Byron York gives it a good start, but the blogger "SEIXON" has just done a far more thorough examination of how Larry Johnson and his pals have been flogging their b.s. with various reporters. Here is a much more detailed overview of the sordid relations between Larry Johnson, Joe & Valerie, media frauds such as Jason Leopold et al, and the other VIPS frauds:
Truth on Sale
http://www.seixon.com/blog/archives/2006/05/truth_on_sale.html
After doing some research on Jason Leopold’s previous work, I came away with a (well-founded) suspicion that the Wilsons and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) were sourcing a good deal of his work and using him as a mouthpiece. I discovered that this flock of people, the Wilsonistas, suddenly started writing less about the Plame investigation after Libby’s indictment. However, Jason Leopold started writing almost exclusively about the Plame investigation at about the same time, in October.
Instead of VIPS writing articles in Truthout and elsewhere about the imminent indictment of Rove, Cheney, Hadley and that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald was going to get his hands into the Niger forgeries, they now had Jason Leopold to do their work for them. This way they could claim all sorts of things and wouldn’t have to stand accountable for them, while hanging Leopold out to dry.
Truthout has been a stenographer for the Wilsonistas for quite some time. Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson are contributors, McGovern since 2003 and Johnson apparently since late 2005. William Rivers Pitt and other Truthout reporters have used them as named sources quite often, while other reporting done by Leopold indicates they have also been unnamed sources. However, there is another guest to the party which may have escaped the radar while writing for UPI as an intelligence correspondent: Richard Sale.
Sale is an interesting journalist, a bit obscure, but has written some heavy-hitting pieces that have made waves. Three years ago he wrote a detailed article about all the supposed ties between Saddam Hussein and the CIA from before he became a dictator. Needless to say, this story became a staple in many an anti-war diet, leading to dense statements such as, “The United States created Saddam Hussein!” This isn’t Sale’s fault, of course, his article is fairly nuanced and detailed, but you have to wonder how many of the details are actually accurate – most coming from anonymous intelligence sources. He was also involved in covering the AIPAC spy scandal back in 2004 for UPI, although it was CBS who broke the story.
The earliest work Sale did on the Plame investigation was back on February 5, 2004, a piece titled “Cheney’s Staff Focus of Probe”. The article is heavily pro-Wilson and recycles some of the most common false claims about the whole ordeal, including Wilson being sent by the administration. It seems he was spot on when it came to Libby, but we haven’t heard anything about Hannah, who I cannot recall has even been named in any court documents at all. We also see him recycling a false rumor that two administration officials called up six reporters to plant a story; the rumor is widely attributed to Marc Grossman, a long-time friend/acquaintance of Wilson. Finally, he claims that the exposure of Plame violated the IIPA, although Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has long since said he will not be pursuing any charges along those lines.
The most revealing article done by Mr. Sale came two days before Libby was indicted, October 26. Here the nexus between Sale, VIPS, and Truthout comes together in all its glory. In an article titled “Aides to Be Indicted, Probe to Continue”, Larry Johnson introduces Sale to the Truthout readers, commenting that he’s “found Richard to always be on target”. Ironically, this may very well have been the most inaccurate article Sale has done for quite some time. Let’s just start out with the lead paragraph:
Two top White House aides are expected to be indicted today on various charges related to the probe of CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose classified identity was publicly breached in retaliation after her husband, Joe Wilson, challenged the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy enriched uranium from Niger, according to federal law enforcement and senior US intelligence officials.
I can hear the echoes of Leopold’s disingenuous defense, “I always said… EXPECTED.” Notice how it is stated as fact, according to his sources, that the naming of Plame was done in retaliation. The two officials being talked about are Libby and Rove of course:
I. Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of Vice President Richard Cheney, and chief presidential advisor Karl Rove are expected to be named in indictments this morning by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
It was “expected”, so I guess Sale is off the hook, right Leopold? In fact, you could just keep writing that it is “expected” that a huge earthquake is going to rock California, and then when it does, you can just say you were there to report it first. Uh huh. This article contains inaccurate or false information in almost every paragraph, continuing:
Others are to be named as well, these sources said. According to US officials close to the case, a bill of indictment that named five people has been in existence since before October 17. Various names have surfaced, such as National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, yet only one source would confirm that Hadley was on the list. Hadley could not be reached for comment.
