke early this morning that Karl Rove would not be indicted in the CIA leak case, only a short statement was released, but succint enough. This follows the death of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Zarqawi only a few days earlier. As if things werent looking good enough for us on the right side of the aisle (and America too, but the left isnt all to concerned with America these days) news broke only minutes ago that Rep Patrick Kennedy would plead guilty to driving under the influence! Lets see if the MSM reports this the same as they...

In the infamous Vanity Fair article on Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame (the one with a photo spread of them in their Jaguar convertible), an article obviously sourced by them, Alan Foley is described as Plame’s boss:

WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Friday ordered Time magazine to turn over documents for a White House aide to use in his defense to perjury and other charges in the CIA leak case. ADVERTISEMENT The order by U.S. District Reggie B. Walton also said the New York Times might have to turn over some information but reduced the scope of documents the newspaper and other news organizations would have to provide to lawyers for the defendant, former top vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Citing a lack of relevancy, Walton said that Judith Miller, a former Times reporter,...

WASHINGTON - Two top CIA officials will bolster prosecutors' charge that Vice President Cheney's chief aide lied to them, court papers show. Prosecutors say disgraced Cheney chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby learned CIA spy Valerie Plame's identity from, among others, agency officials who will be called to testify at his trial for perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice. The U.S. alleges he learned about Plame from one of the CIA officials when he went after dirt on her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson shattered a pillar of President Bush's rationale for war - that Iraq was seeking...

Valerie Plame should be the next Director of Central Intelligence, not Gen. Mike Hayden. Now that the CIA's Praetorian Guard has -- with the connivance of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte -- rid itself of Porter Goss, the CIA is confidently preparing to march back into the intelligence dark ages that preceded 9/11. Gen. Hayden -- former head of the National Intelligence Agency and most famous for his strong defense of the NSA terrorist surveillance program -- is slated to be nominated for the DCI post today. Hayden, now Negroponte's deputy and choice for DCI, will face tough questioning in...

Mr. Stability The wrongness of Brent Scowcroft's realism. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005, at 1:47 PM ET Scowcroft longs for the "peace" of Saddam's regime The sole point of the non-findings of the Fitzgerald non-investigation, into the non-commission of non-crimes and the non-outing of a non-covert CIA bureaucrat, is (as Messrs. Kerry, Krugman, Rich, and others keep reminding us) that it might even yet trigger the long-awaited inquest into the Iraq intervention. I very strongly hope that there is a full-dress postmortem into this country's Iraq policy, though I am not ready to assume that "inquest" or...

Former CIA officer Plame signs book deal: Web site Saturday, May 06, 2006 12:47:18 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose identity was disclosed in a press leak that touched off a federal probe, has signed a book deal worth more than $2.5 million, a publishing industry Web site said on Saturday. Publishers Marketplace (http://www.publishersmarketplace.com), where most publishers report details of their book deals, said Plame had signed a deal with Crown, an imprint of Random House, "reportedly for more than $2.5 million." The memoir, entitled "Fair Game," will detail Plame's "role in the American intelligence...

CIA officer Mary McCarthy was fired for leaking a possibly trumped-up story about a secret network of CIA-run prisons in Europe. Ms. McCarthy’s pattern of political donations, her Clinton administration White House service, and her extensive network of ties to other important Clintonista figures has set off a blogstorm of data mining and speculation. One aspect of her background so far comparatively unexamined is her West African uranium connection. She served in a key government position concerned with West African nations producing yellowcake uranium at the same time that Joseph Wilson was working in the area. The two may be...

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

Tim Russert, N.Y. Times Subpoenaed In CIA Leak Case POSTED: 12:47 pm EST March 16, 2006 UPDATED: 12:54 pm EST March 16, 2006 Email This Story | Print This Story WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby have subpoenaed The New York Times, former Times reporter Judith Miller and NBC correspondent Tim Russert for documents concerning the disclosure of an undercover CIA agent's identity, as the former White House aide's legal team prepares for his trial. Libby, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI....

New Iraqi Documents Show Bush Didn't 'Lie' Newly translated Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's regime show that President Bush was factually accurate when he told the nation in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq had recently sought uranium from Africa. Bush's 16-word statement had formed the basis for the claim adopted by administration critics that "Bush lied" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. But according to the Washington Times today, an unnamed U.S. official reports that "newly translated Iraqi documents . . . tell of Saddam seeking uranium from Africa in the mid-1990s." The documents also...