Keep in mind that Larry Johnson had written just 8 days earlier on October 18 on his blog that he had received a tip from what he would later reveal to have been a friend of Hadley’s that Hadley expected to be indicted. In the same breath, Johnson also personally confirmed a rumor that there were 22 indictments going to be handed down, and that Hadley, Rove, Cheney, and others were among them. Anyone want to bet that Johnson was one of Sale’s sources, perhaps the single source that would confirm that Hadley was on the list of indictments? More cannon fodder:
But letters from Fitzgerald notifying various White House officials that they are targets of the investigation,went out late last week, a former senior US intelligence official said.
100% bogus, as there’s only been one White House official who has received a target letter. I wonder which former senior intelligence official in VIPS sourced that claim. Johnson? McGovern? Colonel Patrick Lang? We’ll get back to Lang later. The string of complete cock-and-bull continues:
But federal law enforcement officials told this reporter that Fitzgerald was likely to charge the people indicted with violating Joe Wilson's civil rights, smearing his name in an attempt to destroy his ability to earn a living in Washington as a consultant. The civil rights charge is said to include that "the conspiracy was committed using US government offices, buildings, personnel and funds," one federal law enforcement official said.
Violating Wilson’s civil rights? You’re joking right? Did Sale note down a joke as fact? This is just bizarre, and completely wrong.
Other charges could include possible violations of US espionage laws, including the mishandling of US classified information, these sources said.
What didn’t these sources say? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
That Vice President Cheney is at the center of the controversy comes as no surprise. Last Friday, Fitzgerald investigators were talking to Cheney's attorneys, and detailed questionnaires, designed to pin down in meticulous sequence what Cheney knew, when he knew it, and what he told his aides, were delivered to the White House on Monday, according to these sources.
You don’t say, Cheney at the center of the controversy? That almost sounds like what Ray McGovern wrote a week earlier, in “Chickens Come Home to Roost on Cheney”, where he also speculated that Bush would fire Fitzgerald for getting too close to home. I’m sure that is just a strange coincidence though, right guys? How deep does the rabbit-hole go? Watch and learn:
Thanks to a letter of February, 2004, in which Fitzgerald asked for and obtained expanded authority, the Special Prosecutor is now in possession of an Italian parliament investigation into the forged Niger documents, alleging Iraq's interest in purchasing Niger uranium, sources said.
They said that Fitzgerald is looking into such individuals as former CIA agent Duane Claridge, military consultant to the Iraqi National Congress Gen. Wayne Downing, another military consultant for INC, and Francis Brooke, head of INC's Washington office in an effort to determine if they played any role in the forgeries or their dissemination. Also included in this group is long-time neoconservative Michael Ledeen, these federal sources said.
This has only been reported by UPI, which reported the following 2 days earlier (October 24) in a piece called “Bush at Bay: Fitzgerald Looks at Niger Forgeries” by Martin Walker, UPI’s Editor in Chief:
The second is that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium.
Have we seen anything of this? Nope. So where was this coming from? October 19, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com reported:
According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me: "Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."
Do any of these names look familiar? They are some of the same ones Richard Sale reported about a week later. Raimondo isn’t shy; he tells us quite bluntly what’s up:
I am hardly the first to implicate Ledeen in connection with the Niger uranium forgeries. Former CIA counterterrorism officials Vince Cannistraro and Larry Johnson have pointed the finger in Ledeen's direction.
Larry Johnson and Vince Cannistraro, of VIPS fame, were the ones who started the rumor that Ledeen made the Niger forgeries? Well isn’t that special. I wonder who sourced the articles for UPI claiming that Ledeen & Co forged the documents, and that Fitzgerald expanded his probe to look into them. Never mind that Fitzgerald hasn’t said one peep about the forgeries, and hasn’t mentioned anything even remotely having to do with them. It seems that most of the things Johnson, McGovern, Leopold, and Sale have reported haven’t remotely resembled reality. Is this a grand coincidence?
(As far as a so-called report implicating Ledeen & Co, that’s 100% false. An Italian parliamentary report was released in February which named Rocco Martino, “La Signora”, and Colonel Antonio Nucera as being the ones involved with the forgery. At least the VIPS crew got one detail correct, there were three names – they just made up which three names were in it to sell a story that would appease their anti-Bush base.)
VIPS member Patrick Lang has a blog. A category on his blog: Richard Sale. On October 26, the same date as his aloof article on all things Plame, Sale wrote a blog post for Lang detailing everything about the Niger forgeries. Here he repeats the entire conspiracy theory about Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Doug Feith, and the Niger forgeries, sourcing just about everything he needs to “former intelligence officials”.
Richard Sale, UPI reporter, writing on the blog of a VIPS member about a conspiracy theory concocted by VIPS members, while citing anonymous “former intelligence officials”. I’ve got to give it to them; they’ve got some balls trying to pull that off. In fact, they did pull it off, most of the lefty blogosphere chugs this stuff down by the gallon and doesn’t think twice about where it is coming from.
Just to ensure that the story got through, wink, wink, it was repeated by several other journalists eager to make use of the story that Johnson and Cannistraro concocted. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA official and a partner in Cannistraro Associates (ding!) repeated the tale in Truthout in late November, just in case everyone had forgotten. Does everyone remember Jason Leopold? On January 23rd, Leopold reports the same story about Fitzgerald looking into the Niger forgeries:
Over the past few months, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been questioning witnesses in the CIA leak case about the origins of the disputed Niger documents referenced in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address, according to several current and former State Department officials who have testified in the case.
What would you say if I told you that this was coming from Marc Grossman:
"To me it showed a total disregard for the truth, plain and simple," said one former State Department official who had worked closely with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to the administration's use of the flawed intelligence.
Did I mention that my suspicions are well-founded?
Truthout is whoring itself for VIPS and Wilson, with Leopold acting as a mouthpiece, William Rivers Pitt backing him up, and Richard Sale chiming in with his UPI-credibility. They’ve all been running numerous rumors and outright falsehoods fabricated by VIPS to influence public opinion and perhaps even Fitzgerald’s investigation. The Fitzgerald Niger forgeries story was invented by Vincent Cannistraro and Larry Johnson of VIPS; it was peddled to Justin Raimondo then Richard Sale and Martin Walker of UPI. Leopold carries the gig by repeating all of these stories in Truthout, while Larry Johnson conducts damage control when things get out of hand.
There can no longer be any doubt that most of these explosive and uncorroborated “news” stories are being manufactured by the tight-knit group of former intelligence officials in tandem with Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, and most likely backers in the Democratic Party. It is also probably no coincidence that David Shuster and Chris Matthews of MSNBC have carried many of the same rumors and false stories, such as the one claiming that outing Plame damaged efforts on Iran. Shuster has been hyping a Rove indictment as imminent for over a month, something only one other source has been doing: Jason Leopold.
VIPS was started to compel intelligence officials to illegally leak classified information to damage the Bush administration, and is apparently now in the business of manufacturing false news and rumor-mongering to do the same. It should come as no surprise that a group of veteran intelligence officials would have the clout to pull off such an enterprise, and that they would cut any corner necessary to fulfill their agenda.
Unlike outing covert intelligence officials, outing VIPS as the shadow group behind months and months worth of bogus news and rumors is neither illegal nor immoral. This needs to stop now, VIPS needs to be held accountable. The only way this can happen is if Jason Leopold, Marc Ash, William Rivers Pitt, Richard Sale, Martin Walker, and Justin Raimondo come forward and reveal who has been pulling their strings all this time.
There’s just one problem: the only reason any of those are (liberal) household names is precisely because they are mouthpieces for a dishonest, fake news enterprise. Truthout and UPI would have none of these “scoops” if they didn’t print as fact a bunch of nonsense coming from the quarters of VIPS.
In that sense, these journalists would be speaking truth to power by revealing their sources, the power that VIPS wields over them by handing out the precious “truth” that they have for sale.
As noted further down, this is 100% incorrect, it is Vincent Cannistraro and the VIPS that are pushing this theory. From my files:
Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy (in Rome) burglary...where the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. Ex-CIA agent (and coincidentally, an advisor to the Vatican in Rome),Vincent Cannistraro has stated that Alan Wolf and Duane Clarridge were the actual forgers, but his account is the only one available that I can find on the subject. He has also pointed the finger at Michael Ledeen, but Ledeen has publicly made a statement that he had nothing to do with it and demanded an apology from Cannistraro.Now it gets interesting:
In addition, despite what the MSM is reporting, the Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:
Italy denies role in fake documents on Iraq
This was also backed up by Rocco here
Cannistraro's "theory" falls apart when you consider that he:
1) blamed SISME (the Italians), which has proven to be wrong
2) bases his assumptions on a Dec 2001 Ledeen meeting, when Cannistraro himself was in Rome in Nov 2001, which would make him just as suspect.
I also discovered that Cannistraro worked directly with Clarridge during Iran Contra, so he has alot of nerve bringing that up in connection to Ledeen. Another interesting tidbit (#47) that I discovered is that Wolf and Clarridge worked with Aldrich Ames, who outed Plame to the Russians in the 90's. Coincidence? I think not. Cannistraro trying to kill two birds with one stone to cover his own carcass seems to be the more likely answer. Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.
Here, my friends, you have an attempted coup of a sitting President by a bunch of current and ex-CIA agents, that much is becoming very apparent. While no one here considers Hersch a credible journalist, he is being fed info from Cannistraro and crew and did admit it was the CIA:Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".
Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?
And speaking of al Zahawie, he was also apparently clairvoyant:
JANUARY 2003 : (AL ZAHAWIE, "RETIRED IN JORDAN" - IS RECALLED BACK TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ; HE IS TAKEN TO MEET UN WEAPONS INSPECTORS) But last January, al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.
"They asked why I went [to Niger], why I was chosen, when I left Rome and whether there were any other Iraqi diplomats at the Vatican," he says. "But then they asked who had the seal of the embassy and where I had left it." That's when al-Zahawie got wind of some kind of foul play. Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it. "If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says. The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. [* My note: How would he know the 'tell-tale sign' if they refused to show the letters to him? Shades of Joe Wilson's foreknowledge of the docs?]
Hersch also claims in the above linked article:Now there's the real story.
Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.A more reliable source, Joe diGenova claims it was a possible CIA coup as well. As does James Lewis in two articles, here and here
Thanks for posting that, great stuff. We need to flush out these folks, even if the MSM doesn't care.
Byron York misses a lot. Most especially Larry Johnson's involvement in VIPS and Ellsberg's operations. Both of which encourage intel officers to violate the law and leak secrets detrimental to the country and our war effort.
I've actually put together a number of pieces about Larry Johnson, both here and at S&L:
CIA ‘Expert’ Larry Johnson: “Plame Undercover For Three Decades”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1451694/posts
Flashback: “Intelligence Analyst” Larry C. Johnson: “The Declining Terrorist Threat (July 10, 2001)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1447248/posts
‘Terrorist Expert’ Larry Johnson’s Frontline Interview About Bin Ladin (2000)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1451559/posts
Ex CIA Larry Johnson: Terrorism Isn’t A Threat, But Big Tobacco Is!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1448666/posts
Larry Johnson, Daniel Ellsberg & The Truth Telling Project — Pleading For Intel Leaks
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1451334/posts
Larry Johnson’s Group (VIPS) Called On CIA Employees To Leak Secrets To Hurt Bush
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1450548/posts
Is Ex-CIA Agent Larry C. Johnson Threatening A Freeper?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1450846/posts?page=58
Larry Johnson’s Radio Address For The DNC — With Interpolations
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1451373/posts
Byron York Goes Soft On Larry Johnson | Sweetness & Light
http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/byron-york-goes-soft-on-larry-johnson/
Only Leak To Help Our Enemies | Sweetness & Light
http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/more-hypocrisy-on-parade/
Goss Smeared By Crackpot Larry Johnson | Sweetness & Light
http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/goss-gets-smeared-by-the-usual-crackpots-and-liars/
Mary McCarthy’s Peculiar Defenders | Sweetness & Light
http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/mary-mccarthys-peculiar-defenders/
Thanks for adding the truth for sale article. So much stuff to keep track of I basically gave up. One thing is quite clear. The majority of Americans and other nations are never going to see the whole picture. These spin artist are to clever and the L/MSM covers their @ss, so well they have all their crew covered. So many frauds it is pathetic.
Richard Sale ping. Missed that name before!